tterly annihilated the countless
hosts of the all-but invisible enemy, and thus saved some of the finest
elms I ever saw in my life, under the shade of which the old family
mansion had enjoyed shelter from many a summer's sun. Brandon is the
only place I visited where the destroyer had not left marks of his
ravages. The lawn is beautifully laid out, and in the style of one of
our country villas of the olden time, giving every assurance of comfort
and every feeling of repose. The tropical richness and brightness of
leaf and flower added an inexpressible charm to them, as they stood out
in bold relief against the pure and cloudless air around, so different
from that indistinct outline which is but too common in our moist
atmosphere. Then there was the graceful and weeping willow, the
trembling aspen, the wild ivy, its white bloom tinged as with maiden's
blush; the broad-leafed catalpa; the magnolia, rich in foliage and in
flower; while scattered around were beds of bright and lovely colours.
The extremes of this charming view were bounded, either by the venerable
mansion over whose roof the patriarchal elms of which we have been
speaking threw their cool and welcome shade, or by the broad stream
whose bosom was ever and anon enlivened with some trim barque or
rapid-gliding steamer, and whose farther shore was wooded to the water's
edge. There is one of the finest China rose-trees here I ever beheld; it
covers a space of forty feet square, being led over on trellis-work, and
it might extend much beyond that distance: it is one mass of flowers
every year. Unfortunately, I was a week too late to see it in its glory;
but the withered flowers gave ample evidence how splendid it must have
been.

In one of my drives, I went to see an election which took place in the
neighbourhood. The road for some distance lay through a forest full of
magnificent timber; but, like most forest timber, that which gives it a
marketable value destroys its picturesque effect. A few noble
stems--however poor their heads--have a fine effect when surrounded by
others which have had elbow-room; but a forest of stems, with
Lilliputian heads--great though the girth of the stem may be--conveys
rather the idea of Brobdingnagian piles driven in by giants, and
exhibiting the last flickerings of vitality in a few puny sprouts at
their summit. The underwood was enlivened by shrubs of every shade and
hue, the wild flowering ivy predominating. The carriage-spring