some thirty or forty minutes carries us from Birmingham to Coventry, whence a branch line turns off to Kenilworth, Leamington, and Warwick; the result is, that we can reach Kenilworth as early by this conveyance as Dudley by coach: so that, after all, Coventry, and Kenilworth, and Warwick are next-door neighbours to Birmingham. Stratford-upon-Avon lies further to the south-west, about eight miles from Warwick, or twenty-three from Birmingham, by coach-road. When the new railway schemes are completed, the Birmingham and Oxford line will give ready access to Stratford from Birmingham; while the Narrow Gauge Company, on their part, are shortening and improving the line from Birmingham to Kenilworth and Warwick. We must beg of the poets, and painters, and anglers, and lovers of the picturesque, to concede to us this point that if railways sometimes break up a beautiful

scene by ugly embankments and yawning cuttings, and disturb the calm serenity of country life by the shrieking tones of the railway whistle, they afford good compensation, by opening up to the denizens of busy towns scenes which they would never have met with but for the aid afforded by these media of communication. It is more fanciful than true to draw the distinction, "God made the country, man made the town;" but it is perfectly true, that if the town-man can become occasionally a country-man, he will be all the better for it.

Birmingham, then, in spite of all its iron and coal, is not without its beauty-spots, as soon as the greenfields are reached. We have named a few of them; and a rambler who is not frightened by a good tough walk, or a railway excursionist who can spare a shilling or two, might easily meet with others.