picture,--crowded with promenading fashionables; and surrounded by
numerous wherries, steam-packets, and other craft, at anchor or
gaily sailing about; a busy scene which forms a striking contrast
to the quiet sylvan charms of the home-coast extending many miles
east and west, and embellished by several delightful villas and
other marine residences, among which are Osborne Palace (indicated
by a lofty prospect-tower),--and Norris Castle, just beyond. We
have the Solent Channel seen from here to peculiar advantage,--on
the one hand contracting to the appearance of a noble river, and on
the other expanding and uniting with the open sea. The far-famed
anchorage of Spithead occupies the centre, with St. Helen's to the
eastward, for ships of war; and westward, the Motherbank and
Stokes's Bay, for merchantmen and colliers; hourly altering their
position with the changing tides, and their number as suddenly
increased or diminished with every adverse or propitious breeze.

"Majestic o'er the sparkling tide,
See the tall vessel sail,
With swelling winds, in shadowy pride,
A swan before the gale!"

The eye is soon caught by a splendid range of houses called
Anglesea Villa, on the opposite nearest shore, contiguous to
Monkton Fort; and is thence carried to immense mass of brick
buildings that form the grand naval hospital of Haslar, with the
town of Gosport in its rear; opposite which are the celebrated
fortifications of Portsmouth, with its noble harbour affording calm
security to the maritime glory of England:--Southsea Castle stands
a little to the eastward, and beyond that is the low level of
Hayling Island, where several handsome houses have recently been