“As soon as it became light, we enjoyed most delightful views of a richly-wooded country. The trees in Hampshire are the largest I ever saw, and the country is almost covered with what we consider large woods. There is not a finer sight in the world than to be elevated above an extensive wood, and to see the trees extending as far as the eye can reach, till they become scarcely distinguishable from the sky.” He went to sketch Netley Abbey:— “While I was drawing, several parties came to visit the Abbey, and I entered into conversation with most of them. One gentleman was finding great fault with the taste of the proprietor of the Abbey. He said, ‘Now, if this was my Abbey, I’d get some masons and stop up all the holes, and I don’t know if I should not whitewash it. Would not you, Sir?’ I thought this opening speech promised fair, so that I nodded assent to induce him to go on; and he proceeded: ‘Then I’d remove all this rubbish (pointing to the masses of stonework which lay on the ground) and fetch some loads of gravel from the beach, with which I would cover the floor of the chapel, and have it rolled nice and flat; or I don’t know whether I should not lay turf instead, and keep the grass cut short, and as level as a bowling-green. Then I’d build a nice thatched cottage just by the gate there for the porter to live at; but I think I should have it within the chapel, because it would add very much to its appearance. The Abbey would be worth coming to see then; but now the fellow that owns it must be a fool.’ The gentleman then asked me what I thought of his proposed alterations, and I told him that they would certainly make the chapel look very _neat_ and _pretty_. ‘Ah!’ says he, ‘I see you are a young man of taste.’ I did not think it necessary to contradict him. He wished me good morning, and walked off, and I resumed my drawing, rejoicing that the Abbey was in better hands than his.” Crossing over to the Isle of Wight he passed through the village of Freshwater:— “Wishing to be acquainted with the etymology of the name Freshwater, I asked the sailors if the water in the bay was not so salt as the sea-water generally is. ‘Oh, yes,’ they replied, ‘it’s all alike.’ ‘What, then, is the reason of the names Freshwater Town and Freshwater Bay?’ I inquired. ‘Why, they are in Freshwater parish to be sure,’ was the reply.” On his way home he saw Stonehenge:—