 Letter 53 of Young Americans Abroad, or Vacation in Europe, travels in England, France, Holland, Belgium, Prussia, and Switzerland, edited by J. O. Choules, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 53, Bristol, Dear Charlie, let me tell you of a charming trip which we have had this week to Chepstow Castle and its neighborhood. We have told you all about the beautiful scenery of Clifton and the hot wells at this place and the fine old rooks. Well, now we took passage in a little steamer and went down the Avon between these lofty rocks and had a new and enlarged view of this wondrous formation. The boat was well filled with tourists, as this is a fashionable trip. The Avon, for four miles, is quite rinish in its aspect, and one or two old castled towers on its crags afforded a sort of reminiscence of what we lately saw on the River of Rivers. We soon got out of the Avon into King Road and there met the tide setting strongly from the Severn, a large river which divides Monmouthshire from Gloucestershire. We then stretched across the estuary and were in the Y, one of the most romantic rivers in the country, the scenery of which will occupy much of this letter. After going up the river a little way we saw a town upon the left bank and a noble castle. This is Chepstow. It is finely ensconced in a hollow. The town is irregular and depends for its prosperity on its commerce. The castle is really a noble ruin and crowns a high bluff which rises from the river. I do not know how anyone can ask for a lovelier landscape than is open to the view off the bridge which spans the river. The castle was built by a relation of William the Conqueror. Its style is Norman with more modern additions. The tide rises here to an elevation of from fifty to sixty feet. This is owing to rocks which stretch into the Severn near the mouth of the Y and by hindering the tide turn it into this small river. On landing we engaged a carriage and a pair of horses for the excursion and were soon off. We stopped for lunch at St. Arvins, a village one mile off and a beautiful place it is, a perfect gem of a country street. But the glorious scenery of the region calls off attention from the modest hamlet, how I should like, as in my boyest days, to make a headquarters here for a week and then strike out for daily explorations. We passed by the fine mansion at Piercefield and devoted our time to the glorious points of natural scenery on the banks of this most charming stream. For Americans can hardly call it a river. We walked now about two miles through an oak wood in which is a sprinkling of ash and elm till we came to the very edge of a cliff called the Lover's Leap. It overhangs an awful abyss, the depth of which is softened down by the woods which cover the neighboring roofs. A little off from this we came to the famous wind cliff. Its summit is fringed with wood and covers its declivities down to the river. To describe the scenery, my dear boy, from this spot is quite beyond my ability. I wish that Sir Walter Scott had attempted it and made this region the scene of one of his beautiful creations. From this spot you see all the course of the why, with its numerous sinuosities, in one place cutting out a few acres into a horseshoe peninsula. As the eye follows down the river you gaze upon perpendicular, rocky cliffs and can hardly persuade yourself that you do not look at the immense fortifications of a town. But that peaceful little peninsula at my feet it is called Selenicut. Such a farm, such elms, all forming a landscape unrivaled. But look beyond the why, and just away there is the noble seven. Eye, that is a river. There it rolls and foams down through the rich country of Gloucestershire and empties into the Bristol Channel. Then away, beyond to the right, are the bold, swelling hills of Somersetshire. I cannot but wish that Claude had seen the why and seven. The noblest of his pictures would have been illustrative of this region. When we had sufficiently delighted ourselves with the far-spread scene, we descended by a winding path through the woods and down the almost perpendicular rock. The road was a very zigzag. We came down three hundred and sixty steps, and passing a rustic bridge entered a moss cottage, the small windows of painted glass, the table, the base of a mighty oak, sawn off and polished. The walls are lined with moss. Here we got refreshments and talked of those who had been here with us on former visits, some in America, others farther off, and yet perhaps not, for we know not how or where some of our best friends exist, but we know and feel that they do greatly live. In approaching ten-turn we passed the ironworks, which at night throw a solemn glow over the entire village. The cottages around are very humble residences. The inn is a small but cozy affair, and is not destitute of much real comfort. There is the abbey at the waterside, and opposite the rocky hill bank and hanging wood. The access to the abbey is