Standing under these drooping elms, by this lazy stream, we hear none of the clatter of the great mill, and we cease to dream of affixing a period to its noiseless and effective work. [Illustration: CLIVE'S MONUMENT.] If we are not tired of parks for today, five minutes by rail will carry us west to Oatlands Park, with its appended, and more or less dependent, village of Walton-upon-Thames. But a surfeit even of English country-houses and their pleasances is a possible thing; and nowhere are they more abundant than within an hour's walk of our present locality. So, taking Ashley Park, Burwood Park, Pains Hill and many others, as well as the Coway Stakes--said by one school of antiquarians to have been planted in the Thames by Cæsar, and by another to be the relics of a fish-weir--Walton Church and Bradshaw's house, for granted, we shall turn to the east and finish the purlieus of Hampton with a glance at the old Saxon town of Kingston-on-Thames. Probably an ardent Kingstonian would indignantly disown the impression our three words are apt to give of the place. It is a rapidly--growing town, and "Egbert, the first king of all England," who held a council at "Kyningestun, famosa ilia locus," in 838, would be at a loss to find his way through its streets could he revisit it. It has the population of a Saxon county. Viewed from the massive bridge, with the church-tower rising above an expanse of sightly buildings, it possesses the least possible resemblance to the cluster of wattled huts that may be presumed to have sheltered Egbert and his peers. [Illustration: PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.]