Friday. Totness eight. The road affording prospects worth looking at, and fine where it crosses the Dart. Totness is a neat town, which spread very finely as we looked back upon it. The right way to see the country is to go by water to Dartmouth; but we were too late for the boat, and were therefore compelled to walk ten miles along a road heavy, uninteresting, and objectless, but not flat, for the calves of my legs suffered most Procrustian extension up the hills.

Dartmouth is a strange and beautiful place. The river is broad, some half or three quarters of a mile to the opposite town, Kingswear. The hills not high enough, but yet beautiful. The walk to the Fort leads along the waterside by a terrace, for the town is built high. By moonlight we saw it.

Saturday. Crossed the Dart to Brixham, five. Torbay is shored with red sandbanks. We were wearied with its insipidity, and struck for Newton Bushell sixteen.

Sunday. Exeter fourteen. The walk afforded some Devonshire views, that is, extensive scenes in which the eye found no one object to rest upon.

By Newton Bushel we saw a board, “Man Traps and Spring Guns are tilled' in this Garden." Tilled, therefore, is prepared, made ready.

Devonshire has been overpraised. The

hills are high, angled over with hedges, but no wood. A new country that had no forests would look like it. They are high enough to fatigue, and yet not enough to excite admiration. The rivers make the beauty of this county,-clear, melodious, down-hill streams. Its great merit is Clouted Cream, of which I make honourable mention!

EXETER. Mr. Grainger's garden is singular in its kind. It is in the Castle ditch,2 and this accident has been made the most of. It is well planted with many and noble trees. There is the finest poplar that I remember. I have also seen the pictures of Mr. Abbot, an apothecary here. I never saw better landscapes; finished even with Dutch niceness, yet good in effect; interesting in every part, yet fine wholes. He seems to have studied nature with uncommon care and success. His shadows are particularly fine, not the vulgar black of painters, but ever partaking of the colour of the object.

The corporation used to compel people to keep their doors clean. Twelvemonths since it was discovered that they had no authority to do this, and now the people will not clean away the dirt, because "they can't force us to."

At Exeter is a choice collection of watercolour drawings, in the possession of Mr. Patch. The two masterpieces of Paine are there, and some incomparable pieces by Smith, Turner, and Pococke.

HONITON Sixteen. The vale rich and beautiful. Axminster nine. Bridport twelve. Dorchester sixteen. A hideous country, cultivated without enclosures, the hills scored with furrows like roast pork. Wareham ten, dreary and desolate. Poole ten. Christ

Church fourteen.

TUESDAY, October 29. Ringwood eight. Rumsey seventeen. On the way is the Picked Post, an extra-parochial alehouse, where unmarried women go to lie in, out of the reach of the constables. There is also on this road an oak, once venerated, and still visited, because it buds on Christmas day. An open country, some of the forest scenery fine. Winchester eleven, in part through the forest. The cathedral has more to admire than

2 The garden at Eccleshall Castle, the Palace of the Bishop of Lichfield, is also in the ditch. It was the admiration of poor Bishop Butler, and I am not likely to for geta bed of Gladioli he pointed out to me there.-J. W. W.

any I have seen, and Milner has described it with catholic feeling.

Wednesday, 30th. Southampton twelve. Some fine forest views. This is a town which nothing but the folly of fashion could have made famous. A muddy river, and flat shores, rather bushy than wooded. The gateway is fine, but it is an unpleasant and imposing place.

Thursday, 31st. Ringwood twenty. Entering the Rumsey road at Stoney Cross again.

MONDAY, April 14, 1800.

A

From Bristol to Old Down, sixteen. hilly and little interesting road. Seven to Wells. The cathedral fine in the view, and the Tor. Glastonbury, six, a town quite unmodernised, beautiful by its ruins and churches, and dear by all feelings of reverence and chivalry. Bridgewater, sixteen. Taunton, twelve.

