NORTHAMPTON. 39 



and are associated with purity and shade, so desirable during- 

 an American summer, were in keeping with the landscape. 

 In seeking for a comparison to Northampton, memory sug 

 gested the village of Dirleton, near to my native place in 

 Scotland. But Dirleton, although associated with some of 

 my best cherished recollections, and containing a picturesque 

 ruin shrouded in ivy, and adorned with shrubbery of unrivalled 

 sweetness, yielded to Northampton in situation, buildings, 

 and vegetable beauty. 



Having carried Mr Stuart s work, &quot; Three Years Residence 

 in America,&quot; with us, as a kind of guide-book, for which it 

 is recommended in the author s preface, we experienced con 

 siderable disappointment at being unable to corroborate his 

 description of Northampton. Instead of finding that &quot; much 

 of the pavement and steps are of white marble,&quot; we could 

 only observe a small portion which consisted of red brick. I 

 shall not, however, take upon me to say there is no white 

 marble pavement or steps in the village, but three of us walked 

 about for an hour and a half without discovering a single 

 stone of white marble ; we did not, of course, approach villas 

 remotely situated from the public roads, with a view of grati 

 fying our curiosity, but every street, lane, and walk which 

 promised gratification, were explored. His allusions to the 

 vegetable beauties are also unhappy, when he says, &quot; if a 

 traveller in Britain were to stumble on such a place as this, 

 he would not fail to enquire whose great estate was in the 

 neighbourhood, and attribute the decorations of shrubs, 

 flowers, &c., which adorn even the smallest habitations here, 

 to the taste of a wealthy neighbour, or his being obliged to 

 make them to promote electioneering views.&quot; In the streets of 

 Northampton, we numbered three or four bushes of lilac and 

 white pipe, and a few roses, as the amount of shrubs adorning 

 the foreground of houses, and flowers of small size were 

 equally rare. The spaces were generally unmown grass, and 

 in several instances luxuriant thistles and docks excluded light 

 from the apartments. At the back part of the hotel in which 

 we lodged, there was a garden, surrounded with a low ugly 

 wooden fence, and crowded with the gaudiest of flowers, but 

 our general impression was, that the gardens are ill kept, void 



