Newcastle, Eng., Tuesday, July 29, 1851.

I came up through the heart of England by railroad yesterday from London by Rugby, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, near Sheffield and Leeds, through York, near Durham, to this place, where Coal is found in proverbial abundance, as its black canopy of smoke might testify. Newcastle lies at the head of navigation on the Tyne, about thirty miles inland from the E. N. E. coast of England, three hundred miles from London, and is an ancient town, mainly built of brick, exhibiting considerable manufacturing and commercial activity.

The British Railroads are better built, more substantial and costly than ours, but their management does not equal my anticipations. They make no such time as is currently reported on our side, and are by no means reliable for punctuality. The single Express Train daily from London to Edinburgh professes to make the distance (428 miles) in about twelve hours, which is less than 36 miles per hour, with the best of double tracks, through a remarkably level country, everything put out of its way, and no more stops than its own necessities of wood and water require. We should easily beat this in America with anything like equal facilities, and without charging the British price—£4 7s. (or over $21) for a distance not equal to the length of the Erie Railroad, almost wholly through a populous and busy region, where Coal is most abundant and very cheap.Our train (the Mail) started from London at 10½ A. M. and should have been here at 11 P. M. or in a little less than 25 miles per hour. But the running throughout the country is now bewitched with Excursion Trains and throngs of passengers flocking on low-priced Excursion return tickets to see the Great Exhibition, which is quite as it should be, but the consequent delay and derangement of the regular trains is as it should not be. The Companies have no moral right to fish up a quantity of irregular and temporary business to the violation of their promises and the serious disappointment of their regular customers. As things are managed, we left London with a train of twenty-five cars, half of them filled with Excursion passengers for whom a separate engine should have been, but was not, provided; so that we were behind time from the first and arrived here at 1 this morning instead of 11 last night.

The spirit of accommodation is not strikingly evinced on British Railroads. The train halts at a place to which you are a stranger, and you perhaps hear its name called out for the benefit of the passengers who are to stop there; but whether the halt is to last half a minute, five minutes, or ten, you must find out as you can. The French Railroads are better in this respect, and the American cannot be worse, though the fault is not unknown there. A penny programme for each train, to be sold at the chief stations on each important route, stating not merely at what place but exactly how long each halt of that particular train would be made, is one of the yet unsatisfied wants of Railroad travelers. Our "Path-finders" and "Railway Guides" undertake to tell so much that plain people are confused and often misled by them, and are unable to pick out the little information they actually need from the wilderness of figures and facts set before them. Let us have Guides so simple that no guide is needed to explain them.

There is much sameness in English rural scenery. I have now traveled nearly a thousand miles in this country without seeing anything like a mountain and hardly a precipice except the chalky cliffs of the sea shore. Nearly every acre I have seen is susceptible of cultivation, and of course either cultivated, built upon, or devoted to wood. A few steep banks of streams or ravines, almost uniformly wooded, and some small marshes, mainly on the sea-coast, are all the exceptions I remember to the general capacity for cultivation. Usually, the aspect of the country is pleasant—beautiful, if you choose—but nowise calculated to excite wonder or evoke enthusiasm. The abundance of evergreen hedges is its most striking characteristic. I judge that two-thirds of England is in Grass (meadow or pasture), very green and thrifty, and dotted with noble herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. They are anxious to finish Hay-making throughout the region we traversed yesterday; but as there has been scarcely an hour of very bashful sunshine during the last six days, more than half of which have been rainy, the operation is one rather trying to human patience. Some of the cut grass looks as if it were Flax spread out to rot, and all of it evinces a want of shelter. This morning is almost fair, though hazy, so that the necessity of taking in and drying the hay by a fire may be obviated, but a great deal of it must be seriously damaged. (P. S. 10 o'clock.—It is cloudy and raining again.)

Wheat covers perhaps an eighth of all Central England, is now ripening and generally heavy, but much of it is beaten down by the wind and rain, and looks as if a herd of buffaloes had been chased through it by a tribe of mounted Indians. If the weather should be mainly fair henceforth, the crop may be saved, but it must already have received material damage, and the process of harvesting it must be tedious. Barley is considerably grown, and has also been a good deal prostrated. Oats have suffered less, being more backward.—Potatoes look vigorous, though not yet out of danger from blight or rot. Not a patch of Indian Corn is to be seen throughout. Considerable grass-land has been plowed up for Wheat next season, and some Turnips are just visible; but it is evident that Grass and Stock, under the influence of the low prices of Grain produced by the repeal of the Corn-laws, are steadily gaining upon Tillage, of course throwing tens of thousands of Agricultural laborers out of employment, and driving them to emigration, to manufactures, or the poor-house. Thus the rural population of England is steadily and constantly decreasing.

