with Windsor chairs round it; and I think for a person of a contemplative disposition, one would scarcely find a more venerable shade in any poetical description."

Delaford Park is another fine seat in this parish, formerly the seat of Lord Kilmorey, afterwards that of Mr. Clowes, who made considerable additions to the house, and embellished it with a circular portico of the Ionic order. The late Sir William Young, a great benefactor to the parish, built a bridge for the convenience of the villagers, and a poor-house, at his own expense, and in addition, was conspicuous for practical liberality and active benevolence. Having had occasion to dwell, in connexion with this spot, upon poets and their lady patronesses, who, whatever may be their unbounded theoretical philanthropy, are sometimes practically wrapped up in the unendearing delights of self, we should be to blame if we omitted to record the name of one who, unambitious of prosaic or poetic fame, is satisfied to solace himself with perhaps a more truly exalted ambition, that of being the benefactor of a lowly hamlet, and the friend of humble villagers.

At Shredding's Green, a hamlet of this parish, is Iver Grove, a brick mansion, built by Sir John Vanbrugh for the Dowager Lady Mohun, whose husband was killed, together with his antagonist, in a duel. The house is now in the occupation of the Lady Gambier.

Iver church, from its elevated situation a conspicuous object, contains a monument in memory of Sir George and Sir Edward Salter, successively carvers to King Charles the First, with the effigy of Lady Mary Salter, the wife of Sir George, rising from her coffin in a shroud. There is also a monument to the memory of John King, gentleman, who met his death from a shoemaker's awl struck into his forehead by a drunken kinsman.

There are also memorials of Alice Cutt, Richard Blunt, gentleman, Elizabeth his wife, and her father, Richard Ford; and also of Rauffe Aubrey, Cheyffe of the Kitchen to Prince Arthur.

LANGLEY is a scattered village, about two and a half miles to the northwest of Colnbrook, a part whereof is in this parish.

Langley has a parochial chapel, subject to the mother church of Wyrardsbury, in which are memorials to the family of Kedirminster, to whom a particular aisle, bearing their name, is appropriated.

The most remarkable curiosity connected with this church is a small library, consisting chiefly of books of divinity, left for public use by Sir John Kedirminster, with an express injunction that no book should ever be taken out of it.

Langley Park is a very noble seat in this parish. The house, a fine stone structure, was built by one of the Dukes of Marlborough, and was afterwards in the occupation of the Hawley family. The park is very delightful, shaded with trees of large growth, and adorned with a fine sheet of water, whose sloping banks are luxuriant with plantations. On the north side of the park is a large tract of ground, called the Black Park, from the number of fir-trees. Through this wood are cut some rides and walks, and in the centre is a considerable lake, gloomy and dark from the reflection in its waters of the funereal foliage which surrounds it.

HORTON, about a mile to the south of Colnbrook, is in the hundred of Stoke and deanery of Burnham. The manor was anciently in the Windsor family, who continued to possess it for several generations. The manorhouse, which had been a large mansion, a seat of the Scawen family, was pulled down some years ago. In the parish church is a heavy monument, without any inscription, intended for some of the Scawen family, and a marble slab to the memory of the mother of Milton, who died in 1637.

The interest of Horton is derived from the fact, that the then youthful poet passed some of his best and happiest years at this place.

Here much of that exquisite poetry which, as Johnson truly observes,

"all men read with pleasure," was composed; here was poured forth the plaintive melody of the "Lycidas;" here, wandering by smoothlygliding waters, the divine bard, not yet winging an eagle flight, gave form and substance to thoughts less majestic, but, perhaps even more lovely than those of his later and drearier years, when "with danger and darkness compassed round," he sought refuge in the wilderness of London. Who does not love Horton and all about it, were it only that there the poet said

"Alas! what boots it with incessant care

To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble minds)

To scorn delights, and live laborious days."

For ever sacred be the place that has part in the "Penseroso" and "L'Allegro," the "Comus" and the "Arcades ;" for ever classic be its silent streams-for ever hallowed by the memory of the past, its sheltering groves!

Johnson informs us that when Milton left the University he returned to his father, then residing at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five years, in which time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers.

It is to be lamented that this mighty poet did not consecrate to everlasting fame, by one or two lines-enough from himthis quiet and secluded retreat-his study and nursery of thought; and that in all his works it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify any of the beautiful images he has drawn so largely from nature, with the spot whence many of them may have been derived.

Images drawn from nature are everywhere the same, and everywhere produce the same effect; yet we cannot help loving

the man who localises his images, and who makes classic by one touch the spot where they were gathered: we linger about such places, fondly and long, as if we might catch something of the inspiration of him who drew us thither, and in whose footsteps the poet lives again, not merely in the spirit but in the flesh, who has identified his haunts with his poesy: we converse with him when we wander among his native scenes, and we see, or think we see, a thousand beauties in those scenes he has "wedded to immortal verse," that, otherwise, we should never have beheld: why has not Milton confessed that, at Horton he gathered the sweetly pastoral imagery of his "L'Allegro," and that beneath his pear-tree, then bending under its overburthening store of fruit, now withered and naked, he

"Heard the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come in spite of sorrow,

And at my window bid good-morrow,—
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:

While the cock, with lively din,

Scatters the rear of darkness thin

And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill;
Sometime walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms on hillocks green,

Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landscape round it measures;

Russet lawns and fallows grey,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast

The labouring clouds do often rest;

How peculiarly English are the images contained in this exquisite poem ; how wondrously contrasted without apparent art, yet with what exquisite skill. With the exception of the lines

and which have no prototype in the landscapes around Horton, all else in the picture is of every-day familiarity; and we cannot help fondly imagining, have been suggested by the solitary thoughtful rambles of Milton in this neighbourhood.

M M