Can I ever forget the happy days and nights there spent: The ardent fox hunt with whoop and hallo and winding horn: And would even TEMPERANCE blush to look, after the fatigues of the chase, at the old family bowl of mint julep, with its tuft of green peering above the inspiring liquid--an emerald isle in a sea of amber--the dewy drops, cool and sparkling, standing out upon its sides--all, all balmy and inviting? And then, the morning over and the noon passed, the business of the day accomplished, the social board is spread, loaded with flesh and fowl and the products of the garden and the orchard! Come let us regale the now lively senses and satisfy the excited appetite! What care we for ragouts and fricassee's, and olla podrida's, and all the foreign flummery that fashion and folly have brought into use? The juicy ham, the rich surloin, the fat saddle, make the _substantials_ of a VIRGINIA dinner, and "lily-livered" he, who would want a better. But when friends and strangers come--and welcome are they always! nature's watery store house is at hand, and windy must be the day indeed, when the Potomac cannot furnish a dish of chowder or crabs, to be added to the feast. How I have luxuriated at a Chotank dinner! Nor let pleasures of the table in this intellectual age be despised? Goddess of Hospitality forbid it! And well may I address thee in the _feminine_ gender, thou dispenser of heartfelt mirth! 'Tis WOMAN'S smile enlivens the feast--'tis WOMAN'S handy care that has so well provided it--'tis WOMAN'S kind encouragement that adds a charm to all you see around you. And now let us loll in the cool portico, shaded with the Lombardy poplar--the proper tree, let them say what they will, to surround a gentleman's mansion--so tall and stately, and therefore so appropriate. How delightful is the breeze on this height! See the white sails of the vessels, through the trees on the bank of the river, spread out to catch it, and how gracefully and even majestically they glide along. You can trace them up and down as far as the eye can reach, following their quiet courses. The beautiful slopes of the fields in Maryland, cultivated to the water's edge, fill up a picture surpassingly beautiful--not grand, but beautiful; for what can please more than the calm sunshine shed upon upland and lowland, with the glad waters glistening in its rays, and just enough of man's works on both "flood and field" to give life and motion to the scene! Surrounded with such a prospect as this, let the old folks discuss their crops, talk of their wheat and corn, and prognosticate the changes of the weather--or, as times now go, settle first the affairs of the county, then of the state, and lastly of the nation, while we steal away to the parlor.