me like Adam in Paradise before he had an Eve; but I think he did not use to read Virgil,' as I commonly do there." This common is Burnham Common, the wooded part is known as Burnham Beeches.

If the Londoner were to see nothing else, it would be worth his while to come hither for the sake of seeing this place. He would hardly believe, if he had never been here, that such a wild spot could be found within an hour's ride of the smoky city. It is still all that Gray described a hundred and eleven years ago. While all around has been, or is being, enclosed or improved,' it remains unvitiated, and scarcely at all encroached

upon.

The way to this pleasant place lies, as Gray says, along one of those green, shady, unfrequented lanes, that are so common in our pleasant land, but always so delightful. We have chosen an autumn day; a few women gossipping here and there at a field-gate remind us that the harvest is nearly got in; a few children busy about the hedges tell us that the nuts are ripening. These we notice without stopping; and nothing else is met to tempt us to stay, till we reach the end of the lanes and find ourselves suddenly on a broad, open, breezy heath, which is glowing under a clear sky in all the splendour of the purple heather,-yet in full flower, and the fern that is varying its hue from a light cheerful verdure into an orange-yellow that seems to kindle in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun; while the deep sombre brown of the furze enriches yet subdues by its contrast their vivid tints. The ground too is broken into very picturesque roughness, here and there a tree relieves the level, and towards the opposite extremity is a good-sized sheet of water, while a low mass of dark foliage bounds the view. Around the skirts of this common may be seen numerous rude cottages and humble tenements, that have grown by successive additions of sheds and lean-to's into combinations of quite indescribable forms; and which, with the noisy geese, rough donkeys, and wild colts about them, and children rougher, wilder, and noisier than all the geese, donkeys, and colts put together-make pictures such as painters stay to copy, townsmen to wonder at, and political economists to philosophise

over:

"A common overgrown with fern, and rough

With prickly gorse, that shapeless and deform'd,
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom,
And decks itself with ornaments of gold,
Yields no unpleasant ramble,"

as Cowper has said. But the common is not the remarkable thing here. Cross the common, and you find yourself at once in a forest-of no very great extent indeed, but of very respectable wildness. The hills, as Gray very truly observes, do not pierce the clouds, nor do the declivities rival the chalky cliffs of the southern coast; but the beeches are such as will bear comparison with those in the most famous of our

“hoary

has been for above a century enlarging their girth, and scoring their bark, and gnarling their roots, and covering their trunks with gray lichens, and otherwise adding to their reverend character. In truth it would be hard to say where else we might look for such trees. In Windsor Forest there are some that are, if not of larger bole, of more magnificent proportions; and so there are in many of our parks-but there they mostly stand apart and throw out their arms freely in an open area. The New Forest has beeches of noble size; and, growing in a soil well adapted for them, they form pictures that dwell in the memory as the ideal of the scenery of beechen woods. No one will readily forget them who has wandered among those gloomy avenues just at the hour when the last streak of sunset is hanging on the horizon, and the heavy masses of foliage overhead are deepening into a solemnity of shadow that is felt to be sublime; or when the full moon is working its magic among the interwoven tracery. Sherwood, too, boasts of its beeches, though sadly thinned. But there is a character about the Burnham beeches that is distinct from all of these. They are not lofty, for they appear to have been headed down at some time or other; but they are of enormous size, and the pruning of the heads seems to have thrown a superfluous amount of vigour into the trunks. Nowhere else do the trunks of beeches, as a rule, burst into such strange forms, or so "wreath their old fantastic roots on high "-though they everywhere do so to some extent. Every second beech trunk here, is a study for a painter. The long knotted roots, and the base of the huge twisted and contorted trunks, are covered with vivid dark green and brown mosses, which again are contrasted with bright white lichens. And then what splendid bits of forest scenery do they make in combination!-Now you are shut in on every side by these gray old sylvan giants, and the sky is barred out by the thick foliage over head; anon there opens a glade of living verdure which the rugged boles and interlacing branches enclose as in a wild frame; and then you see a quiet scrap of irregular avenue along which a narrow beaten path winds deviously, or a rough and deep-rutted cart-track with a sturdy peasant strolling idly down it. (Cut, No. 6.)

