THE ENGLISH TRAVELLER. "MY DEAR CHILDREN,— SURREY. "What a long time we have been travelling through London! I declare that the account of London and Middlesex has extended through more than all the Thursdays in one volume of PLEASANT PAGES; and after all we have only talked of fifteen counties. Let us repeat their names : Northumberland. Nottingham- Cumberland. Durham. Norfolk. Westmorland. Suffolk. Yorkshire. Essex. Lancashire. Kent. Cheshire. Middlesex. stopped by a gamekeeper, who told me not to trespass on the preserves. So I went homeward, stopping now and then to admire the splendid elms of the park, and to look at the magnificent view of the Thames, which seems to wind through the foliage; but there! I am that well-known spot. Go and not going to describe to you see it yourselves, next time you are in London, or else get an engraving of it; for it has been sketched, painted, lithographed, engraved, and described, in prose and in verse, over and over again. "Richmond is not particularly famous as a town. It is And now for noted on account of its park and the surrounding scenery. Being so pleasant, and only 11 miles from London, it is a most fashionable place of recreation to those Londoners who delight in the quiet country. It has a handsome stone bridge over the Thames, and fine inns and hotels; it also abounds in boarding-schools. "There are forty counties in England: thus we have to make our way through twenty-five more, and to compress our letters on them into the next two volumes. So I will proceed at once. "Here is Surrey! This town, called Richmond, in which I am stopping, has a beautiful park. | I went out this morning before breakfast for a walk, when the dew was on the grass, to a distant part of the park, which I had never seen. My feet soon became wet from walking through the long ferns; but after disturbing a pheasant, and one or two other birds that "Richmond was once called Sheen, but when Henry VII. was king of England he came to live here, and built a magnificent royal palace. As his title was Earl of Richmond before he was crowned, he called the palace and village Richmond in remembrance of it. "Can you tell me the way made a 'whirring' noise, I was to Kingston?' I said to a plea sant-looking farmer who was in the coffee-room at the hotel where I breakfasted. "Yes, I live there,' was the reply; and when I told him that I meant to walk there, and from thence across the county to Guildford, for my own pleasure, he offered me a ride in his gig. 'You'll find the walk quite long enough from Kingston to Guildford, if you mean to go there to-day, he remarked. So I rode in the farmer's gig. 66 "I suppose you know Richmond pretty well?' I remarked as we rode along. "Why, yes, I do. I have been there backwards and forwards these forty years. I was born in Surrey.' "And do you call Surrey a fertile county?' 66 6 'Not at all. I'll tell 'ee what people say it's like: that it's like a piece of cloth with a fine border; and so it is. There's Bagshot Heath, Banstead Downs, and Epsom Downs, the chalk hills, and all them places-they're not worth a-a-a farthing!' "But the borders?' first place is KEW-that is, when going from Richmond to London-there you see the splendid Royal Botanical Gardens. Ah! that is a place!' * "Yes,' I said, 'I have been there; I have been in the palmhouses.' "And then you go on through PUTNEY, and WANDSWORTH, and BATTERSEA; there are plenty of meadows and gardens; the market gardeners about there grow quantities of vegetables for London. Then, if you go on to Tooting, and Streatham, Clapham, Brixton, Dulwich, Norwood, and Sydenham-have you heard of those places?' "Yes, I have been to some of them. They are going to build up the Crystal Palace again at Sydenham.' "Are they, though? Well, I was a-going to tell you about the soil of our county. Ah! it's bad soil for we farmers. There's so much chalky stuff, and barren sand, and large heath, and woods. "There runs across the county a long row of hills; they are part of the southern range of hills which ends at Dover. You may see that on the map; they extend from east to west. Well, you may see by the tops of these hills what sort of stuff they are made of. They are quite white and round, for the rain has beaten them into that shape, and keeps them clean; when you're a long way off, some of them look something like a row of old gentlemen, with bald heads. forest until lately; but a great deal of it has been grubbed up and cultivated. There is one part near Dorking, called Box Hill, where there were (and I think there are now) some of the finest box-trees in England. "Then, not far from those Weald. The wealds were all hills, there are the Epsom Downs, a fine open place; many sheep graze there, and yield very sweet mutton too; and there are races which are more famous than any races in England. Every one has heard of the Epsom races, and "The Derby Day." At Banstead Downs, too, there are a great many sheep.' "And you said that there is much heath?' 