493 



the country life here, and the great amount of health and happiness 

 it gives rise to. The life of an English woman of rank, in the coun- 

 try, is not the drawing-room languor which many of my charming 

 country-women fancy it. Far from it. On the contrary, it is full 

 of the most active duties and enjoyments. But it must be admitted 

 that the cool and equal temperature of the summers here, is greatly 

 more inviting to exercise than our more sultry atmosphere at home. 



We measured, in the course of the morning's ramble, several 

 English elms, with which the park here abounds, from fifteen to 

 eighteen feet in circumference.* I was not so much surprised at 

 this, as at the grandeur of the horse chestnuts, which are truly ma- 

 jestic many measuring not less in girth, with a much greater 

 spread of branches ; each lower branch of the dimensions of an or- 

 dinary trunk, and, after stretching far out from the parent stem, 

 drooping down and resting upon the turf, like a giant's elbow, and 

 then turning up again in the most picturesque manner. The trees 

 in England have a more uniform deep green tint than with us, which 

 I think rather lessens the richness and variety of the landscape. 



The queen made a visit here in 1844 ; and as every thing which 

 royalty does in a monarchy is commemorated and especially when, 

 as in the present case, the character of the sovereign is a really good 

 one I was shown a handsome new gate at the side of the park, 

 opposite to that which I entered, with a striking lodge in the Italian 

 taste, bearing the royal arms, and called the "Victoria gate." 

 What interested me much more, was an alms-house, built and man- 

 aged wholly by Lady H., as a refuge for deserving persons, grown 

 old or infirm in the service of the family, and unable, through ill 

 health or incapacity, to take care of themselves. The building 

 cottage-like is not only quite an ornamental structure in the old 

 English manner, but the interior is planned so as to secure the great- 

 est comfort and convenience of the inmates. Nothing could be 

 more delightful than the kind interest felt and acknowledged be- 

 tween the benevolent originator of this charity and those who were 

 its recipients. The eyes of an infirm old woman, to whom my h.iv- 



* But, after all, not so noble or beautiful as, in their heads, the American 

 elms iu the Connecticut valley. 