The best feature of English landscape is formed by its Trees. Though rarely relied on for fuel, there is scarcely an area of forty acres without them, while single trees, copses, more rarely rows, and often petty forests, are visible in all quarters. The trees are not the straight, tall, trim, short-limbed, shadeless Poplars, &c., of France and Italy, but wide-spreading, hospitable Oaks, Yews and other sturdy battlers with wind and storm, which have a far more genial and satisfactory appearance. And the trees of England have a commercial as well as a less measurable value; for timber of all sorts is in demand in the collieries, manufactories and mines, and bears a high price, the consumption far exceeding the domestic supply. But for the trees, these sullen skies and level grounds would render England dreary enough.

Newcastle is the location of one of those immense structures which illustrate the Industrial greatness and pecuniary strength of Britain, and illustrate also the meagerness of her Railroad dividends. The Tyne is here a furlong wide or more, running through a narrow valley or wide ravine perhaps 150 feet below the average level of the great plain which encloses it, and hardly more than half a mile wide at the top. Across this river and gorge is thrown a bridge of iron, with abutments and piers of hewn stone, the arches of said bridge having a total length of 1,375 feet, with 512 feet water-way, while the railway is 112½ feet above high-water mark, with a fine carriage and footway underneath it at a hight of 86 feet, and a total hight from river-bed to parapet of 132½ feet. The gigantic arches have a span of over 124 feet each, and the total cost of the work was £304,500, or about $1,500,000. Near this is a Central Railway Station (there are two others in the place), built entirely, including the roof, of cut stone, save a splendid row of glass windows on either side—said dÉpÔt being over 592 feet long, the passengers' department being 537 by 183 feet, and the whole costing over $500,000. Here, then, are about $2,000,000 expended on a single mile of railroad, in a city of by no means primary importance. If any one can see how fair dividends could be paid on railroads constructed at such expense, the British shareholders generally would be glad to avail themselves of his sagacity. And it is stated that the Law Expenses of several of the British roads, including procurement of charter and right of way, have exceeded $2,500,000. Add to this rival lines running near each other, and often three where one should suffice, and you have the explanation of a vast, enormous and ruinous waste of property. Let the moral be heeded.

THE BORDER—SCOTLAND.

Edinburgh, July 29—Evening.

From Newcastle to the Tweed (70 miles) the country continues level and mainly fertile, but the Grain is far more backward than in the vicinity of London, and very little of it has been blown down. More Wheat and far less Grass are grown here than below York, while Barley, Oats and Potatoes cover a good share of the ground, and the Turnip is often seen. All look well, but the Potato, though late, is especially hearty and thrifty. Shade-trees in the cultivated fields are rare; in fact, wood is altogether rarer than at the south, though small forests are generally within sight. I should judge from what I see and feel that shade is seldom wanting here, except as a shield from the rain. Desperate attempts at Hay-making engross the thoughts and efforts of a good many men and women, though the skies are black, rain falls at intervals, and a chill, heavy mist makes itself disagreeably familiar, while a thin, drifting fog limits the vision to a square mile or so. Some of the half-made hay in the meadows looks as though it had been standing out to bleach for the last fortnight. Even the Grass-land is often ridged so as to shed the water quickly, while deep ditches or drains do duty for fences. Fruit-trees are rarely seen; they were scarce from London to York, but now have disappeared. Our road runs nearer and nearer the North Sea, which at length is close beside us on the right, but no town of any importance is visible until we cross the Tweed on a long, high, costly stone bridge just above Berwick of historic fame, and are in

SCOTLAND.

Here the growing crops are much the same as throughout the North of England—Wheat, Potatoes, Barley, Oats, and Grass—save that the Turnip has become an article of primary importance. From some points, hundreds of acres of the Swedish and French may be seen, and they are rarely or never out of view. They are sown in rows or drills, some eighteen inches or two feet apart, so as to admit of cultivation by the plow, which is now in progress. The most forward of the plants now display a small yellow blossom. All are healthy and promising, and are kept thoroughly clear of weeds. I infer that they are mainly grown for feeding cattle, and this seems a good idea, since they can be harvested in defiance of rain and mist, which is rather more difficult with Hay. They become more and more abundant as we approach this city, and are grown up to its very doors. Heavy stone walls laid in mortar and copses or little forests of Oak are among the characteristics of the rural district around Edinburgh, whereof the culture is widely famed for its excellence. The only Scottish town of any note we pass is Dunbar, by the sea-side, though Dunse, Haddington and Dalkeith lie but a few miles inland from our road, with which they are connected by branches. We reached this city about 3 P. M. or in five hours from Newcastle, 130 miles.

EDINBURGH.

