has described, in his "Lover's Journey," the different aspects of the same landscape to the same individual, under different moods on his outward road, an Optimist, like my fellowtraveller, but on his return a malecontent like myself.

In the mean time, the coach stopped and opposite to what many a person, if seated in one of its right-hand corners, would have considered a very bad lookout, a muddy square space, bounded on three sides by plain brick stabling and wooden barns, with a dwarf wall, and a gate, for a foreground to the picture. In fact, a straw-yard, but untenanted by any live-stock, as if an Owenite plan amongst the brute creation, for living in a social parallelogram, had been abandoned. There seemed no peg here on which to hang any eulogium ; but the eye of the Optimist detected one in a moment:

"What a desirable Pond for Ducks!"

He then shifted his position to the opposite window, and with equal celerity discovered "a capital Pump! with oceans of excellent Spring Water, and a commodious handle within reach of the smallest Child!”

I wondered to myself how he would have described the foreign Fountains, where the sparkling fluid gushes from groups of Sculpture into marble basins, and without the trouble of pumping at all, ministers to the thirst and cleanliness of half a city. And yet I had seen some of our Travellers pass such a superb Water-work with scarcely a glance, and certainly without a syllable of notice! It is such Headless Tourists, by the way, who throng to the German Baths, and consider themselves Bubbled, because, without any mind's eye at all, they do not see all the pleasant things which were so graphically described by the Old Man of the Brunnens. For my own part I could not help thinking that I must have lost some pleasure in my own progress through life by being difficult to please.

For example, even during the present journey, whilst I had been inwardly grumbling at the weather, and yawning at the road, my fellow-traveller had been revelling in Italian skies, salubrious breezes, verdant enclosures, pastoral pictures, sympathizing with wet habits and dry, and enjoying desirable duckponds, and parochial Pumps!

What a contrast, methought, between the cheerful, contented spirit of my present companion, and the dissatisfied temper

and tone of Sir W. W., with whom I once had the uncomfortable honor of travelling tête-à-tête from Leipzig to Berlin. The road, it is true, was none of the most interesting, but even the tame and flat scenery of the Lincolnshire Fens may be rendered still more wearisome by sulkily throwing yourself back in your carriage and talking of Switzerland! But Sir W. W. was far too nice to be wise - too fastidious to be happy too critical to be contented. Whereas my present coachfellow was not afraid to admire a commonplace inn I forget its exact locality—but he described it as superior to any Oriental Caravansery — and with a Sign that, in the Infancy of The Art, might have passed for a Chef d' Euvre.”

Happy Man! How he must have enjoyed the Exhibitions of the Royal Academy, whereas to judge by our periodical critiques on such Works of Modern Art, there are scarcely a score out of a thousand annual Pictures that ought to give pleasure to a Connoisseur. Nay, even the Louvre has failed to satisfy some of its visitants, on the same principle that a matchless collection of Titians has been condemned for the want of a good Teniers.

But my fellow-traveller was none of that breed: he had nothing in common with a certain Lady, who with half London, or at least its Londoners, had inspected Wanstead House, prior to its demolition, and on being asked for her opinion of that princely mansion, replied that it was "short of cupboards."

In fact, he soon had an opportunity of pronouncing on a Country Seat-far, very, very far inferior to the House just mentioned, and declared it to be one which "Adam himself would have chosen for a Family Residence, if Domestic Architecture had flourished in the primeval Ages."

Happy Man, again! for with what joy, and comfort, and cheerfulness, for his co-tenants, would he have inhabited the enviable dwelling; and yet, to my private knowledge, the Proprietor was one of the most miserable of his species, simply because he chose to go through life like a pug-dog with his nose turned up at everything in the world. And, truly flesh is grass, and beauty is dust, and gold is dross, nay, life itself but a vapor; but instead of dwelling on such disparagements, it is far wiser and happier, like the florid gentleman in one corner of the Comet, to remember that one is not

a Sworn Appraiser, nor bound by oath like an Ale-Conner to think small beer of small beer.

From these reflections I was suddenly roused by the Optimist, who earnestly begged me to look out of the Window at a prospect which, though pleasing, was far from a fine one, for either variety or extent.

66 There, sir,

there's a Panorama! A perfect circle of enchantment! realizing the Arabia Felix of Fairy Land in the County of Kent!

Very pretty, indeed.”

"It's a gem, sir, even in our Land of Oaks - and may challenge a comparison with the most luxuriant Specimens of what the Great Gilpin calls Forest Scenery!"

"I think it may.'

By the by, did you ever see Scrublands, sir, in Sussex?" "Never, sir."

"Then, sir, you have yet to enjoy a romantic scene of the Sylvan Character, not to be paralleled within the limits of Geography! To describe it would require one to soar into the regions of Poetry, but I do not hesitate to say, that if the celebrated Robinson Crusoe were placed within sight of it, he would exclaim in a transport, 'Juan Fernandez !'"

