to times gone by, and feels a blind pathetic tendency to wander back
again, which makes itself evident in such wild dreams as I have alluded
to above, about English inheritances. A mere coincidence of names (the
Yankee one, perhaps, having been assumed by legislative permission), a
supposititious pedigree, a silver mug on which an anciently engraved
coat-of-arms has been half scrubbed out, a seal with an uncertain crest,
an old yellow letter or document in faded ink, the more scantily legible
the better,--rubbish of this kind, found in a neglected drawer, has been
potent enough to turn the brain of many an honest Republican, especially
if assisted by an advertisement for lost heirs, cut out of a British
newspaper. There is no estimating or believing, till we come into a
position to know it, what foolery lurks latent in the breasts of very
sensible people. Remembering such sober extravagances, I should not be
at all surprised to find that I am myself guilty of some unsuspected
absurdity, that may appear to me the most substantial trait in my
character.

I might fill many pages with instances of this diseased American appetite
for English soil. A respectable-looking woman, well advanced in life, of
sour aspect, exceedingly homely, but decidedly New-Englandish in figure
and manners, came to my office with a great bundle of documents, at the
very first glimpse of which I apprehended something terrible. Nor was I
mistaken. The bundle contained evidences of her indubitable claim to the
site on which Castle Street, the Town Hall, the Exchange, and all the
principal business part of Liverpool have long been situated; and with
considerable peremptoriness, the good lady signified her expectation that
I should take charge of her suit, and prosecute it to judgment; not,
however, on the equitable condition of receiving half the value of the
property recovered (which, in case of complete success, would have made
both of us ten or twenty fold millionaires), but without recompense or