poor, but this is quite forgotten as you enter this glorious sanctuary of other days. There are few ancient edifices in Britain now in ruins, which attract so much attention from the curious traveller as Tinturn Abbey on the Y. The beauty of the river is proverbial, yet has never been adequately described, but the best idea of its diversified charms may be gathered from Gilpin's picturesque scenery and observations upon the Y. Tinturn was a Cistercian abbey and was founded in 1131 by Walter DeClaire, and dedicated to St. Mary on its completion in 1287. The dress of the Cistercians was a white cassock with a narrow scapulary and over that a black gown, when they went abroad, but a white one when they went to church. They were called white monks from the colour of their habit. The dimensions of this church are as follows, length 228 feet, and the transept 150 feet long, breadth of aisles each 18 feet. There are, in the sides, ten arches, between each column 15 feet, which is the span of the arches. The interior of this monastery presents the best specimen of Gothic architecture in England. The east window is a most magnificent affair, sixty-four feet high, and calls forth universal admiration. The very insignificant doorway was, no question, intended by the architect to form a strong contrast with the elevation of the roof. The abbey is cruciform. Its ruins are perfect as to the grand outline, and I am sure we should like to pass the entire day within this venerable feign. The walls of the tower are seventy-two feet high, and covered with ivy, moss, and lichens, but show no indications of decay. Very few Americans visit this region, but I think that they can see nothing in England at all comparable to this ruin. Among the relics that are to be seen here is the effigy of a night in chain mail, the remains of a virgin and a child, and the head of a shaven fryer. Here, too, are several monkish tombstones. We were obliged to resume our places in the carriage and ride some twelve miles in order to visit the finest baronial ruins in the kingdom. We reached the quiet little village of Ragland, and putting up our horses, gave orders for dinner, and then repaired to the castle, which we found nearby, crowning a slight eminence with its stately towers. We approached through a grove of truly venerable oaks and elms, and all at once we were at the warder's gate, and entering into the terrace, formerly the Eastern Court, a most splendid vision burst upon our sight. Here are three pentagonal towers, with maquiculated battlements and showing all the marks of war. This is the most perfect part of the ruin and seems likely to stand for ages. The ivy clusters over the towers most gracefully. Left to the left, insulated by a moat, stands the remains of a tower, once the citadel. We advance through the Gothic portal into the second court, and here are shafts and arches and grooves through which the portcullis used to present itself to the besiegers. Next is the paved court, where once the men at arms with iron tread, now a velvet lawn is seen, and many a vigorous tree is spreading its roots. Here we get a fine view of the majestic window of the hall of state. Through an arch is the way to the kitchen. The fireplace has a span of thirteen feet, and is made of two stones. Then we come to the barrens-hall of noble dimensions. On the walls are the stone-sculptured arms of the Marquis of Worcester. The chapel was a narrow room, and nearly concealed by ivy are two effigies. The southwest tower contained the apartments occupied by Charles I after the battle of Nesby in 1645. The grand terrace is intolerable order, and you proceed to it by a bridge. We ascended the towers and gazed on majesty in ruins. We saw nothing on the continent finer than raglan castle. The prospect from the great tower is the finest that can be imagined, and I almost fear to tell you its extent. You may imagine that we felt unusually interested at this place from the fact that here the Marquis of Worcester invented the steam engine. The castle was devastated by the parliamentary troops under Fairfax, having surrendered in 1646. The defense was gallant but unavailing. The warder of this castle is a very gentlemanly man. He took us into his apartments in one of the towers, and we found that he was a very respectable amateurer in painting. Some of his oil paintings were very creditable. An infant girl of great beauty, his daughter, answered to the name of Blanche Castle May, and was the first born child under that roof since its desolation. Here as well as at Tenturn Abbey I obtained ivy-roots for Mr. Hall, and hoped to see them flourishing on the walls of his beautiful stone house in Rhode Island. We retired slowly from this romantic ruin, and at the hotel found an excellent dinner. One dish was fit for a king, soan, young salmon, or a species of salmon, for there is much dispute among naturalists as to the identity of these fish. Anyhow they are fine beyond any