"I do not doubt it, sir.”

Perhaps, sir, you have been in Derbyshire?" "No, sir."

"Then, sir, you have another splendid treat in futuro Braggins—a delicious amalgamation of Art and Nature, — a perfect Eden, sir, and the very spot, if there be one on the Terrestrial Globe, for the famous Milton to have realized his own 'Paradise Regained'!"

In this glowing style, waxing warmer and warmer with his own descriptions, the florid gentleman painted for me a series of highly-colored sketches of the places he had visited; each a retreat that would wonderfully have broken the fall of our first Parents, and so thickly scattered throughout the counties, that by a moderate computation our Fortunate Island contained at least a thousand "Perfect Paradises,” copyhold or freehold. A pleasant contrast to the gloomy pictures which are drawn by certain desponding and agriculturally-depressed Spirits who cannot find a single Elysian Field, pasture or arable, in the same country!

In the mean time, such is the force of sympathy, the Optimist had gradually inspired me with something of his own spirit, and I began to look out for and detect unrivalled forest scenery, and perfect panoramas, and little Edens, and might in time have picked out a romantic pump, or a picturesque post, but, alas in the very middle of my course of Beau Idealism, the coach stopped, the door opened, and with a hurried good-morning, the florid gentleman stepped out of the stage and into a gig which had been waiting for him at the end of a cross-road, and in another minute was driving down the lane between two of those hedges that are only to be seen in England.

"Well, go where thou wilt," thought I, as he disappeared behind the fence, "thou art certainly the Happiest Man in England!"

Yes he was gone; and a light and a glory had departed with him. The air again felt raw, the sky seemed duller, the sun more dim and pale, and the road more heavy. The scenery appeared to become tamer and tamer, the inns more undesirable, and their signs were mere daubs. At the first opportunity I obtained a glass of sherry, but its taste was vapid; everything in short appeared “flat, stale, and unprofitable." Like a Bull in the Alley, whose flattering rumors hoist up the public funds, the high, sanguine tone of the Optimist had raised my spirits considerably above par; but now his operations had ceased, and by the usual reaction my mind sank again even below its natural level. My short-lived enthusiasm was gone, and instead of the cheerful, fertile country through which I had been journeying, I seemed to be travelling that memorable long stage between Dan and Beersheba where “all was barren.”

Some months afterwards I was tempted to go into Essex to inspect a small Freehold Property which was advertised for sale in that county. It was described, in large and small print, as "a delightful Swiss Villa, the prettiest thing in Europe, and enjoying a boundless prospect over a country proverbial for Fertility, and resembling that Traditional Land of Promise described metaphorically in Holy Writ as overflowing with Milk and Honey."

Making all due allowance, however, for such professional flourishes, this very Desirable Investment deviated in its

features even more than usual from its portrait in the prospectus.

The Villa turned out to be little better than an ornamented Barn, and the Promised Land was some of the worst land in England, and overflowed occasionally by the neighboring river. An Optimist could hardly have discovered a single merit on the estate; but he did; for whilst I was gazing in blank disappointment at the uncultivated nature before me, not even studded with rooks, I heard his familiar voice at my elbow:

"Rather a small property, sir but amply secured by ten

solid miles of Terra Firma from the encroachments of the German Ocean."

"And if the sea could," I retorted, "it seems to me very doubtful whether it would care to enter on the premises."

Perhaps not as a matter of marine taste," said the Optimist. "Perhaps not, sir. And yet, in my pensive moments, I have fancied that a place like this with a sombre interest about it, would be a desirable sort of Wilderness, and more in unison with an Il Penseroso cast of feelings than the laughing beauties of a Villa in the Regent's Park, the Cynosure of Fashion and Gayety, enlivened by an infinity of equipages. But excuse me, sir, I perceive that I am wanted elsewhere," and the florid gentleman went off at a trot towards a little man in black, who was beckoning to him from the door of the Swiss Villa.

"Yes," was my reflection as he turned away from me, if he can find in such a swamp as this a Fancy Wilderness, a sort of Shenstonian Solitude for a sentimental fit to evaporate in, he must certainly be the Happiest Man in England.'

As to his pensive moments, the mere idea of them sufficed to set my risible muscles in a quiver. But as if to prove how he would have comported himself in the Slough of Despond, during a subsequent ramble of exploration round the estate, he actually plumped up to his middle in a bog;an accident which only drew from him the remark that the place afforded "a capital opportunity for a spirited proprietor to establish a Splendid Mud Bath, like the ones so much in vogue at the German Spaws!"

"If that gentleman takes a fancy to the place," I remarked to the person who was showing me round the property, "he will be a determined bidder."