IF this work is not both pleasant and profitable to the reader, the author most freely and openly declares the fault must be in his performance, and it cannot be any deficiency in the subject.

As the work it self is a description of the most flourishing and opulent country in the world, so there is a flowing variety of materials; all the particulars are fruitful of instructing and diverting objects.

If novelty pleases, here is the present state of the country describ’d, the improvement, as well in culture, as in commerce, the encrease of people, and employment for them: Also here you have an account of the encrease of buildings, as well in great cities and towns, as in the new seats and dwellings of the nobility and gentry; also the encrease of wealth, in many eminent particulars.

If antiquity takes with you, tho’ the looking back into remote things is studiously avoided, yet it is not wholly omitted, nor any useful observations neglected; the learned writers on the subject of antiquity in Great Britain have so well discharg’d themselves, that we can never over-value their labours, yet there are daily farther discoveries made, which give future ages, room, perhaps not to mend, yet at least to add to what has been already done.

In travelling thro’ England, a luxuriance of objects presents it self to our view: Where-ever we come, and which way soever we look, we see something new, something significant, something well worth the travellers stay, and the writer’s care; nor is any check to our design, or obstruction to its acceptance in the world, to say the like has been done already, or to panegyrick upon the labours and value of those authors who have gone before, in this work: A compleat account of Great Britain will be the work of many years, I might say ages, and may employ many hands: Whoever has travell’d Great Britain before us, and whatever they have written, tho’ they may have had a harvest, yet they have always, either by necessity, ignorance or negligence pass’d over so much, that others may come and glean after them by large handfuls.

Nor cou’d it be otherwise, had the diligence and capacities of all who have gone before been greater than they are; for the face of things so often alters, and the situation of affairs in this great British Empire gives such new turns, even to nature it self, that there is matter of new observation every day presented to the traveller’s eye.

The fate of things gives a new face to things, produces changes in low life, and innumerable incidents; plants and supplants families, raises and sinks towns, removes manufactures, and trades; great towns decay, and small towns rise; new towns, new palaces, new seats are built every day; great rivers and good harbours dry up, and grow useless; again, new ports are open’d, brooks are made rivers, small rivers navigable, ports and harbours are made where none were before, and the like.

Several towns, which antiquity speaks of as considerable, are now lost and swallow’d up by the sea, as Dunwich in Suffolk for one; and others, which antiquity knew nothing of, are now grown considerable: In a word, new matter offers to new observation, and they who write next, may perhaps find as much room for enlarging upon us, as we do upon those that have gone before.

The author says, that indeed he might have given his pen a loose here, to have complain’d how much the conduct of the people diminishes the reputation of the island, on many modern occasions, and so we could have made his historical account a satyr upon the country, as well as upon the people; but they are ill friends to England, who strive to write a history of her nudities, and expose, much less recommend her wicked part to posterity; he has rather endeavour’d to do her justice in those things which recommend her, and humbly to move a reformation of those, which he thinks do not; In this he thinks he shall best pay the debt of a just and native writer, who, in regard to the reader, should conceal nothing which ought to be known, and in regard to his country, expose nothing which ought to be conceal’d.

A description of the country is the business here, not discanting upon the errors of the people; and yet, without boasting, we may venture to say, we are at least upon a level with the best of our neighbours, perhaps above them in morals, whatever we are in their pride; but let that stand as it does, till times mend; ’tis not, I say, the present business.

The observations here made, as they principally regard the present state of things, so, as near as can be, they are adapted to the present taste of the times: The situation of things is given not as they have been, but as they are; the improvements in the soil, the product of the earth, the labour of the poor, the improvement in manufactures, in merchandizes, in navigation, all respects the present time, not the time past.

In every county something of the people is said, as well as of the place, of their customs, speech, employments, the product of their labour, and the manner of their living, the circumstances as well as situation of the towns, their trade and government; of the rarities of art, or nature; the rivers, of the inland, and river navigation; also of the lakes and medicinal springs, not forgetting the general dependance of the whole country upon the city of London, as well for the consumption of its produce, as the circulation of its trade.

The preparations for this work have been suitable to the author’s earnest concern for its usefulness; seventeen very large circuits, or journeys have been taken thro’ divers parts separately, and three general tours over almost the whole English part of the island; in all which the author has not been wanting to treasure up just remarks upon particular places and things, so that he is very little in debt to other mens labours, and gives but very few accounts of things, but what he has been an eye-witness of himself.

Besides these several journeys in England, he has also lived some time in Scotland, and has travell’d critically over great part of it; he has viewed the north part of England, and the south part of Scotland five several times over; all which is hinted here, to let the readers know what reason they will have to be satisfy’d with the authority of the relation, and that the accounts here given are not the produce of a cursory view, or rais’d upon the borrow’d lights of other observers.

It must be acknowledged, that some foreigners, who have pretended to travel into England, and to give account of things when they come home, have treated us after a very indifferent manner: As they viewed us with envy, so they have made their account rather equal to what they wish’d we should be, than to what we are; and wrote as if they were afraid the country they wrote to should be in love with us, and come away to live among us: In short, speaking of England, they have, like the Israelitish spies, carried abroad a very ill report of the land: Seignior Gratiano a Spaniard, is one of those; he has given such a scandalous account of England in Spanish, as made a wiser man than himself, say, That if the history of England written by Augustin Gratiano had been written in the days of Philip II. and he had believ’d it to be true, he would never have thought it worth his while to fit out such an Armada for the conquest of it; but that it appear’d by King Philip’s making that unfortunate attempt, that he was certainly better acquainted with it, than Gratiano.

It is worth no man’s while to examine and confute foreign authors, whose errors are their ignorance. Our business is to give just ideas of our country to our readers, by which foreigners may be rightly inform’d, if they please to judge impartially; if any man will not be inform’d, we must write on that blindness, let him be ignorant.

But after all that has been said by others, or can be said here, no description of Great Britain can be, what we call a finished account, as no cloaths can be made to fit a growing child; no picture carry the likeness of a living face; the size of one, and the countenance of the other always altering with time: so no account of a kingdom thus daily altering its countenance, can be perfect.

Even while the sheets are in the press, new beauties appear in several places, and almost to every part we are oblig’d to add appendixes, and supplemental accounts of fine houses, new undertakings, buildings, &c. and thus posterity will be continually adding; every age will find an encrease of glory. And may it do so, till Great Britain as much exceeds the finest country in Europe, as that country now fancies they exceed her.

Letter I. Containing A Description Of The Sea-Coasts Of The Counties Of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Etc., As Also Of Part Of Cambridge-Shire

Through Essex to Colchester

I BEGAN my travels, where I purpose to end them, viz. at the city of London, and therefore my account of the city itself will come last, that is to say, at the latter end of my southern progress; and as in the course of this journey I shall have many occasions to call it a circuit, if not a circle, so I chose to give it the title of circuits, in the plural, because I do not pretend to have travelled it all in one journey, but in many, and some of them many times over; the better to inform my self of every thing I could find worth taking notice of.

I hope it will appear that I am not the less, but the more capable of giving a full account of things, by how much the more deliberation I have taken in the view of them, and by how much the oftner I have had opportunity to see them.

I set out, the 3d of April, 1722, going first eastward, and took what I think, I may very honestly call a circuit in the very letter of it; for I went down by the coast of the Thames thro’ the marshes or hundreds, on the south-side of the county of Essex, till I came to Malden, Colchester, and Harwich, thence continuing on the coast of Suffolk to Yarmouth; thence round by the edge of the sea, on the north and west-side of Norfolk, to Lynn, Wisbich, and the Wash; thence back again on the north-side of Suffolk and Essex, to the west, ending it in Middlesex, near the place where I began it, reserving the middle or center of the several counties to some little excursions, which I made by themselves.

Passing Bow-Bridge, where the county of Essex begins, the first observation I made was, That all the villages which may be called the neighbourhood of the city of London on this, as well as on the other sides thereof, which I shall speak to in their order; I say, all those villages are increased in buildings to a strange degree, within the compass of about 20 or 30 years past at the most.

The village of Stratford, the first in this county from London, is not only increased, but, I believe, more than doubled in that time; every vacancy filled up with new houses, and two little towns or hamlets, as they may be called, on the forest side of the town, entirely new, namely, Mary-land-Point, and the Gravel-Pits, one facing the road to Woodford, and Epping, and the other facing the road to Illford: And as for the hither part, it is almost joined to Bow, in spite of rivers, canals, marshy-grounds, &c. Nor is this increase of building the case only, in this and all the other villages round London; but the increase of the value and rent of the houses formerly standing, has, in that compass of years above-mentioned, advanced to a very great degree, and I may venture to say at least a fifth part; some think a third part, above what they were before.

This is indeed most visible, speaking of Stratford in Essex; but it is the same thing in proportion in other villages adjacent, especially on the forest-side; as at Low-Layton, Layton-stone, Walthamstow, Woodford, Wansted, and the towns of West-Ham, Plaistow, Upton, &c. In all which places, or near them, (as the inhabitants say) above a thousand new foundations have been erected, besides old houses repaired, all since the Revolution: And this is not to be forgotten too, that this increase is, generally speaking, of handsom large houses, from 20l. a year to 60l. very few under 20l. a year; being chiefly for the habitations of the richest citizens, such as either are able to keep two houses, one in the country, and one in the city; or for such citizens as being rich, and having left off trade, live altogether in these neighbouring villages, for the pleasure and health of the latter part of their days.

The truth of this may at least appear, in that they tell me there are no less than two hundred coaches kept by the inhabitants within the circumference of these few villages named above, besides such as are kept by accidental lodgers.

This increase of the inhabitants, and the cause of it, I shall inlarge upon when I come to speak of the like in the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, &c. Where it is the same, only in a much greater degree: But this I must take notice of here, that this increase causes those villages to be much pleasanter and more sociable than formerly, for now people go to them, not for retirement into the country, but for good company; of which, that I may speak to the ladies as well as other authors do, there are in these villages, nay, in all, three or four excepted, excellent conversation, and a great deal of it, and that without the mixture of assemblies, gaming houses, and publick foundations of vice and debauchery; and particularly I find none of those incentives kept up on this side the country.

Mr. Camden, and his learned continuator, Bishop Gibson, have ransacked this country for its antiquities, and have left little unsearched; and, as it is not my present design to say much of what has been said already, I shall touch very lightly where two such excellent antiquaries have gone before me; except it be to add what may have been since discovered, which as to these parts is only this; That there seems to be lately found out, in the bottom of the marshes, (generally called Hackney-Marsh, and beginning near about the place now called the Wyck), between Old-Ford and the said Wyck, the remains of a great stone causeway, which, as it is supposed, was the highway, or great road from London into Essex, and the same, which goes now over the great bridge between Bow and Stratford.

That the great road lay this way, and that the great causeway landed again just over the river, where now the Temple-Mills stand, and passed by Sir Tho. Hickes’s house at Ruckolls, all this is not doubted; and that it was one of those famous highways made by the Romans, there is undoubted proof, by the several marks of Roman work, and by Roman coins, and other antiquities found there, some of which are said to be deposited in the hands of the Revd. Mr. Strype, vicar of the parish of Low-Layton.

From hence the great road passed up to Layton-stone, a place by some known, now as much, by the sign of the Green-Man, formerly a lodge upon the edge of the forest; and crossing by Wansted House, formerly the dwelling of Sir Josiah Child, now of his son the Lord Castlemain, (of which, hereafter) went over the same river which we now pass at Ilford; and passing that part of the great forest which we now call Henault Forest, came into that which is now the great road, a little on this side the Whalebone, a place on the road so called, because a rib-bone of a great whale, which was taken in the river of Thames the same year that Oliver Cromwel died, 1658, was fixed there for a monument of that monstrous creature, it being at first about eight-and twenty foot long.

According to my first intention of effectually viewing the sea-coast of these three counties, I went from Stratford to Barking, a large market-town, but chiefly inhabited by fishermen, whose smacks ride in the Thames, at the mouth of their river, from whence their fish is sent up to London to the market at Billingsgate, by small boats, of which I shall speak by itself in my description of London.

One thing I cannot omit in the mention of these Barking fisher-smacks, viz. That one of those fishermen, a very substantial and experienced man, convinced me, that all the pretences to bringing fish alive to London market from the North Seas, and other remote places on the coast of Great Britain, by the new-built sloops called fish-pools, have not been able to do any thing, but what their fishing-smacks are able on the same occasion to perform. These fishing-smacks are very useful vessels to the publick upon many occasions; as particularly, in time of war they are used as press-smacks, running to all the northern and western coasts to pick up seamen to mann the navy, when any expedition is at hand that requires a sudden equipment: At other times, being excellent sailors, they are tenders to particular men of war; and on an expedition they have been made use of as machines, for the blowing up fortified ports and havens; as at Calais, St. Maloes, and other places.

This parish of Barking is very large; and by the improvement of lands taken in, out of the Thames, and out of the river which runs by the town, the tithes, as the townsmen assured me, are worth above 6ool. per annum, including small tithes. Note, This parish has two or three chapels of ease, viz. one at Ilford, and one on the side of Henault Forest, called New Chapel. Sir Tho. Fanshaw, of an antient Roman Catholick family, has a very good estate in this parish: A little beyond the town, on the road to Dagenham, stood a great house, antient, and now almost fallen down, where tradition says the Gunpowder Treason Plot was at first contriv’d, and that all the first consultations about it were held there.

This side of the county is rather rich in land, than in inhabitants, occasioned chiefly by the unhealthiness of the air; for these low marsh grounds, which, with all the south-side of the county, have been saved out of the River Thames, and out of the sea, where the river is wide enough to be call’d so, begin here or rather begin at West-Ham, by Stratford, and continue to extend themselves. From hence eastward, growing wider and wider, till we come beyond Tilbury, when the flat country lyes six seven, or eight miles broad, and is justly said to be both unhealthy, and unpleasant.

However the lands are rich, and, as is observable, it is very good farming in the marshes, because the landlords let good penny-worths, for it being a place where every body cannot live those that venture it, will have encouragement, and indeed it is but reasonable they should.

Several little observations I made in this part of the county of Essex.

1. We saw passing from Barking to Dagenham, The famous breach, made by an inundation of the Thames, which was so great, as that it laid near 5000 acres of land under water, but which after near ten years lying under water, and being several times blown up has been at last effectually stopped by the application of Captain Perry; the gentleman, who for several years had been employed, in the Czar of Muscovy’s works, at Veronitza, on the River Don. This breach appeared now effectually made up, and they assured us, that the new work, where the breach was, is by much esteemed the strongest of all the sea walls in that level.

2. It was observable that great part of the lands in these levels, especially those on this side East Tilbury, are held by the farmers, cow-keepers, and grasing butchers who live in and near London, and that they are generally stocked (all the winter half year) with large fat sheep, (viz.) Lincolnshire and Leicestershire wethers, which they buy in Smithfield in September and October, when the Lincolnshire and Leicestershire grasiers sell off their stock, and are kept here till Christmas, or Candlemas, or thereabouts, and tho’ they are not made at all fatter here, than they were when bought in, yet the farmer, or butcher finds very good advantage in it, by the difference of the price of mutton between Michaelmas, when ’tis cheapest, and Candlemas when ’tis dearest; this is what the butchers value themselves upon, then they tell us at the market, that it is right marsh-mutton.

3. In the bottom of these marshes, and close to the edge of the rivers stands the strong fortress of Tilbury, called Tilbury Fort, which may justly be looked upon, as the key of the river of Thames, and consequently the key of the city of London: It is a regular fortification, the design of it, was a pentagon, but the water bastion as it would have been call’d, was never built; the plan was laid out by Sir Martin Beckman, chief engineer to King Charles II. who also designed the works at Sheerness. The esplanade of the fort is very large, and the bastions, the largest of any in England, the foundation is laid so deep, and piles under that, driven down two on end of one another, so far, till they were assur’d they were below the channel of the river, and that the piles, which were shod with iron, entered into the solid chalk rock adjoyning to, or reaching from the chalk-hills on the other side. These bastions settled considerably at first, as did also part of the curtain, the great quantity of earth that was brought to fill them up, necessarily, requiring to be made solid by time; but they are now firm as the rocks of chalk which they came from, and the filling up one of these bastions, as I have been told by good hands, cost the Government 6000l. . being filled with chalk-rubbish fetched from the chalk-pits at North-Fleet, just above Gravesend.

