Which creep around their dewy murmurs shake
On the sooth'd ear.

Such is the fervid language in which the Poet of the year invoked

"LYTTLETON, the friend!"

Yet these lines will kindle the delight and reverence of every lover of
Nature, in common with the effect of the _Seasons_ on the reader, who
"wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he
never yet has felt what Thomson impresses."[1]

[1] Johnson's Life of Thomson.

But we quit these nether flights of song to describe the locality of
Hagley Park, of whose beauties our Engraving is but a mere vignette, and
in comparison like holding a candle to the sun. The village of Hagley is
a short distance from Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, whence the
pleasantest route to the park is to turn to the right on the Birmingham
road, which cuts the grounds into two unequal parts. The house is a
plain and even simple, yet classical edifice. Whately, in his work on
Gardening, describes it as surrounded by a lawn, of fine uneven ground,
and diversified with large clumps, little groups, and single trees; it
is open in front, but covered on one side by the Witchbury hills; on the
other side, and behind by the eminences in the park, which are high and
steep, and all overspread with a lofty hanging wood. The lawn pressing
to the front, or creeping up the slopes of three hills, and sometimes
winding along glades into the depth of the wood, traces a beautiful
outline to a sylvan scene, already rich to luxuriance in massive
foliage, and stately growth. The present house was built by the first