This huge animal, the very biggest dog I ever saw, though
only eleven months old, and not so high by two or three inches as he will
be, allows Mr. ------ to play with him, and take him on his shoulders (he
weighs, at least, a hundred pounds), like any lapdog.
LEAMINGTON.
Lansdowne Circus, October 10th.--I returned hither from Liverpool last
week, and have spent the time idly since then, reposing myself after the
four years of unnatural restraint in the Consulate. Being already pretty
well acquainted with the neighborhood of Leamington, I have little or
nothing to record about the prettiest, cheerfullest, cleanest of English
towns.
On Saturday we took the rail for Coventry, about a half-hour's travel
distant. I had been there before, more than two years ago. . . . . No
doubt I described it on my first visit; and it is not remarkable enough
to be worth two descriptions,--a large town of crooked and irregular
streets and lanes, not looking nearly so ancient as it is, because of new
brick and stuccoed fronts which have been plastered over its antiquity;
although still there are interspersed the peaked gables of old-fashioned,
timber-built houses; or an archway of worn stone, which, if you pass
through it, shows like an avenue from the present to the past; for just
in the rear of the new-fangled aspect lurks the old arrangement of
court-yards, and rustiness, and grimness, that would not be suspected
from the exterior.
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