242 Country Rambles. 



"to thank God on:" the latter teem with interesting hardy 

 herbaceous plants, quite refreshing to behold after the 

 inlay of chromatic geometry which at the present day is 

 so often substituted for a garden. The flowers, in great 

 abundance and variety, are chiefly of the kinds that the 

 poets and artists always loved, those that have been sung 

 of in a thousand simple verses, which the poets still 

 love best of all, and which, when neatly and nicely 

 marshalled and tended, keep up an unrelaxing flow of 

 tinted loveliness from the time of Christmas-roses and 

 yellow aconites until that of the last lingering asters of 

 November. Access to this charming place is for the 

 favoured few not beyond the range of the possibilities. 

 Never yet, when properly asked, has the Earl of Lathom 

 refused to give proof of generous courtesy such as 

 distinguishes the Lancashire gentleman and the English 

 nobleman. 



Not far from Lathom Park there is another very in- 

 teresting old family seat, Blythe Hall, the residence of 

 the Hon. Mrs. Bootle-Wilbraham. This is approached 

 most pleasantly from Burscough, through lanes, meadows, 

 and cornfields, and in its garden, like Lathom, and, we 

 may add, like Cheshire Tatton, gives delightful guarantee 

 that, despite the enmity of modern planters, genuine flori- 

 culture will, with the tasteful, outlive them all. There 

 are fit and proper places, no doubt, for every style and 

 system of flower - planting. Any mode that pleases a 

 considerable number of rational people is proved, by the 

 simple fact of its doing so, to be right under certain 