4. The works to the land side are compleat; the bastions are faced with brick. There is a double ditch, or moat, the innermost part of which is 180 foot broad, there is a good counter-scarp, and a covered way marked out, with ravelins, and tenailles, but they are not raised a second time after their first settling.

On the land side there are also two small redoubts of brick, but of very little strength, for the chief strength of this fort on the land side consists in this, that they are able to lay the whole level under water, and so to make it impossible for an enemy to make any approaches to the fort that way.

On the side next the river, there is a very strong curtain, with a noble gate called the water-gate in the middle, and that ditch is pallisadoed. At the place where the water-bastion was designed to be built, and which by the plan should run wholly out into the river, so to flank the two curtains on each side; I say, in the place where it should have been, stands a high tower, which they tell us was built in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and was called the Block-house; the side next the water is vacant.

Before this curtain above and below the said vacancy, is a platform in the place of a counterscarp, on which are planted 106 pieces of cannon, generally all of them carrying from 24 to 46 pound ball; a battery, so terrible, as well imports the consequence of that place: Besides which, there are smaller pieces planted between, and the bastions and curtain also are planted with guns, so that they must be bold fellows who will venture in the biggest ships the world has heard of, to pass such a battery, if the men appointed to serve the guns, do their duty like stout fellows, as becomes them.

The present government of this important place is under the prudent administration of the Right Honourable the Lord Newbrugh.

From hence, there is nothing for many miles together remarkable, but a continued level of unhealthy marshes, called, the Three Hundreds, till we come before Leigh, and to the mouth of the River Chelmer, and Black-water. These rivers united make a large firth, or inlet of the sea, which by Mr. Camden is called Idumanum Fluvium; but by our fishermen and seamen, who use it as a port, ’tis called Maiden-Water.

In this inlet of the sea is Osey or Osyth Island, commonly called Oosy Island, so well known by our London men of pleasure, for the infinite number of wild-fowl, that is to say, duck, mallard, teal and widgeon, of which there are such vast flights, that they tell us the island, namely the creek, seems covered with them, at certain times of the year, and they go from London on purpose for the pleasure of shooting; and indeed often come home very well loaden with game. But it must be remembred too, that those gentlemen who are such lovers of the sport, and go so far for it, often return with an Essex ague on their backs, which they find a heavier load than the fowls they have shot.

’Tis on this shoar, and near this creek, that the greatest quantity of fresh fish is caught, which supplies not this country only, but London markets also: On the shoar beginning a little below Candy Island, or rather below Leigh Road, there lies a great shoal or sand called the Black Tayl, which runs out near three leagues into the sea due east; at the end of it, stands a pole or mast, set up by the Trinity-House men of London, whose business is, to lay buoys, and set up sea marks for the direction of the sailors; this is called Shoo-Bacon, from the point of land where this sand begins, which is call’d Shooberry-Ness, and that from the town of Shooberry, which stands by it. From this sand, and on the edge of Shooberry, before it, or south-west of it, all along, to the mouth of Colchester Water, the shoar is full of shoals and sands, with some deep channels between; all which are so full of fish, that not only the Barking fishing-smacks come hither to fish, but the whole shoar is full of small fisher-boats in very great numbers, belonging to the villages and towns on the coast, who come in every tide with what they take; and selling the smaller fish in the country, send the best and largest away upon horses, which go night and day to London market.

N.B. I am the more particular in my remark on this place, because in the course of my travels the reader will meet with the like in almost every place of note through the whole island, where it will be seen how this whole kingdom, as well the people, as the land, and even the sea, in every part of it, are employ’d to furnish something, and I may add, the best of every thing, to supply the city of London with provisions; I mean by provisions, corn, flesh, fish, butter, cheese, salt, fewel, timber, &c. and cloths also; with every thing necessary for building, and furniture for their own use, or for trades; of all which in their order.

On this shoar also are taken the best and nicest, tho’ not the largest oysters in England; the spot from whence they have their common appellation is a little bank called Woelfleet, scarce to be called an island, in the mouth of the River Crouch, now called Crooksea Water; but the chief place where the said oysters are now had, is from Wyvenhoo and the shears adjacent whither they are brought by the fishermen, who take them at the mouth of, that they call, Colchester Water, and about the sand they call the Spits, and carry them up to Wyvenhoo, where they are kid in beds or pits on the shoar to feed, as they call it; and then being barrelled up, and carried to Colchester, which is but three miles off, they are sent to London by land, and are, from thence, called Colchester oysters.

The chief sort of other fish which they carry from this part of the shoar to London, are soals, which they take sometimes exceeding large, and yield a very good price at London market: Also sometimes midling turbet, with whitings, codling, and large flounders; the small fish as above, they sell in the country.

In the several creeks and openings, as above, on this shoar, there are also other islands, but of no particular note, except Mersey, which lies in the middle of the two openings, between Malden Water and Colchester Water; being of the most difficult access, so that ’tis thought a thousand men well provided, might keep possession of it against a great force, whether by land or sea; on this account, and because if possessed by an enemy, it would shut up all the navigation and fishery on that side: The Government formerly built a fort on the south-east point of it: And generally in case of Dutch war, there is a strong body of troops kept there to defend it.

At this place may be said to end what we call the Hundreds of Essex; that is to say, the three hundreds or divisions, which include the marshy country, viz. Barnstaple Hundred, Rochford Hundred, and Dengy Hundred.

I have one remark more, before I leave this damp part of the world, and which I cannot omit on the womens account; namely, that I took notice of a strange decay of the sex here; insomuch, that all along this county it was very frequent to meet with men that had had from five or six, to fourteen or fifteen wives; nay, and some more; and I was inform’d that in the marshes on the other side the river over-against Candy Island, there was a farmer, who was then living with the five and twentieth wife, and that his son who was but about 35 years old, had already had about fourteen; indeed this part of the story, I only had by report, tho’ from good hands too; but the other is well known, and easie to be inquired in to, about Fobbing, Curringham, Thundersly, Benfleet, Prittlewell, Wakering, Great Stambridge, Cricksea, Burnham, Dengy, and other towns of the like situation: The reason, as a merry fellow told me, who said he had had about a dozen and half of wives, (tho’ I found afterwards he fibb’d a little) was this; That they being bred in the marshes themselves, and season’d to the place, did pretty well with it; but that they always went up into the hilly country, or to speak their own language into the uplands for a wife: That when they took the young lasses out of the wholesome and fresh air, they were healthy, fresh and clear, and well; but when they came out of their native air into the marshes among the fogs and damps, there they presently chang’d their complexion, got an ague or two, and seldom held it above half a year, or a year at most; and then, said he, we go to the uplands again, and fetch another; so that marrying of wives was reckon’d a kind of good farm to them: It is true, the fellow told this in a kind of drollery, and mirth; but the fact, for all that, is certainly true; and that they have abundance of wives by that very means: Nor is it less true, that the inhabitants in these places do not hold it out; as in other countries, and as first you seldom meet with very antient people among the poor, as in other places we do, so, take it one with another, not one half of the inhabitants are natives of the place; but such as from other countries, or in other parts of this county settle here for the advantage of good farms; for which I appeal to any impartial enquiry, having myself examin’d into it critically in several places.

From the marshes, and low grounds, being not able to travel without many windings, and indentures, by reason of the creeks, and waters, I came up to the town of Malden, a noted market town situate at the conflux or joyning of two principal rivers in this county, the Chelm or Chelmer, and the Blackwater, and where they enter into the sea. The channel, as I have noted, is call’d by the sailors Malden-Water, and is navigable up to the town, where, by that means, is a great trade for carrying corn by water to London; the county of Essex being (especially on all that side) a great corn country.

When I have said this, I think I have done Malden justice, and said all of it that there is to be said, unless I should run into the old story of its antiquity, and tell you it was a Roman colony in the time of Vespasian, and that it was call’d Camolodunum. How the Britons under Queen Boadicia, in revenge for the Romans ill usage of her, for indeed they used her majesty ill; they stripp’d her naked, and whipped her publickly thro’ their streets for some affront she had given them; I say, how for this, she rais’d the Britons round the country, overpowered, and cut in pieces the Tenth Legion, killed above eighty thousand Romans, and destroyed the colony; but was afterwards overthrown again in a great battle, and sixty thousand Britons slain. I say, unless I should enter into this story, I have nothing more to say of Malden, and as for that story, it is so fully related by Mr. Camden, in his history of the Romans in Britain, at the beginning of his Britannia, that I need only refer the reader to it, and go on with my journey.

Being obliged to come thus far into the uplands, as above, I made it my road to pass thro’ Witham, a pleasant well situated market-town, in which, and in its neighbourhood, there are as many gentlemen of good fortunes, and families, as I believe can be met with in so narrow a compass in any of the three counties, of which I make this circuit.

In the town of Witham dwells the Lord Pasely, eldest son of the Earl of Abercorne of Ireland, (a branch of the noble family of Hamilton, in Scotland:) His Lordship has a small, but a neat well built new house, and is finishing his gardens in such a manner, as few in that part of England will exceed them.

Nearer Chelmsford, hard by Boreham, lives the Lord Viscount Barrington, who tho’ not born to the title, or estate, or name which he now possesses, had the honour to be twice made heir to the estates of gentlemen, not at all related to him, at least one of them, as is very much to his honour mention’d in his patent of creation. His name was Shute, his uncle a linnen draper in London, and serv’d sheriff of the said city, in very troublesome times. He chang’d the name of Shute, for that of Barrington, by an Act of Parliament, obtain’d for that purpose, and had the dignity of a baron of the kingdom of Ireland conferr’d on him by the favour of King GEORGE. His lordship is a Dissenter, and seems to love retirement. He was a Member of Parliament for the town of Berwick upon Tweed.

On the other side of Witham, at Fauburn, an antient mansion house, built by the Romans, lives Mr. Bullock, whose father married the daughter of that eminent citizen, Sir Josiah Child of Wansted, by whom she had three sons, the eldest enjoys the estate, which is considerable.

It is observable, that in this part of the country, there are several very considerable estates purchas’d, and now enjoy’d by citizens of London, merchants and tradesmen, as Mr. Western an iron merchant, near Kelvedon, Mr. Cresnor, a wholesale grocer, who was, a little before he died, nam’d for sheriff at Earls Coln, Mr. Olemus, a merchant at Braintree, Mr. Westcomb, near Malden, Sir Thomas Webster at Copthall, near Waltham, and several others.

I mention this, to observe how the present encrease of wealth in the city of London, spreads it self into the country, and plants families and fortunes, who in another age will equal the families of the antient gentry, who perhaps were bought out. I shall take notice of this in a general head, and when I have run thro’ all the counties, collect a list of the families of citizens and tradesmen thus established in the several counties, especially round London.

The product of all this part of the country is corn, as that of the marshy feeding grounds mention’d above, is grass, where their chief business is breeding of calves, which I need not say are the best and fattest, and the largest veal in England, if not in the world; and as an instance, I eat part of a veal or calf, fed by the late Sir Josiah Child at Wansted, the loyn of which weigh’d above 30*. and the flesh exceeding white and fat.

From hence I went on to Colchester: The story of Kill Dane, which is told of the town of Kelvedon, three miles from Witham, namely, That this is the place where the massacre of the Danes was begun by the women, and that therefore it was call’d Kill-Dane. I say of it, as we generally say of improbable news, it wants confirmation. The true name of the town is Kelvedon, and has been so for many hundred years. Neither does Mr. Camden, or any other writer I meet with worth naming, insist on this piece of empty tradition, the town is commonly called Keldon.

COLCHESTER is an antient Corporation; the town is large, very populous; the streets fair and beautiful; and tho’ it may not be said to be finely built, yet there are abundance of very good and well-built houses in it: It still mourns, in the ruins of a civil war; during which, or rather after the heat of the war was over, it suffer’d a severe siege; which, the garrison making a resolute defence, was turn’d into a blockade, in which the garrison and inhabitants also, suffered the utmost extremity of hunger, and were at last oblig’d to surrender at discretion, when their two chief officers, Sir Charles Lucas, and Sir George Lisle, were shot to death under the castle-wall. The inhabitants had a tradition, that no grass would grow upon the spot where the blood of those two gallant gentlemen was spilt; and they shewM the place bare of grass for many years, but whether for this reason, I will not affirm; the story is now dropp’d, and the grass, I suppose, grows there as in other places.

However, the batter’d walls, the breaches in the turrets, and the ruin’d churches still remain, except that the church of St. Mary’s (where they had the royal fort) is rebuilt; but the steeple, which was two thirds batter’d down, because the besieged had a large culverine upon it, that did much execution, remains still in that condition.

There is another church which bears the marks of those times, namely, on the south-side of the town, in the way to the Hithe, of which more hereafter.

The lines of contravallation, with the forts built by the besiegers, and which surrounded the whole town, remain very visible in many places; but the chief of them are demolish’d.

The River Coln, which passes through this town, compasses it on the north and east-sides, and serv’d in those times for a compleat defence on those sides. They have three bridges over it, one called North-Bridge, at the north gate, by which the road leads into Suffolk; one call’d East-Bridge, at the foot of the High Street, over which lies the road to Harwich; and one at the Hithe, as above.

The river is navigable within three miles of the town for ships of large burthen; a little lower it may receive even a royal navy: And up to that part called the Hithe, close to the houses, it is navigable for hoys and small barks. This Hithe is a long street, passing from west to east, on the south-side of the town; at the west-end of it, there is a small intermission of the buildings, but not much; and towards the river it is very populous; (it may be call’d the Wapping of Colchester;) there is one church in that part of the town, a large key by the river, and a good custom-house.

The town may be said chiefly to subsist by the trade of making bays, which is known over most of the trading parts of Europe, by the name of Colchester bays, tho’ indeed all the towns round carry on the same trade, namely, Kelvedon, Wittham, Coggshall, Braintree, Bocking, &c. and the whole county, large as it is, may be said to be employ’d, and in part maintain’d, by the spinning of wool for the bay trade of Colchester, and its adjacent towns. The account of the siege, anno 1648, with a DIARY of the most remarkable passages, are as follows, which I had from so good a hand, as that I have no reason to question its being a true relation.

A Diary
or, An Account of the Siege and Blockade of Colchester
An. 1648

On the 4th of June, we were alarm’d in the town of Colchester, that the Lord Goring, the Lord Capel, and a body of 2000 of the Loyal Party, who had been in arms in Kent, having left a great body of an army in possession of Rochester Bridge, where they resolv’d to fight the Lord Fairfax, and the Parliament army; had given the said General Fairfax the slip, and having pass’d the Thames at Greenwich, were come to Stratford, and were advancing this way: Upon which news, Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, Col. Cook, and several gentlemen of the Loyal army, and all that had commissions from the king, with a gallant appearance of gentlemen voluntiers, drew together from all parts of the country, to join with them.

The 8th, we were further informed, that they were ad vane’d to Chelmsford, to New Hall House, and to Witham; and the 9th, some of the horse arriv’d in the town, taking possession of the gates, and having ingeneers with them, told us, that General Goring had resolv’d to make this town his head quarters, and would cause it to be well fortified; they also caused the drums to beat for voluntiers; and a good number of the poor bay-weavers, and such-like people, wanting employment, listed: So that they compleated Sir Charles Lucas’s regiment, which was but thin, to near 800 men.

On the 10th we had news, that the Lord Fairfax having beaten the Royalists at Maidstone, and re-taken Rochester, had pass’d the Thames at Gravesend, tho’ with great difficulty, and with some loss, and was come to Horndon on the Hill, in order to gain Colchester before the Royalists; but that hearing Sir Charles Lucas had prevented him, had order’d his rendezvous at Billerecay, and intended to possess the pass at Malden on the 11th, where Sir Thomas Honnywood, with the county Trained Bands, was to be the same day.

