Adieu to Fountains—but the scene will never leave my mental vision, which will retain as tenaciously, also, the recollection of those whose company enabled me to enter into the spirit of the scene, as I never can when alone. Reluctantly bidding them farewell, I went by rail to South Shields, on a visit to an estimable M.P., whose acquaintance I had made in London. He is a man of great natural refinement, and of very superior accomplishments, having greatly distinguished himself in early life, at Oxford, though his retiring disposition has kept him from the ambitious dignities which he might easily have commanded. Though there are few, in England, to whom I became more attached, I must add that it was neither from political nor religious affinities. He is as much of a dissenter as a churchman can well be, and as little of a John Bull as an Englishman can well be; but it is my creed, that none but the most narrow-minded mortals limit their society to those who share their own likes and dislikes, and never has my contempt for Sallust’s rule of friendship been more richly rewarded than in the relations which I formed with Mr. I——. With his liberal feelings towards America, I was particularly gratified; and it was pleasant indeed to listen to this estimable man, as he generously eulogized several of my countrymen, whom he had made his friends. Most attractive too was his unassuming piety. His Greek Testament was his familiar companion, and he was sometimes betrayed into scholarly criticisms of its text, which I could not always adopt, but which I was forced to admire, as drawn from stores of classical knowledge and accuracy. I felt it a great privilege to be his guest, and fell asleep in my chamber, full of happy reflections on the pleasures of the day, and lulled by the sounds of the sea, which breaks on the boundaries of his demesne. The morning light came to my window over the German Ocean, for the King of Denmark is next neighbour to my friend in that direction. I was now among the collieries, but had no desire to know anything about them. I saw the mouths of the doleful pits which descend to these human burrows, and to think of the miserable population below, was enough! There they live, and die, and are buried while they live, and are far more wretched, I should imagine, than the servile class, in most cases, among us. The amelioration of life in the collieries, is by no means neglected however. England is alive to the spiritual and temporal destitution of her poor, of every condition; and happy will it be for us, when our national evils are as deeply felt as those of England are by Englishmen; when they are as temperately and freely discussed, and as boldly submitted to an enlightened spirit of progress and reform.