universally used as working cattle. "Throughout this county I did not observe, in my late ride, one single instance of want of neatness about a poor man's house. It is the same with regard to the middle ranks: all is neat and beautiful, and particularly the hedges, of which I saw the handsomest white thorn hedge at Seddlescomb, that ever I saw in my life. It formed the inclosure of a garden in front of a pretty good house. It was about five feet high, about fifteen inches through; it came close to the ground, and it was sloped a little towards the top on each side, leaving a flat about four inches wide on the top of all. It had just been clipped; and it was as perpendicular and as smooth as a wall: I put my eye and looked along the sides of the several lines near the top, and if it had been built of stone, it could not have been truer. I lament that I did not ask the name of the owner, for it does him infinite credit. Those who see nothing but the nasty slovenly places in which labourers live, round London, know nothing of England. The fruit-trees are all kept in the nicest order; every bit of paling or wall is made use of, for the training of some sort or other. At _Lamberhurst_, which is one of the most beautiful villages that man ever sat his eyes on, I saw what I never saw before; namely, a _gooseberry tree trained against a house_. The house was one of those ancient buildings, consisting of a frame of oak wood, the internal filled up with brick, plastered over. The tree had been planted at the foot of one of the perpendicular pieces of wood; from the stem which, mounted up this piece of wood, were taken side limbs to run along the horizontal pieces. There were two windows, round the frame of each of which the limbs had been trained. The height of the highest shoot was about ten feet from the ground, and the horizontal shoots on each side were from eight to ten feet in length. The tree had been judiciously pruned, and all the limbs were full of very large gooseberries, considering the age of the fruit. This is only one instance out of thousands that I saw of extraordinary pains taken with the gardens." * * * * * A WINTER'S NIGHT.