The same evening the Lord Goring, with all his forces, making about 5600 men, horse and foot, came to Colchester, and encamping without the suburbs, under command of the cannon of St. Mary’s Fort, made disposition to fight the Parliament forces, if they came up.

The 12th, the Lord Goring came into Colchester, viewed the fort in St. Mary’s churchyard, order’d more cannon to be planted upon it; posted two regiments in the suburbs without the Head-Gate; let the town know he would take them into his majesty’s protection; and that he would fight the enemy in that situation. The same evening, the Lord Fairfax, with a strong party of 1000 horse, came to Lexden, at two small miles distance, expecting the rest of his army there, the same night.

The Lord Goring brought in prisoners the same day, Sir William Masham, and several other gentlemen of the county, who were secured under a strong guard; which the Parliament hearing, order’d twenty prisoners of the Royal Party to be singl’d out, declaring, that they should be used in the same manner as the Lord Goring used Sir William Masham, and the gentlemen prisoners with him.

On the 13th, early in the morning, our spies brought intelligence, that the Lord Fairfax, all his forces being come up to him, was making dispositions for a march, resolving to attack the Royalists in their camp: Upon which, the Lord Goring drew all his forces together resolving to fight. The ingineers had offer’d the night before to entrench his camp and to draw a line round it in one night’s time; but his lordship declined it; and now there was no time for it: Whereupon the general, Lord Goring, drew up his army in order of battle, on both sides the road, the horse in the open fields on the wings; the foot were drawn up, one regiment in the road; one regiment on each side, and two regiments for reserve in the suburb, just at the entrance of the town, with a regiment of voluntiers, advanc’d as a forlorn hope, and a regiment of horse at the Head-Gate, ready to support the reserve, as occasion should require.

About nine in the morning we heard the enemy’s drums beat a march, and in half an hour more their first troops appeared on the higher grounds towards Lexden; immediately the cannon from St. Mary’s fir’d upon them, and put some troops of horse into confusion, doing great execution; which, they not being able to shun it, made them quicken their pace, to fall on, when our cannon were oblig’d to cease firing, least we should hurt our own troops, as well as the enemy: Soon after, their foot appeared, and our cannon saluted them in like manner, and killed them a great many men.

Their first line of foot was led up by Col. Barkstead, and consisted of three regiments of foot, making about 1700 men, and these charged our regiment in the lane, commanded by Sir George Lisle, and Sir William Campion: They fell on with great fury, and were receiv’d with as much gallantry, and three times repulsed; nor could they break in here, tho’ the Lord Fairfax sent fresh men to support them, till the Royalists horse, oppressed with numbers on the left, were obliged to retire, and at last, to come full gallop into the street, and so on into the town: Nay, still the foot stood firm, and the voluntiers, being all gentlemen, kept their ground with the greatest resolution: But the left wing being routed, as above, Sir William Campion was oblig’d to make a front to the left; and lining the hedge with his musqueteers, made a stand with a body of pikes against the enemy’s horse, and prevented them entering the lane. Here that gallant gentleman was kill’d with a carabine shot; and after a very gallant resistance, the horse on the right being also over-power’d, the word was given to retreat; which however was done in such good order, the regiments of reserve standing drawn up at the end of the street, ready to receive the enemy’s horse upon the points of their pikes, that the royal troops came on in the openings between the regiments, and entered the town with very little loss, and in very good order.

By this, however, those regiments of reserve, were brought, at last, to sustain the efforts of the enemy’s whole army, till being overpower’d by numbers, they were put into disorder, and forced to get into the town in the best manner they could; by which means near 200 men were kill’d or made prisoners.

Encouraged by this success, the enemy push’d on, supposing they should enter the town pelmel with the rest; nor did the Royalists hinder them, but let good part of Barksteads own regiment enter the Head Gate; but then sallying from St. Mary’s with a choice body of foot on their left, and the horse rallying in the High-street, and charging them again in the front, they were driven back quite into the street of the suburb, and most of those that had so rashly enter’d, were cut in pieces.

Thus they were repulsed at the south entrance into the town; and tho’ they attempted to storm three times after that with great resolution, yet they were as often beaten back, and that with great havock of their men; and the cannon from the fort all the while did execution upon those who stood drawn up to support them: So that at last seeing no good to be done, they retreated, having small joy of their pretended victory.

They lost in this action Colonel Needham, who commanded a regiment call’d the Tower Guards, and who fought very desperately; Capt. Cox, an old experienced horse officer, and several other officers of note, with a great many private men, tho’ as they had the field, they concealed their number, giving out, that they lost but an hundred, when we were assured, they lost near a thousand men besides the wounded.

They took some of our men prisoners, occasion’d by the regiment of Colonel Farr, and two more, sustaining the shock of their whole army, to secure the retreat of the main body, as above.

The 14th, the Lord Fairfax finding he was not able to carry the town by storm, without the formality of a siege, took his head quarters at Lexden, and sent to London, and to Suffolk for more forces; also he order’d the Trained Bands to be raised, and posted on the roads, to prevent succours; notwithstanding which, divers gentlemen, with some assistance of men and arms, found means to get into the town.

The very same night they began to break ground; and particularly, to raise a fort between Colchester and Lexden, to cover the generals quarter from the salleys from the town; for the Royalists having a good body of horse, gave them no rest, but scour’d the fields every day, falling on all that were found stragling from their posts, and by this means kill’d a great many.

The 17th, Sir Charles Lucas having been out with 1200 horse, and detatching parties toward the sea-side, and towards Harwich, they brought in a very great quantity of provisions, and abundance of sheep and black cattle, sufficient for the supply of the town for a considerable time; and had not the Suffolk forces advanced over Cataway Bridge to prevent it, a larger supply had been brought in that way; for now it appeared plainly, that the Lord Fairfax finding the garrison strong and resolute, and that he was not in a condition to reduce them by force, at least without the loss of much blood, had resolved to turn his siege into a blockade, and reduce them by hunger; their troops being also wanted to oppose several other parties, who had, in several parts of the kingdom, taken arms for the king’s cause.

This same day General Fairfax sent in a trumpet, to propose exchanging prisoners, which the Lord Goring rejected, expecting a reinforcement of troops, which were actually coming to him, and were to be at Linton in Cambridge-shire as the next day.

The same day two ships brought in a quantity of corn and provisions, and 56 men from the shore of Kent with several gentlemen, who all landed, and came up to the town, and the greatest part of the corn was with the utmost application unloaded the same night into some hoys, which brought it up to the Hithe, being apprehensive of the Parliaments ships which lay at Harwich, who having intelligence of the said ships, came the next day into the mouth of the river, and took the said two ships, and what com was left in them. The besieg’d sent out a party to help the ships, but having no boats they could not assist them.

18. Sir Charles Lucas sent an answer about exchange of prisoners, accepting the conditions offer’d, but the Parliaments general returned that he would not treat with Sir Charles, for that he Sir Charles being his prisoner upon his parole of honour, and having appear’d in arms contrary to the rules of war, had forfeited Ms honour and faith, and was not capable of command or trust in martial affairs: To this Sir Charles sent back an answer, and his excuse for his breach of his parole, but it was not accepted, nor would the Lord Fairfax enter upon any treaty with him.

Upon this second message, Sir William Masham, and the Parliament committee and other gentlemen, who were prisoners in the town, sent a message in writing under their hands to the Lord Fairfax, intreating him to enter into a treaty for peace; but the Lord Fairfax returned, he could take no notice of their request, as supposing it forced from them under restraint; but, that, if the Lord Goring desir’d peace, he might write to the Parliament, and he would cause his messenger to have a safe conduct to carry his letter: There was a paper sent enclosed in this paper, sign’d Capel, Norwich, Charles Lucas, but to that the general would return no answer, because it was sign’d by Sir Charles, for the reason above.

All this while, the Lord Goring, finding the enemy strengthening themselves, gave order for fortifying the town, and drawing lines in several places, to secure the entrance, as particularly without the east bridge, and without the north-gate and bridge, and to plant more cannon upon the works: To which end, some great guns were brought in from some ships at Wevenhoe.

The same day, our men sally’d out in three places, and attack’d the besiegers, first at their fort, call’d Essex; then at their new works, on the south of the town; a third party sallying at the east bridge, brought in some booty from the Suffolk troops, having killed several of their straglers on the Harwich road: They also took a lieutenant of horse prisoner, and brought him into the town.

19. This day we had the unwelcome news, that our friends at Linton were defeated by the enemy, and Major Muschamp, a loyal gentleman, kill’d.

The same night, our men gave the enemy alarm at their new Essex Fort, and thereby drew them out as if they would fight, till they brought them within reach of the cannon of St. Mary’s, and then our men retiring, the great guns let fly among them, and made them run: Our men shouted after them; several of them were kill’d on this occasion, one shot having kill’d three horsemen in our sight.

20. We now found the enemy in order to a perfect blockade,, resolv’d to draw a line of circumvallation round the town; having receiv’d a train of forty pieces of heavy cannon from the Tower of London.

This day the Parliament sent a messenger to their prisoners, to know how they far’d, and how they were used; who return’d word, that they far’d indifferent well, and were very civilly used, but that provisions were scarce, and therefore dear.

This day a party of horse with 300 foot, sally’d out, and marched as far as the fort on the Isle of Mersey, which they made a shew of attacking, to keep in the garrison; mean while the rest took a good number of cattle from the country, which they brought safe into the town, with five waggons loaden with corn: This was the last they could bring in that way, the lines being soon finished on that side.

This day the Lord Fairfax sent in a trumpet to the Earl of Norwich, and the Lord Goring, offering honourable conditions to them all; allowing all the gentlemen their lives and arms, exemption from plunder; and passes, if they desir’d to go beyond sea; and all the private men pardon, and leave to go peaceably to their own dwellings; but the Lord Goring and the rest of the gentlemen rejected it, and laughed at them: Upon which the Lord Fairfax made proclamation, that his men should give the private soldiers in Colchester free leave to pass through their camp, and go where they pleased without molestation, only leaving their arms, but that the gentlemen should have no quarter: This was a great loss to the Royalists, for now the men foreseeing the great hardships they were like to suffer, began to slip away, and the Lord Goreing was obliged to forbid any to desert on pain of present death, and to keep parties of horse continually patrolling to prevent them; notwithstanding which, many got away.

21. The town desir’d the Lord Goreing to give them leave to send a message to Lord Fairfax, to desire they might have liberty to carry on their trade and sell their bays and says, which Lord Goreing granted; but the enemy’s general return’d, that they should have consider’d that before they let the Royalists into the town: That to desire a free trade from a town besieg’d, was never heard of, or at least, was such a motion, as was never yet granted: That however, he would give the baymakers leave to bring their bays and says, and other goods, once a week, or oftener, if they desire it, to Lexden Heath, where they should have a free market, and might sell them or carry them back again, if not sold, as they found occasion.

22. The beseig’d sally’d out in the night with a strong party, and disturb’d the enemy in their works, and partly ruin’d one of their forts, call’d Ewer’s Fort, where the besiegers were laying a bridge over the River Coln; Also they sally’d again at East-Bridge, and faced the Suffolk troops, who were now declared enemies, these brought in six and fifty good bullocks, and some cows, and they took and kill’d several of the enemy.

23. The besiegers began to fire with their cannon from Essex Fort, and from Barksted’s Fort, which was built upon the Malden road, and finding that the besieged had a party in Sir Harbottle Grimston’s house, call’d, The Fryery, they fir’d at it with their cannon, and batter’d it almost down, and then the soldiers set it on fire.

This day upon the townsmen’s treaty for the freedom of the bay trade, the Lord Fairfax sent a second offer of conditions to the besieg’d, being, the same as before, only excepting Lord Goring, Lord Capel, Sir George Lisle, and Sir Charles Lucas.

This day we had news in the town, that the Suffolk forces were advanc’d to assist the besiegers and that they began a fort call’d Fort Suffolk, on the north side of the town, to shut up the Suffolk road towards Stratford. This day the besieg’d sally’d out at North-Bridge, attack’d the out-guards of the Suffolk men on Mile-End Heath, and drove them into their fort in the woods.

This day Lord Fairfax sent a trumpet, complaining of chew’d and poison’d bullets being shot from the town, and threatning to give no quarter if that practice was allow’d; but Lord Goring return’d answer, with a protestation, that no such thing was done by his order or consent.

24th. They fir’d hard from their cannon against St. Mary’s steeple, on which was planted a large culverin, which annoy’d them even in the general’s head quarters at Lexden. One of the best gunners the garrison had, was kill’d with a cannon bullet. This night the besieg’d sally’d towards Audly, on the Suffolk road, and brought in some cattle.

25. Lord Capell sent a trumpet to the Parliament-General, but the rogue ran away, and came not back, nor sent any answer; whether they receiv’d his message or not, was not known.

26. This day having finish’d their new bridge, a party of their troops pass’d that bridge, and took post on the hill over-against Mile-End Church, where they built a fort, call’d Fothergall’s Fort, and another on the east side of the road, call’d Rainsbro’s Fort, so that the town was entirely shut in, on that side, and the Royalists had no place free but over East Bridge, which was afterwards cut off by the enemy’s bringing their line from the Hithe within the river to the Stone Causeway leading to the east bridge.

July I. From the 26th to the 1st, the besiegers continu’d finishing their works, and by the 2d the whole town was shut in; at which the besiegers gave a general salvo from their cannon at all their forts; but the besieged gave them a return, for they sally’d out in the night, attack’d Barkstead’s Fort, scarce finish’d, with such fury, that they twice enter’d the work sword in hand, kill’d most part of the defendant’s, and spoil’d part of the forts cast up; but fresh forces coming up, they retir’d with little loss, bringing eight prisoners, and having slain, as they reported, above 100.

On the second, Lord Fairfax offer’d exchange for Sir William Masham in particular, and afterwards for other prisoners, but the Lord Goring refus’d.

5. The besieged sally’d with two regiments, supported by some horse, at midnight; They were commanded by Sir George Lisle; They fell on with such fury, that the enemy were put into confusion, their works at East-Bridge ruin’d, and two pieces of cannon taken, Lieutenant Col. Sambrook, and several other officers, were kill’d, and our men retir’d into the town, bringing the captain, two lieutenants, and about 50 men with them prisoners into the town; but having no horse, we could not bring off the cannon, but they spik’d them, and made them unfit for service.

From this time to the 11th, the besieged, sally’d almost every night, being encourag’d by their successes, and they constantly cut off some of the enemy, but not without loss also on their own side.

About this time we receiv’d by a spy, the bad news of defeating the king’s friends almost in all parts of England, and particularly several parties which had good wishes to our gentlemen, and intended to relieve them.

Our batteries from St. Mary’s Fort and Steeple, and from the North-Bridge, greatly annoy’d them, and kill’d most of their gunners and fire-men. One of the messengers who brought news to Lord Fairfax of the defeat of one of the parties in Kent, and the taking of Weymer Castle, slip’d into the town, and brought a letter to the Lord Goring, and listed in the regiment of the Lord Capel’s horse.

14. The besiegers attack’d and took the Hithe Church, with a small work the besieged had there, but the defenders retir’d in time; some were taken prisoners in the church, but not in the fort: Sir Charles Lucas’s house was attack’d by a great body of the besiegers; the besieged defended themselves with good resolution for some time, but a hand-grenado thrown in by the assailants, having fir’d the magazine, the house was blown up, and most of the gallant defenders buried in the ruines. This was a great blow to the Royalists, for it was a very strong pass, and always well guarded.

15. The Lord Fairfax sent offers of honourable conditions to the soldiers of the garrison, if they would surrender, or quit the service, upon which the Lords Goring and Capel, and Sir Charles Lucas, returned an answer signed by their hands, that it was not honourable or agreeable to the usage of war, to offer conditions separately to the soldiers, exclusive of their officers, and therefore civilly desir’d his lordship to send no more such messages or proposals, or if he did, that he would not take it ill if they hang’d up the messenger.

