He looks at things, it is true, from the point of view of a farmer, not of a landscape-painter or a lover of the picturesque. He raves against that 'accursed hill' Hindhead; he swears that he will not go over it; and he tells us very amusingly how, in spite of himself, he found himself on the very 'tip top' of it, in a pelting rain, owing to an incompetent guide. But he loves the woodlands and the downs, and bursts into vivid enthusiasm at fine points of view. He is specially ecstatic in White's country. 'On we trotted,' he says, 'up this pretty green lane, and, indeed, we had been coming gently and gradually up-hill for a good while. The lane was between high banks, and pretty high stuff growing on the banks, so that we could see no distance from us, and could receive not the smallest hint of what was so near at hand. The lane had a little turn towards the end, so that we came, all in a moment, at the very edge of the hanger; and never in my life was I so surprised and delighted! I pulled up my horse, and sat and looked. It was like looking from the top of a castle down into the sea, except that the valley was land and not water. I looked at my servant to see what effect this unexpected sight had upon him. His surprise was as great as mine, though he had been bred amongst the North Hampshire hills. Those who have so strenuously dwelt on the dirt and dangers of this road have said not a word about the beauties, the matchless beauties, of the scenery.' And Cobbett goes on to describe the charms of the view over Selborne, and to fancy what it will be 'when trees, and hangers, and hedges are in leaf, the corn waving, the meadows bright, and the hops upon the poles,' in language which is not after the modern style of word-painting, but excites a contagious enthusiasm by its freshness and sincerity. He is equally enthusiastic soon afterwards at the sight of Avington Park and a lake swarming with wild fowl; and complains of the folly of modern rapid travelling. 'In any sort of carriage you cannot get into the _real country places_. To travel in stage-coaches is to be hurried along by force in a box with an air-hole in it, and constantly exposed to broken limbs, the danger being much greater than that of ship-board, and the noise much more disagreeable, while the company is frequently not a great deal more to one's liking.' What would Cobbett have said to a railway? And what has become of the old farmhouse on the banks of the Mole, once the home of 'plain manners and plentiful living,' with 'oak clothes-chests, oak bedsteads, oak chests of drawers, and oak tables to eat on, long, strong, and well supplied with joint stools?' Now, he sighs, there is a '_parlour_! aye, and a _carpet_, and _bell-pull_ too! and a mahogany table, and the fine chairs, and the fine glass, and all as barefaced upstart as any stockjobber in the kingdom can boast of!' Probably the farmhouse has followed the furniture, and, meanwhile, what has become of the fine old British hospitality, when the farmer and his lads and lasses dined at one table, and a solid Englishman did not squeeze money out of his men's wages to surround himself with trumpery finery?