BY MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. Two summers ago I spent a few pleasant weeks among some of the loveliest scenery of our great river. The banks of the Thames, always beautiful, are nowhere more delightful than in the neighborhood of Maidenhead--one side ramparted by the high, abrupt, chalky cliffs of Buckinghamshire; the other edging gently away into our rich Berkshire meadows, checkered with villages, villas, and woods. My own temporary home was one of singular beauty--a snug cottage at Taplow, looking over a garden full of honeysuckles, lilies, and roses, to a miniature terrace, whose steps led down into the water, or rather into our little boat; the fine old bridge at Maidenhead just below us; the magnificent woods of Cliefden, crowned with the lordly mansion (now, alas! a second time burnt down), rising high above; and the broad majestic river, fringed with willow and alder, gay with an ever-changing variety--the trim pleasure-yacht, the busy barge, or the punt of the solitary angler, gliding by placidly and slowly, the very image of calm and conscious power. No pleasanter residence, through the sultry months of July and August, than the Bridge cottage at Taplow. Besides the natural advantages of the situation, we were within reach of many interesting places, of which we, as strangers, contrived--as strangers usually do--to see a great deal more than the actual residents. A six-mile drive took us to the lordly towers of Windsor--the most queenly of our palaces--with the adjuncts that so well become the royal residence, St. George's Chapel and Eton College, fitting shrines of learning and devotion! Windsor was full of charm. The ghostly shadow of a tree, that is, or passes for Herne's oak--for the very man of whom we inquired our way maintained that the tree was apocryphal, although in such cases I hold it wisest and pleasantest to believe--the very old town itself, with the localities immortalized by Sir John and Sir Hugh, Dame Quickly and Justice Shallow, and all the company of the Merry Wives, had to me an unfailing attraction. To Windsor we drove again and again, until the pony spontaneously turned his head Windsor-ward.