In Every Point Of View, Richmond Is Assuredly One Of The First Situations In The World.

Here it was that Thomson and Pope gleaned from nature all those beautiful passages with which their inimitable writings abound.

Instead of the incessant distressing noise in London, I saw here at a distance, sundry little family parties walking arm in arm along the banks of the Thames. Everything breathed a soft and pleasing calm, which warmed my heart and filed it with some of the most pleasing sensations of which our nature is susceptible.

Beneath I trod on that fresh, even, and soft verdure which is to be seen only in England. On one side of me lay a wood, than which nature cannot produce a finer, and on the other the Thames, with its shelvy bank and charming lawns rising like an amphitheatre, along which, here and there, one espies a picturesque white house, aspiring in majestic simplicity to pierce the dark foliage of the surrounding trees; thus studding, like stars in the galaxy, the rich expanse of this charming vale.

Sweet Richmond! never, no, never, shall I forget that lovely evening, when from thy fairy hills thou didst so hospitably smile on me, a poor lonely, insignificant stranger! As I traversed to and fro thy meads, thy little swelling hills and flowery dells, and above all that queen of all rivers, thy own majestic Thames, I forgot all sublunary cares, and thought only of heaven and heavenly things. Happy, thrice happy am I, I again and again exclaimed, that I am no longer in yon gloomy city, but here in Elysium, in Richmond.

O ye copsy hills, ye green meadows, and ye rich streams in this blessed country, how have ye enchanted me? Still, however, let me recollect and resolve, as I firmly do, that even ye shall not prevent my return to those barren and dusty lands where my, perhaps a less indulgent, destiny has placed me, and where, in the due discharge of all the arduous and important duties of that humble function to which providence has called me, I must and I will faithfully exert my best talents, and in that exertion find pleasure, and I trust, happiness. In every future moment of my life, however, the recollection of this scene, and the feelings it inspired, shall cheer my labours and invigorate my efforts.

These were some of my reflections, my dearest friend, during my solitary walk. Of the evening I passed at Richmond, I speak feebly when I content myself with saying only, it was one of the pleasantest I ever spent in my life.

I now resolved to go to bed early, with a firm purpose of also rising early the next day to revisit this charming walk; for I thought to myself, I have now seen this temple of the modern world imperfectly; I have seen it only by moonlight. How much more charming must it be when glistening with the morning dew! These fond hopes, alas, were all disappointed.

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