fish. They were about two and a quarter pounds each, and are so delicate that they do not well bear transportation. We returned to Chepstow that evening, having a fine ride through a new piece of scenery, and were quite ready for a sound night's rest. In the morning we looked at the castle in Chepstow, which is remarkably fine, and is of extreme antiquity. Some of the arches of the castle, chapel, indicating clearly a Saxon origin. One of the priestly legends is that this chapel was built by Longanus, a Jew, and father of the soldier who pierced the side of Christ. This was the belief of the ancient population of this charming region. All around this town Roman coins are frequently turned up, and I obtained from a gentleman a very well-preserved Caesar silver coin dug up a day or two before. The castle was, for more than twenty years, the prison home of Henry Martin, one of the regicides. He is buried in the parish church, and in the north transept is the following acrostical epitaph which he composed for his monument. Here September 9th, 1680, was buried a true-born Englishman, who in Berkshire was well known to love his country's freedom above his own. But being immured for twenty years had time to write as doth appear. His epitaph. Here or elsewhere, all's one to you, to me. With air or water gripes my ghostly dust. None know how soon to be by fire set free. Reader, if you old-tried rule will trust, you will gladly do and suffer what you must. My time was spent in serving you, and you and death's my pay, it seems, and welcome to. Revenge destroying, but itself, while I, to birds of prey, leave my old cage and fly. Examples preached to the eye care then, mine says. Not how you end, but how you spend your days. Colonel Henry Martin was one of the noble assertors of English liberty who dared to oppose a weak but cruel and capricious tyrant. If ever a monarch was a tyrant and a despot, it was the first Charles. No American citizen who thinks that Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington were praiseworthy for the resistance which they offered to the aggressions of George III, can for one moment fail to reverence Eliot, Hamden, Martin, Wally, Ludlow, Pym, and Cromwell, for their noble opposition to Charles and his tormentor general, that incarnation of sanctimonious cruelty archbishop laud. It is one of the signs that a good time is coming that public opinion in England, as well as in America, is fast setting in favor of Cromwell and his noble co-ajuders. They opposed measures rather than men, and what proves that they were right in expelling the stewards from power is the fact that when, by infatuation, the fated race was restored and again played over former pranks, the people had to oust the family in 1688, and thus by another national verdict confirm the wisdom and patriotism of the men who had formerly dared to teach a tyrant the rights of free men. Martin was a noble spirit, but his morals were not as correct of those of his political associates. The game now played by the advocates of high church and state notions in England and America is to represent the republican party as illiterate and narrow-minded. A vile or falsehood was never sworn to at the old Bailey. The leading men of the party who opposed the royal tyrant or scholars and ripe ones. If any man doubts it, let him read their speeches, peruse their lives and study their writings. Prynne did not lose his acquirements nor his brains when Charles and Laud cropped his ears, and loving the sport came back for a second harvest and grubbed out the stumps, remaining from the first operation. Read his folios, quartos, and octavos, and from one of these men estimate others. If you want to know the real character of Cromwell in his party, as to their knowledge and love of good letters, look at the patronage which the government gave to learning. Owen was Chancellor of Oxford, Milton and Thurlow were secretaries, and their friends were called into public life. Were these men barbarians and enemies to learning? The men who were educated at Oxford and Cambridge at this period were the ornaments of learning and religion for the next forty years. The day has gone by forever when Cromwell's name can be used as synonymous with fraud, ignorance, and hypocrisy. Kings and prelates may hate him, but a liberty-loving world will enshrine his character in the sanctuary of grateful hearts and faithful memories. After crossing the Severn at the Old Passage, or Oust, where it is two miles wide, we took carriage to Bristol. The parish of Oust gave a church living to the immortal Wycliffe, who received the appointment from Edward III. The drive to the city was a rich enjoyment. Every acre is in the highest cultivation, and the charming villas of the merchant princes of Bristol make the eleven miles an entire garden scene. Four miles from the city we came to Henbury, regarded by the citizens as their finest suburban spot. It is indeed beautiful. There are here