iS6 LETTERS FROIif ENGLAND. 



rentjjrunduliating, and dotted with grand old oaks — extremely Kke 

 vbat you see on a still larger scale \}n Kentucky. Its solitude aiwi 

 leclusion, witliinsight of LopdoU''— are almost startling. The land 

 s high, a;nd from one side of it your eye wanders ovep the; valley of 

 Richmond — wi^jfhe Thames — here only a silvery looking stream 

 binding through it; — a world-renowned view, and- one whose sylvan 

 beauty i}. is impossibfe^o praise t^o highly.- Just in this part of the^ 

 3ark, and commanding t^fis superb view, with the tpwerS of Windsor 

 !^aslffe in the diftanoe on one side, and the' dome of St. Paul's on the 

 )ther, and all the antiquetsylvam seclusion of the. old wood around 

 t, stands a modest little cottage — the favorite summer residence of 

 Lord John Russell, the use of which has been given him by Ms sove- 

 •eign. A more unambitious looting home, and one better caleit- 

 ated to restore the faculties of an over-worked premier, after a day^ 

 »il in Downing-Street, it would Tdc impossible to conceive. 



I drove through Kichmorid Great Park in the carriage of the 

 Belgian minister, and his accomplished wife, who was my cicerone, 

 stopped the coachman for a moment near t?|| place, in order that- 

 ihe might point out to me an old oak that had a story to tell. "It . 

 iiras here — just under this tree," she added (her eyes gleg,miBig 

 slightly ^th wpmanly indication as she said it), " that the cruel 

 Henry stood, and saw with his own eyes, the signal made from the 

 lower of London (five miles oflF), which told him that Anne' Boleyn 

 was at that moment beheaded!" I thanked God that oak trees 

 were longer lived than bad monardhs, and that modern civilization 

 would no longer permit such butchery in a christian "country. 



I will close this letter with only a single remark. We fancy, 

 Qot without reason, in New-York, that we. have a great city, and 

 that the introduction of Croton waiter, is so marvellous a luxury in 

 the way of health, that nothing more need be done for the comfort 

 of half a million of people. In crossing the Atlantic, a young New- 

 Yorker, who was rabidly patriotic, andt who boasted daily of '"th« 

 superiority of our beloved commercial metropolis over every city on 

 the globe, was our most amusing companion. I chanced to meet 

 him one afternoon a few days after We landed, in one of the great 

 parks in London, in the midst of all the sylvan beauty and human 

 enjoyment, I have attempted to describe to you. He threw up his 



