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lishing the face of this noble kingdom," (to quote his own 

 words,) we might have perused descriptive pages equal to his 

 own critical and refined review of Blenheim, or of Powis 

 Castle, and of a character as high and pure, as those of 

 Thomas Whateley. In proof of this, we need only refer to 

 many pages in his Essays, not only when he so well paints 

 the charms of sequestered nature, whether in its deep re- 

 cesses, oer canopied with luscious eglantine, in the "mo- 

 dest and retired character of a brook,'' the rural simplicity 

 of a cottage, with its lilacs and fruit trees, its rustic porch, 

 covered with vine or ivy, but when he dwells on the ruins 

 and on " the religious calm" of our abbeys,* or on our old 

 mansion-houses, with their terraces, their summer-houses 

 covered with ivy, and mixed with wild vegetation. And we 

 need farther only to refer to those feeling pages in his second 

 volume, where he laments that his own youth and inexpe- 

 rience should (in order to follow the silly folly of being in the 

 fashion,} have doomed to sudden and total destruction an old 

 paternal garden, with all its embellishments, and whose de- 

 struction revives in these pages all the emotions of his youth ; 

 and he concludes these pages of regret, by candidly confess- 

 ing, that he gained little but " much difficulty, expence and 

 dirt," and that he thus detains his readers in relating what 

 so personally concerns himself, " because there is nothing so 



* On the pomp of devotion in our ancient abbeys, Mr. R. P. Knight 

 thus interests his readers, in the chapter " Of the Sublime and Pathetic," in 

 the Inquiry into the principles of Taste : " Every person who has attended 

 the celebration of high mass, at any considerable ecclesiastical establish- 

 ment, must have felt how much the splendour and magnificence of the Ro- 

 man Catholic worship tends to exalt the spirit of devotion, and to inspire 

 the soul with rapture and enthusiasm. Not only the impressive melody of 

 the vocal and instrumental music, and the imposing solemnity of the cere- 

 monies, but the pomp and brilliancy of the sacerdotal garments, and the 

 rich and costly decorations of the altar, raise the character of religion, and 

 give it an air of dignity and majesty unknown to any of the reformed 

 churches." 



