a dripping rill, which falls into
the water below, whose bank is broken by thorns, and hazels, and
poplars, among darker shrubs. Here an urn appears with the following
inscription:--"M.S. Henrici Bowles, qui ad Calpen, febre ibi exitiali
grassante, publice missus, ipse miserrime periit--1804. Fratri
posuit."--Passing round the water, you come to an arched walk of hazels,
which leads to the green in front of the house, where, dipping a small
slope, the path passes near an old and ivied elm. As this seat looks on
the magnificent line of Bowood park and plantations, the obvious thought
could not be well avoided:

"When in thy sight another's vast domain
Spreads its dark sweep of woods, dost thou complain?
Nay! rather thank the God who placed thy state
Above the lowly, but beneath the great;
And still his name with gratitude revere,
Who bless'd the sabbath of thy leisure here."

The walk leads round a plantation of shrubs, to the bottom of the lawn,
from whence is seen a fountain, between a laurel arch; and through a
dark passage a gray sun-dial appears among beds of flowers, opposite the
fountain.

The sun-dial, a small, antique, twisted column, gray with age, was
probably the dial of the abbot of Malmesbury, and counted his hours when
at the adjoining lodge; for it was taken from the garden of the
farm-house, which had originally been the summer retirement of this
mitred lord. It has the appearance of being _monastic_, but a more
ornate capital has been added, the plate on which bears the date of
1688. I must again venture to give the appropriate inscription:--

"To count the brief and unreturning hours,
This Sun-Dial was placed among the flowers,
Which came forth in their beauty--smiled and died,
Blooming and withering round its ancient side.
Mortal, thy day is passing--see that flower,
And think upon the Shadow and the Hour!"

The whole of the small green slope is here dotted with beds of flowers;
a step, into some rock-work, leads to a kind of hermit's oratory, with
crucifix and stained glass, built to receive the shattered fragments, as
their last asylum, of the pillars of Stanly Abbey.

The dripping water passes through the rock-work into a large shell, the
gift of a valued friend, the author of "The Pleasures of Memory;" and I
add, with less hesitation, the inscription, because it was furnished by
the author of "The Pains of Memory," a poem, in its kind, of the most
exquisite harmo