This evening all the gentlemen voluntiers, with all the horse of the garrison, with Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, and Sir Bernard Gascoign at the head of them, resolved to break through the enemy, and forcing a pass to advance into Suffolk by Nayland Bridge; to this purpose, they pass’d the river near Middle-Mill; but their guides having mislead them, the enemy took the alarm; upon which their guides, and some pioneers which they had with them, to open the hedges, and level the banks, for their passing to Boxted, all run away; so the horse were obliged to retreat; the enemy pretended to pursue, but thinking they had retreated by the North Bridge, they miss’d them; upon which being enraged, they fir’d the suburbs without the bridge, and burn’d them quite down.

18. Some of the horse attempted to escape the same way; and had the whole body been there as before, they had effected it; but there being but two troops, they were obliged to retire. Now the town began to be greatly distress’d, provisions failing; and the town’s people, which were numerous, being very uneasy, and no way of breaking through being found practicable, the gentlemen would have joined in any attempt wherein they might die gallantly with their swords in their hands, but nothing presented; they often sally’d and cut off many of the enemy, but their numbers were continually supplied, and the besieged diminished; their horse also sunk and became unfit for service, having very little hay, and no corn; and at length they were forced to kill them for food; so that they began to be in a very miserable condition, and the soldiers deserted every day in great numbers, not being able to bear the want of food, as being almost starved with hunger.

22. The Ld. Fairfax offered again an exchange of prisoners, but the Lord Goring rejected it, because they refused conditions to the chief gentlemen of the garrison.

During this time, two troops of the Royal Horse sallied out in the night, resolving to break out or die: The first rode up full gallop to the enemy’s horse-guards on the side of Malden Road, and exchanged their pistols with the advanced troops, and wheeling, made as if they would retire to the town; but finding they were not immediately pursued, they wheeled about to the right, and passing another guard at a distance, without being perfectly discovered, they went clean off, and passing towards Tiptree Heath, and having good guides, they made their escape towards Cambridge-shire, in which length of way they found means to disperse without being attack’d, and went every man his own way as fate directed; nor did we hear that many of them were taken: They were led, as we are informed, by Sir Bernard Gascoigne.

Upon these attempts of the Horse to break out, the enemy built a small fort in the meadow right against the ford, in the river, at the Middle Mill, and once set that mill on fire, but it was extinguished without much damage; however the fort prevented any more attempts that way.

23. The Parliament General sent in a trumpet, to propose again the exchange of prisoners, offering the Lord Capel’s son for one, and Mr. Ashburnham, for Sir William Masham; but the Lord Capel, Lord Goring, and the rest of the loyal gentlemen rejected it; and Lord Capel in particular sent the Lord Fairfax word, it was inhuman to surprize his son, who was not in arms, and offer him to insult a father’s affection, but that he might murther his son if he pleased, he would leave his blood to be revenged as Heaven should give opportunity; and the Lord Goring sent word, that as they had reduced the king’s servants to eat horse-flesh, the prisoners should feed as they fed.

The enemy sent again to complain of the Royalists shooting poison’d bullets, and sent two affidavits of it made by two deserters, swearing it was done by the Lord Norwich’s direction: The generals in the town returned under all their hands, that they never gave any such command or direction; that they disown’d the practice; and that the fellows who swore it were perjured before in running from their colours, and the service of their king, and ought not to be credited again: But they added, that for shooting rough-cast slugs they must excuse them, as things stood with them at that time.

About this time a porter in a soldier’s habit got through the enemy’s leaguer, and passing their out-guards in the dark, got into the town, and brought letters from London, assuring the Royalists, that there were so many strong parties up in arms for the king, and in so many places, that they would be very suddenly reliev’d: This they caus’d to be read to the soldiers to encourage them; and particularly it related to the rising of the Earl of Holland, and the Duke of Buckingham, who with 500 Horse were gotten together in arms about Kingston in Surrey; but we had notice in a few days after, that they were defeated and the Earl of Holland taken, who was afterwards beheaded.

26 The enemy now began to batter the walls, and especially on the west-side, from St. Mary’s towards the North Gate; and we were assured they intended a storm; on which the ingeniers were directed to make entrenchments behind the walls where the breaches should be made, that in case of a storm, they might meet with a warm reception: Upon this, they gave over the design of storming. The Lord Goring finding that the enemy had set the suburbs on fire right against the Hithe, ordered the remaining houses, which were empty of inhabitants, from whence their musketeers fir’d against the town, to be burn’d also

31. A body of foot sally’d out at midnight, to discover what the enemy were doing at a place where they thought a new fort raiseing; they fell in among the workmen, and put them to flight, cut in pieces several of the guard, and brought in the officer who commanded them prisoner.

Aug. 2. The town was now in a miserable condition, the soldiers searched and rifled the houses of the inhabitants for victuals; they had liv’d on horse-flesh several weeks, and most of that also was lean as carrion, which not being well salted bred worms; and this want of diet made the soldiers sickly, and many died of fluxes, yet they boldly rejected all offers of surrender, unless with safety to their officers: However, several hundreds got out, and either pass’d the enemy’s guards, or surrender’d to them, and took passes.

Aug. 7. The town’s people became very uneasy to the soldiers, and the mayor of the town, with the aldermen, waited upon the general, desiring leave to send to the Lord Fairfax, for leave to all the inhabitants to come out of the town, that they might not perish; to which the Lord Goring consented; but the Lord Fairfax refused them.

12. The rabble got together in a vast crowd about the Lord Goring’s quarters, clamouring for a surrender, and they did this every evening, bringing women and children, who lay howling and crying on the ground for bread; the soldiers beat off the men, but the women and children would not stir, bidding the soldiers kill them, saying they had rather be shot than be starv’d.

16. The general mov’d by the cries and distress of the poor inhabitants, sent out a trumpet to the Parliament General, demanding leave to send to the prince, who was with a fleet of 19 men of war in the mouth of the Thames, offering to surrender, if they were not reliev’d in 20 days. The Lord Fairfax refused it, and sent them word, he would be in the town in person, and visit them in less than 20 days, intimating that they were preparing for a storm. Some tart messages and answers were exchanged on this occasion. The Lord Goring sent word, they were willing, in compassion to the poor town’s people, and to save that effusion of blood, to surrender upon honourable terms, but that as for the storming them, which was threaten’d, they might come on when they thought fit, for that they (the Royalists) were ready for them. This held to the 19.

20. The Lord Fairfax return’d, what he said, was his last answer, and should be the last offer of mercy: The conditions offered were, That upon a peaceable surrender, all soldiers and officers under the degree of a captain, in commission, should have their lives, be exempted from plunder, and have passes to go to their respective dwellings: All the captains and superior officers, with all the lords and gentlemen, as well in commission as voluntiers, to surrender prisoners at discretion s; and when the people came about them again for bread, set open one of the gates, and bid them go out to the enemy, which a great many did willingly; upon which the Lord Goring ordered all the rest that came about his door, to be turn’d out after them: But when the people came to the Lord Fairfax’s camp, the out-guards were order’d to fire at them, and drive them all back again to the gate; which the Lord Goring seeing, he order’d them to be receiv’d in again. And now, altho’ the generals and soldiers also, were resolute to die with their swords in their hands, rather than yield, and had maturely resolv’d to abide a storm; yet the mayor and aldermen having petitioned them, as well as the inhabitants, being wearied with the importunities of the distressed people, and pitying the deplorable condition they were reduced to, they agreed to enter upon a treaty, and accordingly, sent out some officers to the Lord Fairfax, the Parliament General, to treat; and with them was sent two gentlemen of the prisoners upon their parole to return.

Upon the return of the said messengers with the Lord Fairfax’s terms, the Lord Goring, &c. sent out a letter, declaring they would die with their swords in their hands, rather than yield without quarter for life, and sent a paper of articles, on which they were willing to surrender: But in the very interim of this treaty, news came, that the Scots army under Duke Hamilton, which was enter’d into Lancashire, and was joyn’d by the Royalists in that county, making 21000 men, were entirely defeated. After this, the Ld. Fairfax would not grant any abatement of articles, viz. To have all above lieutenants surrender at mercy.

Upon this, the Lord Goring and the general refused to submit again, and proposed a general sally, and to break through or die, but found upon preparing for it, that the soldiers, who had their lives offered them, declined it, fearing the gentlemen would escape, and they should be left to the mercy of the Parliament soldiers; and that upon this they began to mutiny, and talk of surrendering the town, and their officers too. Things being brought to this pass, the lords and general laid aside that design, and found themselves oblig’d to submit: And so the town was surrendered the 28th of August, 1648, upon conditions, as follows,

The lords and gentlemen all prisoners at mercy.

The common soldiers had passes to go home to their several dwellings, but without arms, and on oath not to serve against the Parliament.

The town to be preserv’d from pillage, paying 14000l. ready money.

The same day a Council of War being call’d about the prisoners of war, it was resolv’d, That the lords should be left to the disposal of the Parliament. That Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, and Sir Marmaduke Gascoign, should be shot to death, and the other officers prisoners, to remain in custody till farther order.

The two first of the three gentlemen were shot to death, and the third respited.

Thus ended the Siege of COLCHESTER.

N.B. Notwithstanding the number killed in the siege, and dead of the flux, and other distempers, occasioned by bad diet, which were very many, and notwithstanding the number which deserted and escap’d in the time of their hardships, yet there remained at the time of the surrender,
Earl of Norw. (Goring)
Lord Capell.
Lord Loughbro’
11 Knights
9 Colonels
8 Lieut. Colonels
9 Majors
30 Captains
72 Lieutenants
69 Ensigns
183 Serj. and corpor.
3067 Private soldiers
65 Servants to the lords and general officers and gentlemen.
3513. in all.

The town of Colchester has been suppos’d to contain about 40000 people, including the out-villages which are within its liberty, of which there are a great many, the liberty of the town being of a great extent: One sad testimony of the town being so populous is, that they bury’d upwards of 5259 people in the Plague Year, 1665. But the town was severely visited indeed, even more in proportion than any of its neighbours, or than the city of London.

The government of the town is by a mayor, high steward, a recorder, or his deputy, eleven aldermen, a chamberlain, a town-clerk, assistants, and eighteen common-council-men. Their high-steward (this year, 1722.) is Sir Isaac Rebow, a gentleman of a good family and known character, who has generally, for above 30 years, been one of their representatives in Parliament: He has a very good house at the entrance in at the South, or head gate of the town, where he has had the honour, several times, to lodge and entertain the late Kong William, of glorious memory, in his returning from Holland, by way of Harwich to London. Their recorder is Earl Cowper, who has been twice lord high-chancellor of England: But his lordship not residing in those parts, has put in for his deputy, ——— Price, Esq; Banister at Law, and who dwells in the town. There are in Colchester eight churches, besides those which are damag’d, and five meeting-houses, whereof two for Quakers; besides a Dutch church and a French church.

Public edifices are,

1. Bay-Hall, an ancient society kept up for ascertaining the manufactures of bays; which are, or ought to be, all brought to this hall, to be viewed and sealed according to their goodness, by the masters; and to this practice has been owing the great reputation of the Colchester bays in foreign markets; where to open the side of a bale and shew the seal, has been enough to give the buyer a character of the value of the goods without any farther search; and so far as they abate the integrity and exactness of their method, which, I am told, of late is much omitted; I say, so far, that reputation will certainly abate in the markets they go to, which are principally in Portugal and Italy. This corporation is govern’d by a particular set of men who are call’d Governors of the Dutch Bay Hall. And in the same building is the Dutch church.

2. The Guild Hall of the town, called by them the Moot Hall; to which is annex’d the town goal.

3. The Work-house, being lately enlarg’d, and to which belongs a corporation, or a body of the inhabitants, consisting of sixty persons incorporated by Act of Parliament anno 1698, for taking care of the poor: They are incorporated by the name and title of The Governor, Deputy Governor, Assistants, and Guardians, of the Poor of the Town of Colchester. They are in number eight and forty; to whom are added the mayor and aldermen for the time being, who are always guardians by the same Charter: These make the number of sixty, as above.

There is also a grammar free-school, with a good allowance to the master, who is chosen by the town.

1. The Castle of Colchester is now become only a monument shewing the antiquity of the place, it being built as the walls of the town also are, with Roman bricks; and the Roman coins dug up here, and ploughed up in the fields adjoining, confirm it. The inhabitants boast much, that Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, first Christian Emperor of the Romans, was born there; and it may be so for ought we know; I only observe what Mr. Camden says of the castle of Colchester, viz.

“In the middle of this city stands a castle ready to fall with age.”[1]

Tho’ this castle has stood an hundred and twenty years from the time Mr. Camden wrote that account, and it is not fallen yet; nor will another hundred and twenty years, I believe, make it look one jot the older: And it was observable, that in the late siege of this town, a cannon shot, which the besiegers made at this old castle, were so far from making it fall, that they made little or no impression upon it; for which reason, it seems, and because the garrison made no great use of it against the besiegers, they fir’d no more at it.

There are two CHARITY SCHOOLS set up here, and carried on by a generous subscription, with very good success.

The title of Colchester is in the family of Earl Rivers; and the eldest son of that family, is called Lord Colchester; tho’, as I understand, the title is not settled by the creation, to the eldest son, till he enjoys the title of Earl with it; but that the other is by the courtesy of England; however this I take ad referendum.

Harwich and Suffolk

From Colchester, I took another step down to the coast, the land running out a great way into the sea, south, and S.E. makes that promontory of land called the Nase, and well known to sea-men, using the northern trade. Here one sees a sea open as an ocean, without any opposite shore, tho’ it be no more than the mouth of the Thames. This point call’d the Nase, and the N.E. point of Kent, near Margate, call’d the North Foreland, making (what they call) the mouth of the river, and the port of London, tho’ it be here above 60 miles over.

At Walton, under the Nase, they find on the shoar, copperas-stone in great quantities; and there are several large works call’d Copperas Houses, where they make it with great expence.

On this promontory is a new sea mark, erected by the Trinity-House men, and at the publick expence, being a round brick tower, near 80 foot high. The sea gains so much upon the land here, by the continual winds at S.W. that within the memory of some of the inhabitants there, they have lost above 30 acres of land in one place.

From hence we go back into the country about four miles, because of the creeks which lie between; and then turning east again, come to Harwich, on the utmost eastern point of this large country.

Harwich is a town so well known, and so perfectly describ’d by many writers, I need say little of it: ’Tis strong by situation, and may be made more so by art. But ’tis many years since the Government of England have had any occasion to fortify towns to the landward; ’tis enough that the harbour or road, which is one of the best and securest in England, is cover’d at the entrance by a strong fort, and a battery of guns to the seaward, just as at Tilbury, and which sufficiently defend the mouth of the river: And there is a particular felicity in this fortification, viz. That tho’ the entrance or opening of the river into the sea, is very wide, especially at high-water, at least two miles, if not three over; yet the channel, which is deep, and in which the ships must keep and come to the harbour, is narrow, and lies only on the side of the fort; so that all the ships which come in, or go out, must come close under the guns of the fort; that is to say, under the command of their shot.

The fort is on the Suffolk side of the bay, or entrance, but stands so far into the sea upon the point of a sand or shoal, which runs out toward the Essex side, as it were, laps over the mouth of that haven like a blind to it; and our surveyors of the country affirm it to be in the county of Essex. The making this place, which was formerly no other than a sand in the sea, solid enough for the foundation of so good a fortification, has not been done but by many years labour, often repairs, and an infinite expence of money, but ’tis now so firm, that nothing of storms and high tides, or such things, as make the sea dangerous to these kind of works, can affect it.

The harbour is of a vast extent; for, as two rivers empty themselves here, viz, Stour from Mainingtree, and the Orwel from Ipswich, the channels of both are large and deep, and safe for all weathers; so where they joyn they make a large bay or road, able to receive the biggest ships, and the greatest number that ever the world saw together; I mean, ships of war. In the old Dutch War, great use has been made of this harbour; and I have known that there has been 100 sail of men of war and their attendants, and between three and four hundred sail of collier ships, all in this harbour at a time, and yet none of them crowding, or riding in danger of one another.

