It is not alone in summer, when the trees are thick with foliage, and the sun shines cheerily in at the windows, chasing away the memory of Lauderdale, Arlington, Ashley, and their fellows, that Ham House presents a striking appearance. It is the very type of house to make a winter picture, and there is nothing more characteristic of an English winter scene than this historic pile, looked upon from the river-side. The gaunt, bare elms, black against the dull sky, save where the snow has left some traces on less sheltered boughs, the frosted turf, the great iron gates and their tall piers, topped with an edging of snow which has gathered in the corners of the ironwork, a white drift banked up against the rusty hinges and the rarely-drawn bolt, glistening fleecy masses lodged above the door and on every projecting frame and cornice, a long roof hidden in snow, particles of which adhere even to the chimney-stacks--all this makes a picture which should be painted. The village of Ham, with its classic "Walks," is haunted by the towering shades of Pope and Swift, and the gentle ghosts of Thomson and Gay, an appropriate connecting-link between Twickenham and Richmond. Of Petersham, which adjoins Ham Common, little or nothing can be seen from the river. It has a church which, although architecturally uninteresting, is crowded with old monuments, and with famous and notorious dust. The Duchess of Lauderdale herself was both married and buried here; but she has no monument. George Vancouver, the circumnavigator and the godfather of Vancouver Island, lies here; so do the Misses Agnes and Mary Berry--Walpole's "favourite Berrys." Not the least distinguished of men who have been buried at Petersham within recent years is Mortimer Collins, who is still missed from among the ranks of lighter English writers.