present a union of rural and architectural beauty on a scale of greater
magnificence than can be found in any other place. The variety is here
in the detached groups, and not as formerly in the individual dwellings,
by which all unity and grandeur of effect was, of course, annihilated.
These groups, undoubtedly, will not always bear the eye of a severe
critic, but altogether they exhibit, perhaps, as much beauty as can
easily be introduced into a collection of dwelling-houses of moderate
size. Great care has been taken to give something of a classical air to
every composition; and with this object, the deformity of _door-cases_
has been in most cases excluded, and the entrances made from behind. The
Doric and Ionic orders have been chiefly employed; but the Corinthian,
and even the Tuscan, are occasionally introduced. One of these groups is
finished with domes; but this is an attempt at magnificence which, on so
small a scale, is not deserving of imitation."

* * * * *


THE ISLE OF SHEPPEY.

(_To the Editor of the Mirror._)


Sir,--Under the _Arcana of Science_, in your last Number, I observed an
account of the inroads made by the sea on the Isle of Sheppey, together
with the exhumation there of numerous animal and vegetable remains. As
an additional fact I inform you, that, at about three hundred feet below
the surface of the sand-bank, (of which the island is composed,) there
is a vast prostrate antediluvian forest, masses of which are being
continually developed by the influence of marine agency, and exhibit