Visit to Mount Vernon. 249 



thing will appear in its proper place; all will be regularity, lux- 

 uriance, and neatness. Nothing, truly, is more to be deprecated 

 than the masses of confusion which one sometimes meets with 

 in the garden of the mere tyro. Time is indeed a sad tell-tale, 

 as well as being a " test of the truth." If I do not much mis- 

 take, the time is not distant when very material changes will 

 take place, not only in the practice of horticulture and botanical 

 cultivation, as it regards the application and means of producing 

 terrestrial temperature, but also as it regards its effect on agricul- 

 ture, as connected with the improvement both of soil and climate 

 through the medium of drainage. In the mean time, I may be 

 allowed to add, that I hope to live to see some more of these 

 results than have been thus so crudely set forth. 

 April, 1842. 



Art. II. A few Hours at Mount Vernon, formerly the Country 

 Residence of General Washington. By C. W. Elliott. 



It is proverbial, that what a man can have for the asking he 

 undervalues ; and visiters know more about the curiosities of 

 our cities than the residents themselves. I have spent nearly a 

 year in the neighbourhood of Mount Vernon without having been 

 there ; but, when on a visit of but three days, I made it a point 

 to go over the place where Washington spent the happiest part 

 of his life, and where his ashes now rest. 



A bright October sun consoled me for the disquiets of a 

 jaded hack and a hard saddle ; though, under such circum- 

 stances, I could not forget myself and the present, and go back 

 to the time when on this same road La Fayette and Washington 

 waved from their carriage windows their last farewell ; to the 

 days when the master spirits of the age, with a host of others, 

 carried to Washington in his retirement the tribute of their 

 esteem and love. 



The gate opens between two small stuccoed cottages, which 

 are simple, and good only in comparison with the common 

 negro houses of the country; the old woman took my "bit" 

 (6d. sterl.) with a curtsy that might have done honour to a 

 duchess, and I rode in upon the soil that bore the foot-prints of 

 Washington. The carriage-way winds among the native mon- 

 archs of the forest, and is in extent nearly half a mile to the 

 house; it is much neglected, and washed by rains so as to be 

 almost impassable, but takes its way naturally and gracefully, 

 giving one an idea of taste and of domain which could not be 

 the result of a strait and meagre way. 



There was no living thing in sight, and in the deep shadow, 

 or the open sunlight, the leaves seemed to whisper the name of 

 Washington. The silence was so profound, that at the twirling 



