I entirely agree with Mr. Gilpin that a country retiring into a remote distance is amongst the most pleasing circumstances in landscape, but when it happens, as it does here, to be supported by objects near at hand it is enchanting. It is not unfrequent that a dreary heath is terminated by a very pleasing distance, and it is certainly a very happy circumstance for the traveller who views a country with a picturesque eye when it is so, but it loses much for want of a fore-ground to support it; sometimes here and there how an accidental group of cattle form a pleasing substitute. The most beautiful effect given to a distance I ever saw was one evening, in my return from Holt, in the month of April. The forepart of the day had been cold and gloomy with frequent squalls, but towards the evening the sun broke out at intervals with the utmost brilliancy, lighting up in succession different parts of the landscape; the fore-ground was principally in shadow, as was the second distance, but the remote distance partook of the colour of the horizon which was a bright yellow, but kept down by the mistiness of the atmosphere;—the utmost keeping was preserved, producing at once the most sober and yet the most brilliant picture that can possibly be conceived. The clouds, except those in the western hemisphere, floated in large dark masses, intermixed with smaller light ones of the tenderest blue. The view towards the sea, though, but faintly illuminated, was no less pleasing, so that three or four pictures, all completely differing in circumstance and detail, might have been painted from a scene with little to recommend it, except where the sea formed a part of the view. Upon the disposition of the air depends the colouring of the landscape, of which no part of it partakes so much as the remote distance, and to this it is that we owe that exquisite obscurity and tenderness which stamp such value upon a distant prospect. The study of nature by the rules of painting is capable of bestowing other benefits besides what acrue to the arts; it leads us to inspect every object with the minutest care, and by so doing learn to appreciate its value. The stump of a decayed old tree, the formation of a tussuck of grass, or in short, innumerable things which pass unnoticed by the casual observer, afford to the lover of nature a most delicious repast. But, perhaps, there is nothing that tends more to harmonise the foul and render it susceptible of the finer feelings, than a distant view melting into the horizon, tinged with gold and diffusing its serenity over the face of nature.