Chapter 1

An inner room I have,
Where thou shalt rest and some refreshment take,
And then we will more fully talk of this

ORRA.

The coast of England, though infinitely finer than our own, is more
remarkable for its verdure, and for a general appearance of civilisation,
than for its natural beauties. The chalky cliffs may seem bold and noble
to the American, though compared to the granite piles that buttress the
Mediterranean they are but mole-hills; and the travelled eye seeks
beauties instead, in the retiring vales, the leafy hedges, and the
clustering towns that dot the teeming island. Neither is Portsmouth a very
favourable specimen of a British port, considered solely in reference to
the picturesque. A town situated on a humble point, and fortified after
the manner of the Low Countries, with an excellent haven, suggests more
images of the useful than of the pleasing; while a background of modest
receding hills offers little beyond the verdant swales of the country. In
this respect England itself has the fresh beauty of youth, rather than the
mellowed hues of a more advanced period of life; or it might be better to
say, it has the young freshness and retiring sweetness that distinguish
her females, as compared with the warmer tints of Spain and Italy, and
which, women and landscape alike, need the near view to be appreciated.

Some such thoughts as these passed through the mind of the traveller who
stood on the deck of the packet Montauk, resting an elbow on the
quarter-deck rail, as he contemplated the view of the coast that stretched
before him east and west for leagues. The manner in which this gentleman,
whose temples were sprinkled with grey hairs, regarded the scene, denoted
more of the thoughtfulness of experience, and of tastes improved by
observation, than it is usual to meet amid the bustling and common-place
characters that compose the majority in almost every situation of life.
The calmness of his exterior, an air removed equally from the admiration
of the novice and the superciliousness of the tyro, had, indeed, so
strongly distinguished him from the moment he embarked in London to that
in which he was now seen in the position mentioned, that several of the
seamen swore he was a man-of-war's-man in disguise. The fair-haired,
lovely, blue-eyed girl at his side, too seemed a softened reflection of
all his sentiment, intelligence, knowledge, tastes, and cultivation,
united to the artlessness and simplicity that became her sex and years.

"We have seen nobler coasts, Eve," said the gentleman, pressing the arm
that leaned on his own; "but, after all England will always be fair to
American eyes."

"More particularly so if those eyes first opened to the light in