The charm of an English scene consists in the rich verdure of the fields, in the stately wayside trees, and in the old and high cultivation that has humanised the very sods.  To an American there is a kind of sanctity even in an English turnip-field.

After my first visit to Leamington, I went to Lichfield to see its beautiful cathedral, and because it was the birthplace of Dr. Johnson, with whose sturdy English character I became acquainted through the good offices of Mr. Boswell.  As a man, a talker, and a humorist, I knew and loved him.  I might, indeed, have had a wiser friend; the atmosphere in which he breathed was dense, and he meddled only with the surface of life.  But then, how English!

I know not what rank the cathedral of Lichfield holds among its sister edifices.  To my uninstructed vision it seemed the object best worth gazing at in the whole world.

Seeking for Johnson’s birthplace, I found a tall and thin house, with a roof rising steep and high.  In a corner-room of the basement, where old Michael Johnson may have sold books, is now what we should call a dry-goods store.  I could get no admittance, and had to console myself with a sight of the marble figure sitting in the middle of the Square with his face turned towards the house.  A bas-relief on the pedestal shows Johnson doing penance in the market-place of Uttoxeter for an act of disobedience to his father, committed fifty years before.

The next day I went to Uttoxeter on a sentimental pilgrimage to see the very spot where Johnson had stood.  How strange it is that tradition should not have kept in mind the place!  How shameful that there should be no local memorial of this incident, as beautiful and touching a passage as can be cited out of any human life!

III.—­The English Vanity Fair

One summer we found a particularly delightful abode in one of the oases that have grown up on the wide waste of Blackheath.  A friend had given us pilgrims and dusty wayfarers his suburban residence, with all its conveniences, elegances, and snuggeries, its lawn and its cosy garden-nooks.  I already knew London well, and I found the quiet of my temporary haven more attractive than anything that the great town could offer.  Our domain was shut in by a brick wall, softened by shrubbery, and beyond our immediate precincts there was an abundance of foliage.  The effect was wonderfully sylvan and rural; only we could hear the discordant screech of a railway-train as it reached Blackheath.  It gave a deeper delight to my luxurious idleness that we could contrast it with the turmoil which I escaped.

Beyond our own gate I often went astray on the great, bare, dreary common, with a strange and unexpected sense of desert freedom.  Once, about sunset, I had a view of immense London, four or five miles off, with the vast dome in the midst, and the towers of the Houses of Parliament rising up into the smoky canopy—­a glorious and sombre picture, but irresistibly attractive.