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KIRKLEES PARK.

KIRKLEES HALL, the property of Sir George Armitage, Bart., is occupied, at present, by Henry W. Wickham, Esq., one of the proprietors of the Low Moor Iron Works. It was built, I believe, in the reign of James I., out of the materials of the Kirklees nunnery, so celebrated in the Robin Hood ballads, and is a large irregular structure, though of a massy and imposing appearance. It is distant about a mile from the Cooper Bridge station, on the line of rails running between Manchester and Leeds, and stands in the midst of a fine park, upon a platform of well wooded hills. The hall windows command a magnificent prospect of hill, plain, and valley, with numerous hamlets, villages, and churches scattered over it. Groups of large and lofty trees, some of them of a very ancient date, surround this noble mansion, and look like the natural guardians of the domain and the household. The park is well stocked with deer, and horned cattle of a rare breed'; and the adjoining farm lands are in a high state of cultivation.

It would be impossible to imagine a more delightful abode, so rich in beauty and variety, so full of olden tradition and history. I have wandered over the grounds on many a fine summer's

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morning, with a heart full of thankfulness and joy for so sweet a privilege, and with an indescribable consciousness of the wonder and glory of life. [ suppose these are no new feelings, but they are associated in my mind with the pastures, dells, and woodlands of this fine locality, and constitute the moral features of the landscape. The vicinity of the park to the manufacturing town of Huddersfield, where I reside, has always made it peculiarly attractive to me, and the contrast of a busy town life with the quiet and sunny beauty of Nature, in this deep and musical seclusion, has doubtless served to sharpen the edge of my enjoyment. And now that the summer is over, and the glooms of December darken all the country with their shadows, there is to me a high romance in the recollection of these rambles, and I think of Kirklees as some fair inheritance of which I have been dispossessed by evil enchantments. I know, however, that I shall have my own again in the spring solstice, and, in the meanwhile, I hang the picture of it in my memory.

Beautiful picture! how I love it with its woods and lofty terraces, its flowers and waters, and singing birds! and how heartily I thank God for it! From my earliest youth Nature has been to me as a beautiful mother, and I have gone to sleep upon her breast, "rocked by the beating" of her gentle and affectionate heart, to wake with new gladness in her presence and smiles. It is a relationship worth cultivating, and when once established it brings with it the purest pleasures, and prepares the way for high insights and revelations. I have felt all this in my many wanderings through some of the finest scenery in England and America; and often, with no scrip in my purse, and nothing

but a crust of bread in my wallet, have I sat down by the lonely forest stream, surrounded by the "green-robed senators of mighty woods," as Keats calls the great forest trees, with mountains for a background, and heaven for a canopy;-whilst a thousand wood birds sang their sweetest songs to me, as I ate, with relish and thankfulness, my simple meal. In such companionship, although in the extremest poverty, I could never feel myself poor; for I was free to wander where my inclination or my fancy led me, and walked through the world, as Bulwer says of the Romans, like a "lord in his hall." Any one may buy this pleasure, and revel in this rare delight-this feeling of kinship to Nature and God-if he be so inclined; for it is cheap and untaxable, and is as open to the poor as to the rich; very frequently much more open to the former than to the latter, although from causes quite irrespective of any external condition. The generality of men cannot, it is true, roam abroad over the savannahs and boundless prairies of the earth, but they can all woo Nature as she lies around them in her voluptuous physical and moral beauty; for she never hides herself, but loves to reveal her charms to all, and betrays none of her lovers. There is in close vicinity to every town and village in England, some sunny nook or tiny glade; some woodland, mountain land, moorland; some fair pastoral and river scenery; some dear secluded spot, or some broad and open common, where the weariest worker may find repose and strength for his soul, if he will only seek it out, and where the wealth of kings is beggared by the affluence of Nature. I do not complain that I have no drawing-room in my house, that I keep no court nor banquetting hall, for I can spare

these things very well, and know that Nature has finer saloons for me out of doors. Only think of these glorious scenes I have hinted at just now as the common property of the race, and tell me if it is not foolish to whine and fret ourselves, because some other person holds the parchment-deeds which give him the legal right to them. If they are his in that sense, they are mine in a higher, and he who loves the landscape is the true lord of the manor. So I never envied the good and generous Henry Wickham Wickham his noble domain of Kirklees, but have always been glad that he is wealthy enough to preserve so beautiful a picture for me in the landscape-gallery of Nature.

I like to go up there in my own freebooter way, -to climb over the park wall, that is,—and steal through the trees, along the Mosaic shadows which the sun paints upon the green sward in the glades, and so mount the high terrace which commands the Vale of Calder, with the mountains and moorlands of Yorkshire in the distance. This terrace extends all along the park on the right of the hall, commencing at the lodge gates, and terminating at the grave of Robin Hood. It is a magnificent natural platform, the sides of which are clothed with luxuriant trees, rich herbage, and myriads of bright flowers. In the months of May and June it is literally purple with blue bells, and the air is so laden with their delicious odours that you might lie down amongst them, as I have often done, and dream of a paradise more glorious than Mahomet's. How wonderful it is that Nature should be so profuse of her riches! It is all one to her whether there be any of the highly organised human species to enjoy and appreciate her beauty or not; for everywhere, in the most out-of-the-way nooks

and clefts of the earth, she scatters her golden largess, her fiery blossoms, her dear delicious children, that I am foolish enough to love so, under the name of flowers. I believe, however, as some sage philosophers believed before me, that flowers are really sentient beings, and enjoy their life as well as the rest of us. It is an amiable superstition my scientific friends tell me, and I am content to rest in it; for it is quite as reasonable as other superstitions, and a great deal more harmless. I have often very queer fancies-the transcendentalist would dignify them with the name of insights about what is called the inanimate world. I am ready to believe that it is all alive, and that trees and flowers have a moral sense. Physical senses they certainly have, and why not moral ones?— They believe in God I am sure, although the immortality of the soul is a doctrine which, perhaps, they have not grown up to yet. Then again, everything that I see, is symbolical of something higher than itself, so that I read Nature as a divine picture-book. I think I am a Swedenborgian at the bottom, although good Emanuel is very little known to me. A truce, however, to these fine theories, fancies, or foolings; for I have yet a good deal to do in the way of narration and description, before I say farewell to the reader. Let us go back, therefore, to the terrace. Arbours, rustic seats, and grottoes, are placed in the most charming parts of it, commanding the finest views of the river Calder, of the valley scenery, and of the distant hills and moors. And whilst you are enjoying the keen invigorating air, and the almost boundless prospect, you are sure to be greeted by innumerable rabbits, who come out of their holes and stare at you, as if they would say "What do you here,