A little way up the stranger will break upon the most lovely valley he ever sat eyes on. It is in fact a bason, circumgirt on all sides, with a more or less quantity of beautiful trees and underwood. In the centre, on a gentle rising, are the farm premises of Mr Dorey, which is entered from the road by a curious old broken Saxon arch. Adjoining the farmyard, is a gigantic holly-tree, measuring at the base seven feet two inches in circumference, and midway up four feet six inches and one eight, having for its recommendation a clean and healthy stem whereon not a single knot or other imperfection can be traced upon its silver-skinned bark from the root upwards. The tree itself stands about fifty feet, and the trunk twenty-five feet. In the above valley is every thing that can fascinate the poet, the painter, and the admirer of the picturesque, and if the stranger's visit to this charming spot should be in the autumn, he may perhaps indulge with the author; for it was a beautiful day, on the threshold of winter, that he visited it under the following impression:-- [Illustration from previous page] Here, fain would we look back or linger where we are, for many charms yet surround us; true, indeed, a fairer vision is receding from us,--brighter skies and a greener earth; but when we look around, and see the beauteous hues which yet garnish the woods, and the few blossoms that still faintly smile upon their stalks, we feel a sympathy with the melancholy cast of the season; and almost fancy that neither the cheerful visions of the spring, the glowing luxuriance of summer, nor the mellow tints of autumn, equal the sombre charm of the closing scene. Surely none speak to the heart with such impressive language, none so full of calm thoughts, sober recollections, and gentle feelings. Who that ever trod this sylvan valley, rustling beneath his feet the heaps of leaves that once danced greenly and gaily on the outstretched bows, but dwells on abject prospects, blighted hopes, joys, loves, affections cherished and buried? Who that hears amid this stillness, the drop of a leaf amid its companions, but is feelingly and touchingly reminded that all natural things decay. He feels that the holiday of youth is past into summer--summer into autumn, and that he too must soon drop as noiseless and as silent as that leaf before him in the winter of his life. But let me for a moment part from this moral strain, and walk in fellow companionship to yonder mound and beat the leaves in our way, for there are many lovely pictures which linger before the eye as we wade through them in the stillness of an October noon; such as the deep red of some, the ashen hue of others, with all the intermediate tints of orange and yellow, and the brown duskier hues that deepen into nothingness and decay. The dark shining green of the holly, with its scarlet berries in connexion with the adjoining laurel, bears to the poetic feeling