With these inducements and recommendations to the love of nature so amply spread before us, we purpose introducing our readers to the principal scenes of rural beauty in the immediate neighbourhood, those sweet side-chapels in the grand cathedral which no locality is absolutely without. The experience of half a life-time has shown us that no trifling source of pleasure is such familiarity with nature as we hope to encourage. Days gone by are made brighter to recollection; the present are filled with the same pleasures; for it is the peculiar property of the happiness induced by the love of nature, that if we are trained in youth to seek and find it, when we are old it will not depart from us;--even the future is made cheerful and inviting by the certainty that, leaving us our eyes, nature for her part will never grow old nor look shabby, not even in winter, which is decorated in its own way, but will always, like the Graces, be young and lovely. That which truly keeps life going is sensibility to the romance of nature. Youth and age are measured fictitiously if we count only by birthdays. Some things always find us young, and make us young, and though love and kindness may be the best known of these, none act more powerfully than does the sweet smile of living nature. It is in conversing with nature, moreover, that we learn how foolish are affectation and sentimentalism; how poor we are in leisure for mournful musing and fruitless reverie; that the truest and most precious pleasures are those which are the manliest; how rich we are in opportunities for affection and generosity. The facilities for reaching the most charming and sequestered spots are now so great and manifold that no one need be a stranger to them. It is not as some fifteen years ago,[6] when they were only to be reached by a long walk, which consumed the half of one's time, or by a specially engaged conveyance, the expense of which compelled one's excursions to be like the angels' visits, few and far between. The railways, penetrating every nook and corner, now enable us to reach the very heart of the country in a very little while, fresh and nimble for our enjoyment, and, when over, the same will bring us home again. Honoured for ever be the name of Stephenson! It is in facilitating men's intercourse with nature, and the purest and most ennobling recreations they can enjoy and are capable of, that the social blessings of railways have their highest realisation. Vast is their use to commerce, but still vaster their unreckoned friendship to health and healthy-mindedness. Now, also, there are more persons prepared to supply our wants in the way of "Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy _tea_." Time was when the alehouse by the roadside, or the weary walk back to town, were the only choice open to our poor hunger and fatigue. But with the Saturday half-holiday, and the impetus it gave to rural visitings, there has sprung up a readiness on the part