266 



MR. DOWNING'S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



cept Wales,) in point of picturesqueness. 

 The village of Matlock Bath is a watering 

 place, nestled in a pretty, quiet dale, sur- 

 rounded by rocky cliffs some 200 or 300 

 feet high. Excellent walks, charmingly laid 

 out and well kept, sparry caverns, petrifying 

 wells, with a mineral spring, make up the at- 

 tractions of this rural neighborhood. The 

 real beauty of Matlock, to my eyes — and it is 

 the essentially English feature — is in the 

 luxuriance of the vines and shrubbery that 

 clamber over and enwreath every object — na- 

 tural, artificial, and picturesque. A bare, 

 rocky bank, unless it has great magnitude or 

 grandeur of outline, is hard and repulsive. 

 But let that same bank be covered with rich 

 masses of ivy, and overhung with verdure of 

 luxuriant shrubs and trees, and what was 

 ugly and harsh is transformed into something 

 exceedingly beautiful. In this respect, both 

 climate and culture conspire to make English 

 scenery of this character very captivating. 

 The ivy springs up and grows readily any- 

 where ; and the people, with an instinctive 

 feeling for rural expression, encourage this 

 and other drapery, wherever it is becoming. 

 Strip away from the English cottages, that 

 are so much admired, the vines that cover, 

 and the shrubbery that embowers them, and 

 they would look as bald and commonplace as 

 the most ordinary rural dwellings in America. 

 The only difference would be, that an Eng- 

 lish cottage, stripped of draperij, Avould show 

 plain brick walls, and tile or thatch roof — 

 ours, wooden clap-boarding and shingles. Ar- 

 chitecturally, however, the English cottages — 

 four-fifths of them — are no better than our 

 own ; but they are so affectionately embo- 

 somed in foliage, that they touch the heart 

 of the traveller more than the designs of 

 Palladio would, if they bordered the lanes 

 and road-sides. 



As no decoration is so cheap as vines, T 

 -was one day expressing my regret to an Eng- 



lish landscape-gardener, that the ivy was nei- 

 ther a native of America, nor would it thrive 

 in the northern states, without considerable 

 care. "You Americans are an ungrateful 

 people," said he ; " look at that vine, clam- 

 bering over yonder building, by the side of 

 the ivy. It is, as you see, more luxuriant, 

 more rapid in growth, and a livelier green 

 than our ivy. It is true, it has neither the 

 associations nor the evergreen habit of the 

 ivy ; but we think it quite as beautiful for the 

 purpose of covering walls and draping cotta- 

 ges." The plant he eulogised was the Vir- 

 ginia Creeper, [A?npelopsis quinquefolia,) an 

 old ftivorite of mine, and which we are just 

 beginning rightly to estimate at home as it 

 deserves.* 



The Derby Arboretum. — Derby is an 

 interesting old town, and I passed a day there 

 with much satisfaction. What I particularly 

 wished to see, however, was the public gar- 

 den or pleasure grounds, called the Derby 

 Arboretum. It interested me in three ways : 

 first, as having been especially formed for, 

 and presented to the inhabitants of the town 

 by their member of Parliament, Joseph 

 Strutt, Esq., a wealthy silk manufacturer 

 here ; then, as containing a specimen of most 

 of the hardy trees that will grow in Britain ; 

 and lastly, as having been laid out by the late 

 Mr. Loudon. 



As a public garden — the gift of a single 

 individual — it is certainly a most noble be- 

 quest. The area is about 11 acres, and is 

 laid out so as to appear much larger, — 

 the boundaries concealed by plantations, etc. 

 There are neat and tasteful entrance lodges, 



* Nothing can be more brilliant, as your readers well know, 

 than the Virsjinia Creeper in ihe autumn woods aihome, wliere 

 it frequently' climbs up the leadnisr stem of some evergreen, 

 and shines, in iis autumnal glory, like foliage of fire, tlirough 

 the dark foliage of a cedar or hemlock. It grow; in almost 

 every pari of the country, and will cling to walls or wood- 

 work, like the ivy, wilhoul any artificial aid. We believe this, 

 vine is less frequently planted than it would be, from many 

 persons confounding it with the poison sumac vine, which a 

 little resembles it. Tiie Virginia Creeper is. nowever, per- 

 fectly harmless, and may easily be known from the poison 

 vine, by the latter bearing only three leaflets to a leaf, while 

 the Viririnia Crecoer has five leaflets.' 



