England appeared to Mr Primrose quite a new world. He had sixteen years ago sailed down the river Thames, which presented on its banks at that time quite as much picturesque beauty as now. But he did not then observe these beauties. His heart was full of other thoughts, and his mind was moved by widely different feelings. There had not been in his soul the sentiment of moral beauty, nor was there in his heart that repose of pleasure which could admit of enjoying the external world in its manifestations of beauty or sublimity. But on his return homewards his thoughts were far different. He had left England in forlorn hope, but he was returning under brighter auspices. He had sailed from his native land, bearing a deeply felt burden of self-reproach; and though he could not forget or forgive his former self, and though still there were painful scenes to be witnessed, and melancholy information to be received, yet the aspect of things was widely different from what it had been at his departure. And he expressed himself delighted with all that he saw. The little boats and the lighter craft upon the river spoke of bustle and activity, and of human interest; and in them he saw the flutterings of business and prosperity. Though it was winter, and the trees on the rising grounds were leafless, and the fields had lost their greenness, yet the very pattern and outline of what the scene had been in summer, and of what it would be again in spring, were all very charming to his eye, then active with imagination. His own bright thoughts gave verdure to the trees and greenness to the fields; and he thought that England indeed was a blessed land. And as the vessel made her way up the river, and as at a distance a dense black cloud was seen, he knew that that was a manifestation of their vicinity to the great city, and that dark mass of floating smoke, which rustic eloquence so glibly reprobates, was to his soul a great refreshment and a most pleasing sight.