Harwich is known for being the port where the packet-boats between England and Holland, go out and come in: The inhabitants are far from being fam’d for good usage to strangers, but on the contrary, are blamed for being extravagant in their reckonings, in the publick houses, which has not a little encourag’d the setting up of sloops, which they now call passage-boats, to Holland, to go directly from the river of Thames; this, tho’ it may be something the longer passage, yet as they are said to be more obliging to passengers, and more reasonable in the expence, and as some say also the vessels are better sea-boats, has been the reason why so many passengers do not go or come by the way of Harwich, as formerly were wont to do; insomuch, that the stage-coaches, between this place and London, which ordinarily went twice or three times a week, are now entirely laid down, and the passengers are left to hire coaches on purpose, take post-horses, or hire horses to Colchester, as they find most convenient.

The account of a petrifying quality in the earth here, tho’ some will have it to be in the water of a spring hard by, is very strange: They boast that their town is wall’d, and their streets pav’d with clay, and yet, that one is as strong, and the other as clean as those that are built or pav’d with stone: The fact is indeed true, for there is a sort of clay in the cliff, between the town and the beacon-hill adjoining, which when it falls down into the sea, where it is beaten with the waves and the weather, turns gradually into stone: but the chief reason assign’d, is from the water of a certain spring or well, which rising in the said cliff, runs down into the sea among those pieces of clay, and petrifies them as it runs, and the force of the sea often stirring, and perhaps, turning the lumps of clay, when storms of wind may give force enough to the water, causes them to harden every where alike; otherwise those which were not quite sunk in the water of the spring, would be petrify’d but in part. These stones are gathered up to pave the streets, and build the houses, and are indeed very hard: ’Tis also remarkable, that some of them taken up before they are thoroughly petrify’d, will, upon breaking them, appear to be hard as a stone without, and soft as clay in the middle; whereas others, that have layn a due time, shall be thorough stone to the center, and as exceeding hard within, as without: The same spring is said to turn wood into iron: But this I take to be no more or less than the quality, which as I mention’d of the shoar at the Ness, is found to be in much of the stone, all along this shoar, (viz.) Of the copperas kind; and ’tis certain, that the copperas stone (so call’d) is found in all that cliff, and even where the water of this spring has run; and I presume, that those who call the harden’ d pieces of wood, which they take out of this well by the name of iron, never try’d the quality of it with the fire or hammer; if they had, perhaps they would have given some other account of it.

On the promontory of land, which they ‘call Beacon-Hill, and which lies beyond, or behind the town, towards the sea, there is a light-house, to give the ships directions in their sailing by, as well as their coming into the harbour in the night. I shall take notice of these again all together, when I come to speak of the Society of Trinity House, as they are called, by whom they are all directed upon this coast.

This town was erected into a marquisate, in honour of the truly glorious family of Schomberg, the eldest son of Duke Schomberg, who landed with King William, being stiled Marquis of Harwich; but that family (in England at least) being extinct, the title dies also.

Harwich is a town of hurry and business, not much of gaiety and pleasure; yet the inhabitants seem warm in their nests, and some of them are very wealthy: There are not many (if any) gentlemen or families of note, either in the town, or very near it. They send two members to Parliament; the present are, Sir Peter Parker, and Humphrey Parsons, Esq.

And now being at the extremity of the county of Essex, of which I have given you some view, as to that side next the sea only; I shall break off this part of my letter, by telling you, that I will take the towns which lie more towards the center of the county, in my return by the north and west part only, that I may give you a few hints of some towns which were near me in my rout this way, and of which being so well known, there is but little to say.

On the road from London to Colchester, before I came into it at Witham, lie four good market-towns at equal distance from one another; namely, Rumford, noted for two markets, (viz.) one for calves and hogs, the other for corn and other provisions; most, if not all, bought up for London market. At the farther end of the town, in the middle of a stately park, stood Guldy Hall, vulgarly Giddy Hall, an antient seat of one Coke, sometime Lord-Mayor of London, but forfeited, on some occasion, to the Crown: It is since pull’d down to the ground, and there now stands a noble stately fabrick or mansion-house, built upon the spot by Sir John Eyles, a wealthy merchant of London, and chosen sub-governor of the South-Sea Company, immediately after the ruin of the former sub-governor and directors, whose overthrow makes the history of these times famous.

Brent-Wood and Ingarstone, and even Chelmsford itself, have very little to be said of them, but that they are large thoroughfair towns, full of good inns, and chiefly maintained by the excessive multitude of carriers and passengers, which are constantly passing this way to London, with droves of cattle, provisions, and manufactures for London.

The last of these towns is indeed the county-town, where the county jayl is kept, and where the assizes are very often held; it stands on the conflux of two rivers, the Chelmer, whence the town is called, and the Cann.

At Lees, or Lee’s Priory, as some call it, is to be seen an antient house, in the middle of a beautiful park, formerly the seat of the late Duke of Manchester, but since the death of the duke, it is sold to the Dutchess Dowager of Buckinghamshire; the present Duke of Manchester, retiring to his antient family seat at Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire, it being a much finer residence. His grace is lately married to a daughter of the Duke of Montague by a branch of the house of Marlborough.

Four market-towns fill up the rest of this part of the country; Dunmow, Braintre, Thaxted, and Coggshall; all noted for the manufacture of bays, as above, and for very little else, except I shall make the ladies laugh, at the famous old story of the Flitch of Bacon at Dunmow, which is this:

One Robert Fitz-Walter, a powerful baron in this county, in the time of Hen. III. on some merry occasion, which is not preserv’d in the rest of the story, instituted a custom in the priory here; That whatever married man did not repent of his being marry’d, or quarrel, or differ and dispute with his wife, within a year and a day after his marriage, and would swear to the truth of it, kneeling upon two hard pointed stones in the church yard, which stones he caus’d to be set up in the priory church-yard, for that purpose: The prior and convent, and as many of the town as would, to be present: such person should have a flitch of bacon.

I do not remember to have read, that any one ever came to demand it; nor do the people of the place pretend to say, of their own knowledge, that they remember any that did so; a long time ago several did demand it, as they say, but they know not who; neither is there any record of it; nor do they tell us, if it were now to be demanded, who is obliged to deliver the flitch of bacon, the priory being dissolved and gone.

The forest of Epping and Henalt, spreads a great part of this country still: I shall speak again of the former in my return from this circuit. Formerly, (’tis thought) these two forests took up all the west and south part of the county; but particularly we are assur’d, that it reach’d to the River Chelmer, and into Dengy Hundred; and from thence again west to Epping and Waltham, where it continues to be a forest still.

Probably this forest of Epping has been a wild or forest ever since this island was inhabited, and may shew us, in some parts of it, where enclosures and tillage has not broken in upon it, what the face of this island was before the Romans time; that is to say, before their landing in Britain.

The constitution of this forest is best seen, I mean, as to the antiquity of it, by the merry grant of it from Edward the Confessor, before the Norman Conquest to Randolph Peperking, one of his favourites, who was after called Peverell, and whose name remains still in several villages in this county; as particularly that of Hatfield Peverell, in the road from Chelmsford to Witham, which is suppos’d to be originally a park, which they call’d a field in those days; and Hartfield may be as much as to say a park for deer; for the stags were in those days called harts; so that this was neither more nor less than Randolph Peperking’s Hartfield; that is to say, Ralph Peverell’s deer-park.

N.B. This Ralph Randolph, or Ralph Peverell (call him as you please) had, it seems, a most beautiful lady to his wife, who was daughter of Ingelrick, one of Edward the Confessor’s noblemen: He had two sons by her, William Peverell, a fam’d soldier, and Lord or Governor of Dover Castle; which he surrender’d to William the Conqueror, after the Battle of Sussex; and Pain Peverell, his youngest, who was Lord of Cambridge: When the eldest son delivered up the castle, the lady his mother, above nam’d, who was the celebrated beauty of the age, was it seems there; and the Conqueror fell in love with her, and whether by force, or by consent, took her away, and she became his mistress, or what else you please to call it: By her he had a son, who was call’d William, after the Conqueror’s Christian name, but retain’d the name of Peverell, and was afterwards created by the Conqueror, Lord of Nottingham.

This lady afterwards, as is supposed, by way of penance, for her yielding to the Conqueror, founded a nunnery at the village of Hatfield-Peverell, mentioned above, and there she lies buried in the chapel of it, which is now the parish-church, where her memory is preserv’d by a tomb-stone under one of the windows.

Thus we have several towns, where any antient parks have been plac’d, call’d by the name of Hatfield on that very account.

As Hatfield Broad Oak in this county, Bishop’s Hatfield in Hertfordshire, and several others.

But I return to King Edward’s merry way, as I call it, of granting this forest to this Ralph Peperking, which I find in the antient records, in the very words it was pass’d in, as follows: Take my explanations with it, for the sake of those that are not us’d to the antient English.

The GRANT in Old English
I Che EDWARD Koning,

The Explanation in Modern English
I EDWARD the King

The GRANT in Old English
Have given of my forrest the kepen of the Hundred of Chelmer and Dancing,

The Explanation in Modern English
Have made Ranger of my forest of Chelmsford Hundred, and Deering Hundred

The GRANT in Old English
To RANDOLPH PEPERKING, And to his kindling,

The Explanation in Modern English
Ralph Peverell, for him and his heirs for ever

The GRANT in Old English
With heorte and hind, doe and bocke,

The Explanation in Modern English
With both the red and fallow deer

The GRANT in Old English
Hare and fox, cat and brock,

The Explanation in Modern English
Hare and fox, otter and badger

The GRANT in Old English
Wild fowle with his flock,

The Explanation in Modern English
Wild fowl of all sorts,

The GRANT in Old English
Patrich, pheasant hen, and phea sant cock,

The Explanation in Modern English
Partridges and pheasants,

The GRANT in Old English
With green and wild stub and stock,

The Explanation in Modern English
Timber and underwood, roots and tops,

The GRANT in Old English
To kepen and to yemen with all her might,

The Explanation in Modern English
With power to preserve the forest,

The GRANT in Old English
Both by day, and eke by night,

The Explanation in Modern English
And watch it against deer stealers and others,

The GRANT in Old English
And hounds for to hold, Good and swift, and bold,

The Explanation in Modern English
With a right to keep hounds of all sorts,

The GRANT in Old English
Four greyhound, and six raches,

The Explanation in Modern English
Four grey-hounds, and six terriers,

The GRANT in Old English
For hare and fox, and wild cattes,

The Explanation in Modern English
Harriers and fox-hounds, and other hounds,

The GRANT in Old English
And therefore Iche made him my book;

The Explanation in Modern English
And to this end I have registered this my Grant, in the Crown rolls or books,

The GRANT in Old English
Witness the Bishop of Wolston, And book ylrede many on; witness for any one to read

The Explanation in Modern English
And to this end I have registered this my Grant, in the Crown rolls or books,

There are many gentlemen’s seats on this side the county, and a great assemblee set up at New-Hall, near this town, much resorted to by the neighbouring gentry. I shall next proceed to the county of Suffolk, as my first design directed me to do.

From Harwich therefore, having a mind to view the harbour, I sent my horses round by Maningtree, where there is a timber bridge over the Stour, called Cataway Bridge, and took a boat up the River Orwell, for Ipswich; a traveller will hardly understand me, especially a seaman, when I speak of the River Stour and the River Orwell at Harwich, for they know them by no other names than those of Maningtre-Water, and Ipswich-Water; so while I am on salt water, I must speak as those who use the sea may understand me, and when I am up in the country among the in-land towns again, I shall call them out of their names no more.

It is twelve miles from Harwich up the water to Ipswich: Before I come to the town, I must say something of it, because speaking of the river requires it: In former times, that .is to say, since the writer of this remembers the place very well, and particularly just before the late Dutch Wars, Ipswich was a town of very good business; particularly it was the greatest: town in England for large colliers or coal-ships, employed between New Castle and London: Also they built the biggest: ships and the best, for the said fetching of coals of any that were employed in that trade: They built also there so prodigious strong, that it was an ordinary thing for an Ipswich collier, if no disaster happened to him, to reign (as seamen call it) forty or fifty years, and more.

In the town of Ipswich the masters of these ships generally dwelt, and there were, as they then told me, above a hundred sail of them, belonging to the town at one time, the least of which carried fifteen-score, as they compute it, that is, 300 chaldron of coals; this was about the year 1668 (when I first knew the place). This made the town be at that time so populous, for those masters, as they had good ships at sea, so they had large families, who liv’d plentifully, and in very good houses in the town, and several streets were chiefly inhabited by such.

The loss or decay of this trade, accounts for the present pretended decay of the town of Ipswich, of which I shall speak more presently: The ships wore out, the masters died off, the trade took a new turn; Dutch fly boats taken in the war, and made free ships by Act of Parliament, thrust themselves into the coal-trade for the interest of the captors, such as the Yarmouth and London merchants, and others; and the Ipswich men dropt gradually out of it, being discouraged by those Dutch flyboats: These Dutch vessels which cost nothing but the caption, were bought cheap, carried great burthens, and the Ipswich building fell off for want of price, and so the trade decay’d, and the town with it; I believe this will be own’d for the true beginning of their decay, if I must allow it to be call’d a decay.

But to return to my passage up the river. In the winter time those great collier-ships, abovemention’d, are always laid up, as they call it: That is to say, the coal trade abates at London, the citizens are generally furnish’d, their stores taken in, and the demand is over; so that the great ships, the northern seas and coast being also dangerous, the nights long, and the voyage hazardous, go to sea no more, but lie by, the ships are unrigg’d, the sails, &c. carry’d a shore, the top-masts struck, and they ride moor’d in the river, under the advantages and security of sound ground, and a high woody shore, where they lie as safe as in a wet dock; and it was a very agreeable sight to see, perhaps two hundred sail of ships, of all sizes lye in that posture every winter: All this while, which was usually from Michaelmas to Lady Day, The masters liv’d calm and secure with their families in Ipswich; and enjoying plentifully, what in the summer they got laboriously at sea, and this made the town of Ipswich very populous in the winter; for as the masters, so most of the men, especially their mates, boatswains, carpenters, &c. were of the same place, and liv’d in their proportions, just as the masters did; so that in the winter there might be perhaps a thousand men in the town more than in the summer, and perhaps a greater number.

To justify what I advance here, that this town was formerly very full of people, I ask leave to refer to the account of Mr. Camden, and what it was in his time, his words are these.

“Ipswich has a commodious harbour, has been fortified with a ditch and rampart, has a great trade, and is very populous; being adorned with fourteen churches, and large private buildings.”

This confirms what I have mentioned of the former state of this town; but the present state is my proper work; I therefore return to my voyage up the river.

The sight of these ships thus laid up in the river, as I have said, was very agreeable to me in my passage from Harwich, about five and thirty years before the present journey; and it was in its proportion equally melancholly to hear, that there were now scarce 40 sail of good colliers that belonged to the whole town.

In a creek in this river call’d Lavington-Creek we saw at low water, such shoals, or hills rather, of muscles that great boats might have loaded with them, and no miss have been made of them. Near this creek Sir Samuel Barnadiston had a very fine seat, as also a decoy for wild ducks, and a very noble estate; but it is divided into many branches since the death of the antient possessor; but I proceed to the town, which is the first in the county of Suffolk of any note this way.

Ipswich is seated, at the distance of 12 miles from Harwich, upon the edge of the river, which taking a short turn to the west, the town forms, there, a kind of semi-circle, or half moon upon the bank of the river: It is very remarkable, that tho’ ships of 500 tun may upon a spring tide come up very near this town, and many ships of that burthen have been built there; yet the river is not navigable any farther than the town itself, or but very little; no not for the smallest boats, nor does the tide, which rises sometimes 13 or 14 foot, and gives them 24 foot water very near the town, flow much farther up the river than the town, or not so much as to make it worth speaking of.

He took little notice of the town, or at least of that part of Ipswich, who published in his wild observations on it, that ships of 200 [2] tun are built there: I affirm, that I have seen a ship of 400 tun launch’d at the building-yard, close to the town; and I appeal to the Ipswich colliers (those few that remain) belonging to this town, if several of them carrying seventeen score of coals, which must be upward of 400 tun, have not formerly been built here; but superficial observers, must be superficial writers, if they write at all; and to this day, at John’s Ness, within a mile and half of the town it self, ships of any burthen may be built and launched even at neap tides.

