“O,” says a bystander, “don’t you know that

  ’The quality of mercy is not strained’?”

And now we are fairly alongside the shore, and we are soon going to set our foot on the land of Old England.

Say what we will, an American, particularly a New Englander, can never approach the old country without a kind of thrill and pulsation of kindred.  Its history for two centuries was our history.  Its literature, laws, and language are our literature, laws, and language.  Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, were a glorious inheritance, which we share in common.  Our very life-blood is English life-blood.  It is Anglo-Saxon vigor that is spreading our country from Atlantic to Pacific, and leading on a new era in the world’s development.  America is a tall, sightly young shoot, that has grown from the old royal oak of England; divided from its parent root, it has shot up in new, rich soil, and under genial, brilliant skies, and therefore takes on a new type of growth and foliage, but the sap in it is the same.

I had an early opportunity of making acquaintance with my English brethren; for, much to my astonishment, I found quite a crowd on the wharf, and we walked up to our carriage through a long lane of people, bowing, and looking very glad to see us.  When I came to get into the hack it was surrounded by more faces than I could count.  They stood very quietly, and looked very kindly, though evidently very much determined to look.  Something prevented the hack from moving on; so the interview was prolonged for some time.  I therefore took occasion to remark the very fair, pure complexions, the clear eyes, and the general air of health and vigor, which seem to characterize our brethren and sisters of the island.  There seemed to be no occasion to ask them, how they did, as they were evidently quite well.  Indeed, this air of health is one of the most striking things when one lands in England.

They were not burly, red-faced, and stout, as I had sometimes conceived of the English people, but just full enough to suggest the idea of vigor and health.  The presence of so many healthy, rosy people looking at me, all reduced as I was, first by land and then by sea sickness, made me feel myself more withered and forlorn than ever.  But there was an earnestness and a depth of kind feeling in some of the faces, which I shall long remember.  It seemed as if I had not only touched the English shore, but felt the English heart.

Our carriage at last drove on, taking us through Liverpool, and a mile or two out, and at length wound its way along the gravel paths of a beautiful little retreat, on the banks of the Mersey, called the “Dingle.”  It opened to my eyes like a paradise, all wearied as I was with the tossing of the sea.  I have since become familiar with these beautiful little spots, which are so common in England; but now all was entirely new to me.