are the sole obstacles that break the view of the river, which has often seemed to us, at that particular passage of its course, to glide with unusual calmness and serenity. On the opposite side of the stream, there is a range of steep hills, celebrated for nothing more romantic than their property of imparting to the flocks that browse upon their short and seemingly stinted herbage, a flavour peculiarly grateful to the lovers of that pastoral animal which changes its name into mutton after its decease. Upon these hills the vestige of human habitation is not visible; and at times, when no boat defaces the lonely smoothness of the river, and the evening has stilled, as it were, the sounds of labour and of life, we know few scenes so utterly tranquil, so steeped in quiet, as that which is presented by the old, quaint-fashioned house and its antique grounds,—the smooth lawn, the silent, and (to speak truly, though disparagingly) the somewhat sluggish river, together with the large hills (to which we know, from simple, though metaphysical causes, how entire an idea of quiet, and even immovability peculiarly attaches itself,) and the white herds,—those most peaceful of
