corated by flower-beds and shrubs, with single Swedish junipers, which act as mimic cypresses, projecting before them!

The primary leading path, which is formed to embrace the whole of the most captivating features of the garden, then reaches a bower, designed by Mason for that particular spot. The front consists of three unequal arches, and is painted green, and covered with climbers. On either side are busts of Venus and Apollo.

ON THE BUST OF VENUS.

Thee, goddess! thee the clouds and tempests fear,
And at thy pleasing presence disappear:

For thee the land in fragrant flow'rs is dress'd.

DRYDEN, from LUCRETIUS.

ON THE BUST OF APOLLO.

Lucido Dio,

Per cui l' April fiorisce.

METASTASIO.

Within is a cast of Cupid and Psyche, from the antique; and, on a tablet, are the following verses, by Andrew Marvell:

Fair quiet, have I found thee here,

With innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long I sought thee then

In busy companies of men;

Your sacred plants, at length, I know,

Will only in retirement grow.

Society is all but rude,

To this delicious solitude,

Where all the flowers and trees do close

To weave the garland of repose.

The walk now bends to the left, where, on a bank between two

beeches, is a bust of Prior:

See

See, friend, in some few fleeting hours,
See yonder what a change is made!
Ah me! the blooming pride of May,
And that of beauty, are but one;
At morn both flourish, bright and gay,

Both fade at evening, pale and gone!

The path then takes a bolder sweep as it descends; and, within a recess in the shrubbery, surrounded by sombre evergreens, is placed on an altar a votive urn, thus inscribed:

SACRED

To the Memory of FRANCES POOLE,
Viscountess Palmerston.

Here shall our ling'ring footsteps oft be found,
This is her shrine, and consecrates the ground.
Here living sweets around her altar rise,
And breathe perpetual incense to the skies.
Here too the thoughtless and the young may tread,

Who shun the drearier mansions of the dead;

May here be taught what worth the world has known.
Her wit, her sense, her virtues, were her own;

To her peculiar, and for ever lost

To those who knew, and therefore lov'd her, most.

O! if kind pity steal on virtue's eye,

Check not the tear, nor stop the useful sigh;
From soft humanity's ingenuous flame

A wish may rise to emulate her fame,

And some faint image of her worth restore,

When those who now lament her are no more.

George Simon Harcourt, and the Honourable Elizabeth Vernon, Viscount and Viscountess Nuneham, erected this urn in the year 1771, and William Whitehead, Esq. Poet Laureat, wrote the

verses.

In

In other parts of the garden are busts of Locke and Cowley, with the following inscriptions:

COWLEY.

When Epicurus to the world had taught

That pleasure was the chiefest good,

His life he to his doctrine brought,

And in a garden's shade that sovereign good he sought.

LOCKE.

Who made the whole internal world his own,

And shew'd confess'd to reason's purged eye,
That Nature's first best gift was liberty.

The conservatory is stored with orange trees of various kinds, planted in the ground. The treillage of the back wall is covered with exotic jessamines, &c.

This garden must ever be considered interesting, as a proof of the facility with which the accomplished Mason could reduce to practice those theoretic principles which he laid down in his excellent poem. It will be observed that the ornaments are numerous; but they are so placed as to be seen in unexpected succession. Every embellishment partakes of sentiment, and of sentiment so refined, that the most scrupulous taste can scarcely allow any circumstance to be superfluous. "A flower garden," says Lord Harcourt, "being professedly a work of art, admits of all the embellishments that art can bestow. But taste alone could not have formed this spot, in which so much of invention and fancy is displayed, that it is apparent the genius of poetry must have assisted in the composition."

Nuneham has called forth the frequent aspirations of poetic genius. Besides the pieces written by Mason, Jerningham, Whitehead, and Walpole, several unacknowledged poems, which

evidently

evidently proceeded from no mean hands, have been left in the most admired parts of the domain,

The village of Nuneham Courtenay is situate on the high road from Oxford to London, through Henley, and was entirely built by the noble family on whom it is dependent. The houses are calculated for rustic labourers, and are uniformly divided into pairs. Nearly in the centre of one of the sides is a cottageresidence of a superior character, intended for the officiating clergyman.

In the village is a school, supported by the Earl of Harcourt, which is open to all the children of the neighbourhood. The mode of tuition is nearly framed on the Lancaster principles, and emulation is judiciously excited by various prizes, rising in value from a childish picture to a comfortable article of dress. The curate of the parish is visitor of this laudable institution.

At the distance of half a mile from Nuneham Courtenay is BALDON, the seat of Lady Willoughby, placed on a gentle knoll, and adorned by a pleasing succession of wood and water. The late Sir Christopher Willoughby retained for his own use a considerable portion of farming land, adjacent to the house. The style of hospitable plenty in which the management of this land enabled him to furnish his table, with a moderate expense, is thus described by Young, and reminds us of the ancient times in which the country gentleman's board was proverbial for weighty simplicity. "The design of Sir Christopher Willoughby's farming is to raise every object of the consumption of a family of thirty, at home, that the climate of the country will give. He annually kills eighty sheep; and, by agreement with a neighbour, he eats his own beef. He keeps nineteen cows, for butter, milk, cream, and cheese. A productive dove-house yields an ample supply of pigeons. His ponds (having a small stream through them, and being well attended,) afford him carp, tench, and perch: carp of three to six pounds, tench one pound, perch from half a pound to two pounds weight, and to be had when

9

ever

ever he wants them. Poultry of all sorts in great abundance. Game. His own wheat, oats, and hay: makes his own malt, and raises hops and poles. All this forms a system of family plenty, and gives the satisfaction of every thing being good of the sort, if due attention be paid to the management; and, when it is effected by little other expense than the labour and taxes of a farm of less than 400 acres, for the supply of so large a family, with a considerable surplus of many articles for sale, it is, in the mind of this reflecting proprietor, a proof that the system is not only pleasant, but profitable.”

The Plants, found in Bullington hundred, most worthy of notice on account of their rarity, are Carex Inflata. Lesser Bladder Carex in ponds and watery places at Ifley. Symphytum officinale (flo. purp.) Comfrey with a purple flower, near Wheatley Bridge. Tordylium officinale. Small Tordylium: on the banks between Headington and Oxford.

THAME HUNDRED

touches Buckinghamshire on the north and east, and is partly separated from Bullington on the west by the river Thame. The streams connected with the Thame are numerous, and the pasture land of this district is eminently fertile. The soil of the arable land possesses no general distinction of character; but is chiefly good; and, in some spots, is more amenable to agriculture than is the soil in any other part of the county. Thame appears to have formed a part of the hundred of Dorchester at the time of the Norman Survey. The lordship is now vested in the Earl of Abingdon.

Thame hundred consists of the market town of THAME; the hamlet of Ascott; the extra-parochial district, termed Attington; and the parishes of Great Milton, Little Milton, Tetsworth, and Waterstock.

The amount of money raised for the poor, in 1803, was