church-porch and among the tombstones. In the course of our walk, we
passed many old thatched cottages, built of stone, and with what looked
like a cow-house or pigsty at one end, making part of the cottage; also
an old stone farm-house, which may have been a residence of gentility in
its day. We passed, too, a small Methodist chapel, making one of a row
of low brick edifices. There was a sound of prayer within. I never saw
a more unbeautiful place of worship; and it had not even a separate
existence for itself, the adjoining tenement being an alehouse.

The grass along the wayside was green, with a few daisies. There was
green holly in the hedges, and we passed through a wood, up some of the
tree-trunks of which ran clustering ivy.


February 23d.--There came to see me the other day a young gentleman with
a mustache and a blue cloak, who announced himself as William Allingham,
and handed me a copy of his poems, a thin volume, with paper covers,
published by Routledge. I thought I remembered hearing his name, but had
never seen any of his works. His face was intelligent, dark, pleasing,
and not at all John-Bullish. He said that he had been employed in the
Customs in Ireland, and was now going to London to live by literature,--
to be connected with some newspaper, I imagine. He had been in London
before, and was acquainted with some of the principal literary people,--
among others, Tennyson and Carlyle. He seemed to have been on rather
intimate terms with Tennyson. We talked awhile in my dingy and dusky
Consulate, and he then took leave. His manners are good, and he appears
to possess independence of mind.

Yesterday I saw a British regiment march down to George's Pier, to embark
in the Niagara for Malta. The troops had nothing very remarkable about