factures and the prosperous freedom of a dukedom. It is in the rural villages of England, that we see traces of her humble life as depicted by Goldsmith and Miss Mitford; and to an American who loves Nature, and her reflection in books, and on canvass, perhaps the most pleasing observation is that whereby he discovers the original sources whence the authors of his noble vernacular and the artists have drawn their memorable themes. Cheerful, therefore, despite a lowering sky, sometimes venting itself in showers, was the view, as our carriage passed swiftly over the broad undulating hills, divided by hedges and crossed by roads where not a stone was visible except those massed in neat, compact walls, or lying broken in heaps to repair the way. Here and there, in the fields, were sheep whose enormous size and large wool-flakes tossed, like the foam of the sea, by every gust of wind, nay, their very expression of countenance, as they looked up from the turnips upon which they were regaling, had a singularly familiar aspect, which I soon traced to Landseer, whose pencil has made the domestic animals of his country as well known as if each stock had been exported. The sparse inhabitants of this well-tilled country, formed a remarkable contrast to the over-populated towns of Staffordshire. At intervals were stone cottages, gray and mossy, mansions of brick, substantial barns, and patches of woodland; the extent of view,

and the graceful though unaspiring line of hills, gave to the whole an appearance of rural freedom and prosperity. A wayside inn, where we tarried, I fancied must have sheltered Morland, or Gainsborough, when caught in the rain, while sketching in this region. The landlady had grenadier proportions, and red cheeks; a few peasants were drinking ale beneath a roof whence depended flitches of bacon, and with the frocks, the yellow hair, and the full ruddy features, we see in their pictures; the windows of the best room had little diamondshaped panes in which sprigs of holly were stuck; there were several ancient engravings in quaintlooking frames, on the wall; the chairs and desk were of dark-veined wood, that shone with the polish of many a year's friction; a great fire blazed in the chimney, and the liquor was served in vessels only seen, on the other side of the water, in venerable prints. It was a hostel where you would not be surprised to hear the crack of Tony Lumpkin's whip, or to see the vicar of Wakefield rush in, in search of Olivia-an alehouse that you knew, at once, had given many an "hour's importance to the poor man's heart," and where Parson Adams would have felt himself entirely at home. Soon after leaving this suggestive little inn, we came upon a rocky domain fringed with brushwood, and pronounced a capital hunting-district; then the old signs of cultivation re-appeared, and one village

was in itself a picture, consisting of a large group of low cottages, every stone of which was enamelled with moss, and, in the midst, a brown church, with wall and steeple half hid in ivy, and old grave-stones peering from the green turf which smiled around its base; then came fields irrigated by means of red clay-pipes, in which an old man, with a donkey, was at work, making a bit of landscape such as is often seen in Italy. The gnarled branches of some of the trees, and the patches of gleaming moss upon the dark bark, also contributed to give a look of antiquity to the by-way scenes, not without a pensive charm to the inhabitant of the New World; but this sentiment gave way to one of a more cheerful nature when we entered the villa-like porch, and were seated in the spacious and elegant drawing-room of the inn at Edensor.

The most distinct impression which an exploration of Chatsworth leaves upon the mind, is that of completeness. If the visiter has travelled on the continent, he has beheld statues and pictures as memorable, halls as richly decorated, jets of water almost as lofty, and umbrageous alleys made enchanting by moonlight and breezes such as are rarely known in England; but nowhere has he witnessed a combination of these and all other resources so entire; and where this unity has been approached, time and neglect have, at some point, trenched

upon the

per

fection of the whole. We are struck with the perfect order in which every department of the estate is kept, and the miracle of isolating a circumference of eleven miles in the heart of the limited kingdom, and there concentrating all that the wants and imagination of man crave of physical luxury, art, and nature, and thus creating a world for the individual, with the same appointments, graces, and pleasures, that elsewhere, and, by an almost universal law, are the product of civic or imperial enterprise. The fact is still more wonderful to the stranger who enters the magnificent domain fresh from Birmingham and Sheffield. The heart is appalled at the immense disparity of fortune; and a whole universe seems to lie between the drudge and the duke, whose lives are thus breathed out in such startling proximity.

Perhaps the best way to appreciate Chatsworth intrinsically, is to revert to the gratifications we have experienced at wide distances of time and space, and then estimate their concentration here. Think of the hours passed amid the sculptured forms of the Vatican, in the picture-galleries of Florence, of the sylvan zest known in an American forest studying trees or watching deer, of the charm of tropical vegetation, the devout spell of a Gothic temple, the buoyant delight caught from the sparkling waters of Versailles, the charm of exploring a library "rich with the spoils of time," the scenic wonders of cliff, lake, and meadow; and then be

hold these gems of statuary, painting, woodland and floral beauty, architecture, lore, and scenery, all brought together in the most felicitous arrangement of neighborhood and perspective, available to the senses and the mind, with the least imaginable expense of movement and attention, and what a magical experiment it is! The Italian villa, the English park, the poetry of animal life, the trophies of art, and the treasures of literature, thus garnered into a single domain, and that the property of one man, is a spectacle to arouse the enthusiasm of the poet, to inspire the mind of the philosopher, and to absorb the causality of the political economist. We examine the marvellous truth and nicety of an elaborate carving of Gibbons, or bask in the mellow tints of a Claude, or grow reverent before the majestic figure of a Grecian divinity, and then look through an enormous plate of transparent crystal, upon verdant slopes, marble terraces, a hollyclump whose emerald sheen glistens, or an Irish yew whose foliated green is massed in solid proportions, a grove of elms whence an antlered herd emerge with the confident step of domestic kine, or a knoll, surmounted with a basin of porphyry, sending up a column of spray hung round with iris-hues.

The sight of familiar faces gives us a certain home feeling, even in the midst of this novel grandeur. We recognise, with a smile of welcome, figures, expressions, dramatic scenes long known through the