482 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



all soils. I am, therefore, confirmed in my belief, that the buck- 

 thorn is the farmer's hedge plant for America, and I am also satis- 

 fied that it will make a better and far more durable hedge than the 

 hawthorn does, even here. 



Though England is beautifully wooded, yet the great preponder- 

 ance of the English elm a tree wanting in grace, and only grand 

 when very old, renders an English roadside landscape in this 

 respect, one of less sylvan beauty than our finest scenery of like 

 character at home. The American elm, with its fine drooping 

 branches, is rarely or never seen here, and there is none of that 

 variety of foliage which we have in the United States. For this 

 reason (leaving out of sight rail fences), I do not think even the 

 drives through Warwickshire so full of rural beauty as those in the 

 valley of the Connecticut which they most resemble. In June 

 our meadows there are as verdant, and our trees incomparably more 

 varied and beautiful. On the other hand, you must remember that 

 here, wealth and long civilization have so refined and perfected the 

 details, that in this respect there is no comparison nothing in short 

 to be done but to admire and enjoy. For instance, for a circuit of 

 eight or ten miles or more here, between Leamington and Warwick 

 and Stratford-on-Avon, the roads, which are admirable, are regularly 

 sprinkled every dry day in summer, while along the railroads the 

 sides are cultivated with grass, or farm crops or flowers, almost to 

 the very rails. 



The ruins of Kenilworth, only five miles from Warwick, have 

 been so often visited and described that they are almost familiar to 

 you. Though built long after Warwick castle, this vast palace, 

 which covered (including the garden walls) six or seven acres, is 

 entirely in ruins like most of the very old castles in England. The 

 magnificent suites of apartments where the celebrated Earl of Lei- 

 cester, the favorite of Elizabeth, entertained his sovereign with such 

 regal magnificence, are roofless and desolate only here and there a 

 fragment of a stately window or a splendid hall, attesting the beauty 

 of the noble architecture. Over such of the walls and towers as are 

 yet standing, grows, however, the most gigantic trees of ivy abso- 

 lutely trees with trunks more than two feet in diameter, and rich 

 masses of foliage, that covered the hoary and crumbling walls with 



