158 



MR. DOWNING-S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



lighted •with the genuine enthusiasm and 

 knowledge that the highest class (and indeed 

 all classes) show in the country life here, and 

 the great amount of health and happiness it 

 gives rise to. The life of an English woman 

 of rank, in the country, is not the drawing- 

 room languor which many of my charming 

 coun4;ry women fancy it. Far from it. On 

 the contrary, it is full of the most active du- 

 ties and enjoyments. But it must be ad- 

 mitted that the cool and equal temperature 

 of the summers here, is greatly more inviting 

 to exercise than our more sultry atmosphere 

 at home. 



We measured, in the course of the morn- 

 ing's ramble, several English elms, with 

 which the park here abounds, from 15 to 18 

 feet in circumference.* I was not so much 

 surprised at this, as at the grandeur of the 

 horse chestnuts, which are truly majestic — 

 many measuring not less in girth, with a 

 much greater spread of branches ; each lower 

 branch of the dimensions of an ordinary 

 trunk, and, after stretching far out from the 

 parent stem, drooping down and resting upon 

 the turf, like a giant's elbow, and then turn- 

 ing up again in the most picturesque manner. 

 The trees in England have a more uniform 

 deep green tint than with us, which I think 

 rather lessens the richness and variety of the 

 landscape. 



The Queen made a visit here in 1 844 ; and 

 as everything which royalty does in a monar- 

 chy is commemorated — and especially when, 

 as in the present case, the character of the 

 sovereign is a really good one — I was shown 

 a handsome new gate at the side of the park, 

 opposite to that which I entered, with a 

 striking lodge in the Italian taste, bearing the 

 royal arms, and called the " Victoria gate." 

 TThat interested me much more, was an alms- 

 house, built and managed wholly by Lady 



* Bui, after all, not so noble or beautiful as, in their heads, 

 the American elms in llie Connecticut valley. 



H., as a refuge for deserving persons, grown 

 old or infirm in the service of the family, and 

 unable, through ill health or incapacity, to 

 take care of themselves. The building — cot- 

 tage-like — Ls not only quite an ornamental 

 structure in the old English manner, but the 

 interior is planned so as to secure the great- 

 est comfort and convenience of the inmates. 

 Nothing could be more delightful than the 

 kind interest felt and acknowledged bet Teen 

 the benevolent originator of this charity and 

 those who were its recipients. The eyes of 

 an infirm old woman, to whom my having 

 come from America was mentioned, and who 

 had sons in the new world, brightened up 

 with a strange joy at seeing some one from a 

 land where her heart had evidently been of 

 late more busy than at home. " It was a 

 good country," she said; "her sons had 

 bought land, and were doing famous." For 

 a working man to own land, in a country like 

 this, where the farmers are almost all only 

 tenants of the few great proprietors, is to 

 their minds something like holding a fee sim- 

 ple to part of paradise. 



The morning yesterday was spent on horse- 

 back in examining the agriculture of the es- 

 tate. The rich harvest fields, extending over 

 the broad Cambridgeshire plains, afford, at 

 this season, a fine picture of the great produc- 

 tiveness of England. About a thousand acres 

 are farmed by Lord H., and the rest let to 

 tenants. I was glad to hear from him that 

 he has endeavored, with great success, to 

 abolish the enormous consumption of malt 

 liquor among laborers of all classes here, by 

 giving them only a very small allowance, 

 joined to a sum equal to the largest allowance 

 on other estates, in the shape of an addition 

 to their wages. He confirmed my previous 

 impressions of the bad effects produced by 

 this monstrous guzzling of beer by the work- 

 ing men of England ; a consumption actually 

 1 astounding to one accustomed to the absti- 