I am much mistaken too, if since the Revolution, some very good ships have not been built at this town, and particularly the Melford or Milford-gally, a ship of 40 guns; as the Greyhound frigate, a man of war of 36 to 40 guns, was at John’s Ness. But what is this towards lessening the town of Ipswich, any more than it would be to say, they do not build men of war, or East-India ships, or ships of 500 tun burthen, at St. Catherines, or at Battle-Bridge in the Thames? when we know that a mile or two lower, (viz.) at Radcliffe, Limehouse, or Deptford, they build ships of 1000 tun, and might build first-rate men of war too, if there was occasion; and the like might be done in this river of Ipswich, within about two or three miles of the town; so that it would not be at all an out-of-the-way speaking to say, such a ship was built at Ipswich, any more than it is to say, as they do, that the Royal Prince, the great ship lately built for the South-Sea Company, was London built, because she was built at Lime-house.

And why then is not Ipswich capable of building and receiving the greatest ships in the navy, seeing they may be built and brought up again loaden, within a mile and half of the town?

But the neighbourhood of London, which sucks the vitals of trade in this island to itself, is the chief reason of any decay of business in this place; and I shall in the course of these observations, hint at it, where many good sea-ports and large towns, tho’ farther off than Ipswich, and as well fitted for commerce, are yet swallow’d up by the immense indraft of trade to the city of London; and more decay’d beyond all comparison, than Ipswich is supposed to be; as Southampton, Weymouth, Dartmouth, and several others which I shall speak to in their order: And if it be otherwise at this time, with some other towns, which are lately encreas’d in trade and navigation, wealth, and people, while their neighbours decay, it is because they have some particular trade or accident to trade, which is a kind of nostrum to them, inseparable to the place, and which fixes there by the nature of the thing; as the herring-fishery to Yarmouth; the coal trade to New-Castle; the Leeds cloathing-trade; the export of butter and lead, and the great corn trade for Holland, is to Hull; the Virginia and West-India trade at Liverpool, the Irish trade at Bristol, and the like; Thus the war has brought a flux of business and people, and consequently of wealth, to several places, as well as to Portsmouth, Chatham, Plymouth, Falmouth, and others; and were any wars like those, to continue 20 years with the Dutch, or any nation whose fleets lay that way, as the Dutch do, it would be the like perhaps at Ipswich in a few years, and at other places on the same coast.

But at this present time an occasion offers to speak in favour of this port; namely, the Greenland fishery, lately proposed to be carry’d on by the South-Sea Company: On which account I may freely advance this, without any compliment to the town of Ipswich, no place in Britain, is equally qualified like Ipswich; whether we respect the cheapness of building and fitting out their ships and shalloups; also furnishing, victualling, and providing them with all kind of stores; convenience for laying up the ships after the voyage; room for erecting their magazines, ware-houses, roap-walks, cooperage, &c. on the easiest terms; and especially for the noisome cookery, which attends the boiling their blubber, which may be on this river, (as it ought to be) remote from any places of resort; Then their nearness to the market for the oil when ’tis made, and, which above all, ought to be the chief thing considered in that trade, the easiness of their putting out to sea when they begin their voyage, in which the same wind that carries them from the mouth of the haven, is fair to the very seas of Greenland.

I could say much more to this point, if it were needful, and in few words could easily prove, that Ipswich must have the preference of all the port towns of Britain, for being the best center of the Greenland trade, if ever that trade fall into the management of such a people as perfectly understand, and have a due honest regard to its being managed with the best husbandry, and to the prosperity of the undertaking in general: But whether we shall ever arrive at so happy a time, as to recover so useful a trade to our country, which our ancestors had the honour to be the first undertakers of, and which has been lost only thro’ the indolence of others, and the encreasing vigilance of our neighbours, that is not my business here to dispute.

What I have said, is only to let the world see, what improvement this town and port is capable of; I cannot think, but that Providence, which made nothing in vain, cannot have reserv’d so useful, so convenient a port to lie vacant in the world, but that the time will some time or other come (especially considering the improving temper of the present age) when some peculiar beneficial business may be found out, to make the port of Ipswich as useful to the world, and the town as flourishing, as nature has made it proper and capable to be.

As for the town, it is true, it is but thinly inhabited, in comparison of the extent of it; but to say, there are hardly any people to be seen there, is far from being true in fact; and whoever thinks fit to look into the churches and meeting-houses on a Sunday, or other publick days, will find there are very great numbers of people there: Or if he thinks fit to view the market, and see how the large shambles, call’d Cardinal Wolsey’s Butchery, are furnish’d with meat, and the rest of the market stock’d with other provisions, must acknowledge that it is not for a few people that all those things are provided: A person very curious, and on whose veracity I think I may depend, going thro’ the market in this town, told me, that he reckon’d upwards of 600 country people on horseback and on foot, with baskets and other carriage, who had all of them brought something or other to town to sell, besides the butchers, and what came in carts and waggons.

It happened to be my lot to be once at this town, at the time when a very fine new ship, which was built there, for some merchants of London, was to be launched; and if I may give my guess at the numbers of people which appeared on the shore, in the houses, and on the river, I believe I am much within compass, if I say there were 20,000 people to see it; but this is only a guess, or they might come a great way to see the sight, or the town may be declined farther since that: But a view of the town is one of the surest rules for a gross estimate.

It is true, here is no settled manufacture: the French refugees, when they first came over to England, began a little to take to this place; and some merchants attempted to set up a linnen manufacture in their favour; but it has not met with so much success as was expected, and at present I find very little of it. The poor people are however employ’d, as they are all over these counties, in spinning wool for other towns where manufactures are settled.

The country round Ipswich, as are all the counties so near the coast, is applied chiefly to corn, of which a very great quantity is continually shipped off for London; and sometimes they load corn here for Holland, especially if the market abroad is encouraging. They have 12 parish-churches in this town, with three or four meetings; but there are not so many Quakers here as at Colchester, and no Anabaptists, or Anti-poedo Baptists, that I could hear of, at least there is no meeting-house of that denomination: There is one meeting-house for the Presbyterians, one for the Independants, and one for the Quakers: the first is as large and as fine a building of that kind as most on this side of England, and the inside the best finished of any I have seen, London not excepted; that for the Independants is a handsome new-built building, but not so gay or so large as the other.

There is a great deal of very good company in this town; and tho’ there are not so many of the gentry here as at Bury, yet there are more here than in any other town in the county; and I observed particularly, that the company you meet with here, are generally persons well informed of the world, and who have something very solid and entertaining in their society: This may happen, perhaps, by their frequent conversing with those who have been abroad, and by their having a remnant of gentlemen and masters of ships among them, who have seen more of the world than the people of an inland town are likely to have seen. I take this town to be one of the most agreeable places in England, for families who have liv’d well, but may have suffered in our late calamities of stocks and bubbles, to retreat to, where they may live within their own compass; and several things indeed recommend it to such;

1. Good houses, at very easie rents.

2. An airy, clean, and well govern’d town.

3. Very agreeable and improving company almost of every kind.

4. A wonderful plenty of all manner of provisions, whether flesh or fish, and very good of the kind.

5. Those provisions very cheap; so that a family may live cheaper here, than in any town in England of its bigness, within such a small distance from London.

6. Easie passage to London, either by land or water, the coach going through to London in a day.

The Lord Viscount Hereford, has a very fine seat and park in this town; the house indeed is old built, but very commodious; ’tis call’d Christ-Church, having been as ’tis said, a priory, or religious house in former times: The green and park is a great addition to the pleasantness of this town, the inhabitants being allowed to divert themselves there with walking, bowling, &c.

The large spire steeple, which formerly stood upon that they call the Tower-Church, was blown down by a great storm of wind many years ago, and in its fall did much damage to the church.

The government of this town is by two bailiffs, as at Yarmouth: Mr. Camden says they are chosen out of twelve burgesses called Portmen, and two justices out of twenty-four more. There has been lately a very great struggle between the two parties for the choice of these two magistrates, which had this amicable conclusion, namely, that they chose one of either side; so that neither party having the victory, ’tis to be hoped it may be a means to allay the heats and un-neighbourly feuds, which such things breed in towns so large as this is. They send two members to Parliament, whereof those at this time, are Sir William Thompson, Recorder of London, and Colonel Negus, deputy-master of the horse to the king.

There are some things very curious to be seen here, however some superficial writers have been ignorant of them. Dr. Beeston, an eminent physician, began, a few years ago, a physick garden adjoining to his house in this town; and as he is particularly curious, and as I was told exquisitely skill’d in botanick knowledge, so he has been not only very diligent, but successful too, in making a collection of rare and exotick plants, such as are scarce to be equall’d in England.

One Mr. White, a surgeon, resides also in this town; But before I speak of this gentleman, I must observe, that I say nothing from personal knowledge; Tho’ if I did, I have too good an opinion of his sense to believe he would be pleased with being flattered, or complimented in print: But I must be true to matter of fact; This gentleman has begun a collection, or chamber of rarities, and with good success too. I acknowledge I had not the opportunity of seeing them; But I was told there are some things very curious in it, as particularly a sea-horse carefully preserved, and perfect in all its parts; two Roman urns full of ashes of human bodies, and supposed to be above 1700 years old; besides a great many valuable medals, and antient coins. My friend who gave me this account, and of whom I think I may say he speaks without byass, mentions this gentleman, Mr. White, with some warmth, as a very valuable person in his particular employ, of a surgeon, I only repeat his words; “Mr. White,” says he, “to whom the whole town and country are greatly indebted and obliged to pray for his life, is our most skilful surgeon.” These I say are his own words, and I add nothing to them but this, that ’tis happy for a town to have such a surgeon, as it is for a surgeon to have such a character.

The country round Ipswich, as if qualify’d on purpose to accommodate the town for building of ships, is an inexhaustable store-house of timber, of which now their trade of building ships is abated, they send very great quantities to the king’s building-yards at Chatham, which by water is so little a way, that they often run to it from the mouth of the river at Harwich’ in one tide.

From Ipswich I took a turn into the country to Hadley, principally to satisfy my curiosity, and see the place where that famous martyr, and pattern of charity and religious zeal in Queen Mary’s time, Dr. Rowland Taylor, was put to death; the inhabitants, who have a wonderful veneration for his memory, shew the very place where the stake which he was bound to, was set up, and they have put a stone upon it, which no body will remove; but it is a more lasting monument to him that he lives in the hearts of the people; I say more lasting than a tomb of marble would be, for the memory of that good man. will certainly never be out of the poor peoples minds, as long as this island shall retain the Protestant religion among them.; how long that may be, as things are going, and if the detestable conspiracy of the Papists now on foot, should succeed, I will not pretend to say.

A little to the left is Sudbury, which stands upon the River Stour, mentioned above; a river which parts the counties of Suffolk and Essex, and which is within these few years made navigable to this town, tho’ the navigation does not (it seems) answer the charge, at least not to advantage.

I know nothing for which this town is remarkable, except: for being very populous and very poor. They have a great; manufacture of says and perpetuana’s; and multitudes of poor people are employ’d in working them; but the number of the poor is almost ready to eat up the rich: However this town, sends two members to Parliament, tho’ it is under no form of government particularly to itself, other than as a village, the head magistrate whereof is a constable.

Near adjoining to it, is a village call’d Long-Melfort, and a very long one it is, from which I suppose it had that addition to its name; it is full of very good houses, and, as they told me, is richer, and has more wealthy masters of the manufacture in it than in Sudbury itself.

Here and in the neighbourhood, are some antient families of good note; particularly here is a fine dwelling, the antient: seat of the Cordells, whereof Sir William Cordell was Master of the Rolls in the time of Queen Elizabeth; but the family is now extinct; the last heir, Sir John Cordell, being killed by a fall from his horse, died unmarry’d, leaving three sisters co-heiresses to a very noble estate most of which, if not all, is now center’d in the only surviving sister, and with her in marriage is given to Mr. Firebrass, eldest son of Sir Basil Firebrass, formerly a flourishing merchant in London, but reduc’d by many disasters. His family now rises by the good fortune of his son, who proves to be a gentleman of very agreeable parts, and well esteemed in the country.

From this part of the country I returned north-west by Lenham, to visit St. Edmund’s Bury, a town of which other writers have talk’d very largely, and perhaps a little too much: It is a town fam’d for its pleasant situation and wholsome air, the Montpelier of Suffolk, and perhaps of England; this must be attributed to the skill of the monks of those times, who chose so beautiful a situation for the seat of their retirement; and who built here the greatest and in its time, the most flourishing monastery in all these parts of England, I mean the monastery of St. Edmund the Martyr: It was, if we believe antiquity, a house of pleasure in more antient times; or to speak more properly, a Court of some of the Saxon or East-Angle kings; and, as Mr. Camden says, was even then call’d a royal village; tho’ it much better merits that name now; it being the town of all this part of England, in proportion to its bigness, most thronged with gentry, people of the best fashion, and the most polite conversation: This beauty and healthiness of its situation, was no doubt the occasion which drew the clergy to settle here, for they always chose the best places in the country to build in, either for richness of soil, or for health and pleasure in the situation of their religious houses.

For the like reason, I doubt not, they translated the bones of the martyr’d King St. Edmund, to this place; for it is a vulgar error to say he was murther’d here; his martyrdom, it is plain was at Hoxon or Henilsdon, near Harlston, on the Waveney, in the farthest northern verge of the county; but Segebert, King of the East Angles, had built a religious house in this pleasant rich part of the country; and as the monks began to taste the pleasure of the place, they procured the body of this saint to be remov’d hither, which soon encreas’d the wealth and revenues of their house, by the zeal of that day, in going on pilgrimage to the shrine of the blessed St. Edmund.

We read however, that after this, the Danes under King Sweno, over-running this part of the country, destroyed this monastery and burnt it to the ground, with the church and town; but see the turn religion gives to things in the world; His son King Canutus, at first a pagan and a tyrant, and the most cruel ravager of all that crew, coming to turn Christian; and being touch’d in conscience for the soul of his father, in having robb’d God and His holy martyr St. Edmund, sacrilegiously destroying the church, and plundering the monastery; I say, touch’d with remorse, and, as the monks pretend terrify’d with a vision of St. Edmund appearing to him, he rebuilt the house, the church, and the town also, and very much added to the wealth of the abbot and his fraternity, offering his crown at the feet of St. Edmund, giving the house to the monks, town and all; so that they were absolute lords of the town, and governed it by their steward for many ages. He also gave them a great many good lordships, which they enjoy’d till the general suppression of abbies, in the time of Henry VIII.

But I am neither writing the history, or searching the antiquity, of the abbey, or town, my business is the present state of the place.

The abbey is demolish’d; its ruins are all that is to be seen of its glory: Out of the old building, two very beautiful churches are built, and serve the two parishes, into which the town is divided, and they stand both in one church-yard. Here it was, in the path-way between these two churches, that a tragical and almost unheard of act of barbarity was committed, which made the place less pleasant for some time, than it us’d to be, when Arundel Coke, Esq; a Barrister at Law, of very antient family, attempted, with the assistance of a barbarous assassin, to murther in cold blood, and in the arms of hospitality, Edward Crisp, Esq; his brother-in-law, leading him out from his own house, where he had invited him, his wife and children, to supper: I say, leading him out in the night, on pretence of going to see some friend that was known to them both; but in this church-yard, giving a signal to the assassin he had hir’d, he attacked him with a hedge bill, and cut him, as one might say, almost in pieces; and when they did not doubt of his being dead, they left him: His head and face was so mangled, that it may be said to be next to a miracle that he was not quite killed: Yet so Providence directed for the exemplary punishment of the assassins, that the gentleman recover’d to detect them, who, (tho’ he out-lived the assault) were both executed as they deserv’d, and Mr. Crisp is yet alive. They were condemned on the statute for defacing and dismembring, called the Coventry Act.

But this accident does not at all lessen the pleasure and agreeable delightful shew of the town of Bury; it is crouded with nobility and gentry, and all sorts of the most agreeable company; and as the company invites, so there is the appearance of pleasure upon the very situation; and they that live at Bury, are supposed to live there for the sake of it.