You might loiter away hours, about the perplexing labyrinth of paths, admiring one and another of those varying scenes, noting how some magnificent old bole stands grandly out from the light sky; or like Gray "grow to the trunk for a whole morning, watching the timorous hare and sportive squirrel," and listening to the harmony of the feathered minstrels, for

"Every tree impeopled is with birds of softest note:❞—

Wyatt

or make acquaintance with the old keeper of the forest,

-a good-natured chatty sort of person, who will be found very willing to tell all he knows, and a good deal more, about the wood and its traditions.

This is indeed a delightful place to ramble about either on a summer's day, when the deep green leafy woods form thick impenetrable canopies, and gloomy recesses, into which hardly a ray of the mid-day sun can struggle; or in autumn, when the beech leaves are changing into brilliant yellow and red, and the sunlight works a flickering pattern over every foot of rough path, and softly swelling glade. And when you are tired of the beeches, you may find around the borders of the wood some of those fine large old farm-houses which always look at once so picturesque, and so suggestive of comfort and prosperity, with their huge array of barns and out-houses, and stables, and corn-stacks, and ricks; their live stock about the yards, the pigeons about the roofs, the ducks about the ponds, and rosy maids and sturdy labourers everywhere. In one of the farm-houses by Burnham are some remains of Burnham Abbey-a monastery for Augustine nuns ; but the remains are of little importance.

Burnham was once a market town. In ancient days it was a place of considerable importance: part of it was the property of the crown, and the kings of Mercia are said to have had a palace there. But it appears to have been a Royal dwelling-place at a much later period: for in the thirteenth century it contained a palace, in which Henry III. must have occasionally resided, as he dated the charter for the foundation of Burnham Abbey from it. Burnham Church contains some old monuments worth looking at, if the visitor have a spare halfhour. The old market-town has dwindled into a long straggling village, wearing the drowsy picturesque sort of air that seems proper to a decayed town. The houses have a worn-out look. The people are idling about the street. Nought is active. And yet it is a place that you regard with more curiosity and interest than the busier every-day market-town.

Jacob Bryant-the learned and paradoxical-spent the last years of his life at Cippenham, in Burnham; where he died, when verging on ninety, from an accident he met with whilst reaching a book down from an upper shelf-a death, which, as has been well remarked, "was for a literary man to expire on the field of honour."

A sturdy pedestrian, if he were here early in the day, might proceed on his literary pilgrimage to Beaconsfield, the residence and the resting-place of two very different men, and of very different intellectual rank, but both eminent alike in the annals of English politics and literature-Edmund Burke and Edmund Waller. The house in which Waller dwelt, Hall Barn, a statelylooking red-brick mansion, is still standing. Gregories, the residence of Burke, was accidentally destroyed by fire in 1813. Waller's remains were deposited in the church-yard, where a large showy monument is erected to his memory. The monument is overshadowed by a walnut-tree, a very unusual object in a church-yard, but in this instance accounted for by a walnut-tree

being the family crest. Burke lies in the church, in the same grave with his wife, his son, and his brother. A plain mural monument marks the spot. The inhabitants of the village still carefully cherish the memory of Burke; and many traditional anecdotes are related of him. Beaconsfield is a place worth making a pilgrimage to; but it is too far for us to-day; we merely mention it, that the reader may remember it if he be in the neighbourhood. We will now make a circuit back to our starting-place: we may just glance at one or two of the more notable places on our road, but we cannot stay long anywhere.

Yonder is Dropmore-a very pretty place, which the late Lord Grenville found little better than a cottage, and left a noble house and romantic domain. One of his feats was almost oriental in its boldness: the view from the house was bounded by a hill, which excluded a fine prospect of Windsor Castle: his lordship had the hill pared down till the castle was seen rising grandly above it. Dropmore is one of the most celebrated of the show-places' in this neighbourhood. It is worth visiting. The views from both the mansion and the grounds are of great extent and variety. The grounds of Dropmore are very beautiful, and they are open to those who make application at the lodge. Dropmore is one of the places especially famous among horticulturalists. The fruits and the flowers are in high repute; and the collection of pine-trees is said to be one of the finest in the kingdom. The arrangements of the garden, and the designs of the rustic ornaments, are the result of the taste of Lady Grenville.

