MR. DOWNING'S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



157 



in a better light than travellers generally can 

 do. The seat is called Wimpole — the pro- 

 perty of the Earl of H , and Is situated 



in the fine agricultural district of Cambridge- 

 shire. It is not a " show place ;" and though 

 a residence of the first class, especially in ex- 

 tent, it is only a fair specimen of what you 

 may find, with certain variations, in many 

 counties in England. 



The landed estate, then, amounts to more 

 than thirty-seven thousand acres — a large part 

 admirably cultivated. The mansion, which 

 stands in the midst of one of those immense 

 and beautiful parks which one only finds in 

 England, is a spacious pile in the Roman 

 style, four hundred and fifty feet front ; rather 

 plain and antique without, but internally 

 beautiful, and in the highest degree com- 

 plete — both as regards arrangement and de- 

 coration. The library, for example, is sixty 

 feet long, quite filled with a rich collection of 

 books. The suite of drawing-rooms abounds 

 with pictures by Van Dyck, Rubens, and 

 other great masters ; and there is a private 

 chapel, in which prayers are read every 

 morning, capable of containing a couple of 

 hundred persons. 



In front of the house, a broad level surface 

 of park stretched before the eye, and is finely 

 taken advantage of as a position for one of 

 the noblest avenues of grand old elms that I 

 have seen in England ; an avenue three miles 

 long, and very wide — not cut in two by a 

 road,* but carpeted with grass, like a broad 

 aisle of verdure. Place at the end of this a 

 distant hill, and let the avenue be the central 

 feature to a wide park, that rises into hills 

 and flows into graceful swells behind the 

 house, and fill it with herds of deer and 

 groups of fine cattle, and you have a general 

 idea of the sylvan features of Wimpole. 



But it is not yet complete. Behind the 

 house, and separated from the park by a ter- 



* The approach is at the side. 



race walk, is a parterre flower garden, lying 

 directly under the windows of the drawing- 

 rooms. Like all English flower gardens, it 

 is set in velvet lawn — each bed composed of 

 a single species — the most brilliant and the 

 most perpetual bloomers that can be found. 

 Something in the soil or culture here seems 

 admirably adapted to perfect them, too ; for 

 nowhere have I seen the beds so closely 

 covered with foliage, and so thickly sprinkled ^ 

 with bloom. Some of them are made of two 

 new varieties of scarlet geraniums, with varie- 

 gated leaves, that have pi-ecisely the efiect of 

 a mottled pattern in worsted embroidery. 



Beyond this lies the pleasure grounds,— 

 picturesque, winding walks, leading a long 

 way, admirably planted with groups and 

 masses of the finest evergreens and deciduous 

 trees. Here is a weeping ash, the branches 

 of which fall over an arbor in the form of 

 half a globe, fifty feet in diameter; and a 

 Portugal laurel, the trunk of which measures 

 three feet in circumference. A fine Ameri- 

 can black walnut tree was pointed out to me 

 as something rare in England. And the un- 

 derwood is made up of rich belts and masses 

 of Rhododendrons and English laurels. 



I must beg you to tell my lady friends at 

 home, that many of them would be quite 

 ashamed were they in England, at their igno- 

 rance of gardening, and their want of interest 

 in country life. Here, for instance, I have 

 been walking for several hours to-day through 

 these beautiful grounds with the Countess 

 OF H., who, though a most accomplished 

 person in all other matters, has a knowledge 

 of evcrytliing relating to rural life, that would 

 be incomprehensible to most American ladies. 

 Every improvement or embellishment is plan- 

 ned under her special direction. Every plant 

 and its culture are familiar to her ; and there 

 is no shrinking at barn-yards — no affected 

 fear of cows— no ignorance of the dairy and 

 poultry-yard. On the contrary, one is dc- 



