The mansion of the family is situated about a mile and a half from the village of Penicuik, on a commanding situation, overlooking the wooded valley of the Esk, a “classic stream” which, at this point, is still uncontaminated by the chemicals of the paper-makers, whose manufactories begin to appear a little lower, at the village itself. Manifestly great care and the finest taste have been expended by the successive owners of the place in laying out the grounds, which are a triumph of landscape-gardening, so filled are they with pleasant combinations of woodland, lawn, and flowers; and we shall hardly forget their gorgeous aspect on that summer day when we first saw them, with their wealth of purple rhododendron blossoms, and, here and there, a touch of particularly vivid crimson of beech-leaves diversifying the “greenery” of June. Especially noticeable is the skill which has arranged that spaces of shadowed and closely enclosed foliage shall lead, with all the force of sharp and grateful contrast, to amplest breadth of outlook and extended view; and so aptly does the peak of the Black Hill top the belt of trees that bounds the Upper Pond, and with such a perfect sense of definitely calculated balance, of satisfying composition, does the blue outline of Mendick complete the view as we look up the stream from near the south front of the house, that, in a fanciful mood, we could well believe the whole to have been the result of something more than a mere happy chance,—could almost imagine that he who designed the place had been gifted with a wizard’s power, greater than that of the Prophet himself, that the mountains had indeed been at his beck and call, that they had come at his bidding, and taken their stations, each in the precise spot best fitted to give to the prospect its last, its crowning perfection. Nay, Nature herself, even in her moments of wildest storm, seems to have been working in harmony with the designer of the place, and making for its beauty. When you have surveyed the last-named prospect, and turned a little towards the left to follow the depressions of the ground which mark the position of the unseen bed of the Esk, you note the greensward that borders the stream; and this leads the eye beyond to the further bank, where an open space of clearing among the trees diversifies the succession of their rounded tops, this break and point of pause being again repeated further up to the left among the trees that crest the hill. The last opening was the work of the tempest, which, by overturning a trunk or two, disclosed a glimpse of the distant Peeblesshire moor behind, giving just that final touch, that hint of the beyond “over the hills and far away,” which perfects the view,—not only to the painter, as completing the lines of its composition, but to the poet as well, by adding that sense of extended outlook, as of a vista piercing into the breadth of the world, which is needful, for finest imaginative effect, in every landscape.