1£09.] 
its rites and mysteries. In an adjoining 
chapel, the ancient religion of this island 
finds a selection of vataries, who do not 
more pertinaciously adhere to the tenets 
of their ancestry, than they scrupulously 
abstain from all interference with contra- 
riety of opinion. 
The privacy ef this seat was not always 
sufficient to preserve its haunts from vioe 
Jation and bloodshed. In the civil con- 
tests of the seventeenth century, Maple- 
Durham house was the scene of warfare. 
The town of Reading was besieged, and 
carried by the Parliamentary forces, in 
the year 1643. At that time, a post 
was fortiied uear Sir Charles Bloant’s. 
This point the besiegers attacked, and, 
after an obstinate conflict, succeeded in 
reducing. The alarms of that hour still 
live in the traditional recollection of the 
neighbourhood, thouzh so disfigured by 
the fancies of the. different generations 
through which they have passed, that, 
instead of a partial skirmish, in which 
some half-dozen persons were destroyed, 
the enquirer would be tempted to be- 
lieve a general, engagement’ had taken 
place, in which contending thousands 
met their fate. 
A battle of more interest was fought 
in this valley, in the year 871, between 
the piratical Danes and the men of Berk- 
shire, under the command of Ethelwalf, 
earl of the county. The combat was 
maintained with all the barbarous fury of 
the aye. The Saxon arms at length pre- 
vailed, and the fair face of the valle 
was stained with a profusion of Danish 
blood, 
When the mind of the wanderer looks 
back to the date of this contest, he finds, 
that the fashion of nature itself has sub- 
mitted to vicissitudes, and that the chief 
features of the scene, though faint out- 
lines may remain, have undergone an 
entire change. Those alpine hills, which 
lie in harmonious confusion along the 
banks of the river, were then uniformly 
enveloped in the shade of thick and ve- 
nerable woods; while the great river, 
calculating on the variations which have 
taken place in the form of its bed with- 
in the last few years, must have flowed 
through channels long since levelled into 
verdant meadows. 
_ While nature is thus perpetually vary- 
“ing, art has effected a truly surprising 
change in her dominions. ‘The ragged 
tower, which, at that period, crowned 
the summit of the now-denuded hill, has 
_ fallen and disappeared, as utterly ag if its 
WValks in. Berkshire.’ 
173 
embattled. sides, where loop-holes_ only 
admitted the rays of day, had lived but 
in “the baseless fabric of a vision.”— 
The woods no Jonger resound with the 
bowman’s shout, or the clamour of sword 
and buckler, employed in daring con 
flicts with beasts of prey. The dress, 
the dialect, the manners, are all totally 
changed. Thus, even the face of nature 
is inconstant as the front of the heavens, 
and eur ancestors, though possessed of 
the same island, might be almost said 
to live in a different world ! 
Pursuing the present features of this 
unsteady scene, the little village of Pang 
bourn arrests the traveller’s attention. 
The name of this hamlet would seem to 
imply a ford of difficulty ; in conformance 
to which propriety of nomenclature, tbe 
river was, before the recent erection of a 
bridge, extremely difficult of passage, 
during the floods of winter. The fre- 
quency of decorated cottages renders 
this village sufficiently desirable, but the 
peculiar beauty of the adjacent scenery is 
a still more forcible object of attraction, 
After passing the recks, over which the 
foaming current precipitates itself wit! 
picturesque rapidity, a scene stands dis- 
closed, not to be equalled in the interior 
of this island. The Thames assumes the 
broad grandeur, and tranquil! character, 
of a lake. The Oxfordshire hills unde- 
late in soft profusion on one side, while 
on the other, a chalky bank of perilous 
height (over which the uncertain road 
formerly lay) pours fragmeats of its fra- 
gile substatice down to the very margin 
of the river. In the distance, a dark vo- 
lume of woodland frowns gravely over 
the waters, or stands transiently reflected 
on their glassy bosom. 
Correctness of taste has led a dramas 
tist of highly popular talents to fix his 
residence on this desirable spot. Blessed 
with the elegancies of a lettered retire- 
ment, he here views the Muse on the 
banks of her favourite stream; and how- 
ever coy the nymph may prove to many 
who court her favour beside the classic 
\isis, the author of “ Speed the Plough” 
Js certainly familiar with the art ef at+ 
tracting her best graces. 
Not far distant from the enviable dwel- 
ling of Mr. Morton, stands Bere-court, 
worthy of notice, as the former country 
house of the Abbats of Reading. Here 
they retired from the labour of pomp to 
the pleasures of hospitality; and retro- 
spective faucy may trace the features of 
many a conyivial scene in the palin 
‘ @ he 
