Oxford Hills are among the most uncouth in England. You may trace the character extending from this spot along the ridge into Hertfordshire, and improving very gradually, if improving at all. Buckinghamshire generally is of a better description, but the vein runs through the connecting part between Bledlow and Tring. They are said, however, to be improving, and I hope they are. This is almost the only part of England where you must reckon on not finding a lodging at a village inn, as the rule, and it is the worst part for meeting with even a man who can give a direction. I asked one fellow-it is some years since-the way to Cavershamn-"You mean Cawsham, I suppose," said he, after eyeing me very carefully; I dare say that's what you call it, I replied :-" Then whoy couldn't you say so at first ?" returned he; and stalked in doors without so much as pointing a finger towards the road. But this roughness does not cross the Thames; the race is indigenous to the Chiltern Hills. The Berkshire men are civiller. They are ill-taught-as are all our peasantry, and as all our peasantry will continue to be whilst our country schools are what they are: for, if even the pittance which the children earn in the fields or pick up on the roads (and which is the chief reason that will for a long while prevent the education of the children of the agricultural labourers) did not induce the parents to keep them from school, the village schools, as now managed, would give them little better than the mockery of an education-imparting only the smallest fraction of what commonly receives that name, and leaving the moral sense utterly untouched. But though untaught or ill-taugh there is much of shrewdness

about them; and often a vigour of mind, a vein of strong and serious thought which leads them to express themselves in a straightforward homely style, and with a store of plain expressive English words that reminds one of the racy heartiness of Bunyan and Cobbett. A good deal of this may be seen, for instance-by such as do not mind putting up with some peculiarities for the sake of information, -in those men who get to be "local preachers and class-leaders" among the Wesleyans in these parts.

Before quitting Pangbourne, I would just point out that it, or Streatley, is an admirable place for a young landscape-painter to escape to for a few days. from the smoky atmosphere of London. He may with little trouble, and at small expense, bring here his colours and canvas, and then, in some of those delicious spots already spoken of, fix his easel in the open air, and, without darkened windows or reflected lights, or any other atelier contrivances, and forgetting atelier conventionalisms, try to represent what he sees just as he sees it-aiming only to distinguish what is essential and characteristic-giving himself up unrestrainedly to the teaching of Nature, whom he will find to be a far better guide than any connoisseur or picturedealer. The young painter who will do this-who will come and dwell here for awhile, watching in the early dawn the changing effects of the breaking mists, the deep thick shadows, and the pearly sparkling dew; the brightness and glitter of the noon-tide, as he looks out over the river from the shelter of the rich groves; the mellow radiance which the setting sun flings over trees and river and cloudless sky; and, as "the risin' moon begins to glowr." trace the power of chiaroscuro, of those

marvellous combinations of light and shadow which, genius has sometimes been able to fix on the canvas, but which Nature is ever lavishing with unsparing hand before him who is abroad to see :-he who will do this, will find that the bounty of Nature is not yet exhausted; that even in such unromantic spots as these, there are to be found passages of river scenery still unappropriated by any of our admirable landscape-painters, and unnoticed by the great painters of old. And he will find also plenty of employment for his sketch-book. There are, as architectural studies, Goring Church, both in parts and as a whole; Hardwick, a capital exercise, and the bays and oriels of Maple-Durham; of homely picturesque buildings he will see plenty about the villages; the mill at Maple-Durham will yield more than one sketch; and he could not desire better models for landscape "figures" than the folks hereabout.

One other person ought not be overlooked-I mean the angler. Pangbourne is a famous spot for him. If he cast the fly, Thames will yield plenty of work trout abound and rise kindly, and the little Pang brook which enters the Thames by the village (and gives it its name) is also a good trout stream. If he prefer trolling, there are some stout jack which will not let him want sport; and if he be content to fish at bottom, he may always reckon on a good basket of barbel, roach, or chub, if he know how to handle his tackle.

CHAPTER X.

READING.

THE town of Reading has been often described, its history often written. Whoever has read Belford Regis and who has not?-knows something of the sunny side of its present condition; and the readers of this series of volumes have had a lively picture set before them of its state at one period of its olden existence.. Now, if I were in the habit of making sunny pictures, or telling a lively tale, I should be deterred from adventuring to do so on the present occasion; as it is, I shall take the safer course, and plod through a dry general account, leaving the wiser of my readers to skip the chapter. "To write," says Dr. Johnson, in his oracular way, to write of the cities of our own island with the solemnity of geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly discovered coast, has the appearance of very frivolous ostentation; and yet-" and yet as something of the sort must be done, it had better be done quickly and quietly: we will, therefore, leave the ostentation to shift for itself, and endeavour to support the solemnity. Reading, then, stands a few hundred yards from the Thames; the Great Western road runs through the centre of it, and the Great Western railway on one side between it and the river. It is a large irregularly arranged place (though I believe the

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