The reality was once
enjoyed by the narrator, and there was a delight in the retrospection
"sweet and mournful to the soul." At the time these reflections arose
on such a scene, I often tasted the same pleasure in evening visits
to the beautiful rural environs of London, which then extended from
the north side of Fitzroy Square to beyond the Elm Grove on Primrose
Hill, and forward through the fields to Hampstead. But most of that
is all streets, or Regent's Park; and the sweet Hill, then the resort
of many a happy Sunday group, has not now a tree standing on it, and
hardly a blade of grass, "to mark where the primrose has been."]
"Autumn seemed to be unfolding all her beauties to greet the return
of the palatine. In one part the haymakers were mowing the hay and
heaping it into stacks; in another, the reapers were gathering up the
wheat, with a troop of rosy little gleaners behind them, each of whom
might have tempted the proudest Palemon in Christendom to have
changed her toil into 'a gentler duty.' Such a landscape intermingled
with the little farms of these honest people, whom the philanthropy
of Sobieski has rendered free (for it is a tract of his extensive
domains I am describing), reminded me of Somerset. Villages repose in
the green hollows of the vales, and cottages are seen peeping from
amidst the thick umbrage of the woods which cover the face of the
hills.
Pages:
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102