But a truce to sanitation and economics. Let us follow the Derwent, unfragrant as it has become, past Spondon and the pretty mills at Borrowash, to Elvaston, the noble domain of the Earl of Harrington. The stream supplies with water a spacious ornamental lake, with four islands, concerning which the first Duke of Wellington, walking round it in company with Charles, the fourth Earl, stopped suddenly, and looking round, exclaimed, "Harrington, this is the only natural piece of artificial water I ever saw in my life." The gardens and grounds themselves are a triumph of arboriculture and landscape gardening; and who is there that has not heard of their avenues of quaintly clipped trees? The church tower and castle rise above a forest of patrician trees, while umbrageous aisles of green give vistas of scenes "where Boccaccio might have wooed and Watteau painted." These poetic perspectives look upon rockery and statuary, lawn and fountain, borders and beds of flowers. There is an avenue of elms a mile in length, framing at the extremity a view of the Gotham hills. The "golden" gates at the entrance-lodge belonged to the first Napoleon, and once occupied a position near the royal palace at Paris; they were erected here in 1819. The castle and church adjoin each other. The former is a Gothic mansion, which in 1643 was plundered by the Cromwellian troops. A costly monument in memory of Sir John Stanhope was demolished, and outrages were committed in the family vault. The church is a picturesque edifice, with a lofty perpendicular tower; in it are effigies of Sir John Stanhope and his wife, dated 1610, and other interesting family memorials. Below Elvaston the Derwent flows through a flat country, and at its estuary at Wilne, near Shardlow, has greatly contracted its banks, so that it presents a striking contrast to the broad and powerful Trent. The Derbyshire river, indeed, is not worth following for its own sake below the county town. EDWARD BRADBURY. [Illustration: IN THE SOUTH GARDENS, ELVASTON.] [Illustration: TRENT BRIDGE, NOTTINGHAM.] THE HUMBER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. CHAPTER V. THE TRENT, FROM THE DERWENT TO THE HUMBER. The Soar--Trent Junction--The Erewash--Gotham and its Wise Men--Clifton Hall and Grove--Nottingham and its History--Colwich Hall and Mary Chaworth--Sherwood Forest--Newark--Gainsborough--Axholme--The Confluence with the Humber.