about a dozen exquisite cottages, built in 1811, by Mr. Harford, who lives in Blaise Castle. The Founder's object was purely benevolent, to provide a comfortable asylum for aged females, who had income enough to support them if only relieved from house rent. The forms of these cottages are all different, but they were the earliest specimens in our times of the adoption of the old Elizabethan style. They are perfect bijoux, and the taste displayed in their shrubberies is very great. Blaise Castle is a fine building, and surrounded by noble woods. The castle is a circle flanked with three round towers. I ought not to omit that we had on this trip the pleasure of being accompanied by a gentleman from Bristol, whose taste and perfect knowledge of the ground afforded us much gratification. I allude to Mr. Dix, author of Pen and Ink sketches, which formerly appeared in the Boston Atlas. Mr. Dix was with us at Windsor Castle, and when he heard from Weld French or George Vanderbilt that Robinson's birthday would occur shortly, he noted it and sent James the following pretty lines which reached him May 15 in Paris. I think you will be pleased with them. To James A. Robinson. When wandering beneath old Windsor's towers we laughed away the sunny hours. You asked me for a simple rhyme, so now accept this birthday chime. No poet I, the gift divine, nare was, and never will be mine, but take these couplets which impart the anxious wishes of my heart, in place of more aspiring lay, to greet you on your natal day. Boy of that country of the brave, beyond the Atlantic's western wave, I, dweller in the motherland, a welcome give with heart and hand. And on your birthday breathe a prayer that you may every blessing share, that your world journey may be blessed with all that may prepare you best, for the approaching eve of age, the end of mortal pilgrimage. Upon your brow of youthful bloom I would not cast a shade of gloom. Yet did I say that life will ever flow onward like a placid river, with only sunshine on its breast that nare twill be by storms distressed? I should but flatter to deceive, and but a web of falsehood weave. Yet checkered though life's path may seem, life's pleasures are not all a dream. What shall I wish you? I would feign that earthly greatness you may gain, but if that geriden is not sent, be with some humble lot content, and let this truth be understood. Few can be great, all may be good. Power-pomp, ambition, envy, pride, wrecked barks, a down life's stream may glide, ruined by some fierce passion throw, ere reckless, or time's brink they go. But if fair virtue grasps the helm, nor storm nor wave can overwhelm, that many happy years be yours, seek truth which every good ensures, press on, though clouds may intervene and for a moment veil the scene. Think of the great ones of your land, and like them, strive with heart and hand. To leave a name when you depart, which shall be dear to many a heart. Determine in life's early morn all good to prize, all ill to scorn, and aim to live and die as one worthy the land of Washington. Yours affectionately, J-O-C. End of LETTER 53, read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. LETTER 54, of Young Americans Abroad, or Vacation in Europe, Travels in England, France, Holland, Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland, edited by J.O. Choules, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. LETTER 54, Liverpool. Dear Charlie. Well, this looks like the backtrack, and here we are at the Adelphi, ready to take our passage in the noble Atlantic, which is as good as new again and will sail on the twenty-third. We left Bristol with much regret, for we there have formed acquaintances, which we shall often remember with affection and gratitude. And I wish we could meet them in America, and have an opportunity to reciprocate some of the many kindnesses we met with at their hands. We took the railroad for Cheltenham, and passed through some charming country before we reached the old city of Gloucester. On our left were the flint-towers of Berkeley Castle, where the second Edward was so savagely murdered by his wife's command. Cheltenham is about forty miles from the city of Bristol, and we found it all that Dr. C. had described it—a very nice, modern town, indeed. It is like our Saratoga, but much more beautiful. The population is about thirty thousand, and the strangers who resort there in the season are probably five thousand more. The waters are in high repute, and are regarded as strongly cathartic. The buildings are very fine, and the entire air of the place is unlike anything we have seen in England. Other places seem old. This is new, and looks fresh and American in that respect, but vastly more elegant and permanent than our towns usually are. We had very kind attentions here from the Reverend Mr. Gilby, the rector of the parish church, and who strongly urged us to stay over the day, but we resumed the cars, got to Birmingham at ten