LETTER XI.
RURAL ENGLAND AND THE RAILWAYS.
ONE consequence of railways was expected to be the letting loose into all corners of England such a flood of visitors that the rural seclusion in which our forefathers lived would no longer be found. The pictures of country life must be sought in the poets of a bygone age. Hodge, and his thatched cottage, could never withstand the shrieking engine and the crowded train. The landscape, made up of primitive forms of life, would melt away before the iron road and its rude cutting, unsightly embankment, and gloomy tunnel. And, undeniably, the English railways have produced a wondrous change in the life and manners of the English nation.
But in some respects the English railways have been followed by a more charming state of rural quietude and beauty. They have not opened the
