IV. 



ENGLISH TRAVELLING: HADDON HALL: MATLOCK : 

 THE DERBY ARBORETUM: BOTANIC GARDEN IN 

 REGENT'S PARK. 



August, 1850. 



."TVERBYSHIRE (you remember you left me at Chatsworth), is sc 

 J-/ picturesque a country, that I drove about among its hills and 

 valleys with the luxury of good roads and the easiest of private car- 

 riages. It is, indeed, only in this way that England can be seen or 

 understood. To dash through such a country as this, where the de- 

 tails are all worked up into such perfect finish, is like going through 

 a gallery of cabinet pictures at the speed of Capt. Barclay, or some 

 " crack pedestrian," who performs a thousand miles in a thousand 

 hours. Here is indeed a hilly country, where you get a glimpse of 

 something new and interesting at every turn : and yet the roads are 

 by no means those we are accustomed to see in such a district, but 

 smooth and hard as a Macadam can make them. It would, how- 

 ever, amuse one of our expert Alleghany stage-drivers, who goes 

 down a five mile mountain on a full run, to see an English coach- 

 man lock his wheels on such smooth and easy grades as these, 

 among the Derbyshire hills. A proposal of such feats to an Eng- 

 lish driver as are performed daily in the Alleghanies, with the most 

 perfect success and nonchalance, would be received by him with the 

 same belief in your sanity, as if *you should ask him to oblige you 

 by swallowing the cupola of St. Paul's. On the other hand, the 

 perfect neatness of dress (especially in snowy linen, and spotless 

 white-top boots), the obliging manners, and the careful and rapid 



