interesting objects, where an improver passes on with indifference, if not with disgust.

Perhaps what is most immediately striking in a lane of this kind is its intricacy. Any winding road, indeed, especially where there are banks, must necessarily have some degree of intricacy; but in a dressed lane every effort of art seems directed against that disposition of the ground: the sides are so regularly sloped, so regularly planted, and the space, when there is any, between them and the road, so uniformly levelled; the sweeps of the road so plainly artificial, the verges of grass that bound it so nicely edged; the whole, in short, has such an appearance of having been made by a receipt, that curiosity, that most active principle of pleasure, is almost extinguished.

But in hollow lanes and bye roads, all the leading features, and a thousand circumstances of detail, promote the natural intricacy of the ground: the turns are sud

den and unprepared; the banks sometimes broken and abrupt; sometimes smooth, and gently, but not uniformly sloping; now wildly over-hung with thickets of trees and bushes; now loosely skirted with wood: no regular verge of grass, no cut edges, no distinct lines of separation; all is mixed and blended together, and the border of the road itself, shaped by the mere tread of passengers and animals, is as unconstrained as the footsteps that formed it. Even the tracks of the wheels (for no circumstance is indifferent) contribute to the picturesque effect of the whole: the varied lines they describe just mark the way among trees and bushes; often some obstacle, a cluster of low thorns, a furze-bush, a tussuck, a large stone, forces the wheels into sudden and intricate turns; often a group of trees or a thicket, occasions the road to separate into two parts, leaving a sort of island in the middle.

These are a few of the picturesque accidents, which in lanes and bye roads attract

the notice of painters. In many scenes of that kind, the varieties of form, of colour, and of light and shade, which present themselves at every step, are numberless; and it is a singular circumstance that some of the most striking among them should be owing to the indiscriminate hacking of the peasant, nay, to the very decay that is occasioned by it. When opposed to the tameness of the poor pinioned trees (whatever their age) of a gentleman's plantation drawn up strait and even together, there is often a sort of spirit and animation, in the manner in which old neglected pollards stretch out their limbs quite across these hollow roads, in every wild and irregular direction; on some, the large knots and protuberances, add to the ruggedness of their twisted trunks; in others, the deep hollow of the inside, the mosses on the bark, the rich yellow of the touch-wood, with the blackness of the more decayed substance, afford such variety of tints, of brilliant and mellow lights, with deep and peculiar

shades, as the finest timber tree, however beautiful in other respects, with all its health and vigour cannot exhibit.

This careless method of cutting, just as the farmer happened to want a few stakes or poles, gives infinite variety to the general outline of the banks. Near to one of these "unwedgeable and gnarled oaks," often rises the slender elegant form of a young beech, ash, or birch, that had escaped the axe, whose tender bark and light foliage appear still more delicate and airy, when seen sideways against the rough bark and massy head of the oak: sometimes it rises alone from the bank; sometimes from amidst a cluster of rich hollies or wild junipers; sometimes its light and upright stem is embraced by the projecting cedarlike boughs of the yew.

The ground itself in these lanes, is as much varied in form, tint, and light and shade, as the plants that grow upon it; this, as usual, instead of owing any thing to art, is, on the contrary, occasioned by accident

and neglect. The winter torrents in some places wash down the mould from the upper grounds, and form projections of various shapes, which, from the fatness of the soil, are generally enriched with the most luxuriant vegetation; in other parts they tear the banks into deep hollows, discovering the different strata of earth, and the shaggy roots of trees: these hollows are frequently overgrown with wild roses, with honeysuckles, periwincles, and other trailing plants, which with their flowers and pendent branches have quite a different effect when hanging loosely over one of these recesses, opposed to its deep shade, and mixed with the fantastic roots of trees and the varied tints of the soil, from that which they produce when they are trimmed into bushes, or crawl along a shrubbery, where the ground has been worked into one uniform slope. In the summer time these little caverns afford a cool retreat for the sheep; and it is difficult to imagine a more beautiful fore-ground than is formed by the different groups of