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GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



Cop Bright. 



THE SOUTH GARDEN AND AVENUE. 



'Country Lilt." 



the magic scene, filling the limpid air with radiance, lighting up 

 like a patch of gold the strip of meadow on the further bank, 

 and making splendid the great house rising in the cliff beyond. 

 It is a mansion with a character all its own. You do not here 

 pause to question the architecture, nor to think of the style of 

 the building ; you recognise that Guy's Cliff belongs to, and 

 is indeed a part of, the scene you behold ; that it grows, if the 

 phrase be permissible, from the rock, in massive grouping, 

 filling the exquisite framework, completely embowered amid 

 noble trees, dignified by lofty elms and by great firs with their 

 rare purple tinge, contrasted with the gay colouring of flower- 

 beds below. It is a place meet for the Muses, a veritable 

 castle of Otranto, seeming as if it might be the home of 



Copyright. 



A CORNER OF THE LAWV. 



romance. Those were the impressions of a visitor who saw 

 Guy's Cliff, as it were, by surprise, and saw it with such 

 conditions of atmosphere and sunlight as Claude or Turner 

 would have desired. 



The place is, moreover, one of singular interest, and its 

 legendary history is full of romance. Leland spoke of its 

 predecessor as a " house of pleasure," and the situation 

 attracted the notice of Evelyn. There is, undoubtedly, 

 something of extraordinary attraction about it, and we read 

 without surprise that the famous Gay, who in the light of 

 legend has assumed proportions so heroic, retired to the 

 enchanting margin of the stream to court abstraction from 

 the world. Here for three vears he dwelt, unknown and 



unrecognised by "Fair 

 Phyllis," his wife, though 

 daily he came, clad in 

 the russet garb of a palmer, 

 to solicit food from 

 her bounteous hand. The 

 legend says that not until 

 his end was near did he dis- 

 close the rock-bound hiding- 

 place that had been his home. 

 There are caves in the rock 

 upon which Guy's Cliff 

 stands, in which it is certain 

 that anchorites did actually 

 dwell. Near the chapel 

 dedicated to St. Mary 

 Magdalen, and erected in the 

 time of Henry VI., wherein is 

 a mutilated statue attributed 

 to the hero are Guy's Well 

 and Guy's Cave, the latter a 

 ruJe excavation in the rock, 

 now entered between heavy 

 oaken doors. Here a Runic 

 inscription of the tenth century 

 has been discovered, in- 

 "Country LI/I-.' terpreted to embody the 

 prayer cf Guhthi, the hermit, 



