THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES. 209 



Walks, unconfin'd, even to thy farthest cots, 

 And scatters plenty with unsparing hand. 



Unmatch'd thy guardian oaks ; thy valleys float 

 With golden waves ; and on thy mountains flocks 

 Bleat numberless ; while, roving round their sides, 

 Bellow the blackening herds in lusty droves." 



Every Englishman who enters Surrey cannot fail to 

 respond to these lines. It is not the soil, however, 

 which has done these wonders, because, naturally arid 

 in the high, and marshy in the low grounds, it has 

 been brought to its present state only by dint of 

 labour. 



Even the commons, which are here and there to be 

 met with, covered with their furze and broom and heather, 

 contribute by their wildness to give an agreeable variety 

 to the view. Everything in England has its charm for 

 the English ; and so, in fact, has the uncultivated land in 

 the midst of the cultivated. These commons are inter- 

 sected by numerous paths, and filled with people wan- 

 dering about ; they are, as it were, souvenirs of the 

 ancient state of the country, a kind of prelude to those 

 immense Highland moors so dear to tourists and poets. 

 The young Amazons of the neighbouring villas there gal- 

 lop their horses with the same freedom as if they were 

 riding over an American savannah, and a foreigner 

 cannot but admire that ingenuity which can turn the 

 poverty of the soil into a source of pleasure and luxury. 



Every part of this suburb of London has its historical 

 recollections. The greatest men of England statesmen, 

 poets, and warriors have resided there. Even we 

 Frenchmen begin to stock it with sacred spots ; the 

 greatest wrecks of our civil discords have there sought 

 refuge. In a small chapel in one of those quiet coun- 

 try villages Weybridge repose the mortal remains 

 of King Louis Philippe, not far from Twickenham, 



o 



