nothing of it, though we could hear distinctly
enough the booming of the cannon. When it
was over, the steamers made the best of their
way back to Portsmouth, but there was no sign
of the sailing ships, the magnificent men-of-war
that trusted to canvas for their means of
progression. At last, and just as the sun was
setting, first one and then another of them
appeared upon the far-off horizon. Behind time,
behind the age, almost stationary in the evening
calm, they showed there all together, a
cloud of white, turned into a creamy rose-
colour by the setting sun. It was the dawning
of the end of one phase of the Picturesque.
I do believe that there was never any more
beautiful thing seen than that, nor anything
more exquisitely and touchingly suggestive.
Those great pyramids of white looked in the
distance so unsubstantial, so unreal and pure,
that they seemed like the ghosts of the old Fleet
appearing once and for the last time in more
than accustomed majesty and beauty. The sun
lighted them up as it set, and then it went down,
and a thoughtful man might have deemed that if
this were the end—as it virtually was—of the old
man-of-war, the veteran died a glorious death,
and submitted to a resistless fate with matchless
dignity.

It would not be well to let THE OLD SHIP
pass from the world of waters without a word of
respectful and loving farewell. It was the Ship
in which, in David's time, men " went down to
the sea." It was the Ship which Horace viewed
with mistrust; the Ship in which Columbus
found his way to the New World; the Ship that
was wrecked in Shakespeare's Tempest; and,
descending to more modern times, the Ship in
which our favourite national hero fought and
conquered—the Ship on whose deck Nelson fell
wounded, and in which he breathed his last. It
is gone. " Deeper than did ever plummet
sound," it is sunk from our view, and we shall
see it no more. It had a long life, and died
a noble death, and has left a glorious
memory.

It is really curious to observe how, almost
invariably, every one of the inventions peculiar
to modern times is apparently inimical to the
picturesque. As to steam, its animosity to
the beautiful is proverbial. Not only does the
railroad itself disfigure the country through
which it passes, but all things connected with
it are also distressing to the cultivated eye.
What a thing a station is for " freezing the
genial current of the soul." A railway hotel,
again—is that picturesque? And then that
modern institution, the funnel; how completely
the most beautiful ship is spoiled by the shortest
and least conspicuous funnel that ingenuity can
devise. There is, no hiding it, no disguising it.
But it is no use talking about steam, it is an
acknowledged offender in this way, and there is
no more to be said about it. The telegraph, again,
is a modern invention, its straight poles and
horizontal wires do not add to the picturesqueness
of our scenery. The photograph, too. Clap
down a photographic studio on any spot of
ground in town or country, and that spot of
ground, or that house-top, if you prefer it, is
blasted and rendered hideous. As to the effect
of this invention on human picturesqueness,
if I may be allowed the expression, it is terrific.
Who now-a-days hears celebrated beauties talked
of? When does a whole opera-house full of
people rise when a celebrated beauty enters her
box? The public have seen the photographs
of these beauties in the shop-windows and are
disenchanted.

An omnibus, again, is a comparatively
modern invention, so is a cab, so is a policeman.
How piteously unpicturesque are all three of
them. Has the reader—but of course he has—
ever seen an omnibus passing along a country
road on its way to a station to meet the down-
train? What a combination of things. To speak
of such modern institutions as the street cab, or
the policeman, at any length, would be as
unnecessary as to dwell on the full horror of the
perambulator. These hideous objects need only
a glance apiece to convince us that they have
done what in them lies to put an end to the
Picturesque.

One Sunday afternoon, not long ago, I was
rambling alone in a very beautiful part of the
county of Kent, and enjoying the scenery as
those do who have few opportunities of getting
away from a city's smoke, when I suddenly
emerged from a little wood, through which I
had made my way with difficulty, into a
large field which lay beyond the limits of
the wood. It gave me a shock to see in the
middle of that field a great locomotive engine
with its wheels deeply embedded in mud, and
with a considerable lurch over to one side, where
I suppose the ground was softest. It was Sunday,
and the machine was not working, nor was
there any human being in the field, or, indeed,
anywhere within sight. Over against the engine,
but at a considerable distance, were a couple of
grim iron ploughing instruments, which it was
the business of the engine to drag across the
different parts of the field by means of twisted
metal ropes. They had been left, when it was
time to give up working the night before, arrested
in mid-career. They had savagely torn up a
good mass of earth, and worried it, and they
seemed to be looking towards the locomotive
with ferocious eagerness, like chained
bull-dogs longing for their master to give the
signal for beginning again. All round the
field, monstrous pegs of iron—their heads all
split and broken with ferocious blows— were
dug deep into the earth. The wire-twisted
ropes were passed round them, so that the two
bull-dog-looking machines could be dragged over
all parts of the enclosure without the necessity
of shifting the locomotive. Some of these iron
ropes were even carried into my little wood and
secured round the trunks of the trees, in order to
get a firmer purchase. The whole thing looked
ruinous, disconsolate, truculent, and wicked.
And not only was this particular field, in which
the machinery lay, rendered hideous by it, but
even the country which I had just before been