Tuesday, 15th. Six to Wellington,—antiqua sedes Southeyorum. Twelve to Cullumpton, one of those towns where the innkeepers have enough business to make them procure good accommodations, and not enough to render them negligent. Twelve to Exeter. Nine to Chudleigh. It was fair. Three hundred and twenty French prisoners were looking at the merriment through the wooden bars of their temporary prison. They were crowded like brutes. they were on the way to Bristol. Ashburton, nine. The rivers in Devon are beautiful, but only the rivers. Old mince-pie bridges, dangerously narrow.

I learnt

Wednesday, 16th. Detained to have an old chaise patched. Our horses were foundered. The fleet was in Torbay, and of course this was a miserable time for the poor beasts. At three miles from Ashburton they stopped, and could proceed no farther. The driver was cruel and obstinate, but the animals wanted power, and this, more than my exertions, succeeded in making him return for other. We the while entered the kitchen of a little alehouse. The wooden bench was well contrived there; it

formed a semicircle round the fire, admitting light only by the way in, which was in the middle. Of course the visitants within could see to do nothing but smoke and drink. An old peasant came in, and called for beer. He opened upon us with ignorant Jacobinism, but it was honest, and the man, though with some strange notions about the Union and the wool, was a strong-headed man. This language was no novelty in the alehouse. I had overheard a low conversation between the two women of the house, upon the propriety of removing a print from the wall of a certain personage, whose head somebody had cut out one day. Upon enquiry, this spirit was not wonderful. The war which enriches Plymouth and the farmers of Devonshire, oppresses the poor heavily; the country is stripped for the fleet; butter was 18. 6d. per pound, meat 8d. and 9d. in this village, twenty miles from the bay! The peasantry are the sufferers, because they cannot retaliate by raising the price of their labour. If they will not work for what their employers choose to give them, they must

starve.

A very decent soldier joined us in the alehouse; a marine of the Le Loire frigate, returning from a visit to his family at Dursley, in Gloucestershire. This man, too, had in his family felt the pressure. We made them very happy by paying their shillingworth of drink. The old man was delighted, and would give his tobacco-box in return. There was written upon it, "Unity, Peace, and Trade." If ever he saw it again, he should know me. It was not easy to avoid his present. This man wished the fleet sunk, so much did he perceive the burthen. Our horses arrived, -a pair who, as we learnt upon meeting the stage, by a dialogue between the two drivers, had been foundered yesterday. We rode in pain; every stroke of the whip was a conscience-blow. It was an abuse of power, a tyrannous cruelty to the brute creation. The crazy chaise was forgotten in this stronger feeling. But crack, and down! a gentle, and broken, and harmless fall. Its consequences were less

pleasant; a mile and half walk through dirt and rain to Ivy Bridge. The stage is thirteen miles.

At Ivy Bridge we breakfasted. Walking into the garden with Edith, a voice behind, "God bless my soul!" It was Tom. He had taken horse to meet us, breakfasted in the room adjoining us, and watched every chaise that drove to the door, but omitting to keep a look out for foot travellers. But for this accident, he would have lost us. The bridge is ivied, but small, very small, a mere onearched brook bridge. The stream constitutes the beauty of this well-known spot. It rolls among huge stones adown a little glen. The inn and several gentlemanlike looking houses, where only cottages, and those all quietness, ought to have stood, spoilt the scene. I was pleased and disappointed. To Plymouth, eleven. Some fine views in the last few miles. We saw the docks, which excited in me no surprise, no pleasure. It was all huge,-a great deal of power, and 3000 men, and God knows how many thousand thousands of money, employed in now doing mischief.

Mount Edgecumbe we did not cross to. It was pretty, but not what travellers report. The people who so bepraise Devonshire, must either have come from Cornwall, or they have slipt through Somersetshire, the country of real beauty.

Thursday, 17th. Our Bristol chaise companion broke his engagement, and instead of coming to me to consult about our arrangements, went on the water. We left him, and crossed with Tom to Tor Point, in the Phæbe's boat. A chaise had been ordered. We had no sooner set foot in Cornwall than an attempt to impose upon us took place. The stage was long,-eighteen miles, -the roads very bad,-we did not know how bad, our luggage was too much,—a pair of horses could not draw us. I had been cautioned against this Cornish rascality, and resisted. Tom at last said he would give up then his journey with us to Liskard; but his heart failed him, and mine also. I was going to another country, and when should

we meet again? He ran out and ordered the four horses, and Edith and he and I were immediately exhilarated.

