524 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



who, turning their backs upon the numberless fine natural sites, with 

 which our country abounds, choose the barest and baldest situation, 

 in order that they may dig, delve, level and grade, and spend half 

 their fortunes, in doing what nature has, not a mile distant, offered 

 to them ready made, and a thousand times more beautifully done. 

 Osborne House may be a tolerable residence (we mean respecting 

 its out-of-door pleasure) fifty years hence ; but it is almost the only 

 country-seat that we saw in England, that looked thoroughly raw and 

 uncomfortable. I suppose, in a country where every thing seems 

 finished, there is a singular pleasure in taking a place in the rough, 

 and working beauties out of tameness and insipidity. The Queen 

 lives here, and walks and drives about the neighborhood, in a com- 

 paratively simple and unostentatious manner, and attracts very little 

 attention, and her husband practises farming and planting, quite in 

 good earnest. 



A country-seat, only a mile distant, in a thoroughly English 

 taste, was a complete contrast to the foregoing, and gave us great 

 pleasure. This is Norris Castle, built by Lord Seymour, but now 

 the property of Mr. Bell, who resides here. Neither the place, nor 

 the house, is larger than several on the Hudson, and the grounds 

 reminded me, in the simple lawn or park, sprinkled with fine groups 

 of trees, of Livingston Manor and Ellerslie. The house gave me 

 greater pleasure, than any modern castellated building that I have 

 seen ; partly because it was simple, and essentially domestic-looking, 

 and yet, with a fine relish of antiquity about it. The facade may, 

 perhaps, be one hundred and thirty feet, and I was never more sur- 

 prised than when I learned that the whole was erected quite lately. 

 The walls are of gray stone, rather rough, and they get a large part 

 of their beauty from the luxuriant vines that festoon every part of 

 the castle. The vines are the Ivy, and our Virginia creeper, inter- 

 mingled, and as both cling to the stone, they form the most pictur- 

 esque drapery, which has, in a few years, reached to the top of the 

 battlemented tower, and given a mellow and venerable character to 

 the whole edifice. 



We dined at Newport, the substantial little town, which, lying 

 nearly in the centre of the Island, serves as its capital and principal 

 market. The Isle of Wight, enjoying, as it does, a wholly insulated 



