If the beauty of England were only superficial it would produce only a superficial effect. It would cause a passing pleasure and would be forgotten. It certainly would not--as now in fact it does--inspire a deep, joyous, serene and grateful contentment, and linger in the mind, a gracious and beneficent remembrance. The conquering and lasting potency of it resides not alone in loveliness of expression but in loveliness of character. Having first greatly blessed the British islands with the natural advantages of position, climate, soil, and products, nature has wrought their development and adornment as a necessary consequence of the spirit of their inhabitants. The picturesque variety and pastoral repose of the English landscape spring, in a considerable measure, from the imaginative taste and the affectionate gentleness of the English people. The state of the country, like its social constitution, flows from principles within, which are constantly suggested, and it steadily comforts and nourishes the mind with a sense of kindly feeling, moral rectitude, solidity, and permanence. Illustration: "Windsor Castle." Thus in the peculiar beauty of England the ideal is made the actual--is expressed in things more than in words, and in things by which words are transcended. Milton's "L'Allegro," fine as it is, is not so fine as the scenery--the crystallised, embodied poetry--out of which it arose. All the delicious rural verse that has been written in England is only the excess and superflux of her own poetic opulence: it has rippled from the hearts of her poets just as the fragrance floats away from her hawthorn hedges. At every step of his progress the pilgrim through English scenes is impressed with this sovereign excellence of the accomplished fact, as contrasted with any words that can be said in its celebration.