New difficulties. The innkeeper had no more horses; he had depended upon procuring them at the other inn, as it was to keep up the custom of the road. But he was a new comer, and the inns had quarrelled: they would lend no horses. At first, from a pretence of pride, their horses should not be the leaders, to drag the other man's cattle as well as the chaise. Put them in the shafts then. No! The ostler referred us to his mistress, he would if she would. The mistress rebutted us to her ostler,— she would if he would,-backward and forward. The woman was civil, but rogues and liars all. At last the ostler swore that Tomlins' cattle had the distemper. decided it. It would ruin her horses; they should not go in the way of the distemper for any sum whatever. I laughed with very vexation, and Tom laughed, and we cursed Cornwall and its road-horses, and its roads, and its rogues.

This

I went back to the first innkeeper. “Look you! if you cannot take us on, I will go to the other inn, and take places in to-morrow's stage. Why are travellers to be delayed for your quarrels ?" This last question was our language to both. It ended well. Tomlins, a rascal, said the pair could take us very well; he had only recommended four as pleasanter travelling; two could do it with ease. And this fellow had positively refused to take us, not half an hour back; and even demurred when Tom said he would not accompany us, and we had offered to walk up every hill. "Now, mark me!" said Tom,

hood serves the double purpose of the overcharge, and a pretext for making travellers take four horses. We were in high spirits. The storms of the day had left a fresh and pleasant evening, literally and metaphorically. The horses went with complete ease; we seldom heard the whip. When we walked, the driver would not,--not he! the

horses did not want to be eased. Tom swore; I only laughed at the fellow's oddity. It was the pleasantest stage of the whole journey. At Liskard we were put into the bar while our fire was kindled. I counted there forty-three punch-bowls, positive punch-bowls,-forty-three,—and the house was full at the time. Zounds! what punch drinkers they must be in Liskard! and what a consumption of lemons!

Friday, April 18th. Rundell arrived after us at one in the morning. A new attempt to make us take four horses. I called the mistress of the house, and told her our Tor Point story. This completely shamed her, and she almost apologized. She did not mean to impose, she thought,-she was afraid, she did not know,-it was hilly,but if we came from Tor Point with a chaise. This was more knavish than even Tomlins. The road was not very hilly, the stage twelve miles only, and a road as good as any I ever travelled. Breakfast at Lostwithiel. A pretty town. The Cornish all look clean with their slate roofs; and the tower here is singular. Here we got restive horses, and a restive driver, who fought them nearly two hours. Edith and Rundell walked back; it was but a mile. I paced the road, watched the brook, looked at the flowers, flung stones, did a thousand natural things, not to mention the non-naturals. Eight to St. Austel, a nothing-tobe-said- about place. Fourteen, Truro. Twelve, Falmouth. The last twelve pretty, and through the uncouth streets of Penryn, which seem made on purpose to take the traveller round as many acute angles, and up and down as many hills as possible in a given distance. We found the packet in the harbour.

Epitaph at Llanrwst. "PROPE jacet corpus Griffini Lloyd de Brynniog olim Ludimagistri Indigni Llanrustiensis nuper Lecturarii Indignioris et Rectoris Indignissimi Doegensis. Sepult Decimoquinto die Martis

Anno Domini

1779.

Nil de defuncto dic scribe Putave maligne."

Ar Rodney Stoke, between Wells and Cross, under Mendip, there is a cottage somewhat like the home of a novel-heroine. A little white washed thatched house, with a garden that shows there is wealth enough to attend to ornament. Clean milk pails hung upon the rails; a fine weeping willow overhung the road, or rather lane, and under it a stream of water passed from the garden into a stone trough, for the village use.

