gh was charming. One or two of the cottages by the
roadside, half-smothered in vine and honeysuckle, reminded me of
Lady Juliana,[B] who, when she said she could live in a desert with
her lover, thought that it was a "sort of place full of roses." ...
These laborers' cottages were certainly the poor dwellings of very
poor people, but there was nothing unsightly, repulsive, or squalid
about them--on the contrary, a look of order, of tidy neatness
about the little houses, that added the peculiarly English element
of comfort and cleanliness to the picturesqueness of their fragrant
festoons of flowery drapery, hung over them by the sweet season.
The little plots of flower-garden one mass of rich color; the tiny
strip of kitchen-garden, well stocked and trimly kept, beside it;
the thriving fruitful orchard stretching round the whole; and
beyond, the rich cultivated land rolling its waving corn-fields,
already tawny and sunburnt, in mellow contrast with the smooth
green pasturages, with their deep-shadowed trees and bordering
lines of ivied hawthorn hedgerows, marking boundary-lines of
division without marring the general prospect--a lovely landscape
that sang aloud of plenty, industry, and thrift. I wonder if any
country is more blessed of God than this precious little England? I
think it is like one of its own fair, nobly blooming, vigorous
women; her temper--that's the climate--not perfection, to be sure
(but, after all, the old praise of it is true; it admits of more
constant and regular out-of-door exercise than any other); the
religion it professes, pure; the morality it practises, pure,
probably by comparison with that of other powerful and wealthy
nations. Oh, I trust that neither reform nor its extreme,
revolution, will have power to injure this healthily, heartily
constituted land....

[B] In Miss Ferrie's novel, "Marriage."

EXETER, July 24th, 1831.
DEAREST H----,

We arrived here last night, or rather evening, at half-past six
o'clock, and I found your letter, which, having waited for me,
shall not wait for my answer....

Thank you for John's translation of the German song, the original
of which I know and like very much. The thoughts it suggested to
you must constantly arise in all of