European Travel 105 



. . . We reach another lane and cultivated fields again, 

 and, being on elevated ground at the knarly feet of a glori- 

 ous, breezy, gray, old beech-tree, lay ourselves down, and, 

 looking back upon the extensive landscape, tell our friend 

 in what it differs from American scenery. 



The great beauty and peculiarity of the English land- 

 scape is to be found in the frequent long, graceful lines of 

 deep green hedges and hedge-row timber, crossing hill, 

 valley, and plain, in every direction; and in the occasional 

 large trees, dotting the broad fields, either singly or in small 

 groups, left to their natural open growth, (for ship-timber, 

 and, while they stand, for cattle shades,) therefore branching 

 low and spreading wide, and more beautiful, much more 

 beautiful, than we often allow our trees to make themselves. 

 The less frequent brilliancy of broad streams or ponds of 

 water, also distinguishes the prospect from those we are 

 accustomed to, though there are often small brooks or pools, 

 and much marshy land, and England may be called a well- 

 watered country. In the foreground you will notice the 

 quaint buildings, generally pleasing objects in themselves, 

 often supporting what is most agreeable of all, and what you 

 can never fail to admire, never see any thing ugly or homely 

 under, a curtain of ivy or other creepers ; the ditches and the 

 banks by their side, on which the hedges are planted; the 

 clean and careful cultivation, and general tidiness of the 

 agriculture; and the deep, narrow, crooked, gulch-like lane, 

 or the smooth, clean, matchless, broad highway. Where 

 trees are set in masses for ornament, the Norway spruce and 

 the red beech generally give a dark, ponderous tone, which 

 we seldom see in America ; and in a hilly and unfertile coun- 

 try there are usually extensive patches of the larch, having a 

 brown hue. The English elm is the most common tree in 

 small parks or about country-houses. It appears, at a little 

 distance, more like our hickory, when the latter grows upon 

 a rich soil, and is not cramped, as sometimes in our river 

 intervals, than any other American tree. 



