Country Rambles. 



shores of the islands, the surge of the yellow corn is still 

 close upon our borders. We need but turn our faces 

 fondly towards rural things and rural sights, and we shall 

 find them. 



Manchester itself, grim, flat, smoky Manchester, with 

 its gigantic suburb ever on the roll further into the plain, 

 and scouts from its great army of masons posted on every 

 spot available for hostile purposes, Manchester itself 

 denies to no one of its five hundred thousand, who is 

 blessed with health and strength, the amenities and 

 genial influences of the country. True, we have no 

 grand scenery; no Clyde, no Ben Lomond, no Leigh 

 Woods, no St. Vincent's Rocks, no Clevedon, no Durd- 

 ham Down; our rivers are anything but limpid; our 

 mountains are far away, upon the horizon ; our lakes owe 

 less to nature than to art; as for waterfalls, we have 

 none but in our portfolios. Still is our town bosomed in 

 beauty. Though the magnificent and the romantic be 

 wanting, we have meadows trimmed with wild-flowers, 

 the scent of the new-mown hay and the purple clover; 

 we have many a sweet sylvan walk where we may hear 



The burnie wimplin' doon the glen, 



and many a grateful pathway under the mingled boughs 

 of beech and chestnut. Next to a fine woman, the most 

 delightful object in creation is a noble and well-grown 

 tree, a group of such trees always reminds us of a bevy 

 of fair ladies; and dull and unthankful must be the man 

 who, in the tranquil and sacred shades of Alderley and 

 Dunham, cannot realise to himself the most genuine and 



