for.


October 1st.--On Thursday I went with Mr. Ticknor to Chester by railway.
It is quite an indescribable old town, and I feel at last as if I had had
a glimpse of old England. The wall encloses a large space within the
town, but there are numerous houses and streets not included within its
precincts. Some of the principal streets pass under the ancient
gateways; and at the side there are flights of steps, giving access to
the summit. Around the top of the whole wall, a circuit of about two
miles, there runs a walk, well paved with flagstones, and broad enough
for three persons to walk abreast. On one side--that towards the
country--there is a parapet of red freestone three or four feet high. On
the other side there are houses, rising up immediately from the wall, so
that they seem a part of it. The height of it, I suppose, may be thirty
or forty feet, and, in some parts, you look down from the parapet into
orchards, where there are tall apple-trees, and men on the branches,
gathering fruit, and women and children among the grass, filling bags or
baskets. There are prospects of the surrounding country among the
buildings outside the wall; at one point, a view of the river Dee, with
an old bridge of arches. It is all very strange, very quaint, very
curious to see how the town has overflowed its barrier, and how, like
many institutions here, the ancient wall still exists, but is turned to
quite another purpose than what it was meant for,--so far as it serves
any purpose at all. There are three or four towers in the course of the
circuit; the most interesting being one from the top of which King
Charles the First is said to have seen the rout of his army by the
Parliamentarians. We ascended the short flight of steps that led up into
the tower, where an old man pointed out the site of the battle-field, now
thickly studded with buildings, and told us what we had already learned