A little further is Hedsor, a village chiefly notable for the very picturesque situation of its little rustic Church, and the many pleasant walks and fine views. there are about it. Nathaniel Hooke, the author of the Roman History,' is buried in the church-yard. Hedsor Lodge, the seat of Lord Boston, is celebrated for the beauty of the grounds, which are very varied in surface, well wooded, and afford some most extensive views over the valley of the Thames. But though very beautiful, they are far surpassed by those of Cliefden, which we have now arrived at.

Cliefden was the property of the too celebrated George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham-one of the wittiest and most profligate of the witty and profligate courtiers of the second Charles:

"A man so various that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong,
Was everything by fits, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was poet, statesman, fiddler, and buffoon:
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides a thousand freaks that died in thinking."
Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel.'

Buckingham has come down to posterity portrayed by four of the cleverest and most eminent masters in satirical portraiture, Hamilton, Burnet, Dryden, and Pope; and it is hard to say whether he has suffered

"Cliefden's proud alcove,

The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love." This allusion is of course to the infamous Countess of Shrewsbury, whose husband Buckingham killed in a duel, while she stood by and held his horse, disguised

as a page.

Cliefden was for awhile the summer residence of Frederick Prince of Wales, the father of George III. The only memorable circumstance connected with his abode here is of a literary nature. "He was at this time," says Johnson, in his 'Life of James Thomson,' "struggling for popularity, and by the influence of Mr. Lyttleton professed himself the patron of wit; to him Thomson was introduced, and being gaily interrogated about the state of his affairs, said that they were in a more poctical posture than formerly;' and had a pension allowed him of one hundred pounds a year." Thomson repaid his patron with some prophetic flattery that has never been realized. He wrote, in conjunction with Mallett ("the only Scot whom Scotchmen do not commend," according to Johnson), The Masque of Alfred,' which was played for the first time at Cliefden in 1740; and therein it is hinted that the prince will prove another Alfred! The Masque' is forgotten, but one song in it has escaped oblivion: 'Rule Britannia' is not likely to perish while our wooden walls last.

Villiers' house was burnt down in 1795. The present mansion was erected on the site of the old one, some portions of which have been retained in it. Although a much less ambitious structure than the former, it is yet a spacious and imposing building. Cliefden is built on a lofty cliff that rises steeply from the Thames, and the views from the summit both up and down the river are of the most magnificent description-probably not surpassed along its banks. Awhile back the public were admitted to the grounds, and a little cottage was built by a spring of delicious cool water, mainly for the accommodation of visitors. It was the paradise of pic-nic parties. But the grounds are closed now, and the cottage is pulled down. Cliefden has lost a good deal of its charm in our eyes. Happily, however, the river cannot be locked up, and the Thames is here of exquisite beauty. "It is to Cliefden that the river here owes its chief loveliness; and whether we view the valley of the Thames from it, or float leisurely along the stream, and regard it as the principal object, we shall alike find enough to delight the eye and kindle the imagination. The path lies along the Berkshire side of the river, and Cliefden, which is on the opposite side, is a magnificent object from it: but the rambler should here by all means take a boat-and there are two or three places near Maidenhead at which one can be hired—and row gently along, if he would see this part in all its varied beauty. Cliefden runs along the summit

of this ridge is broken in the most agreeable way, the steep bank is clothed with luxuriant foliage, forming a hanging wood of great beauty, or in parts bare, so as to increase the gracefulness of the foliage by the contrast, and the whole bank has run into easy flowing curves at the bidding of the noble stream which washes its base. A few islands deck this part of the river, and occasionally little tongues of land run out into it, or a tree overhangs it, helping to give vigour to the foreground of the rich landscape. In the early morning, when the sun has risen just high enough to illumine the summit of the ridge and highest trees, and all the lower part rests a heavy mass of shadow on the sleeping river, the scene is one of extraordinary grandeur." ('Rambles by Rivers: the Thames.')

The heights of Taplow-the next place to Cliefdenare only less beautiful than those of that famous domain. Taplow Court, the seat of Lord Orkney, is among the more celebrated of the many princely estates that lie along the banks of the Thames. The grounds contain all that can be desired either for pleasure or retirement. The views, though not as extensive as those of Cliefden, are of exceeding loveliness-the Thames, in this its finest part, uniting easily and gracefully with the general landscape. But as these grounds are not generally open to the public, we need not say more about them.