o'clock, and went to our old quarters at the Hennan chickens. The next day we devoted to the survey of a vast choice shop. Our greatest gratification was at the Royal Papier-Mache and Japan works of Jenin's and Betridge. To this firm we had introductions, and we went through every department of the establishment. When we came to the showrooms, we were all tempted by the beauty of the finished wares, and made several purchases. Here, too, are other manufacturers for pins and pens, but I must pass them by. We called on the Reverend John Angel James, who has lived here so long and made a world-wide reputation. He looks very hardy and vigorous, and shows no signs of age. He has lived in his house forty-five years. We obtained his autograph. We also called on Reverend Mr. Swan, an old friend of the doctor in early days, and had a pleasant chat. Mr. Swan was once a professor in the college at Sarampur in India. He is full of life and animation, and it seems to me that people here are more vivacious and sprightly than with us. Old folks and middle-aged ones certainly are. We took dinner with Mr. Venwart, brother-in-law to Washington Irving, and shall not soon forget the elegant hospitality of his mansion. He resides about two miles from the town, and his lawn gave us a fine view of the English thrush and blackbird, of which birds there were plenty on the grass. It was so cold that we had to have fires, although the nineteenth of July. Mr. Venwart was one of the saved when the Atlantic was lost in the sound, November twenty-sixth, eighteen-forty-six, and he made the kindest inquiries after you and the family, and said that when he next visited America he should find you out. That evening we reached Liverpool and had a quiet Sabbath, but a very stormy one. It rained harder than any day since we have been abroad. We attended church in the morning and heard a very eloquent sermon from Mr. Birrell, and Dr. C. preached for him at night. The Europa arrived on this day and we met friends from Boston, among others the Reverend Dr. Peck. On Monday we went to Chester, the finest old city in England, with a population of twenty-four thousand. It claims an antiquity equal to any city in the world, for they say it was founded by the grandson of Jaffet, two hundred and forty years after the flood. Anyhow it was great in Roman days, great in the days of Alfred. No town in the country has a more thorough history, and we have two very interesting octavos filled with it, and richly illustrated with antique engravings. It is a walled city and has undergone many sieges and blockades. The castle has great celebrity and is of Norman origin. Its walls are one mile and three-fourths in length, and there are four great gates. The bridge over the D. has seven arches, and is as old as the Norman Conquest. The cathedral was built in the days of Henry VII and Henry VIII. It is composed of redstone and has a fine front. The chapter house in the Cloisters is universally admired by antiquarians. We went into one very old church, which was undergoing restoration. The town, like Bern, has rows in front of the houses, supported by pillars so that in shopping you walk under covered galleries. We returned to Liverpool and dined with a gentleman who has been very polite to us, Mr. Thomas Davies, a celebrated maker of gold watches. From him I obtained one, preferring an English to a Swiss timepiece. Here we saw the cultivation of plants in the house in greater perfection than I recollect elsewhere. Tomorrow we are to take our departure, and though very glad to return home, yet I feel sorry at leaving a country where there is so much that is excellent and noble and beautiful. I have learned, certainly, that England and America have too much in common to justify the indulgence of hatred and prejudice, and I find the tone of feeling here, among wise and good people, very kind towards America. I have rarely heard a reflection upon our country accepting upon our slavery. That they must talk about, and they are a little like the man who, having just got rid of the irritable affection supposed to trouble the North Britons, could not for his life help speaking of sulfur. An Englishman is sure to tell you that he is free from this sin, yes, washed, but scarcely dry. Our hotel is filling up with Americans, and we expect to meet many friends on board the Atlantic. I am much pleased with the appearance of Captain West. He looks every inch an admiral. And now, my dear fellow, I shall see you, perhaps, before you read my letter. But I have kept my promise to tell you what we saw and did. Of course, many things will occur to our memories when we get home, and will furnish matter for chit-chat, which I hope soon to have with you as in days of old. Well, you are now at the business of life, and I am yet a little longer to spend my time in preparation for it. I wonder how we shall come out, Charlie. But time will tell, and let us do our best. Yours affectionately, Weld. P.S. I