I knew this was a city of noble and beautiful structures, but the reality surpasses my expectation. The old town was mainly built in a deep valley running northward into the Firth of Forth, with the Royal Palace of Holyrood in its midst, the port of Leith on the Firth a few miles northward, and the Castle on a commanding crag overlooking the old town from the west. The Canongate and High-street lead up to the esplanade of the Castle from the east, but its other sides are precipitous and inaccessible, a deep valley skirting it on the north, while the south end of the old town fills the other side. The former or more northern valley has for the most part been kept clear of buildings, the spacious Prince's-street Gardens and the grounds of several charitable institutions having had possession of it, until they were recently required to surrender a part for the Railroads running south to Berwick, &c., and west to Glasgow for a General Depot. Across this deep valley or chasm, northward, rises the eminence on which the new town of Edinburgh is constructed, with the deep chasm in which runs the rapid mill-stream known as the "Water of Leith," separating it from a like, though lower, hill still further north and west, on which a few fine buildings and very pleasant gardens are located. The new town is thus perhaps 150 feet above the old town, a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, commanding magnificent views of the old town, the port of Leith, the broad, ocean-like Firth of Forth, and the finely cultivated country stretching southward; and, as if these were not enough to secure its salubrity, it has more gardens and public squares than any other city of its size in the world. Its streets are broad and handsome; its houses built almost wholly of stone, and I never saw so many good ones with so few indifferent. If I were to choose from all the world a city wherein to make an effort for longevity, I would select the new town of Edinburgh; but I should prefer to live fewer years where there is more sunshine.

Public Monuments would seem to be the grand passion of the Edinburghers. The most conspicuous are those of Lord Nelson on Calton Hill (next to the Castle, if not before it, the most commanding location in the city) and of Walter Scott on Prince's-street, nearly opposite the Castle, across the glen, in full sight of all who arrive in Edinburgh by Railroad, as also from the Castle and its vicinity, as well as from the broad and thronged street beside which it is located. But there are Monuments also to Pitt, to Lord Melville, and some twenty or thirty other deceased notables. These are generally located in the higher squares or gardens which wisely occupy a large portion of the ground-plot of the new town. Public Hospitals and Infirmaries are also a prominent feature of the Scottish capital, there being several spacious and fine edifices devoted to the healing of the sick, most if not all of them founded and endowed by private munificence. There are several Bridges across the two principal and more on the secondary or cross valleys, ravines or gorges which may well attract attention. These Bridges are often several hundred feet long, and from thirty to eighty feet high, and you look down from their roadway upon the red-tiled roofs of large eight or nine-story houses beside and below them. Nearly or quite every house in Edinburgh is built of stone, which is rather abundant in Scotland, and often of a fair, free, easily worked quality. Many even of the larger houses, especially in the old town, are built of coarse, rough, undressed stone, often of round, irregular boulders, made to retain the places assigned them by dint of abundant and excellent mortar. In the better buildings, however, the stone is of a finer quality, and handsomely cut, though almost entirely of a brown or dark gray color. The winding drive to the summit of Calton Hill, looking down upon large, tall, castle-like houses of varied material and workmanship, with the prospect from the summit, are among the most impressive I have seen in Europe.

I was interested this afternoon in looking around from one to another of the edifices with which History or the pen of the Wizard of the North has rendered us all familiar—the Tolbooth, the Parliament House, the Castle, the house of John Knox, the principal Churches, &c., &c. I spent most time of all in the Palace of Holyrood, which, though unwisely located, never gorgeously furnished, and long since abandoned of Royalty to dilapidation and decay, still wears the stamp of majesty and will be regal even when crumbled into ruins. Its tapestries are faded and rotten; its paintings, never brilliant specimens of the art, have also felt the tooth of Time; its furniture, never sumptuous, would but poorly answer at this day the needs of an ordinary family; its ball-room is now a lumber-room; its royal beds excite premonitions of rheumatism: its boudoir says nought of Beauty but that it passeth away. Yet the carefully preserved ivory miniature of the hapless Queen of Scots is still radiant with that superlative loveliness which seems unearthly and prophetic of coming sorrows; and it were difficult to view without emotion the tapestry she worked, the furniture she brought over from France, some mementoes of her unwise marriage, the little room in which she sat at supper with Rizzio and three or four friends when the assassins rushed in through a secret door, stabbed her ill-starred favorite, and dragged him bleeding through her bed-room into an outer audience chamber, and there left him to die, his life-blood oozing out from fifty-six wounds. The partition still stands which the Queen caused to be erected to shut off the scene of this horrible tragedy from that larger portion of the reception-room which she was obliged still to occupy, therein to greet daily those whom public cares and duties constrained her to confer with and listen to, though Murder had stained ineffaceably the floor of that regal hall. Alas! unhappy Queen!—and yet not all unhappy. Other sovereigns have their little day of pomp and adulation, then shrivel to dust and are forgotten; but she still lives and reigns wherever Beauty finds admirers or Suffering commands sympathy. Other Queens innumerable have lived and died, and their scepters crumbled to dust even sooner than their clay; but Mary is still Queen of Scots, and so will remain forever.