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The Yacht Tavern is a very old house, in the gabled style. The timbers
and framework are still perfectly sound. In the same street is the
Bishop's house (so called as having been the residence of a prelate long
ago), which is covered with curious sculpture, representing Scriptural
scenes. And in the same neighborhood is the county court, accessible by
an archway, through which we penetrated, and found ourselves in a
passage, very ancient and dusky, overlooked from the upper story by a
gallery, to which an antique staircase ascended, with balustrades and
square landing-places. A printer saw us here, and asked us into his
printing-office, and talked very affably; indeed, he could have hardly
been more civil, if he had known that both Melville and I have given a
good deal of employment to the brethren of his craft.
December 15th.--An old gentleman has recently paid me a good many
visits,--a Kentucky man, who has been a good deal in England and Europe
generally without losing the freshness and unconventionality of his
earlier life. He was a boatman, and afterwards captain of a steamer on
the Ohio and Mississippi; but has gained property, and is now the owner
of mines of coal and iron, which he is endeavoring to dispose of here in
England. A plain, respectable, well-to-do-looking personage, of more
than seventy years; very free of conversation, and beginning to talk with
everybody as a matter of course; tall, stalwart, a dark face, with white
curly hair and keen eyes; and an expression shrewd, yet kindly and
benign.
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