[II]
LIVERPOOL
The situation of this great city is in some respects one of the most enviable in the country. Stretching along the upper bank of an unrivalled estuary, 1200 yards across where narrowest, and the river current of which flows westwards, it is near enough to the sea to be called a maritime town, yet sufficiently far inland never to suffer any of the discomforts of the open coast. Upon the opposite side of the water the ground rises gently. Birkenhead, the energetic new Liverpool of the last fifty years, covers the nearer slopes; in the distance there are towers and spires, with glimpses of trees, and even of windmills that tell of wheat not far away.
Liverpool itself is pleasantly undulated. Walking through the busy streets there is constant sense of rise and fall. An ascent that can be called toilsome is never met with; nor, except concurrently with the docks, and in some of the remoter parts of the town, is there any long continuity of flatness.
SHIPPING ON THE MERSEY
Compared with the other two principal English seaports, London and Bristol, the superiority of position is incontestable. A town situated upon the edge of an estuary must needs have quite exceptional advantages. London is indebted for its wealth and grandeur more to its having been the metropolis for a thousand years than to the service directly rendered by the Thames; and as for Bristol, the wonder is that with a stream like the Avon it should still count with the trio, and retain its ancient title of Queen of the West. Away from the water-side, Liverpool loses. There are no green downs and "shadowy woods" reached in half-an-hour from the inmost of the city, such as give character to Clifton; nor, upon the whole, can the scenery of the neighbourhood be said to present any but the very mildest and simplest features. Only in the district which includes Mossley, Allerton, Toxteth, and Otterspool, is there any approach to the picturesque. Hereabouts we find meadows and rural lanes; and a few miles up the stream, the Cheshire hills begin to show plainly. Yet not far from the Prince's Park there is a little ravine that aforetime, when farther away from the borough boundaries, and when the name was given, would seem to have been another Kelvin Grove,—
"Where the rose, in all its pride,
Paints the hollow dingle side,