The Sunday herald. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1866-1887, 1882-08-20

1t is an old lesson; we have been enforcing
1T from year to year; yet it will bear entor-
cling again, that English people ought to set
themselves much more than they do to study
their own country. Few of us really know
much about England. There are many thou
sands of educated English men and women
who never heard the nightingale sing in an
English June, who know that song of" eternal
passion and eternal pain" only through poets
and romancists, although the nightingale is
singing in groves within few miles of Lon
don more sweetly, perhaps, than he ever sang
by the calm Bendemeer. The vast ma jority
we take it, of English men and women know
little or nothing of some OF the most beauti
full scenery in England-that is to say, some
of the most beautiful scenery in the world.
Where is there n cluster of houses more in
teresting, more rich in true artistic and his
toric associations than an old fashioned ca.
thedral town What can he finer in its way
than Durham, than Canterbury, than Sails
bury, than York Hawthorne says truly that
the luXuriant ivy growing on an old English
tower or minister is a charm denied TO the
most glorious ruins of Italy or Greece. Soft
green meadows can be see nowhere in more
| rich and lovely luxuriance than in England.
Lanes with the trees bending over them,
hedgerows rich in flowers, can be found in
which might challenge the rivalry of the
world 1t was well said by NJ. Taine, if we
remember rightly, that man may come to
Oxford, after having been in Venice, and
feel no unpleasant sense of auti-climaX.
There are holder and grander lakes than
| those which lie embosomed among the hills
of Cumberland and Westmoreland under
llelvellhyn and Helm Crag, but what Italian
or Swiss lake, what MaGgiore, or Como, or
| American Lake George, has ever eilaccd from
memory the impression of sweet soft Gras-
mere, with its dreamy memories of poets
| The young landscape painter who died so
lately, too soon for his country's art, but not
too soon for his fame, Mr.. Cecil Lawson,
taught the English public to see new beau
ties in the lanes and hop-gardens of Kent.
Nor surely can any country boast of more
lovely coast lines, with yellow sands, and
sparkling waves, and little bays and creeks
and lamentations such as Miranda might have
loved. We have been speaking of England
| only, but it is hardly necessary to say any
thing about the wild beauty of the hills OF
| Scotland and the softer, more tender, more
dreamy delight of Irish scenery. Ireland is
| not likely, we fear, TO be chosen as a holiday
resort this autumn, despite the opening Of
the exhibition and the unwilling of the
O'Connell statue. We have no doubt that
the English tourist would find himselfas SAT,
in Ireland as in England or in Scotland, but
the spirit of the tourist, unlike the spirit Of
the traveller, shuns all danger, and shud
ders at Il breath of disturbance. In any case
we are inclined just at present to speak o
England only, and to commend to those VIII,
want really enjoyable holiday her many
easily reached places ofinterest and of beauty
her lakes, her soft hillsides, her meadows
and lanes, her dear old towns, and he
sparkling seas-LOnd0n DmIN Ncws.