MR. DOWNING'S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



I reached London only to leave it again in another direction, to accept a kind invitation 



to the country house of Mrs. the distinguished authoress of some charming works 



of fiction — which are widely known in my country, though I shall not transgress Eng- 

 lish propriety by giving you a clue to her real name. 



This place reminded me of home more than any that I have seen in England; not, in- 

 deed, of my own home in the Hudson highlands, with its bold river and mountain scene- 

 ry, but of the general features of American cultivated landscape. The house, which is not 

 unlike a country house of good size with us, is situated on a hill which rises gently, but 

 so high above the surrounding country, as to give a wide panorama of field and woodland, 

 such as one sees from a height about Boston and Philadelphia. The approach, and part 

 of the grounds, are bordered with plantations of forest trees, Avhich, though all planted, 

 have been left to themselves so much as to look quite like our native after-growth 

 at home. The place, too, has not the thorough, fall-dress air of the great English country pla- 

 ces where I have been staying lately, and both in extent and keeping, is more like a 

 residence on the Hudson. The house sits down quite on a level with the ground, however, 

 so that you can step out of the drawing-room on the soft grass, and stroll to yonder 

 bright flower-garden, grouped round the fountain dancing in the sunshine, as if you were 

 only going out of one room into another. In the library is a great bay-window, and a spa- 

 cious fire-place set in a deep recess lined with books, suggesting warmth and comfort at 

 once, to both mind and body; and the air of the whole place, joined to the unaffected and 

 cordial welcome from many kind voices, gave me a feeling of maladie du pays that I had 

 not felt before in England. 



There are no especial wonders of park or palace here, though there is a great deal of 

 quiet beauty, and as I have, perhaps, given you almost a surfeit of great jjlaces lately, 

 you will not regret it. I look out of the windows, however, and see in abundance here, 

 as every where, those two evergreens that enrich with their broad glossy leaves, all Eng- 

 lish gardens and pleasure grounds, and Avhich I never cease to reproach for their monar- 

 chical habits — since they so obstinately refuse to be naturalised in our republic — I mean the 

 English and the Portugal laurels. I would give all the hot-house plants that Yankee glass 

 covers, to have these two evergreens as much at home in our pleasure-grounds as they are 

 everywhere in England. 



There are other guests in the house — Sir Chas. M , Lady P., some Irish ladies with- 

 out titles, (but so rich in natural gifts as to make one feel the poverty of mere rank,) and 

 a charming family of grown up daughters. It would be difficult, perhaps, to have a bet- 

 ter opportunity to judge of the life of the educated middle class of this country, than in such 

 homes as this. And what impressions do such examples make upon my mind, you will 

 ask? I will tell you, (not without remembering how many fair young readers you have 

 at home.) The young English woman is less conspicuously accomplished than our young 

 women of the same position in America. There is, perhaps, a little less of that je ne sais 

 quoi — that nameless grace which captivates at first sight — than with us, but a better and 

 more solid education, more disciplined minds, and above all, more common sense. In the 

 whole art of conversation, including all the topics of the day, with so much of politics as 

 makes a woman really a companion for an intelligent man in his serious thoughts, in his- 

 tory, language, and practical knowledge of the duties of social and domestic life, the Eng- 

 lish women have, I imagine, few superiors. But what, perhaps, would strike one of our 

 young women most, in English society, would be the thorough cultivation and refinement 

 that exist here, along with the absence of all false delicacy. The fondness of E 

 women, (even in the highest rank,) for out-of-door life, horses, dogs, fine cattle, anim 



