A little way farther, and a turn to the left leads to another spot consecrated by genius,--Woodcot, where Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton passed the earlier years of his married life, and wrote several of his most powerful novels. I have always thought that the scenery of Paul Clifford caught some of its tone from that wild and beautiful country, for wild and beautiful it is. The terrace in the grounds commands a most extensive prospect; and beneath a clump of trees on the common behind the house, is the only spot where on a clear day Windsor may be seen on one side, and Oxford on the other,--looking almost like the domes, and towers, and pinnacles that sometimes appear in the clouds--a fairy picture that the next breeze may waft away! This beautiful residence stands so high, that one of its former possessors, Admiral Fraser (grandfather to that dear friend of mine who is the present owner), could discover Woodcot Clump from the mast of his own ship at Spithead, a distance of sixty miles. Wyfold's Court, another pretty place a little farther on, which also belonged once to a most dear friend, possesses the finest Wych-elms in England. Artists come from far and near to paint these stately trees, whose down-dropping branches and magnificent height are at once so graceful and so rich. They are said always to indicate ecclesiastical possession, but no trace of such dependency is to be found in the title-deeds, or in the tenure by which in feudal times the lands were held,--that of presenting a rose to the King, should he pass by a certain road on a May-day. And now we approach Rotherfield Grays,--its bowery lanes, its wild rugged commons, and its vast beech woods, from the edge of which projects every here and there a huge cherry-tree, looking, in the blossoming springtime, as if carved in ivory, so exquisite is the whiteness, casting upon the ferny-turf underneath showers of snowy petals that blanch the very ground, and diffusing around an almond-like odor, that mingles with the springing thyme and the flowering gorse, and loads the very air with heavy balm.