turned,
there was nothing to be seen but park, miles upon miles of park; not
a cornfield in sight, not a roof-tree, not a spire, only those _lata
silentia_,--still widths of turf, and, somewhat thinly scattered and
afar, those groves of giant trees. The whole prospect so vast and
so monotonous that it never tempted you to take a walk. No
close-neighbouring poetic thicket into which to plunge, uncertain
whither you would emerge; no devious stream to follow. The very deer,
fat and heavy, seemed bored by pastures it would take them a week to
traverse. People of moderate wishes and modest fortunes never envied
Montfort Court: they admired it; they were proud to say they had seen
it. But never did they say--

"Oh, that for me some home like this would smile!"

Not so, very, very great people!--they rather coveted than admired.
Those oak trees so large, yet so undecayed; that park, eighteen miles at
least in circumference; that solid palace which, without inconvenience,
could entertain and stow away a king and his whole court; in short,
all that evidence of a princely territory and a weighty rent-roll made
English dukes respectfully envious, and foreign potentates gratifyingly
jealous.

But turn from the front. Open the gate in that stone balustrade.
Come southward to the garden side of the house. Lady Montfort's
flower-garden. Yes; not so dull!--flowers, even autumnal flowers,
enliven any sward. Still, on so large a scale, and so little relief;
so little mystery about those broad gravel-walks; not a winding
alley anywhere. Oh, for a vulgar summer-house; for some alcove, all
honeysuckle and ivy! But the dahlias are splendid! Very true; only,
dahlias, at the best, are such uninteresting prosy things. What poet
ever wrote upon a dahlia! Surely Lady Montfort might have introduced
a little more taste here, shown a little more fancy! Lady Montfort!
I should like to see my lord's face if Lady Montfort took any such
liberty. But there is Lady Montfort walking slowly along that broad,
broad, broad gravel-walk; those splendid dahlias, on either side, in
their set parterres. There she walks, in full evidence from all those
sixty remorseless windows on the garden front, each window exactly like
the other. There she walks, looking wistfully to the far end ('t is
a long way off), where, happily, there is a wicket that carries a
persevering pedestrian out of sight of the sixty windows into shady
walks, towards the banks of that im