must not forget to tell you that, while at Bristol, Dr. and I ran up to Windsor to see the Royal Agricultural Exhibition held this year in the home park, James stopped with our friends, and we were anxious to see the great show of England in her farming interest. The display was very great, and the cattle were wonderfully fine in all the departments—Durham, Hereford, Devons, and Channel Island. The last are very nice animals for a paddock and give good milk. The horses were good, and I longed to bring home one or two that I saw, and felt strongly tempted. But the sheep and swine were the most remarkable things there. Really we know little about sheep. They are monstrous and yet very symmetrical and beautiful, whilst there are pigs, strange as you may think it, that have established high claims to beauty and perfection. I greatly preferred the Sussex breed to any other. Never was a town so crowded as this same Windsor. Thousands upon thousands were flocking into it, and how and where they fed I cannot divine. Money seemed useless, and waiters hardly looked at half crowns for retaining fees. Letter 55 of Young Americans Abroad, or Vacation in Europe, travels in England, France, Holland, Belgium, Prussia, and Switzerland, edited by J. O. Choules, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 55, New York, August 3, 1851, Dear Charlie, we are through the goodness of Providence safely returned. We had a good voyage in a capital ship, and under the charge of as good a captain as ever sailed the ocean. Our passengers were about 130 in number and very agreeable. Some few were our old voyagers in the Arctic. With an exception or two our way was pleasant as it could have been, and there were some cheerful spirits that knew how to create sunshine at all hours. I cannot tell you what travelers can desire in a steamer which they will not find in the Collins Line. It seems to us that we have had the full worth of the money paid for passage. How different it is to come to New York in ten days instead of being on the ocean for sixty-four days as I have in a sailing packet. Well, this saving of time and feelings is worth the difference of the passage price. I am at a loss to understand how Americans who have to cross the ocean should think of supporting the English steamers in preference to our own superior ships. The influence of every English agent, of course, goes out in behalf of the old line, and all sorts of stories are told about winter passages, the importance of boats built especially for strength, and the advantages of experience. Now the history of the American line is a perfect refutation of all this twaddle. The truth is that all voyaging is connected with exposiveness to some danger, and up to this moment the Americans have had in all their ocean steam voyages the full measure of success. They have lost no boat, they have sacrificed no lives, and they present a fleet of steamships the like of which the world cannot equal. Whenever an American citizen takes his passage in a foreign steamer, and an American one is at hand, he tacitly confesses the superiority of other lands in ocean navigation to his own country, and he contributes his full share to depress American enterprise, and aids so far as he can to ensure its failure. The eyes of the English nation are upon our ships, and if we desire the spread of our national fame we should every man of us labor to sustain our own steamers and propellers. And the government of our country should strenuously guard the interests of this available arm of national defense, and the country at large would certainly sustain Congress in liberal support of this truly American enterprise. Perhaps, Charlie, you are ready to say to us, well, what do you think, after all you have been seeing in other lands? I reply, we think that we return home with all our hearts more warmly attached to our beloved land than when we left her shores. We have seen lands as fair and fields as fertile as our own. We have seen monarchies and republics, but nowhere have we seen man as erect and self-respecting as at home. Here we have equal laws, civil and religious liberty, no bishop to intimidate a day laborer who prefers to pass by his cathedral gates and worship his maker in a humbler temple. Here our streets are not labeled with liberte, egalité, fraternité, but the things signified are known and felt by every man that traverses these avenues of business. Here we have not thousands of armed men in this great city to preserve liberty, but every man enjoys it and sees nothing of the government, which, though unseen, is all powerful in the affections of the country. We come home grateful that we have such a country, and though we love and admire much, very much, in England, yet we rejoice that we can call the United States our land. We hope we are better prepared than before we started to do her service. I am quite dissatisfied, Charlie, that God has not done for any other people what he has