Oct. 14. Berkhampstead to Woburn. - We went from Berkhampstead to Ashridge Park along an excellent new road which leads across the country to Dunstable, and was formed, as we were told, chiefly, or entirely, at the expense of the late Earl of Bridgewater. Various other roads leading to Ashridge were made by the same patriotic individual, who, in this respect, may be said to have displayed a similarity of taste with his ancestor, the celebrated Duke of Bridgewater, the friend and patron of Brindley, the engineer. We entered the park by a very elegant Gothic lodge, built of rubbed white stone and black flints. No one is allowed to enter or go out by this or any other of the gates, without having his name and address put down in a book kept by the porter. An excellent approach road, the length of which is reckoned by miles, leads over an even surface, and through a stately grove, composed chiefly of beech trees, to the house. Every variety of effect is produced that can result from a varied disposition of the trees; and groups, thickets, scattered trees and bushes, ferns, furze, hollies, thorns, glades, recesses, and natural vistas, succeed each other in endless variety. These were interspersed with abundance of red and fallow deer in some places, and horses and cattle in others. No distant prospect, nor any striking object, meets the eye till we are within half a furlong of the house. This grand and irregular pile is seen to very good advantage from this and the Dunstable approach. The two prominent features in the outline are, a square tower near one end, and a lofty spire with a clock at the other. From the two approaches mentioned, these two features fall into perspective in such a way as to form one pile, or group; but when the edifice, or, rather, assemblage of edifices, is viewed directly either from the entrance or garden front, it appears thrown into two groups. Though it does not, when so viewed, form so good a whole, yet it gives an idea of grandeur and magnificence to an ordinary observer, which, perhaps, would not be produced by the foreshortening of an angular perspective view.