The Lord Jermin, afterwards Lord Dover, and since his lordship’s decease, Sir Robert Davers, enjoy’d the most delicious seat of Rushbrook, near this town.

The present Members of Parliament for this place are, Jermyn Davers, and James Reynolds, Esquires.

Mr. Harvey, afterwards created Lord Harvey, by King William, and since that, made Earl of Bristol by King George, liv’d many years in this town, leaving a noble and pleasantly situated house in Lincolnshire, for the more agreeable living on a spot so compleatly qualified for a life of delight as this of Bury.

The Duke of Grafton, now Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, has also a stately house at Euston, near this town, which he enjoys in right of his mother, daughter to the Earl of Arlington, one of the chief ministers of State in the reign of King Charles II. and who made the second letter in the word CABAL; a word form’d by that famous satirerist Andrew Marvell, to represent the five heads of the politicks of that time, as the word SMECTYMNUS was on a former occasion.

I shall believe nothing so scandalous of the ladies of this town and the county round it, as a late writer [3] insinuates: That the ladies round the country appear mighty gay and agreeable at the time of the fair in this town, I acknowledge; one hardly sees such a show in any part of the world; but to suggest they come hither as to a market, is so coarse a jest that the gentlemen that wait on them hither, (for they rarely come but in good company) ought to resent and correct him for it.

It is true, Bury-Fair, like Bartholomew-Fair, is a fair for diversion, more than for trade; and it may be a fair for toys and for trinkets, which the ladies may think fit to lay out some of their money in, as they see occasion. But to judge from thence, that the knights daughters of Norfolk, Cambridge-shire, and Suffolk, that is to say, for it cannot be understood any otherwise, the daughters of all the gentry of the three counties, come hither to be pick’d up, is a way of speaking I never before heard any author have the assurance to make use of in print.

The assembled he justly commends for the bright appearance of the beauties; but with a sting in the tayl of this compliment, where he says, They seldom end without some considerable match or intrigue; and yet he owns, that during the fair, these assemblees are held every night. Now that these fine ladies go intriguing every night, and that too after the comedy is done, which is after the fair and raffling is over for the day; so that it must be very late: This is a terrible character for the ladies of Bury, and intimates in short, that most of them are whores, which is a horrid abuse upon the whole country.

Now, tho’ I like not the assemblies at all, and shall in another place give them something of their due; yet having the opportunity to see the fair at Bury, and to see that there were indeed abundance of the finest ladies, or as fine as any in Britain, yet I must own, the number of the ladies at the comedy, or at the assemblee, is no way equal to the number that are seen in the town, much less are they equal to the whole body of the ladies in the three counties, and I must also add, that tho’ it is far from true, that all that appear at the assemble, are there for matches or intrigues, yet I will venture to say, that they are not the worst of the ladies who stay away; neither are they the fewest in number, or the meanest in beauty, but just the contrary; and I do not at all doubt, but that the scandalous liberty some take at those assemblees, will in time bring them out of credit with the virtuous part of the sex here, as it has done already in Kent and other places; and that those ladies who most value their reputation, will be seen less there than they have been; for tho’ the institution of them has been innocent and virtuous, the ill use of them, and the scandalous behaviour of some people at them, will in time arm virtue against them, and they will be lay’d down as they have been set up, without much satisfaction.

But the beauty of this town consists in the number of gentry who dwell in and near it, the polite conversation among them; the affluence and plenty they live in; the sweet air they breathe in, and the pleasant country they have to go abroad in.

Here is no manufacturing in this town, or but very little, except spinning; the chief trade of the place depending upon the gentry who live there, or near it, and who cannot fail to cause trade enough by the expence of their families and equipages, among the people of a county town. They have but a very small river, or rather but a very small branch of a small river, at this town, which runs from hence to Milden-Hall, on the edge of the Fens. However, the town and gentlemen about, have been at the charge, or have so encouraged the engineer who was at the charge, that they have made this river navigable to the said Milden-Hall, from whence there is a navigable dyke, call’d Milden-Hall Dreyn, which goes into the River Ouse, and so to Lynn; so that all their coal and wine, iron, lead, and other heavy goods, are brought by water from Lynn, or from London, by the way of Lynn, to the great ease of the tradesmen.

This town is famous for two great events, one was that in the year 1447, in the 25th year of Henry the VIth, a Parliament was held here.

The other was, That at the meeting of this Parliament, the great Humphry, Duke of Glocester, regent of the kingdom, during the absence of King Henry the Vth, and the minority of Henry the VIth, and to his last hour, the safeguard of the whole nation, and darling of the people, was basely murthered here; by whose death, the gate was opened to that dreadful war between the Houses of Lancaster and York, which ended in the confusion of that very race, who are supposed to have contrived that murther.

From St. Edmund’s Bury I returned by Stow-Market and Needham, to Ipswich, that I might keep as near the coast as was proper to my designed circuit or journey; and from Ipswich, to visit the sea again, I went to Woodbridge, and from thence to Orford, on the sea-side.

Woodbridge has nothing remarkable, but that it is a considerable market for butter and corn to be exported to London; for now begins that part which is ordinarily called High-Suffolk; which being a rich soil, is for a long tract of ground, wholly employed in dayries; and again famous for the best butter, and perhaps the worst cheese, in England: The butter is barrelled, or often pickled up in small casks, and sold, not in London only, but I have known a firkin of Suffolk butter sent to the West-Indies, and brought back to England again, and has been perfectly good and sweet, as at first.

The port for the shipping off their Suffolk butter is chiefly Woodbridge, which for that reason is full of corn-factors, and butter-factors, some of whom are very considerable merchants.

From hence turning down to the shore, we see Orford Ness, a noted point of land for the guide of the colliers and coasters, and a good shelter for them to ride under, when a strong north-east wind blows and makes a foul shore on the coast.

South of the Ness is Orford Haven, being the mouth of two little rivers meeting together; ’tis a very good harbour for small vessels, but not capable of receiving a ship of burthen.

Orford was once a good town, but is decay’d, and as it stands on the land-side of the river, the sea daily throws up more land to it, and falls off itself from it, as if it was resolved to disown the place, and that it should be a sea port no longer.

A little farther lies Albro’, as thriving, tho’ without a port, as the other is decaying, with a good river in the front of it.

There are some gentlemen’s seats up farther from the sea, but very few upon the coast.

From Albro’ to Dunwich, there are no towns of note; even this town seems to be in danger of being swallowed up; for fame reports, that once they had fifty churches in the town; I saw but one left, and that not half full of people.

This town is a testimony of the decay of publick things, things of the most durable nature; and as the old poet expresses it,

By numerous examples we may see,

That towns and cities die, as well as we.

The ruins of Carthage, or the great city of Jerusalem, or of antient Rome, are not at all wonderful to me; the ruins of Nineveh, which are so entirely sunk, as that ’tis doubtful where the city stood; the ruins of Babylon, or the great Persepolis, and many capital cities, which time and the change of monarchies have overthrown; these, I say, are not at all wonderful, because being the capitals of great and flourishing kingdoms, where those kingdoms were overthrown, the capital cities necessarily fell with them; But for a private town, a sea-port, and a town of commerce, to decay, as it were of itself (for we never read of Dunwich being plundered, or ruin’d, by any disaster, at least not of late years); this I must confess, seems owing to nothing but to the fate of things, by which we see that towns, kings, countries, families, and persons, have all their elevation, their medium, their declination, and even their destruction in the womb of time, and the course of nature. It is true, this town is manifestly decayed by the invasion of the waters, and as other towns seem sufferers by the sea, or the tide withdrawing from their ports, such as Orford just now named; Winchelsea in Kent, and the like: So this town is, as it were, eaten up by the sea, as above; and the still encroaching ocean seems to threaten it with a fatal immersion in a few years more.

Yet Dunwich, however ruin’d, retains some share of trade, as particularly for the shipping off butter, cheese, and corn, which is so great a business in this county, and it employs a great many people and ships also; and this port lies right against the particular part of the county for butter, as Framlingham, Halsted, &c. Also a very great quantity of corn is bought up hereabout for the London market; for I shall still touch that point, how all the counties in England contribute something towards the subsistence of the great city of London, of which the butter here is a very considerable article; as also coarse cheese, which I mentioned before, us’d chiefly for the king’s ships.

Hereabouts they begin to talk of herrings, and the fishery; and we find in the antient records, that this town, which was then equal to a large city; paid, among other tribute to the Government, 50000 of herrings. Here also, and at Swole, or Southole, the next sea-port, they cure sprats in the same manner as they do herrings at Yarmouth; that is to say, speaking in their own language, they make red sprats; or to speak good English, they make sprats red.

It is remarkable, that this town is now so much washed away by the sea, that what little trade they have, is carry* d on by Walderswick, a little town near Swole, the vessels coming in there, because the mines of Dunwich make the shore there unsafe and uneasie to the boats; from whence the northern coasting seamen a rude verse of their own using, and I suppose of their own making; as follows,

Swoul and Dunwich, and Walderswick,

All go in at one lousie creek.

This lousie creek, in short, is a little river at Swoul, which our late famous atlas-maker calls a good harbour for ships, and rendezvous of the royal navy; but that by the bye; the author it seems knew no better.

From Dunwich, we came to Southwold, the town above-named; this is a small port-town upon the coast, at the mouth of a little river call’d the Blith: I found no business the people here were employ’d in, but the fishery, as above, for herrings and sprats; which they cure by the help of smoak, as they do at Yarmouth.

There is but one church in this town, but it is a very large one and well-built, as most of the churches in this county are, and of impenetrable flint; indeed there is no occasion for its being so large, for staying there one Sabbath-Day, I was surprised to see an extraordinary large church, capable of receiving five or six thousand people, and but twenty-seven in it besides the parson and the clerk; but at the same time the meeting-house of the Dissenters was full to the very doors, having, as I guess’d from 6 to 800 people in it.

This town is made famous for a very great engagement at sea, in the year 1672, between the English and Dutch fleets, in the bay opposite to the town; in which, not to be partial to ourselves, the English fleet was worsted; and the brave Montague Earl of Sandwich, admiral under the Duke of York, lost his life: The ship Royal Prince, carrying 100 guns, in which he was, and which was under him, commanded by Sir Edward Spragg, was burnt, and several other ships lost, and about 600 seamen; part of those kill’d in the fight, were, as I was told, brought on shore here and buried in the church-yard of this town, as others also were at Ipswich.

At this town in particular, and so at all the towns on this coast, from Orford-Ness to Yarmouth, is the ordinary place where our summer friends the swallows, first land when they come to visit us; and here they may be said to embark for their return, when they go back into warmer climates; and, as I think the following remark, tho’ of so trifling a circumstance, may be both instructing, as well as diverting, it may be very proper in this place. The case is this; I was some years before at this place, at the latter end of the year (viz.) about the beginning of October, and lodging in a house that looked into the church-yard, I observ’d in the evening an unusual multitude of birds sitting on the leads of the church; curiosity led me to go nearer to see what they were, and I found they were all swallows; that there was such an infinite number that they cover’d the whole roof of the church, and of several houses near, and perhaps might, of more houses which I did not see; this led me to enquire of a grave gentleman whom I saw near me, what the meaning was of such a prodigious multitude of swallows sitting there; 0 SIR, says he, turning towards the sea, you may see the reason, the wind is off sea. I did not seem fully informed by that expression; so he goes on: I perceive, sir, says he, you are a stranger to it; you must then understand first, that this is the season of the year when the swallows, their food here failing, begin to leave us, and return to the country, where-ever it be, from whence I suppose they came; and this being the nearest to the coast of Holland, they come here to embark; this he said smiling a little; and now, sir, says he, the weather being too calm, or the wind contrary, they are waiting for a gale, for they are all wind-bound.

This was more evident to me, when in the morning I found the wind had come about to the north-west in the night, and there was not one swallow to be seen, of near a million, which I believe was there the night before.

How those creatures know that this part of the island of Great-Britain is the way to their home, or the way that they are to go; that this very point is the nearest cut over, or even that the nearest cut is best for them, that we must leave to the naturalists to determin, who insist upon it, that brutes cannot think.

Certain it is, that the swallows neither come hither for warm weather, nor retire from cold, the thing is of quite another nature; they, like the shoals of fish in the sea, pursue their prey; they are a voracious creature, they feed flying; their food is found in the air, viz. the insects; of which in our summer evenings, in damp and moist places, the air is full; they come hither in the summer, because our air is fuller of fogs and damps than in other countries, and for that reason, feeds great quantities of insects; if the air be hot and dry, the gnats die of themselves, and even the swallows will be found famish’d for want, and fall down dead out of the air, their food being taken from them: In like manner, when cold weather comes in, the insects all die, and then of necessity, the swallows quit us, and follow their food where-ever they go; this they do in the manner I have mentioned above; for sometimes they are seen to go off in vast flights like a cloud; And sometimes again, when the wind grows fair, they go away a few and a few, as they come, not staying at all upon the coast.

Note, This passing and re-passing of the swallows, is observ’d no where so much, that I have heard of, or in but few other places, except on this eastern coast; namely, from above Harwich to the east point of Norfolk, call’d Winterton Ness, north; which is all right against Holland; we know nothing of them any farther north, the passage of the sea being, as I suppose, too broad from Flambro’ Head, and the shoar of Holderness in Yorkshire, &c.

I find very little remarkable on this side of Suffolk, but what is on the sea shore as above; the inland country is that which they properly call High-Suffolk, and is full of rich feeding-grounds and large farms, mostly employ’d in dayries for making the Suffolk butter and cheese, of which I have spoken already: Among these rich grounds stand some market-towns, tho’ not of very considerable note; such as Framlingham, where was once a royal castle, to which Queen Mary retir’d, when the Northumberland faction, in behalf of the Lady Jane, endeavour’d to supplant her; and it was this part of Suffolk where the Gospellers, as they were then called, prefer’d their loyalty to their religion, and complimented the popish line at expence of their share of the Reformation; but they paid dear for it, and their successors have learn’d better politicks since.

In these parts are also several good market-towns, some in this county, and some in the other, as Becles, Bungay, Harlston, &c. all on the edge of the River Waveney, which parts here the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk: And here in a bye-place, and out of common remark, lies the antient town of Hoxon, famous for being the place where St. Edmund was martyr’d, for whom so many cells and shrines have been set up, and monasteries built; and in honour of whom, the famous monastery of St. Edmund’s Bury above-mentioned, was founded, which most people erroneously think was the place where the said murther was committed.

Besides the towns mentioned above, there are Halesworth, Saxmundham, Debenham, Aye, or Eye, all standing in this eastern side of Suffolk; in which, as I have said, the whole country is employed in dayries, or in feeding of cattle.

This part of England is also remarkable for being the first where the feeding and fattening of cattle, both sheep as well as black cattle with turnips, was first practised in England, which is made a very great part of the improvement of their lands to this day; and from whence the practice is spread over most of the east and south parts of England, to the great enriching of the farmers, and encrease of fat cattle: And tho’ some have objected against the goodness of the flesh thus fed with turnips, and have fansied it would taste of the root; yet upon experience ’tis found, that at market there is no difference nor can they that buy, single out one joynt of mutton from another by the taste: So that the complaint which our nice palates at first made, begins to cease of itself; and a very great quantity of beef, and mutton also, is brought every year, and every week to London, from this side of England, and much more than was formerly known to be fed there.

I can’t omit, however little it may seem, that this county of Suffolk is particularly famous for furnishing the city of London and all the counties round, with turkeys; and that ’tis thought, there are more turkeys bred in this county, and the part of Norfolk that adjoins to it, than in all the rest of England, especially for sale; tho’ this may be reckoned, as I say above, but a trifling thing to take notice of in these remarks; yet, as I have hinted, that I shall observe, how London is in general supplied with all its provisions from the whole body of the nation, and how every part of the island is engaged in some degree or other of that supply; On this account I could not omit it; nor will it be found so inconsiderable an article as some may imagin, if this be true which I receiv’d an account of from a person living on the place, (viz.) That they have counted 300 droves of turkeys (for they drive them all in droves on foot) pass in one season over Stratford-Bridge on the River Stour, which parts Suffolk from Essex, about six miles from Colchester on the road from Ipswich to London. These droves, as they say, generally contain from three hundred to a thousand each drove; so that one may suppose them to contain 500 one with another, which is 150000 in all; and yet this is one of the least passages, the numbers which travel by New Market-Heath, and the open country and the forest, and also the numbers that come by Sudbury and Clare, being many more.

