mn, and the
earth, still fresh from the night dew, sent up a thousand delicious
perfumes. The road on either side was one succession of handsome villas
or ornamental cottages, whose grounds were laid out in the perfection of
landscape gardening. There were but few persons to be seen at that early
hour, and in the smokeless chimneys and closed shutters I could read
that all slept,--slept in that luxurious hour when Nature unveils, and
seems to revel in the sense of unregarded loveliness. "Ah, Potts," said
I, "thou hast chosen the wiser part; thou wilt see the world after thine
own guise, and not as others see it." Has my reader not often noticed
that in a picture-gallery the slightest change of place, a move to
the left or right, a chance approach or retreat, suffices to make what
seemed a hazy confusion of color and gloss a rich and beautiful picture?
So is it in the actual world, and just as much depends on the point
from which objects are viewed. Do not be discouraged, then, by the dark
aspects of events. It may be that by the slightest move to this side or
to that, some unlooked-for sunlight shall slant down and light up all
the scene. Thus musing, I gained a little grassy strip that ran along
the roadside, and, gently touching Blonde! with my heel, he broke out
into a delightful canter. The motion, so easy and swimming, made it a
perfect ecstasy to sit there floating at will through the thin air, with
a moving panorama of wood, water, and mountain around me.

Emerging at length from the thickly wooded plain, I began the ascent of
the Three Rock Mountain, and, in my slackened speed, had full time to
gaze upon the bay beneath me, broken with many a promontory, backed by
the broad bluff of Howth, and the more distant Lambay. No, it is _not_
finer than Naples. I did not say it was; but, seeing it as I then saw
it, I thought it could not be surpassed. Indeed, I went further, and
defied Naples in this fashion:--

"Though no volcano's lurid light
Over thy bine sea steals along,
Nor Pescator beguiles the night
With cadence of his simple song;

"Though none of dark Calabria's daughters
With tinkling lute thy echoes wake,
Mingling their voices with the waters,
As 'neath the prow the ripples break;

"Although no cliffs with myrtle crown'd,
Reflected in thy tide, are seen,
Nor olives, bending to the ground,
Relieve the laurel's dark