is the only river of any size in England, running north and south. It rises in Wales, at the foot of Plinlimnon, and winding through some of the finest plains on the island, waters the town of Shrewsbury, Worcester, Tewksbury, and Gloucester. How familiar are all these names to American ears; how the scroll of history unfolds before the mind’s eye as we read their titles! During the last century the importance of the Severn, in a commercial sense, was very great indeed; the movement on the broad estuary by which it flows into the ocean, being perhaps greater, at that period, than that of any other European river, with the single exception of the Thames. Many have been the naval expeditions of importance which have sailed from the Severn; the Cabots when bound on the daring voyage which first threw the light of civilization upon the coast of North America, embarked from the wharves of Bristol. Perchance the scanty sails, and heavy hull of their craft, as it made its way sea- ward, may have been watched by some wondering peasant, toiling in the same fields to which the Naturalist has introduced us. The mountains of Wales, filling the back-ground of the picture sketched in the author’s opening pages, are very different from those with which American eyes are familiar. Bare and bleak, they are usually wholly shorn of wood, and far bolder in their craggy outline than our own heights. Snowdon, the most important mountain in Wales, rises to a height of 3700 feet. Standing in a northern county of the Principality it is not, however, to be included in a view from the banks of the southern Severn. But the hills of Glamorgan, and Brecon, especially noticed by Mr. Knapp, are upward of 2000 feet in height, and stamped more or less with the same general character. It often happens indeed, from the boldness of position, and the abruptness of outline, which usually mark the mountains of Europe, that heights of no great elevation produce very striking effects in a view. The fertile alluvial pastures in the immediate foreground of the picture, are those in which Milton’s rivernymph Sabrina, may be supposed to have strayed: “Still she retains Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve Visits the herds along the twilight meadows, Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-luck signs That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make, Which she with precious vial’d liquors heals; For which the shepherds at their festivals Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays, And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils.”