amphitheatre of wood, admitting occasional peeps over a varied and beautiful country. Though consisting of several parts of dissimilar character, each part is uniform in itself; and the whole, from its general union with the contiguous scenery, appears to great advantage. In this particular it justly exemplifies those principles of picturesque taste which Mr. Knight has developed in his poem of the Landscape,' and which the disposition of his grounds is still further calculated to exhibit.

66

So let th' approach and entrance to your place
Display no glitter, and affect no grace;

But still in careless easy curves proceed,
Through the rough thicket, or the flowery mead;
Till bursting from some deep-embower'd shade,
Some narrow valley, or some opening glade,
Well mix'd and blended in the scene, you shew
The stately mansion rising to the view:
But mix'd and blended ever let it be,

A mere component part of what you see.

Component parts in all the eye requires;
One formal mass for ever palls and tires.

The interior is fitted up with great taste and elegance; and some of the apartments are decorated with a few select pictures by the most eminent masters. The Dining Room 'occupies the' centre of an octagon tower, which forms an angle of the southwest front: its diameter is about twenty-eight or thirty feet. The ceiling rises into a dome, finished by a lanthorn, from which, and from one window looking to the front, this apartment receives all its light. Opposite to the window is an organ; and in four recesses are as many side-boards, placed between very large pillars, ranged in couples: in each recess also is a niche, ornamented by a statue. The Library, though small, contains a very excellent collection of the best authors: here also is a portrait of the proprietor of the mansion.

With the advantage of a fine mountain river, a profusion of wood, some bold rocks, and a variety of distances, Downton may

justly

justly be considered as one of the most picturesque seats in England. Here Nature has concentrated some of her most delightful charms; and Art, guided by true taste, has contented herself with exhibiting the beauties which she could not improve,

To lead, with secret guile, the prying sight
To where component parts may best unite,
And form one beauteous nicely-blended whole,
To charm the eye, and captivate the soul.

LANDSCAPE, p. 14.

From the house the ground falls rapidly into a beautiful little valley, watered by the Teme, which flows in a wild and impetuous current over its rocky bed. The opposite bank is finely clothed with luxuriant wood, rising in various shapes to its very summit. The course of the stream is richly diversified; its channel now contracts, and now grows wider, while the wild and solitary path which leads through the woods by its side, opens upon many beau tiful and rich scenes. In some parts, the stream, shut up between high and narrow banks, foams along its rocky channel with tumultuous rapidity; and near the point where it emerges into the more open valley overlooked by the mansion, a bridge has been thrown, along which the path is continued; in other parts, the banks are less steep, and the prospects more extensive; but in all the views are richly adorned with pendant foliage. The river meanders through the grounds to an extent of about three miles, its banks being fringed with wood, rising to a considerable height through a great part of that distance: indeed, the landscapes are peculiarly rich; the most eminent, perhaps, is that which includes a mill between one and two miles below the house, and, with its adjuncts, composes a scene of uncommon grandeur and interest. Besides the poem of the Landscape,' Mr. Knight has written one of yet higher character, intituled the Progress of Civil Liberty,' which is divided into six books, treating in succession, on the subjects of Hunting, Pasturage, Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, Climate and Soil, Government and Conquest.

In

In the last book, the author thus expresses his wish to pass his latter days in the bosom of his own demesne:

Here, on thy shady banks, pellucid Team,
May Heaven bestow its last poetic dream;
Here may these oaks in life's last glimmer shed
Their sober shadows o'er my drooping head,
And those fair Dryads whom I sang to save,
Reward their poet with a peaceful grave.

RICHARD'S CASTLE, about four miles south-east from Downton, was erected before the Conquest, probably by Richard Scrope, in the time of Edward the Confessor;* but scarcely any vestige of this fortress now remains. At the period of the Domesday Survey, it was held by Osborne Fitz-Richard, whose grandson assumed the name of Say, and was killed in Wales in the reign of Richard the First. Margaret, his grand-daughter, conveyed it in marriage to Robert de Mortimer, from whose family, by an heiress also, it passed to the Talbots, who possessed it till the time of Richard the Second. It has since passed through various families, and is now, or was lately, the property of the Salways. On the declivity of the eminence contiguous to the Castle, a body of Royalists, amounting to nearly 2000 horse and foot, under the command of Sir Thomas Lundesford, were surprised, in the year 1645, by a force far inferior, headed by Colonel Birch, and dispersed with much slaughter. "Richard's Castle," says Leland, " stondeth on the toppe of a very rocky hill; and at the west end of the paroche church ther, the keep, the walles, and the towers of it stand, but going to ruine: ther is a park impaled, and welle wooded, but no deer."† Robert Mortimer procured a charter of a market and fair for this manor from King John, but both have long been disused.

WIGMORE, the head of the famous barony of the Mortimers, Earls of March, is reputed "one of the most ancient Honours in England,

Dugd. Bar. Vol. I. p. 453.

+ Itin. Vol. IV. p. 178.