The picturesque region of Matlock, with its cliffs and streams, its deep woods and romantic walks, is full of attraction. There we not only see the outward graces of Nature, but catch glimpses of her subtler elements. Springs, dripping from hidden sources, transform the fruit, or the bird's-nest with its fragile eggs, into stone with a Medusa touch; while in deep caverns are found beautiful spars, exquisitely tinted, as if prepared by the genii of the rock for the palace of their king. Varied and wonderful are the workings of earth, air, fire, and water in the Derbyshire valley, where a sensitive nature recognizes more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of many a passing traveller. To this region of beauty and mystery Byron often came in his youth. These cliffs and streams and woods were familiar to the young poet, and his retentive memory must have received here many of Nature's deep and marvellous lessons. Perhaps among these scenes there came to him those "noble aspirations in his youth To make his mind the mind of other men, The enlightener of nations, and to rise He know not whither, it might be to fall, But fall, even as the mountain-cataract, Which, having leapt from its more dazzling height, Lies low, but mighty still." In Byron's day, Matlock was a fashionable watering-place; and the drawing-room of the "Old Bath," with cut-glass chandeliers, old engravings, and cushioned window-seats, looks much the same as when it witnessed many a gay assembly. In this room the wayward and sensitive youth, secretly writhing with mortification at being prevented by lameness from leading Mary Chaworth to the dance, watched, her more fortunate partners with moody envy. The young Lady of Annesley little imagined that the lame boy, with his handsome face and troublesome temper, would link her name to deathless song. On a fair, sunny morning, towards the close of October, we left Matlock for Annesley Hall and Newstead Abbey. The day was in harmony with the poetical associations of our excursion: a gentle mist hung like a veil over hills and groves, giving a dreamy aspect to Nature, and rendering the places we intended to visit creations of fancy rather than actual facts. Very unromantic personages, however, answered our inquiries for Annesley, which reassured us of its reality. Byron's "Dream" had rendered the scenery familiar to our memory. "The hill Green and of mild declivity, the last, As 't were the cape, of a long ridge of such, Save that there was no sea to lave its base, But a most living landscape." Our approach led us beside those gentle slopes, and we seemed to see the maiden and the youth standing on the mild declivity, with its crowning circlet of trees. "And both were young, but not alike in youth: As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge, The maid was on the eve of womanhood; The boy had fewer summers.