done for us. We know nothing of the restless anxiety which depresses men in England as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. We have our chief anxieties called out in reference to obtaining the luxuries and embellishments of life. The necessaries are almost certain to every man who has health and character. But in England toil is poorly requited, and a father and husband may, after unremitting labor, have to find his refuge and his only one in that petition of the Lord's prayer which you and I never employed in pure faith. Give me this day my daily bread. We say so, but we know whence it is coming to us. He knows not, and what he knows not, he asks God after. A thoughtful and humane American cannot travel in Europe without having his sympathies daily called out in behalf of the sufferings of man. I am no apologist for slavery. I deeply lament its existence. But I believe there is as much suffering in coal pits and manufacturing districts of England as in our southern slave states. In regard to England I feel encouraged. In an absence of fifteen years I see marked improvement. Man is more respected as man than he once was. The masses are coming up, and the wealthy and the noble are more considerate. It is a great folly and a wickedness to think that the nobility of England are weak, vicious, unfeeling, proud, and self-indulgent. Some of the noblest characters of England are to be found in the peerage, men who fear God and work righteousness. Their homes are often centers of diffusive blessedness, and where the nobility of England, what to many here suppose them, the state could not last a twelve month. The queen is popular and is clearly a woman of great tact. She would do at a crisis. Prince Albert is everything to her. He is a profoundly wise and prudent man, highly educated, and has very superior powers of mind. He is continually making speeches, but they are all marked by adaptation. I have never heard one disrespectful word uttered in England in regard to him. His labors for the exhibition have been remarkable, and but for the prince the palace never would have been reared. England is happy indeed in having such a man to counsel and support the sovereign. Europe looks as though a storm were once more about to gather over her old battlefields. France is not in her true position. She would like to see her armies employed, and I shall not be surprised to hear of his holiness clearing out from Rome and seeking protection from Austria. If that happens, France will sustain liberal views in the eternal city, and the contest will be severe. Popery has lost its hold upon the continent and is seeking to regain its influence in England and plant it in America. The people of England are Protestant to the heart's core. The folly of a few scholastics at Oxford has created all the hue and cry of puseism and invigorated the hopes of Rome. These men at Oxford have poisoned the minds of a few of their pupils, and in the upper walks of life some sympathy is seen with views that seem at least semi-papestical. But the great body of the people is sound. More than half the population is made up of dissenters, and they to a man hate the beast, and there is about as much danger of popery being established in England as there is of absolute monarchy being embraced as our form of government. Popery in America must spread by immigration. We have Ireland virtually in America, but here the Irish will gradually merge into Americans, and the power of the priesthood will be less and less regarded by their children. I have no apprehensions from the coming of Catholics to our country. Let them come, and we must get Bibles ready for them, and Bible readers to visit them, and schools to teach their children, and if Cardinal or Archbishop or Priest tell us that Popery is the friend of science, and that it never persecuted genius, imprisoned learning, nor burnt God's saints, we will tell the deceiver that he lies in the face of God and man and the world's history. I am not, my dear fellow, uncharitable. A man may be better than his creed, and I believe that some priests who have sung the song of the Mass will hear after sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. But of Popery, as it is seen in Italy and Austria and other parts of the old world, I cannot but pronounce it a curse to the human family, a system all unworthy of God and blasting to the happiness of man. The boys are in the enjoyment of health and will soon see you. They have been constant sources of pleasure to me by their thoughtful kindness and consideration, and nothing has transpired to cause us to look back with pain on any part of our wanderings from home. Yours, very truly, Jonathan O. Choules, to Mr. Charles W. Dustin Stapleton, Staten Island, New York. End of Letter 55. End of Young Americans Abroad, edited by J. O. Choules, recorded by Cibela Denton in Carrollton, Georgia, in February 2008. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org.