me your new
hunter?"

* * * * *

It was to the house of this gentleman, so judiciously made his guardian,
that the student of Gottingen now took his melancholy way.

CHAPTER XIII.

"But if a little exercise you choose,
Some zest for ease, 'tis not forbidden here;
Amid the groves you may indulge the Muse,
Or tend the blooms and deck the vernal year."
_Castle of Indolence_.

THE house of Mr. Cleveland was an Italian villa adapted to an English
climate. Through an Ionic arch you entered a domain of some eighty or a
hundred acres in extent, but so well planted and so artfully disposed,
that you could not have supposed the unseen boundaries inclosed no
ampler a space. The road wound through the greenest sward, in which
trees of venerable growth were relieved by a profusion of shrubs, and
flowers gathered into baskets intertwined with creepers, or blooming
from classic vases, placed with a tasteful care in such spots as
required the _filling up_, and harmonised well with the object chosen.
Not an old ivy-grown pollard, not a modest and bending willow, but
was brought out, as it were, into a peculiar feature by the art of the
owner. Without being overloaded, or too minutely elaborate (the common
fault of the rich man's villa), the whole place seemed one diversified
and cultivated garden; even the air almost took a different odour from
different vegetation, with each winding of the road; and the colours of
the flowers and foliage varied with every view.

At length, when, on a lawn sloping towards a glassy lake overhung by
limes and chestnuts, and backed by a hanging wood, the house itself came
in sight, the whole prospect seemed suddenly to receive its finishing
and crowning feature. The house was long and low. A deep peristyle that
supported the roof extended the whole length, and being raised above
the basement had the appearance of a covered terrace; broad flights
of steps, with massive balustrades, supporting vases of aloes and
orange-trees, led to the lawn; and under the peristyle were ranged
statues, Roman antiquities and rare exotics. On this side the lake
another terrace, very broad, and adorned, at long intervals, with urns
and sculpture, contrasted the shadowy and sloping bank beyond; and
commanded, through unexpected openings in the trees, extensive views
of the distant landscape, with the stately Thames winding through the
midst. The interior of the house corresponded with the taste witho