formed body--and should tell him: Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilising conquests, civilising settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life! If this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the fervid glow of enthusiasm to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it: fortunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day."--_Parl. Hist._, vol. xviii. p. 487.] [Footnote 40: _Edinburgh Review_, 1803.] SECTION II. When Collins determined to relinquish Risdon, after survey and comparison of the places offered to his choice, he preferred the spot on which stands Hobart Town, called after the name of his patron. Imagination has traced in its natural outlines a resemblance to the seven-hilled Roman capital, once the mistress of the world.[41] Its chief recommendation was the stream which runs through the centre of the city, whose margin was then beset with brushwood, and choked with prostrate trees: these often obstructed its course, and threw over the adjacent banks a flow of water, and thus formed marshes and pools.[42] Hobart Town is built on the west side of the Derwent, a river named after the Derwent in Cumberland, celebrated by Wordsworth, the laureate of England, and the poet of the lakes, who thus associates with its beauties the recollections of his childhood:-- "Among the mountains were we nursed, loved stream! Thou near the eagle's nest, Where thy deep voice could lull me." "--------Glory of the vale! Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam Of thy soft breath."[43] The county, including at first half the island, was called after the same nobleman, who was then Lord Buckinghamshire. The northern settlement, formed by Colonel Paterson,[44] was seated on the Western Arm of the Tamar, and called York Town. In describing the site, the difficulty of obtaining water is noticed by Flinders; but by Dr. Bass, the adjacent land was represented as adapted for both agriculture and pasture: he added, "If it should be ever proposed to make a settlement, this part seems to merit particular attention." From this spot the greater part of the new establishment was removed (1806) to the country above the North and South Esk; where the colonists were delighted to discover extensive plains equally suitable for tillage and pasture, where not a tree obstructed the prospect.[45]