hree miles
before entering the tunnel under Popham Beacon. It may be known to some
sportsmen, as lying in one of the best portions of the Vine Hunt. It is
certainly not a picturesque country; it presents no grand or extensive
views; but the features are small rather than plain. The surface
continually swells and sinks, but the hills are not bold, nor the valleys
deep; and though it is sufficiently well clothed with woods and
hedgerows, yet the poverty of the soil in most places prevents the timber
from attaining a large size. Still it has its beauties. The lanes wind
along in a natural curve, continually fringed with irregular borders of
native turf, and lead to pleasant nooks and corners. One who knew and
loved it well very happily expressed its quiet charms, when he wrote

True taste is not fastidious, nor rejects,
Because they may not come within the rule
Of composition pure and picturesque,
Unnumbered simple scenes which fill the leaves
Of Nature's sketch book.

Of this somewhat tame country, Steventon, from the fall of the ground,
and the abundance of its timber, is certainly one of the prettiest spots;
yet one cannot be surprised that, when Jane's mother, a little before her
marriage, was shown the scenery of her future home, she should have
thought it unattractive, compared with the broad river, the rich valley,
and the noble hills which she had been accustomed to behold at her native
home near Henley-upon-Thames.

The house itself stood in a shallow valley, surrounded by sloping
meadows, well sprinkled with elm trees, at the end of a small village of
cottages, each well provided with a garden, scattered about prettily on
either side of the road. It was sufficiently commodious to hold pupils
in addition to a growing family, and was in those times considered to be
above the average of parsonages; but the rooms were finished with less
elegance than would now be found in the most ordinary dwellings. No
cornice marked the junction of wall and ceiling; while the beams which
supported the upper floors projected into the rooms below in all their
naked simplicity, covered only by a coat of paint or whitewash:
accordingly it has since been considered unworthy of being the Rectory
house of a family living, and about forty-five years ago it was pulled
down for the purpose of erecting a new house in a far better situation on
the opposite side of the valley.

North of the house, the road from Deane