er inland, but rising on the view, is Swainscomb, the hill on which
the Danish armies encamped, in their pirate rovings of the British seas,
and their invasions of the Thames.

What a contrast between the green landscape of this moment, and the camp
of Sweno. All before me was the luxury of cultivation, the yellowing
crop, the grazing cattle, the cottage smoke curling slowly upward on the
back-ground of noble beech, ash, and sycamore. On the summit, the sun
gleamed on a rectory house, half buried in roses, where the most learned
of our Orientalists perused the Koran in the peace of a Mahometan
paradise, and doubtless saw, on the dancing waters of the mighty river
at his feet, perpetual visions of houris.

Yet those pastures once echoed with the barbarian cries of the Cimbric
warriors; tents of seal-skin and white bear fur covered the hill; the
smokes of savage feasting and Scandinavian sacrifice clouded the skies;
and on the summit, surrounded by iron guards and spectral-looking
priests, stood the magic standard of the north, the image of the Raven,
which flapped its wings on the coming of battle, and gave the oracular
cry of victory.

But, what sounds of harmony sweep along the water! I see a range of
showy figures on the shore; it is a whole brass band, seducing us, in
the style of the syrens of old, to bring our ship to an anchor, and
hazard the enchantments of the most delicious of tea-gardens.--We are
within a hundred yards of the pier of Rosherville.

Within five minutes, we might be roaming through this paradise of the
Thames, climbing rustic slopes carpeted with flowers, or gazing at a
menagerie, where the monkeys bound, chatter, and take apples out of your
hand; or sipping coffee of the most fragrant growth, or dancing the
polka under alcoves of painted canvass, large enough to manoeuvre a
brigade of the Horse-guards. By day the scene is romantic, but by night
it is magical. By day the stranger roams through labyrinths of exotic
vegetation, but by night he is enchanted with invisible music, dazzled
with fireworks, and goes to his pillow to dream of the Arabian Nights.
Honour to the name of Jeremiah Rosher, the discoverer of the
"capabilities" of this Garden of the Hesperides. He found it a lime
quarry, and made it a bower of Armida. If, as the great moralist said,
"the man who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before,
is a benefactor to mankind," what honours should be paid to the genius,
wh