MATTHEW SHORE.

NEXT in beauty to the view over the Loddon at Aberleigh, is that from Lanton Bridge up and down the clear and winding Kennet, and this present season (the latter end of April) is perhaps the time of year which displays to the greatest advantage that fine piece of pastoral scenery. And yet it is a species of beauty difficult to convey to the reader. There is little to describe but much to feel; the sweet and genial repose of the landscape harmonizes so completely with the noontide sunshine and the soft balmy air. The river, bright and glassy, glides in beautiful curves through a rich valley of meadow land, the view on one side of the bridge terminating at the distance of a couple of miles by the picturesque town of B. with its old towers and spires, whilst on the other the stream seems gradually to lose itself amongst the richly wooded and finely undulating grounds of Lanton Park.

But it is in the meadows themselves that the real charm is to be found: the fresh sprouting grass, bordered with hedge-rows just putting on their tenderest green, dotted with wild patches of willow trees, and clumps of noble elms, gay with the golden marsh marigold and the elegant fritillary ;* alive with bees and butterflies, and the shining tribe of water insects; and musical with the notes

* The country people call this beautiful plant the Turkey-egg flower, and indeed the chequered pendent blossoms do, both in their shape and in their mottled tinting, bear some resemblance to the dappled eggs of that stately bird.

of a countless variety of birds, who cease singing or whom we cease to listen to (it comes exactly to the same thing) the moment the nightingale begins her matchless song. Here and there too, farmhouses and cottages, half hidden by cherry orchards just in their fullest bloom, come cranking into the meadows; and farther in the distance chimney tops with curling wreathes of blue smoke, or groupes of poplar, never seen but near dwellings, give a fresh interest to the picture by the unequivocal signs of human habitation and sympathy.

In one of the nearest of these poplar clumpsnot above half a mile off, if it were possible for any creature except a bird to pass the wide deep ditches which intersect these water meadows, but which, by thridding the narrow and intricate lanes that form the only practicable route, we contrive to make nearly six times as long; in that island of spiral poplars and gigantic fruit trees, with one corner of the roof just peeping amongst the blos somy cherry boughs, stands the comfortable abode of my good friend Matthew Shore, to whose ample farm a large portion of these rich meadows forms an appendage of no trifling value.

Matthew is of an old yeomanry family, who have a pedigree of their own, and are as proud of having been for many generations the hereditary tenants of the owners of Lanton Park, as they themselves may be of having been for more centuries than I choose to mention the honoured possessors of that fair estate. Excellent landlords, and excellent tenants, both parties are, I believe, equally pleased with the connection, and would no more think of dissolving the union, which time. and mutual service have cemented so closely, than of breaking through the ties of near relationship;

although my friend Matthew, having no taste for agricultural pursuits, his genius for the cultivation of land having broken out in a different line, has devolved on his younger brother Andrew the entire management and superintendence of the farm. Matthew and Andrew Shore are as unlike as two brothers well can be in all but their strong manly affection for each other, and go on together all the better for their dissimilarity of taste and character. Andrew is a bluff frank merry Benedict, blest in a comely bustling wife, and five rosy children; somewhat too loud and boisterous in his welcomings, which come upon one like a storm, but delightful in his old fashioned hospitality and his hearty good-humour; for the rest, a good master, a steady friend, a jovial neighbour, and the best farmer and most sagacious dealer to be found in the country side. He must be a knowing hand who takes in Andrew Shore. He is a bold rider too, when the fox-hounds happen to come irresistibly near; and is famous for his breed of cocking spaniels, and for constantly winning the yeomanry cup at the B. coursing meeting. Such is our good neighbour Farmer Shore.

His wife is not a little like her husband; a laughing, bustling, good-humoured woman, famous for the rearing of turkeys and fattening of calves, ruling the servants and children within doors, with as absolute a discretion as that with which he sways the out-door sceptre, and complaining occasionally of the power she likes so well, and which, with an ingratitude not uncommon in such cases, she is pleased to call trouble. In spite of these complaints, however, she is one of the happiest women in the parish, being amongst the very few who are neither troubled by poverty or finery-the twin pests of

the age and country. Her expenses are those of her grandmother's days; she has fourteen-shilling hyson, and double refined sugar for any friend who may drop in to tea, and a handsome silk gown to wear to Church on Sundays. An annual jaunt to Ascot is all her dissipation, and a taxed cart her sole equipage. Well may Mrs. Shore be a happy

woman.

The only spot about the place sacred from her authority, is that which I am come to visit,-the garden; my friend Matthew's territory, in which he spends all his days, and half his nights, and which, in spite of his strong fraternal affection, he certainly loves better than brother or sister, nephew or niece, friend or comrade; better in short than he loves any thing else under the sun.

Matthew is an old bachelor of fifty-five, or thereaway, with a quick eye, a ruddy cheek, a delightful benevolence of countenance, a soft voice and a gentle manner. He is just what he seems, the kindest, the most generous and the best natured creature under the sun, the universal friend and refuge of servants, children, paupers, and delinquents of all descriptions, who fly to him for assistance and protection in every emergency, and would certainly stun him with their clamorous importunity, if he were not already as deaf as a post.

Matthew is one of the few very deaf people worth talking to. He is what is becoming scarcer every day, a florist of the first order, and of the old school,-not exactly of Mr. Evelyn's time* for in the gardening of that period, although greens

* See note at the end of the sketch for a most curious account of the gardens round London in 1691.

were, flowers were not,-but of thirty or forty years back, the reign of pinks, tulips, auriculas, and ranunculuses, when the time and skill of the gardener were devoted to produce, in the highest imaginable perfection, a variety of two or three favoured tribes. The whole of this large garden, for the potatoes and cabbages have been forced to retreat to a nook in the orchard, dug up in their behoof;-the whole ample garden is laid out in long beds, like those in a nursery ground, filled with these precious flowers, of the rarest sorts and in the highest culture; and as I have arrived in the midst of the hyacinth, auricula, and anemone season, with the tulips just opening, I may consider myself in great luck to see what is called in gardening language, "so grand a shew." It is worth something too, to see Matthew's delight, half compounded of vanity and kindness, as he shews them, mixed with courteous offers of seedlings and offsets, and biographical notices of the more curious flowers: "How the stock of this plant came from that noted florist Tom Bonham, the B. taylor, commonly called tippling Tom, who once refused fifty guineas for three auriculas! and how this tulip was filched" (Matthew tells this in a particularly low and confidential tone) "from a worthy merchant of Rotterdam, by an honest skipper of his acquaintance, who abstracted the root, but left five pounds in the place of it, and afterwards made over the bargain for a couple of pounds more, just to pay him for the grievous bodily fear which he had undergone between the time of this adventure, for there was no telling how the Burgomaster might relish the bargain, and his embarkation in the good schooner the Race-horse of Liverpool."