opening or expanding ones in prospect. I have no difficulty
in ascertaining the point where one terminates and the
other begins.

The change is sudden and startling. The last time I
slept on shore, was in America--to-night I sleep in
England. The effect is magical--one country is withdrawn
from view, and another is suddenly presented to my
astonished gaze. I am bewildered; I rouse myself, and
rubbing my eyes, again ask whether I am awake? Is this
England? that great country, that world of itself; Old
England, that place I was taught to call home _par
excellence_, the home of other homes, whose flag, I called
our flag? (no, I am wrong, I have been accustomed to call
our flag, the flag of England; our church, not the Church
of Nova Scotia, nor the Colonial nor the Episcopal, nor
the Established, but the Church of England.) Is it then
that England, whose language I speak, whose subject I
am, the mistress of the world, the country of Kings and
Queens, and nobles and prelates, and sages and heroes?

I have read of it, so have I read of old Rome; but the
sight of Rome, Caesar and the senate would not astonish
me more than that of London, the Queen and the Parliament.
Both are yet ideal; the imagination has sketched them,
but when were its sketches ever true to nature? I have
a veneration for both, but, gentle reader, excuse the
confessions of an old man, for I have a soft spot in the
heart yet, _I love Old England_. I love its institutions,
its literature, its people. I love its law, because,