Excerpt
One of the most beautiful spots in the north of Hampshire—a part of the country which, from its winding green lanes, with the trees meeting over head-like a cradle, its winding roads between coppices, with wide turfy margents on either side, as if left on purpose for the picturesque and frequent gipsy camp, its abundance of hedgerow timber, and its extensive tracts of woodland, seems as if the fields were just dug out of the forest, as might have happened in the days of William Rufus—one of the loveliest scenes in this lovely county is the Great Pond at Ashley End.
Ashley End is itself a romantic and beautiful village, struggling down a steep hill to a clear and narrow running stream, which crosses the road in the bottom, crossed in its turn by a picturesque wooden bridge, and then winding with equal abruptness up the opposite acclivity, so that the scattered cottages, separated from each other by long strips of garden ground, the little country inn, and two or three old-fashioned tenements of somewhat higher pretensions, surrounded by their own moss-grown orchards, seemed to be completely shut out from this bustling world, buried in the sloping meadows so deeply green, and the hanging woods so rich in their various tinting, along which the slender wreaths of smoke from the old clustered chimneys went smiling peacefully in the pleasant autumn air. So profound was the tranquillity, that the slender streamlet which gushed along the valley, following its natural windings, and glittering in the noonday sun like a thread of silver, seemed to the unfrequent visiters of that remote hamlet the only trace of life and motion in the picture.
The source of this pretty brook was undoubtedly the Great Pond, although there was no other road to it than by climbing the steep hill beyond the village, and then turning suddenly to the right, and descending by a deep cart-track, which led between wild banks covered with heath and feathery broom, garlanded with bramble and briar roses, and gay with the purple heath-flower and the delicate harebell,* to a scene even more beautiful and more solitary than the hamlet itself.
* One of the pleasantest moments that I have ever known, wasthat of the introduction of an accomplished young Americanto the common harebell, upon the very spot which I haveattempted to describe. He had never seen that English wild-flower, consecrated by the poetry of our common language,was struck even more than I expected by its delicate beauty,placed it in his button-hole, and repeated with enthusiasmthe charming lines of Scott, from the Lady of the Lake:—"For me,"—she stooped, and, looking round,Plucked a blue harebell from the ground,—"For me, whose memory scarce conveysAn image of more splendid days,This little flower, that loves the lea,May well my simple emblem be;It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as roseThat in the King's own garden grows,And when I place it in my hair,Allan, a bard, is bound to swearHe ne'er saw coronet so fair."Still greater was the delight with which anotherAmerican recognised that blossom of a thousandassociations—the flower sacred to Milton and Shakspeare—theEnglish primrose. He bent his knee to the ground ingathering a bunch, with a reverential expression which Ishall not easily forget, as if the flower were to him anembodiment of the great poets by whom it has beenconsecrated to fame; and he also had the good taste not tobe ashamed of his own enthusiasm. I have had the pleasure ofexporting, this spring, to my friend Miss Sedgwick, (towhose family one of my visiters belongs,) roots and seeds ofthese wild flowers, of the common violet, the cowslip, andthe ivy, another of our indigenous plants which ourTransatlantic brethren want, and with which Mr....