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real objects come actually before us. I confess, however, to 

 no such feeling in reference to that charming bit of English 

 landscape. Gazing, as it has been my happiness to gaze, 

 more than once, on that portion of tne Thames' valley which 

 extends thirty miles west from London, I could heartily re- 

 echo the exclamation of the Bard : 



Heavens ! what a goodly prospect spreads around, 

 Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires, 

 And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all 

 The stretching landscape into smoke decays ! 



The evidence everywhere visible of high cultivation — the 

 all-pervading charm of neatness and beauty — the broad, rich 

 fields unmarred by cross-fences — the long hedge-rows of 

 quick set, loaded in Spring-time with bloom and fragrance — 

 the grand, old parks, whose giant trees date back perhaps to 

 the Norman conquest — the close-shaven lawn, on whose green 

 velvet pile, it is a luxury to look, a luxury to tread — the 

 shrubbery, the vines, the flowers, which cluster so profusely 

 round the abodes of the middling classes, and which so gen- 

 erally adorn even the humblest cottage — the perfect roads 

 over which you may roll in unjolted comfort, and the nar- 

 row lanes through which you walk, to get a nearer view, and 

 to compare their rural sights and sounds with impressions 

 long since derived from your reading of English poetry or 

 romance ; — these are features, which, as yet, are almost wholly 

 denied to our Essex landscape. Yet, who can doubt that 

 with advancing husbandry, improving taste, and increasing 

 wealth, all desirable beauties and advantages will also come? 



There are, indeed, other objects visible from Richmond 

 Hill — objects of no common interest, but which look far bet- 

 ter there, than they would look here. We have no reason 

 to regret that it is necessary to cross three thousand miles of 

 sea, if we would behold an over-grown metropolis like Lon- 

 don — or look on such resting-places of royalty as Hampton 

 was and Windsor is — or follow and fee some *' half-groom, 

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