and many a grateful pathway under the mingled boughs of beech and chestnut. Next to a fine woman, the most delightful object in creation is a noble and well-grown tree,--a group of such trees always reminds us of a bevy of fair ladies; and dull and unthankful must be the man who, in the tranquil and sacred shades of Alderley and Dunham, cannot realise to himself the most genuine and heartfelt pleasure that trees and woods can give. If they be not so sumptuous as the oaks of Worcestershire, or so stately as the elms of Surrey, our trees are as leafy and as green, and their shadows fall as softly on the summer afternoon. The great secret in the enjoyment of nature, as in our intercourse with society, is to look at its objects in a friendly light, to make the most of them, such as they are; not invidiously contrasting them with certain other objects at a distance, but recognising that absolute and positive beauty which is possessed by the very humblest. Superadd to this the habit of connecting our own feelings and emotions with the forms of nature, and, however wanting in attractions to the mere adulator of "fine scenery," every little flower, every bend of the branches, and sweet concurrent play of light and shade, every pendent shadow in the stream, becomes animated with a meaning and a power of satisfying such as none but those who accustom themselves to look for it _here_, can find in the most favoured and spacious landscape. Justly to appreciate the wonderful and rare, we must first learn to regard with a tender and intimate affection the common and the unpretending; in the degree that we withdraw from the latter, treating it with indifference or contempt, as surely does our capacity diminish for the former. The common things of earth are the most gracious gifts of God. None of us extract their full value, yet every man holds it in his power to make himself tenfold happier by a wise use of them. For true and continuous enjoyment of life is not attained by the gratification of high-flown and artificial wants, connected in large measure with the idea of pounds, shillings, and pence. It is found in the culture of love for common things, the untaxed game that no man can deprive us of, and which constitute the chief part of the beauties of the country. Hence the worth of nature to the poor. If the rich have their gardens and hothouses, here are flower-beds and parks, fresh from God's own hand, without money, and without price, and greater than the estates of all the nobles in the kingdom. Hence, too, coming close to home, we may see how little reason we have to lament the absence of the grand and wonderful, since nothing less than total nakedness of surface can take from a place its power to interest and please.