sign of the ruin to which every thing is hastening—that all the farmers' daughters come to church in silk gowns; a thing which the Queen will not allow in the housemaids of Windsor Castle. Then the drives, where you see no carriage but your own—the walks, where you leave on every hedge a fragment of your dress. Deeply do I sympathise with the French Countess, who (doomed to the society of three maiden aunts, two uncles—one of the farming, the other of the shooting species—and a horde of undistinguishable cousins) said, when advised to fish for her amusement, or knit for her employment, 'Alas! I have no taste for innocent pleasures.'"
"I do think," returned Mr. Morland, "that the country owes much of its merit to being unknown. The philosopher speaks of its happiness, the poet of its beauties, on the very reverse principle to Pope's: they should alter this line, and say,
'They best can paint them who have known them least.'
Still, the country is very pleasant sometimes. I do not feel at all discontented just now," glancing first round the breakfast table, and
