530 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



was of course bought by the present owner at a merely nominal 

 sum, compared with its original cost. 



England, though in the main remarkable for its common sense, 

 abounds with instances like this, of large wealth applied to the in- 

 dulgence of personal taste to the building of a great mansion, the 

 collection of books, pictures, or to the indulgence of personal whims 

 or fancies. Thus the Earl of Harrington has in his seat near Derby, 

 a peculiar spot of twenty or thirty acres, wholly filled with the rarest 

 and most beautiful evergreens in the world where araucarias and 

 deodars, bought when they were worth five or ten guineas apiece, 

 are as plentiful now as hemlocks in Western New- York ; where 

 dark-green Irish yews stand along the walks like sable sentinels, and 

 gold and silver hollies and yews are cut into peacocks, shepherds, 

 and shepherdesses, and all manner of strange and fantastical whim- 

 sies. The conceit, though odd (I had a glimpse of it), is the finest 

 specimen of its kind in the world yet the owner an old man now 

 who has amused himself and spent vast sums on this garden for 

 twenty years past, will not let a soul enter it unless it may be some 

 gardener whom it is impossible to imagine a critic. Even the Duke 

 of Devonshire so the story goes in order to get a sight of it 

 went incog, as a kitchen gardener. The Duke of Marlborough, a 

 few years ago, had a private garden at Blenheim, surrounded by a 

 high wall, into which even his own brother had not been admitted. 

 You see even the most amiable qualities of the heart those which 

 lead us' to make our homes happy occasionally run into a mono- 

 mania. 



I left the Isle of Wight with the feeling that if I should ever 

 need the nursing of soft airs and kindly influences in a foreign land, 

 I should try to find my way back to it again. Even one, blest with 

 excellent health, and usually insensible to the magical influence which 

 most persons find in a change of air, finds something added to the 

 pleasurable sensation of breathing and taking exercise, in the de- 

 licious summer freshness of this spot. 



There is another memorandum which I made here and which is 

 worth relating. In England at large, the great wealth of the landed 

 aristocracy, and the enormous size of their establishments, raises the 

 houses and gardens to a scale so far above ours, that they are not 



