similar reflections
no doubt fill the minds of many a thoughtful English traveler as the
train speeds over hill and dale, field and forest. What sites are
here! he thinks. What a perfect park might be made out of that wild
ground! what cover-shooting there ought to be in that woodland! what
fishing and boating on that lake! And then he groans in spirit as the
cars enter a forest where tree leans against tree, and neglect reigns
on all sides, and he thinks of the glorious oaks and beeches so
carefully cared for in his own country, where trees and flowery are
loved and petted as much as dogs and horses. And if anything can
increase the contempt he feels for those who "don't care a rap" for
country and country life, it is a visit to such resorts as Newport and
Saratoga. There he finds men whose only notion of country life is what
he would hold to be utterly destitute of all its ingredients. They
build palaces in paddocks, take actually no exercise, play at cards
for three hours in the forenoon, dine, and then drive out "just like
ladies," we heard a young Oxonian exclaim--"got up" in the style that
an Englishman adopts only in Hyde Park or Piccadilly.

When an American went to stay with Lord Palmerston at Broadlands, the
great minister ordered horses for a ride in the delicious glades of
the New Forest. When they came to the door his guest was obliged to
confess himself no horseman. The premier, with ready courtesy, said,
"Oh, then, we'll walk: it's all the same to me;" but it wasn't quite
the same. The incident was just one of those which separate the
Englishman of a certain rank from the American.

There is of course a certain class of Americans, more especially among
the _jeunesse doree_ of New York, who greatly affect sport: they
"run" horses and shoot pigeons, but these are not persons who commend
themselves to real gentlemen, English or American. They belong to
the bad style of "fast men," and are as thoroughly distasteful to
a Devonshire or Cheshire squire as to one who merits "the grand old
name"--which they conspicuously defame--in their own country.

The English country-loving gentleman to whom we have been referring
is, for the most part, of a widely different mould--a man of
first-rate education, frequently of high attainments, and often one
whose ends and aims in life are for far higher things than pleasure,
even of the most innocent kind, but who, when he takes it, derives it
chiefly from the country. Many