Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/102

102 adjoining. You cannot think how beautiful all is hereabout—so richly wooded, and not a vestige of London, and a perpetual succession of showers driving over the hills, like a flight of arrows sent by some ærial army. A piece of water runs through the grounds; it abounds with fish, and has a fleet of ducks, and two or three islands of water-lilies—some half-dozen falls 'leaping to music,' a bridge, and is in one part overhung with trees. There is also plenty of innocent amusements—bows and arrows, swings, battledores, &c. I cannot say I have recourse to any, holding to mine ancient belief of the super-felicity of talking."

"I was at Mr. Holling's collection of sculpture. There is a superb bust of Mrs. Norton—such a head as might have suited Zenobia, ere she yielded up her desert city to the Roman conqueror. There is also the most lovely statue of a child I ever saw; the very ideal of infancy. I have been to two or three little dances, among so many gay captains, that I cannot decide on which I have lost my heart to, or indeed if I have lost it at all. I have also been exceedingly industrious, and am rapidly progressing with my third volume, ('Francesca.') . . . Thank heaven, Fisher's book is finished—above thirty poems, and only one in which love is even mentioned! There's hard-heartedness for you. Are you not glad to be at home again, to see the pavement! I dare say England has its faults, but it may comfort itself by saying, 'I am a deal better than my neighbours, and comparisons are only odious to those who suffer by them."

The close of the following allusion to the burning of the houses of parliament, amusingly illustrates the insufficiency of the imagination to enable