[ 77 ]
harmonized well with decorations taken from ancient mythology, and after a reign of half a century, in which good sense, led astray by pleasing associations, lost itself amongst temples, statues, and inscriptions. Taste at length took her by the hand, and presented Nature to her for her prototype, bidding her in future borrow all her ideas of gardening from that inexhaustible source of enchanting variety and picturesque beauty. Some of these classically disposed parts are still preserved for the sake of the venerable hand that laid them out; but they only serve as a foil to the more modern improvements of Mr. Howard. To these beautiful scenes we were introduced by a descending path, arched over head by the widely-spreading branches of some fine lime-trees, which affords occasional peeps at the reaches of the Eden, both up and down the river, the former shewing him in his rude impetuous course thundering over a rugged bed of rock, maddened by the close confinement of his banks; the latter throwing him before the eye in a still lake-like scene, silently rolling on his floods through flower-enamelled meads and gentle velvet banks.
Proceeding onwards for a few hundred yards, a point of view is caught, at once curious and picturesque. The opposite bank of the river now rises
