at on its tiny lake, and
brings back delightful hours and days spent in happy intercourse with
her. Mr. F---- had himself planned the house, which was as peculiar as
it was comfortable and elegant. A small vestibule, full of fine casts
from the antique (among others a rare original one of the glorious
Neapolitan Psyche, given to his brother-in-law, Mr. William Hamilton, by
the King of Naples), formed the entrance. The oval drawing-room, painted
in fresco by Mr. F----, recalled by its Italian scenes their wanderings
in the south of Europe. In the adjoining room were some choice pictures,
among others a fine copy of one of Titian's Venuses, and in the
dining-room an equally good one of his Venus and Adonis. The place of
honor, however, in this room was reserved for a life-size, full-length
portrait of Mrs. Siddons, which Lawrence painted for Mrs. F---- and
which is now in the National Gallery,--a production so little to my
taste both as picture and portrait that I used to wonder how Mrs.
F---- could tolerate such a representation of her admirable friend. The
principal charm of Bannisters, however, was the garden and grounds,
which, though of inconsiderable extent, were so skillfully and
tastefully laid out, that their bounds were always invisible. The lawn
and shrubberies were picturesquely irregular, and still retained some
kindred, in their fine oaks and patches of heather, to the beautiful
wild common which lay immediately beyond their precincts. A pretty piece
of ornamental water was set in flowering bushes and well-contrived
rockery, and in a more remote part of the grounds a little dark pond
reflected wild-wood banks and fine overspreading elms and beeches. The
small park had some charming clumps and single trees, and there was a
twilight walk of gigantic overarching laurels, of a growth that dated
back to a time of considerable antiquity, when the place had been part
of an ancient monastery. Above all, I delighted in my friend E----'s
favorite flower-garden, where her fine eye for color reveled in grouping
the softest, gayest, and richest masses of bloom, and where in a bay of
mossy turf, screened round with evergreens, the ancient vision of love
and immortality, the antique Cupid and Psyche, watched over the
fragrant, flowery domain.

Sweet Bannisters! to me for ever a refuge of consolation and sympathy in
seasons of trial and sorrow, of unfailing kindly welcome and devoted
constant affection; haven of pleasant re