Our visits to Mrs. Bowater, in summer time, were delightful. Sometimes we had our music in the neighbouring woods, enjoying the cool air under the trees. Music, when heard among hills and dales, surrounded by the scenery of nature, produces a dramatic effect beyond that of the theatre. When the morning foreboded a sultry day, immediately after breakfast, the servants removed the instruments and books to a cleared spot in the hanging wood, on the other side the valley. Here, on a bank of wild-thyme, we fixed our sylvan orchestra. On the first crash of the instruments, away scampered innumerable rabbits and the winged tenants of the trees above, alarmed at sounds never before heard on the silent Woulds. We began with the Thirty-fourth Quartetto of Haydn, which opens with a strain of clear harmony, expressing the freshness of the morning At the end of each movement, we were charmed with the voice of an echo. We stopped and amused our selves with many replies, and were delighted by the unseen spirit repeating the two last bars of the minuetto. << less