At the village Tom and I breakfasted in a clean little alehouse; some ornaments of twisted glass stood upon the chimneypiece. The grate was filled with reed blossoms, which looked like plumes. A fellow came along selling " Last dying speeches," and I saw that he found customers.

MR. RICKARDS, or Ricketts, near Stroud, told me that as he was coursing or shooting in the neighbourhood of Llantrissiant, his native place, he went to pass through what seemed a patch of red dirt. But his foot sunk, and he fell, and to his infinite astonishment he found his leg burnt through the boot, by which he was confined for many weeks. The place was out of all paths, and only some old people knew that such a ground-fire existed.

October 4, 1805. KESWICK to Wigton, twenty-two. Above Bassenthwaite hills a new and fine view of the lake. Derwentwater

is hid behind Brandelow, over which the fells behind Barrow rise, and over these again those of Langdale. From hence a dreary country. Square inclosures on the distant hills, without a single tree. Uldale, a small village on the right, before we reached Ireby, one of those townlets where every thing reminds you of the distance from London. We had soon a view of the plain below us, with Solway firth and the Scotch mountains to the north. The plain extended as far as we could see-a noble prospect the more striking to us as we came from the close mountain country. Wigton a thriving town. To Carlisle eleven. The coach days to Edinburgh are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; so we are thrown out. To Glasgow only a mail at three every day, in which you have only the chance of a place.

It

At Wigton the houses are painted a nasty dark red; the stone itself being reddish, and of a good colour. One of the coarse common alehouse prints in the staircase there was of the battle of Wexford. Miss Redmond at the head of the rebels. looked as if the artist wished well to the Irishmen. Near this place we saw one of the quadrangular farms common in Scotland, originally contrived for defence; the outhouses surround or inclose the fold, and the dunghill is in the middle of the court.

The bed curtains at Carlisle were a good specimen of political freedom. General Washington was driving American Independence in a car drawn by leopards, a black Triton running beside, and blowing his conch, meant, I conceive, by his coronal of plumes, to represent the native Indians. In another compartment, Liberty and Dr. Franklin were going hand in hand to the temple of Fame, where two little Cupids were holding a globe on which America and the Atlantic could be read. The Tree of Liberty stood by, and the Stamp Act reversed was bound round it.

The waiter there was a Scotchman, uncommonly civil, he bowed as he asked if we would please to give him leave to clean

our boots. Two wooden grenadiers, in the old uniform, are painted and cut out to their shape, one at the bottom of the stairs, the other on the landing place.

Saturday, 5. Market day. Innumerable carts of potatoes and sacks of wheat, indicating plenty in the land. Saw the Cathedral, its tower would be poor for a parish church, and looks worse for standing on so huge a pile. The inside is better than I suspected; the old stalls remain, and are very fine, but a double row of pews disfigure the choir; and the window, which has to every compartment a border of orange-coloured glass, with corners of bright green, flings a glaring and ill assorted light. We noticed a remarkable arch over some of the oldest tombs, which might be brought in favour of the sylvan origin of Gothic architecture. A bough, whose lesser boughs were thus lopped, and bent to an arch. There were four of these. Looking at this, we were told that we stood upon Paley's grave. On a wooden closet which holds the altar cushions, &c. boys had cut their names; we read those of Sawrey Gilpin, the horse painter, and of Robert Carlisle, the artist. The lives of St. Austin, St. Antony the Great, St. Cuthbert, in a series of paintings, had been whitewashed over at the Reformation; but Percy had them recovered, as far as could be done. One compartment of Augustine's life confirms the fact that the Devil keeps books; old Belzey has a huge one, with great clasps, upon his back, and it seems a tolerable load for him; he is saying " Pœnitet me tibi ostendisse librum."

Went to the castle. They have built a depositary for arms within its court, and another for field pieces. The portcullis is entire-the first I ever saw; the wood cased with iron. Called on the Miss Waight. They have many excellent books, and an excellent house. They showed us a portrait of Lord William Russell's mother, when an infant, in miserable fine full dress, with a ruff and a long strait waist. They complained of the change in Carlisle since the manufacturers had got there. The po