666 "Yes, Bagshot Heath is a wide place; and there are other heathy parts; though sometimes you will see, here and there, on the heath, a cottage as was built by poor people. They make the land profitable by digging deep, and by adding scrapings from the road, and the ashes of turf, to the soil. So, at last, they manage to make a few fruit-trees and vegetables grow around the cottage. "The wealds of Surrey "Do you know what is meant by "wealds"?' I said. "No, I don't.' "Weald comes from the German word wald, which means a forest; I have been through the wealds of KENT.' "That's right. I was going to tell you of the forests in the "We have some rivers, too, in Surrey. The principal are the Mole, and the Wey. The Thames bounds the county at the south. Here is the Thames, you see; and there is Kingston Bridge. How soon we have reached it!' 666 "Yes, the time has passed away very quickly,' I said. 'I will stop at Kingston for an hour, and will then proceed to GUILDFORD.' "I did not find any thing remarkable at Kingston, except its fine new bridge. The town is very ancient. I saw some extensive malting works, and brick and tile works; and all round the town there are market gardens, some of which I passed on my way to Guildford. "Of Guildford I hope to afford you some particulars in my next letter. "Believe me, "Your faithful friend, THE EAGLE. ART thou the king of birds, proud Eagle, say? ETYMOLOGY. CHAPTER III. THE INFLECTIONS OF VERBS.-THE TENSES. P. TO-DAY we will talk of the Tenses of verbs. Since the time when Mr. Lindley Murray wrote his English Grammar, the form of the English verb has been altered by some grammarians, that is to say, the tenses have been arranged differently. I do not think you would understand these new arrangements very clearly; and, as I am not sure that they are an improvement, we will arrange the tenses according to the plan of the Latin verbs, which is very simple. Ion. But I should like to know what the tenses are before arranging them. What is meant by tense," papa? 66 P. The word tense means little else than time, just as mood means manner. Tense is derived from temps, the French word for time. Every child can understand that there are dif ferent manners of performing come. times you may speak of different days. Thus, present, to-day; past, yesterday; future, tomorrow. P. But there may be different ways of expressing the same tense. Here is a past tense expressed in two ways: I was eating my dinner yesterday. W. They are both past, certainly, but I cannot explain the difference yet. Ion. I see it. I like the last tense better than the first. If I say, "I ate my dinner," it means that I had all of it; but if I say, "I was eating," &c., it does not show whether I had all, or half, or only a mouthful. I might have had two mouthfuls, and, just as I was eating the third, I might have been obliged to leave off. P. And when you say that you ate it, you show that you finished your dinner-you performed the action perfectly. But, as you observe, when you say, "I was eating," you do not show anything of the kind. L. We only show that we have done the action imperfectly. P. Right. So we say that "I was eating" is an imperfect past tense of the verb, while "I ate" is a perfect past tense. W. I will say some other verbs in each tense : learned of the two past and future tenses. There are two more to be considered yetanother past, and the present tense. You have to decide on each of these, whether it is perfect or imperfect; but you shall do this in your next I shall conquer him. I shall have conquered him. W. I think that the last is perfect. If you say, I shall have conquered, then you will have completed the action perfectly. P. That is right, while the lesson. first, "I shall conquer," does not assert that. Whenever you make a tense of a verb with the auxiliary have in it, you may call that tense "perfect." So that shall conquer is the future imperfect, and shall have conquered is the future perfect tense. Ion. I can make a future tense which is more imperfect than "shall conquer." This is it-"I shall be conquering;" that may be very imperfect, for I may be defeated. I will make two examples of each future: W. I will make a little rule on what we have learned to-day. The "tense" of a verb means the time when an action is performed. There are only three times-the PRESENT, PAST, and FUTURE; and the action, when performed in these times, may be done either perfectly or imperfectly. P. I will give you only a short parsing exercise to-day; but you will now say not only the mood but the tense of each verb. No. 25.-PARSING EXERCISE. Run! I shall catch you. Before you reach that lamp-post I shall have caught you. I was finishing my day's labour, and you interrupted me. But you soon went away; then I finished my work. I was catching a salmon, but I lost it. I have caught two rabbits. Look at them! They shall be tamed; then they will be my companions. Look at James, trying to tame his new friends. ON earth nought precious is obtained |