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Besides these suites on the garden front there are, across a passage opposite to them, a billiard-room, picture-gallery, library, and chapel, all in the same magnificent keeping.

The park and ornamental gardens immediately around the house, differ as widely as well can be, without the wildness of the ravine and the mountain, from the grounds at Middleton. Their natural features, improved and embellished by art, present an Eden to the eye, and afford within their limits twenty miles of diversified walks, tastefully laid out and admirably kept.

Fault has been found, with the great number of architectural ornaments clustered closely around the house, and perhaps some of them might be removed to advantage. But I should scarce know which to sacrifice, for each, at some particular point, presents its peculiar beauty. In one grove stands the parish Church, deeply embowered with foliage from which its pinnacles are just seen to peep. Above another rises a tower, more than a hundred feet high, surmounted by a statue of Lord Cobham, to whom it was erected. On one height is an obelisk-on another the Queen's Summer-house breaks upon the view. Here you have a temple containing the statues of the cardinal Virtues; there an alcove filled with the busts of English worthies. Here a Gothic tower, and there the fanes of Friendship and Concord— a beautiful bridge, a triumphal arch, a lake and its islets, a tumbling cascade, with cattle, sheep, and deer, peacocks, swans, gold and silver pheasants, and every indication of a boundless resource of wealth and taste.

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THE SABBATH.

LETTER XXV.

WESTON UNDERWOOD, AND JOURNEY TO NOTTINGHAM.

Cowper, the poet-Residence of Mrs Unwin-Present aspect of Weston-The Throckmorton family-The Wilderness-Bust of Homer-Monuments of the dogs Neptune and Fop-Leicester Abbey-Field of Bosworth-Charnwood forest-Ashby-de-laZouch-Rev. Mr. Tait and Mrs. Tait-Arrival at Nottingham.

DEAR VIRGINIA,`

George the Fourth's Inn, Nottingham,
July 10th, 1832.

OUR object in making choice of Newport Pagnell for the repose of the Sabbath, was, that we might be in the vicinity of Weston Underwood, so long the residence of Cowper.

We were under the impression, when we arrived there from Buckingham, in the edge of the evening on Saturday, that Olney and Weston, places immortalized by his genius, were within a short walk of it. But, after having alighted and dismissed our chaise, ascertained that we were still five miles distant. It was, however, too late, and we too much fatigued, to proceed further; and the Saracen's Head continued to be our quarters.

On the morning of the Sabbath, we attended worship in the Parish church; but were disappointed in our expectation of hearing a sermon. The day was that of the communion, when the service only is read. It was announced, too, that there would be

PRESENT STATE OF WESTON.

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no further worship during it; and in the afternoon we drove to Olney and Weston. These are situated two miles from each other, upon the waters of the Ouse. We made no stop in the former, which is distinguished, in the landscape, by the loftiness and fine proportions of its spire, but proceeded at once to Weston.

It was not yet church time, when we arrived; and learning that the former dwelling of Mrs. UNWIN was unoccupied, we paid it a visit in the interim.

Cowper has been a character of deep interest to me from childhood-his works, more than most others, the subjects of favourite and frequent perusal; and no spot I have yet visited in England, has taken such deep hold on my feelings, as that consecrated by his memory. In itself, it now presents few attractions. The village is decayed, mean, and obscure; and the surrounding scenery less strikingly beautiful than I had anticipated finding it. Still it possesses a charm, to me, from early associations of fancy, of peculiar interest. And to have gazed upon it, to have walked through it, and to have mused over its changes and its state, has been a most pleasing, though a truly melancholy gratification.

Everything he loved, now exhibits the desolation and the gloom, which clouded much of his life, and darkened the hour of his death. The house in which he long possessed so happy a retreat, is an almost untenable ruin; the garden he tilled is without culture or form; the hall of the Throckmortons razed to the ground; its parks cut down, and the "Wilderness"—a wilderness indeed! Everything, in truth, in

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the least associated with him, as a resident of Weston, is literally a desolation! This, it is probable, is principally to be attributed to the removal, long since, from the place, of the Throckmortons, by the inheritance of a baronetcy, and more valuable and more attractive domains in another county, than those possessed and previously occupied by them here.

The church partakes of the general features of the place; and the audience assembled in it, was the most rustic and rude I recollect ever to have seen, in any section of the civilized world.

While the horses were putting to the carriage, at the close of the sermon and worship, we walked in advance of it, under the guidance of a lad at the post-house, to the "Wilderness," almost the only vestige remaining, of the favourite and immortalized haunts of the poet. It might readily be believed, from its appearance, that it had not been trodden by a footstep since the last century. It is now a mass of neglected and entangled wood, its walks all covered with mould and moss, its seats and alcoves tumbled into ruin, and its embellishments deformed with decay.

Shortly after entering it, and turning into a broad avenue, matted with grass, we came to a mouldering pedestal, surmounted by a bust of Homer, erected, no doubt, at an early period of his friendship with the Throckmortons, in honour of the translations made by him, from the Grecian bard. While standing by it, Captain Bolton and myself were insensibly led into a conversation, marked with more than ordinary feeling, upon the character, piety, and mental afflic

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tion of the poet, and were expressing, in strong terms, the melancholy satisfaction of this visit, to the scenes of his happiest hours, when the sentiment and pathos of the moment, received a rude shock, from the little urchin attending us. Perceiving the deep interest we were taking in the objects around, and seemingly desirous of adding to the sources of our sympathy, he suddenly broke the current of our feelings, and scattered the sadness on our brow, by the earnest exclamation, "And please your honours, but they'se more old stones out here a bit!"

And what think you, dear V- —, those old stones were? The monuments, with the inscriptions, by our favourite bard, over the graves of "Neptune, the Pointer," and "Fop," Mrs. Throckmorton's lap-dog.

The journey of a hundred miles and more, from Newport Pagnell to Nottingham, by Northampton, Leicester, and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, has been rapidly accomplished by us. The route, in general, is through a rich and beautiful country. The characteristic features of the whole, however, are much the same. An object in view, at almost all times, in one direction or another, is ever-pleasing to my eye, and happy in the association of thought connected with it-the lofty, symmetrical, and pointed spire of a parish church, springing from some sunny hill or tufted grove, as if to direct the thoughts and affections of the traveller to heaven and to God. In the approach to Leicester, from Northampton, not less than six or eight of these are seen at the same time, piercing the sky in as many different directions.

At Leicester we visited the ruins of the Abbey, so

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