Had we time we might find some pleasant walks about the village and by the river; but it must suffice now to point attention to the mills that connect the eyots with the shore. And very pretty they look, too. The mills themselves are not exactly the most picturesque on the Thames-whereon, to confess the truth, there are not many picturesque water-mills; but they are rendered picturesque by the willows and alders that fringe the river and half conceal the buildings. Then beyond them is the splendid hanging wood of Cliefden, forming a glorious back-ground. Add to this the foaming weir, and the clear broad stream, and "the blue sky bending over all," and you have a picture such as old Ruysdael might have imagined in one of his happiest hours of inspiration, or have painted when his hand and eye were most vigorous and sensitive.

We are at Maidenhead now. We have not time to look at the place—and if we had, there is nothing worth looking at in it;-nor to inquire whether the town owes its name to its having been made, as Camden relates, the depository of the head of one of the ten thousand maidens whom Attila caused to be slain, or to there having been in Saxon days a great wharf, or mayne-hithe, for timber here:

"The dews of eve do gently fall."

Our day is closed. We will avail ourselves of the Maidenhead Station, and return by the first train. While however we wait for the train, let us just step down to the noble bridge that carries the railway over the Thames, and look at the pretty picture that is seen through the arches. (Cut, No. 7.) How different is the

scene looking down the river through this railway bridge, to that we have when we look in the opposite direction from the stone bridge which here crosses the Thames! There we see an upland tract of richly wooded country rising boldly from the water on one side, and broad fertile meadows on the other: here the river is skirted merely by long beds of osiers, and the level line is only broken by the steeple of a church, which in the distance lifts itself above a clump of trees. We confess we should not have observed how pleasing this little bit of landscape might become, had not one with a finer artistic eye shown us it through this noble span which serves so well as a frame to display it to advantage. The tower belongs to Bray Church, whose vicar has so often been called in to sharpen the zest of a pithy sentence. We cannot now explore Bray for ourselves, and will therefore hear what is said about it in the work we have recently quoted :

"The name of Bray is sure to recal the memory of its 'vivacious vicar' who 'whatsoever king did reign would still be vicar of Bray.' Fuller, after quoting the proverb, the sole one of this country'-'The vicar of Bray will be vicar of Bray still,' gives this account of both parish and parson. 'Bray, a village well known in this county, so called from the Bibroces, a kind of ancient Britons inhabiting thereabouts. The vivacious vicar thereof, living under King Henry VIII., King Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. He had seen some martyrs burnt (two miles off) at Windsor, and found this fire too hot for his tender temper. This vicar being taxed by one for being a turncoat, and an inconstant change

ling, "Not so," said he, "for I always kept my principle, which is this, to live and die the vicar of Bray." Such many, now-a-days, who though they cannot turn the wind will turn their mills, and set them so that wheresoever it bloweth their grist shall certainly be grinded.' ('Worthies-Berkshire.')

"The well-known ballad makes the vicar to have lived in later times, turning windward from the days of Charles the Second to those of the Second George. For the honour of Bray it must be added that the church records refute both: but, barring specialities, there is truth in the story, and the race is not extinct yet. Bray itself has not much in it that is of interest, but about a mile from it, at Ockwells, formerly Ockholt, there is a very curious manor-house, now used as a farm-house: it is of the time of Henry VI., and is one of the most interesting relics of the kind left. The old house is of a singularly picturesque appearance, with a number of projecting wooden gables and some curious windows. In the interior is a fine hall belonging to it, in which there is an open wooden roof, now hidden by a flat ceiling; a handsome bay-window; and a large old fire-place. In the hall windows is some painted glass. There was formerly a chapel attached; but it and some portions of the house were burnt down about sixty years ago, through the carelessness of a beggar, who having been permitted to sleep there, shook the lighted ashes from his pipe among the straw. What remains of the chapel is used as a pigeon-house." (Rambles by Rivers: the Thames.') For the sake of those who may be here, and be inclined to go on to Eton by the river, we may just mention that it is a very delightful route, whether they