Then the hotels here - especially in Shanklin - are absolutely romantic in their rural beauty. Designed like the prettiest cottages, or rather in a quaint and rambling style, half cottage and half villa, the roof covered with thatch, and the walls with Ivy, jessamines, and perpetual roses, and set down in the midst of a charming lawn, and surrounded by shrubbery, you feel the same reluctance to take the room which the chambermaid, with the freshest of roses in her cheeks, and the cleanest of caps upon her head - shows you, as you would in hiring the apartments of some tasteful friend in reduced circumstances. When you rise from your dinner, (admirably served,) always in a private parlor, the casement windows open upon, a velvety lawn, bright with masses of scarlet geraniums, verbenas, and Tea roses, set in the turf, and you give yourself up to the profound conviction that for snugness, and cosiness, and perfection at a rural Inn, the world can contain nothing better than may be found in the Isle of Wight.

Bowchurch disputes the palm with Shanklin, for picturesque and sylvan beauty. We made a visit here to Capt. S------of the Royal Navy, whose beautiful villa in the Elizabethean style, gave me an opportunity for indulging my architectural and antiquarian taste to the utmost. Imagine an entrance through a rocky dell, the steep sides of which are clothed with the richest climbing plants, between which your carriage winds for some-distance, passing under a light airy bridge, with festoons of Ivy and clusters of blooming creepers waving over your head. Yon soon emerge upon the prettiest of little lawns, studded with fine oaks, and running down to the very shore of the sea. On the left are shrubberies, pleasure grounds, kitchen and flower gardens, all in their place, and though you think the place one of 60 or 80 acres, there are not above 20.

The house itself is one of the most picturesque and agreeable residences of moderate size that I have ever seen. Its interior, especially, unites architectural beauty, antique character and modern comfort, to a surprising degree. Every room seemed to have been studied, so that not a feature was omitted, or an effect lost, that could add to the pleasure or increase the beauty of a home of this kind. the antique Elizabethean style - richly carved in dark oak or ebony. This is not very rare in England, and I had seen a good deal of the same style in many of the great country mansions before. But almost every piece here, was either a master-piece of workmanship, or marked by singular beauty of design, or of great historical interest. Yet the effect of the whole, and the adaptation to the uses of each separate room, had been considered, so that the ensemble gave the impression of the finest unity of taste. Among the fine specimens which Lady S------had the goodness especially to make us acquainted with, I remember an exquisitely carved work-box once presented by Essex to Elizabeth, a curious silver clock that belonged to Charles I. (and was carried about with him in his carriage on his journeys;) and a superbly carved, high bedstead, once Sir Walter Raleigh's, and the the couch of Cardinal Woolset. There was also an old Butch organ, bearing the date 1592, of singularly beautiful workmanship, and still in perfect tone.

Some rare and unique carved oak cabinets, of Flemish origin, one of them with the history of John the Baptist carved in the different pannels, challenged the most elaborate investigation. Of beautiful chairs, seats, and carved wainscot, there was the greatest variety, and in short the house was at once a museum for an antiquarian - and the most agreeable home to live in.

This villa was built by a wealthy eccentrics - I think a bachelor - who wholly finished the collection only a few years ago. He carried his passion for collecting very choice and rare antique furniture - especially that of undoubted historical interest - to such an extent, that it became a species of madness, and at last led him through a very large fortune, and forced him to surrender the whole to his creditors. You may judge something of the cost of the furniture - every room in the house being well filled - when I tell you that for a single Flemish cabinet, only remarkable for its superb carving, not for any history attached to it, he paid £900, (about $4,500.) The property, when brought into market in the gross, was of course bought by the present owner at a merely nominal sum, compared with its original cost.

England, though in the main remarkable for its common sense, abounds with instances like this, of large wealth applied to the indulgence of personal taste - to the building of a great mansion, the collection of books, pictures, or to the indulgence of personal whims or fancies. Thus the Earl of Harrington has in his seat near Derby, a peculiar spot of twenty or thirty acres, wholly filled with the rarest and most beautiful evergreens in the world - where Araucarias and Deodars, bought when they were worth five or ten guineas a piece, are as plentiful now as hemlocks in western New-York; where dark-green Irish Yews stand along the walks like sable sentinels, and gold and silver hollies and yews are cut into peacocks, shepherds and shepherdesses, and all manner of strange and fantastical whimsies. The conceit, though odd, (I had a glimpse of it,) is the finest specimen of its kind in the world - yet the owner - an old man now - who has amused himself and spent vast sums on this garden for twenty years past, will not let a soul enter it - unless it may be some gardener whom it is impossible to imagine a critic. Even the Duke of Devonshire - so the story goes - in order to get a sight of it, went incog as a kitchen gardener.

The Duke of Marlborough, a few years ago, had a private garden at Blenheim, surrounded by a high wall, into which even his own brother had not been admitted. You see even the most amiable qualities of the heart - those which lead us to make our homes happy, occasionally run into a monomania.