IV. 



ENGLISH TRAVELLING: HADDON HALL: MATLOCK: 

 THE DERBY ARBORETUM: BOTANIC GARDEN IN 

 REGENT'S PARK. 



^ August, 1850. 



DERBYSHIRE (you remember you left me at Chatsworih), is so 

 picturesque a country, that I drove about among its hills and 

 vallfiys with the luxury of good roads and the easiest of private car- 

 riages. It is, iijdeed, only in this way that England can be seen or 

 understood. To dasb through such a country as this, where the de- 

 tails are all woAed up into such perfectj finish, is lit* going through 

 a gallery of cabinet pictures at, the speed of Oapt, Barclay, or some 

 " cracls pedestrian," who performs a thousand miles in a thousand 

 hours. Here is indeed a hilly country, where you get a glimpse of - 

 something new and, interesting at every turn : a»id yet the roads are 

 by no meajis those we are accustomed to see in sucH a district, but 

 smooth arid hard as a Macadam can make them. It wouldj how- 

 ever, amuse one of our expert Alleghany gtage-driveis,, w^ho goes 

 down a five' mile mountaia on a full run, to see an English coach- 

 man lock his wheels on such smooth and easy grades as these^ 

 amqng the Derbyshire hills. A proposal pf suoh feats to an Eng- 

 lish driver as are perform.ed daily in the AUeghanies, with the most 

 perfect success and nonchalance^ would be received by him with the 

 same belief in your sanity, as jf you should ask him to oblige you 

 by swallowing the cupola of St. Paul's. On the other hand, the 

 perfect neatness of dress; (especially in . snowy linen, and spotless 

 white-top boots), the obliging manners, and the careful and rapid 



