DESCRIPTION of STOURTON. 89 
LETTER XXXI. 
! To the fame . 
Madam, 
I A M never half an hour in a fine houfe in the country, with- 
out impatience to walk into the open air. The moft coftly 
carpets of Persia, with plafonds enriched with the labors of 
the greateft mailers, have no joys equal to a grafs-plat, and the 
azure canopy of the heavens. But here the groves and lawns 
called us abroad with all the blandilhments of the moll inviting 
pleafures. 
In the eaft and weft fronts are beautiful lawns : that on the 
weft falls with an eafy decline into a valley, where ftands the 
fmall village of stourton, the profped of whofe fteeple, tho’ 
in repair, has almoft as good an effed as a ruin. On the brow 
of this hill is a walk, of confiderable extent, of the fofteft moffy 
turf, bordered on each fide by (lately scotch firs of Mr. h*****’s 
own planting about four-and-twenty years fince ; they feem to 
be too thick fet, as well as the wood behind them. This noble 
broad walk is terminated by an obelilk of 120 feet, built on the 
higheft ground ; it has a mythra, or fun, of fix feet diameter, 
in gilded copper, at the top. This obelilk is divided from the 
garden by an haha ; but the view of the fheep feeding at the 
foot of it, has as delightful an effed as if there was no fuch 
feparation. 
Upon the fame brow of the hill, below this fine walk % are 
feveral irregular walks of different breadths, leading into the 
N valley. 
