81 



A SUMMER WALK THROUGH AN ENGLISH 

 LANE. 



There are myriad spots in fair England most dear to 

 the lover of nature, each having its peculiar attraction 

 to the spirit of the spectator, and gladdening the soul of 

 the poet or the artist with beauty as tender or majestic 

 as can be found in most parts of this globe. But, of all 

 beloved haunts, commend me to that which can be 

 furnished by no other country on earth, — the real, dear, 

 genuine, old-fashioned English Lane, with its banks of 

 flowers, its little rippling streamlets, its shady hedge- 

 rows ; its feathered trees, with their gnarled roots 

 thrusting themselves out of the bank in strange knotty 

 contortions, and occasionally making their appearance 

 in the centre of the footpath, as if for the express pur- 

 pose of flinging the heedless passenger on his nose ; its 

 charming freedom from any kind of regularity, its 

 pleasant hum of busy insect wings, and its cheerful 

 twitter of little birds. The woodbine flings its graceful 

 masses of twining foliage and fragrant flowers over the 

 hedgerows, and the odorous white blossoms of the wild 

 clematis add their bright petals to vivify the scene. 

 In some parts of the country this plant is called the 



