Then we have an "aged widow" reading "GOD'S own Word" at her cottage-door, with her daughter kneeling beside her—a sketch from those halcyon days, when, in the beautiful allegory of Scripture, "every man sat under his own fig-tree." This is followed by the "Elysian Tempe of Stourhead," the seat of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, to whose talents and benevolence Mr. Bowles pays a merited tribute. Longleat, the residence of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, succeeds; and Marston, the abode of the Rev. Mr. Skurray, a friend of the author from his "youthful days," introduces the following beautiful descriptive snatch:—
And witness thou,
Marston, the seat of my kind, honour'd friend—
My kind and honour'd friend, from youthful days.
Then wand'ring on the banks of Rhine, we saw
Cities and spires, beneath the mountains blue,
Gleaming; or vineyards creep from rock to rock;
Or unknown castles hang, as if in clouds;
Or heard the roaring of the cataract.
Far off,[5] beneath the dark defile or gloom