The Tom-thumb Church of St. Lawrence, with walls six feet high, and all the rest in proportion; the beauties of Ventnor, and Bonchurch, and Shanklin Chine; in short, the entire scenery of the Undercliff is enchanting, and bewitches one with a desire to build a tabernacle there, and to rest from one’s labours. At Brading, I paused, in honour of good Legh Richmond, and visited the grave of his “Young Cottager.” Ryde is a pleasant place enough, something like our Staten Island towns in situation, and in many other particulars. But my drive from Ryde to Newport, through Wooton and Fern-hill, disclosed many of those inland scenes of rural beauty, for which the Isle of Wight is unsurpassed. Hedges, thick and green, on each side of the road, with wild woodbine twisting all over them, and loading the air with perfumes, were the appropriate frame-work of rich fields, waving with golden crops, fragrant with new-mown hay, or filled with pasturing cattle, while here and there they enclosed a little garden full of flowers, or were broken by the prettiest cottages in all the world, neatly whitewashed, and trimly thatched, and planted about with white and red roses, clambering over the windows, mounting to the eaves, and even straggling among the straw, to the ridge of the roof. Again I caught a glimpse of the towers of Osborne; but it seemed to me that the Queen herself might be willing to exchange them for these charming little snuggeries of her contented peasantry. But I came to the Isle, above all, to see Carisbrooke Castle, and thither I went, after a night at Newport. It was a bright, unclouded morning, and I went alone. Over a little bridge you pass to the great doorway, between two massive towers, hung with verdure, and pierced with cross-shaped arrow-slits. All was as quiet and as beautiful as if no history brooded over the spot, with strange and melancholy witchery. The twitter of a bird, the nodding of a wild rose in the morning breeze, the sparkling of the dew upon the leaves, all seemed to share something of the mysterious spell. ‘How still, and yet how speaking, thought I, this scene of mighty personal struggles, of a crisis of ages, of overwhelming sorrows! Is it not conscious of its own dignity? Poor Charles! after seeing thy brief wrestling with adversity, it has lapsed into desolation, and lets the world have its own way, while it alone wears enduring tokens of sympathy with thee!’