quite an extraordinary case to find an old house badly placed. In the old times the country gentry lived in their mansions all the year, and only visited London occasionally, so that they were more anxious to make their homes comfortable than persons of the same rank at the present day, who live in London, and only visit the seats of their ancestors as they would a watering-place. You complain bitterly of your house not having an extensive view from it. You see nothing but trees, you say, in whichever direction you look; and you detest trees, because their foliage is monotonous, and so thick that you cannot see two hundred yards before you. This last is the real point of complaint. Forest scenery is extremely beautiful in itself, and principally from the great variety it presents in the same objects. A fine tree, even when bare of leaves in winter, is beautiful, from the delicate tracery presented by its branches, which look like the masts and rigging of a large ship, intricate, yet without confusion. In snow, trees assume a new character; the weight sustained by the branches makes them droop, and a thousand graceful and elegant forms take the place of what was before a stern and rigid outline. In hoarfrost trees glisten with a thousand gems, reflecting the rays of light in so many different colours, that they remind one of the description of Aladdin's magic garden. In spring they present vivid ideas of youth and fertility, and all nature appears awakening into new and vigorous life; the buds swell, their coverings burst, and the young leaves display their tender and delicate green; at first only half-unfolding their beautiful forms, and reminding one of a young and timid girl half-wishing and half-fearing to make her first appearance in the busy world. Trees now begin to assume each a new and decided character of its own. The leaves of no two trees are alike: those of the beech are of clear dark green, and so thin that they are almost transparent, and yet they are deeply marked with a strongly indented feather-like set of veins. The bark of the beech is clear and smooth, as though nature had intended it for the use to which it has so often been applied by lovers--to carve on it a fair one's name. The leaves of the elm are of a thick coarse texture, rugged and distorted, wrinkled, and of a dingy green; and the bark of the tree is cut into a thousand furrows. The leaves of the ash are light and pendulous, and cut into numerous leaflets; those of the oak are deeply indented, and generally grow in tufts. The palmate, drooping leaves of the horsechestnut contrast with the long, slender, and nearly erect leaves of the white willow; and those of the black poplar, which present a smooth outline, with those of the sweet chestnut, which are remarkable for their finely indented edges. In short, the leaves of every tree have beauties peculiar to themselves, in form as well as in colour. In autumn these colours become more decided; the lime trees