For the further supplies of the markets of London with poultry, of which these countries particularly abound: They have within these few years found it practicable to make the geese travel on foot too, as well as the turkeys; and a prodigious number are brought up to London in droves from the farthest parts of Norfolk; even from the fenn-country, about Lynn, Downham, Wisbich, and the Washes; as also from all the east-side of Norfolk and Suffolk, of whom ’tis very frequent now to meet droves, with a thousand, sometimes two thousand in a drove: They begin to drive them generally in August, by which time the harvest is almost over, and the geese may feed in the stubbles as they go. Thus they hold on to the end of October, when the roads begin to be too stiff and deep for their broad feet and short leggs to march in.

Besides these methods of driving these creatures on foot, they have of late also invented a new method of carriage, being carts form’d on purpose, with four stories or stages, to put the creatures in one above another, by which invention one cart will carry a very great number; and for the smoother going, they drive with two horses a-breast, like a coach, so quartering the road for the ease of the gentry that thus ride; changing horses they travel night and day; so that they bring the fowls 70, 80, or 100 miles in two days and one night: The horses in this new-fashion’d voiture go two a-breast, as above, but no perch below as in a coach, but they are fastened together by a piece of wood lying cross-wise upon their necks, by which they are kept even and together, and the driver sits on the top of the cart, like as in the publick carriages for the army, &c.

In this manner they hurry away the creatures alive, and infinite numbers are thus carried to London every year. This method is also particular for the carrying young turkeys, or turkey-poults in their season, which are valuable, and yield a good price at market; as also for live chickens in the dear seasons; of all which a very great number are brought in this manner to London, and more prodigiously out of this country than any other part of England, which is the reason of my speaking of it here.

In this part, which we call High-Suffolk, there are not so many families of gentry or nobility plac’d, as in the other side of the country: But ’tis observ’d that tho’ their seats are not so frequent here, their estates are; and the pleasure of West Suffolk is much of it supported by the wealth of High-Suffolk; for the richness of the lands, and application of the people to all kinds of improvement, is scarce credible; also the farmers are so very considerable, and their farms and dayries so large, that ’tis very frequent for a farmer to have a thousand pounds stock upon his farm in cows only.

Norfolk and Cambridgeshire

From High-Suffolk, I pass’d the Waveney into Norfolk, near Schole-Inn; in my passage I saw at Redgrave, (the seat of the family) a most exquisite monument of Sir John Holt, Knight, late lord chief justice of the King’s -Bench, several years, and one of the most eminent lawyers of his time. One of the heirs of the family is now building a fine seat about a mile on the south-side of Ipswich, near the road.

The epitaph, or inscription on this monument, is as follows.

M. S.
D. JOHANNIS HOLT, Equitis Aur
Totius Angliae in Banco Regis
per 21 Annos continuos
Capitalis Justitiarii
Gulielmo Regi Annaeq; Reginae
Consiliarii perpetui:
Libertatis ac Legum Anglicorum
Assertoris, Vindicis, Custodis,
Vigilis Acris & Intrepidi,
Rolandus Frater Vnicus & Haeres
Optime de se Merito
posuit,
Die Martis Vto. 1709 Sublatus est
ex Oculis nostris
Natus 30 Decembris, Anno 1642.

When we come into Norfolk, we see a face of diligence spread over the whole country; the vast manufactures carry’d on (in chief) by the Norwich weavers, employs all the country round in spinning yarn for them; besides many thousand packs of yarn which they receive from other countries, even from as far as Yorkshire, and Westmoreland, of which I shall speak in its place.

This side of Norfolk is very populous, and throng’d with great and spacious market-towns, more and larger than any other part of England so far from London, except Devonshire, and the West-riding of Yorkshire; for example, between the frontiers of Suffolk and the city of Norwich on this side, which is not above 22 miles in breadth, are the following market-towns, viz.

Thetford, Hingham, Harleston,
Dis, West Deerham, E. Deerham,
Harling, Attleboro’, Watton,
Bucknam, Windham, Loddon, &c.

Most of these towns are very populous and large; but that which is most remarkable is, that the whole country round them is so interspers’d with villages, and those villages so large, and so full of people, that they are equal to market-towns in other counties; in a word, they render this eastern part of Norfolk exceeding full of inhabitants.

An eminent weaver of Norwich, gave me a scheme of their trade on this occasion, by which, calculating from the number of looms at that time employed in the city of Norwich only, besides those employed in other towns in the same county, he made it appear very plain, that there were 120000 people employed in the woollen and silk and wool manufactures of that city only, not that the people all lived in the city, tho’ Norwich is a very large and populous city too: But I say, they were employed for spinning the yarn used for such goods as were all made in that city. This account is curious enough, and very exact, but it is too long for the compass of this work.

This shews the wonderful extent of the Norwich manufacture, or stuff-weaving trade, by which so many thousands of families are maintained. Their trade indeed felt a very sensible decay, and the cries of the poor began to be very loud, when the wearing of painted callicoes was grown to such an height in England, as was seen about two or three years ago; but an Act of Parliament having been obtained, tho’ not without great struggle, in the years 1720, and 1721, for prohibiting the use and wearing of callico’s, the stuff trade reviv’d incredibly; and as I pass’d this part of the country in the year 1723, the manufacturers assured me, that there was not in all the eastern and middle part of Norfolk, any hand, unemployed, if they would work; and that the very children after four or five years of age, could every one earn their own bread. But I return to speak of the villages and towns in the rest of the county; I shall come to the city of Norwich by itself.

This throng of villages continues thro’ all the east part of the county, which is of the greatest extent, and where the manufacture is chiefly carry’d on: If any part of it be waste and thin of inhabitants, it is the west part, drawing a line from about Brand, or Brandon, south, to Walsingham, north. This part of the country indeed is full of open plains, and somewhat sandy and barren, and feeds great flocks of good sheep: But put it all together, the county of Norfolk has the most people in the least tract of land of any county in England, except about London, and Exon, and the West-Riding of Yorkshire, as above.

Add to this, that there is no single county in England, except as above, that can boast of three towns so populous, so rich, and so famous for trade and navigation, as in this county: By these three towns, I mean the city of Norwich, the towns of Yarmouth and Lynn; besides, that it has several other sea-ports of very good trade, as Wisbich, Wells, Burnham, Clye, &c.

NORWICH is the capital of all the county, and the center of all the trade and manufactures which I have just mentioned; an antient, large, rich, and populous city: If a stranger was only to ride thro’ or view the city of Norwich for a day, he would have much more reason to think there was a town without inhabitants, than there is really to say so of Ipswich; but on the contrary, if he was to view the city, either on a Sabbath-day, or on any publick occasion, he would wonder where all the people could dwell, the multitude is so great: But the case is this; the inhabitants being all busie at their manufactures, dwell in their garrets at their looms, and in their combing-shops, so they call them, twisting-mills, and other work-houses; almost all the works they are employed in, being done within doors. There are in this city thirty-two parishes besides the cathedral, and a great many meeting-houses of Dissenters of all denominations. The publick edifices are chiefly the castle, antient and decayed, and now for many years past made use of for a jayl. The Duke of Norfolk’s house was formerly kept well, and the gardens preserved for the pleasure and diversion of the citizens, but since feeling too sensibly the sinking circumstances of that once glorious family, who were the first peers and hereditary earl-marshals of England.

The walls of this city are reckoned three miles in circumference, taking in more ground than the city of London; but much of that ground lying open in pasture-fields and gardens; nor does it seem to be, like some antient places, a decayed declining town, and that the walls mark out its antient dimensions; for we do not see room to suppose that it was ever larger or more populous than it is now: But the walls seem to be placed, as if they expected that the city would in time encrease sufficiently to fill them up with buildings.

The cathedral of this city is a fine fabrick, and the spire-steeple very high and beautiful; it is not antient, the bishop’s see having been first at Thetford; from whence it was not translated hither till the twelfth century; yet the church has so many antiquities in it, that our late great scholar and physician, Sir Tho. Brown, thought it worth his while to write a whole book to collect the monuments and inscriptions in this church, to which I refer the reader.

The River Yare runs through this city, and is navigable thus far without the help of any art, (that is to say, without locks or stops) and being encreas’d by other waters, passes afterwarde thro’ a long tract of the richest meadows, and the largest, taks them all together, that are any where in England, lying for thirty miles in length, from this city to Yarmouth, including the return of the said meadows on the bank of the Waveney south, and on the River Thyrn, north.

Here is one thing indeed strange in itself, and more so, in that history seems to be quite ignorant of the occasion of it. The River Waveney is a considerable river, and of a deep and full channel, navigable for large barges as high as Beccles; it runs for a course of about fifty miles, between the two counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, as a boundary to both; and pushing on, tho’ with a gentle stream, towards the sea, no one would doubt, but, that when they see the river growing broader and deeper, and going directly towards the sea, even to the edge of the beach; that is to say, within a mile of the main ocean; no stranger, I say, but would expect to see its entrance into the sea at that place, and a noble harbour for ships at the mouth of it; when on a sudden, the land rising high by the sea-side, crosses the head of the river, like a dam, checks the whole course of it, and it returns, bending its course west, for two miles, or thereabouts; and then turning north, thro’ another long course of meadows (joining to those just now mention’d) seeks out the River Yare, that it may join its water with her’s, and find their way to the sea together.

Some of our historians tell a long fabulous story of this river’s being once open, and a famous harbour for ships belonging to the town of Leostof adjoining; But that the town of Yarmouth envying the prosperity of the said town of Leostof, made war upon them; and that after many bloody battles, as well by sea as by land, they came at last to a decisive action at sea with their respective fleets, and the victory fell to the Yarmouth men, the Leostof fleet being overthrown and utterly destroyed; and that upon this victory, the Yarmouth men either actually did stop up the mouth of the said river, or oblig’d the vanquished Leostof men to do it themselves, and bound them never to attempt to open it again.

I believe my share of this story, and I recommend no more of it to the reader; adding, that I see no authority for the relation, neither do the relators agree either in the time of it, or in the particulars of the fact; that is to say, in whose reign, or under what government all this happened; in what year, and the like: So I satisfy my self with transcribing the matter of fact, and then leave it as I find it.

In this vast tract of meadows are fed a prodigious number of black cattle, which are said to be fed up for the fattest beef, tho’ not the largest in England; and the quantity is so great, as that they not only supply the city of Norwich, the town of Yarmouth, and county adjacent, but send great quantities of them weekly in all the winter season, to London.

And this in particular is worthy remark, That the gross of all the Scots cattle which come yearly into England, are brought hither, being brought to a small village lying north of the city of Norwich, call’d St. Faiths, where the Norfolk grasiers go and buy them.

These Scots runts, so they call them, coming out of the cold and barren mountains of the Highlands in Scotland, feed so eagerly on the rich pasture in these marshes, that they thrive in an unusual manner, and grow monstrously fat; and the beef is so delicious for taste, that the inhabitants prefer ’em to the English cattle, which are much larger and fairer to look at, and they may very well do so: Some have told me, and I believe with good judgment, that there are above 40,000 of these Scots cattle fed in this country every year, and most of them in the said marshes between Norwich, Beccles, and Yarmouth.

YARMOUTH is an antient town, much older than Norwich; and at present, tho’ not standing on so much ground, yet better built; much more compleat; for number of inhabitants, not much inferior; and for wealth, trade, and advantage of its situation, infinitely superior to Norwich.

It is plac’d on a peninsula between the River Yare and the sea; the two last lying parallel to one another, and the town in the middle: The river lies on the west-side of the town, and being grown very large and deep, by a conflux of all the rivers on this side the county, forms the haven; and the town facing to the west also, and open to the river, makes the finest key in England, if not in Europe, not inferior even to that of Marseilles itself.

The ships ride here so close, and as it were, keeping up one another, with their head-fasts on shore, that for half a mile together, they go cross the stream with their bolsprits over the land, their bowes, or heads, touching the very wharf; so that one may walk from ship to ship as on a floating bridge, all along by the shore-side: The key reaching from the drawbridge almost to the south-gate, is so spacious and wide, that in some places ’tis near one hundred yards from the houses to the wharf. In this pleasant and agreeable range of houses are some very magnificent buildings, and among the rest, the custom-house and town-hall, and some merchants houses, which look like little palaces, rather than the dwelling-houses of private men.

The greatest defect of this beautiful town, seems to be, that tho’ it is very rich and encreasing in wealth and trade, and consequently in people, there is not room to enlarge the town by building; which would be certainly done much more than it is, but that the river on the land-side prescribes them, except at the north end without the gate; and even there the land is not very agreeable: But had they had a larger space within the gates, there would before now, have been many spacious streets of noble fine buildings erected, as we see is done in some other thriving towns in England, as at Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Frome, &c.

The key and the harbour of this town during the fishing-fair, as they call it, which is every Michaelmas, one sees the land cover’d with people, and the river with barks and boats, busy day and night, landing and carrying off the herrings, which they catch here in such prodigious quantities, that it is incredible. I happen’d to be there during their fishing-fair, when I told, in one tide, one hundred and ten barks and fishing vessels coming up the river, all loaden with herrings, and all taken the night before; and this was besides what was brought on shore on the Dean, (that is the seaside of the town) by open boats, which they call cobles,[4] and which often bring in two or three last [5] of fish at a time. The barks [6] often bring in ten last a piece.

This fishing-fair begins on Michaelmas Day, and lasts all the month of October, by which time the herrings draw off to sea, shoot their spawn, and are no more fit for the merchants business; at least not those that are taken thereabouts.

The quantity of herrings that are catch’d in this season are diversly accounted for; some have said, that the towns of Yarmouth and Leostof only, have taken forty thousand last in a season: I will not venture to confirm that report; but this I have heard the merchants themselves say, (viz.) That they have cur’d, that is to say, hang’d and dry’d in the smoak 40,000 barrels of merchantable redherrings in one season, which is in itself (tho’ far short of the other) yet a very considerable article; and it is to be added, that this is besides all the herrings consum’d in the country towns of both those populous counties, for thirty miles from the sea, whither very great quantities are carry’d every tide during the whole season.

But this is only one branch of the great trade carry’d on in this town; Another part of this commerce, is in the exporting these herrings after they are cur’d; and for this their merchants have a great trade to Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Messina, and Venice; as also to Spain and Portugal, also exporting with their herring very great quantities of worsted stuffs, and stuffs made of silk and worsted; camblets, &c. the manufactures of the neighbouring city of Norwich, and the places adjacent.

Besides this, they carry on a very considerable trade with Holland, whose opposite neighbours they are; and a vast quantity of woollen manufactures they export to the Dutch every year. Also they have a fishing trade to the north-seas for white fish, which from the place are called the North-Sea cod.

They have also a considerable trade to Norway, and to the Baltick, from whence they bring back deals, and fir-timber, oaken plank, baulks, sparrs, oars, pitch, tar, hemp, flax, spruce canvas, and sail-cloth; with all manner of naval stores, which they generally have a consumption for in their own port, where they build a very great number of ships every year, besides re-fitting and repairing the old.

Add to this the coal trade between Newcastle and the river of Thames, in which they are so improv’d of late years, that they have now a greater share of it than any other town in England; and have quite work’d the Ipswich men out of it, who had formerly the chief share of the colliery in their hands.

For the carrying on all these trades, they must have a very great number of ships, either of their own, or employ’d by them; and it may in some measure be judg’d of by this, That in the year 1697, I had an account from the town register, that there was then 1123 sail of ships using the sea, and belong’d to the town, besides such ships as the merchants of Yarmouth might be concerned in, and be part-owners of, belonging to any other ports.

To all this I must add, without compliment to the town, or to the people, that the merchants, and even the generality of traders of Yarmouth, have a very good reputation in trade, as well abroad as at home, for men of fair and honourable dealing, punctual and just in their performing their engagements, and in discharging commissions; and their seamen, as well masters as mariners, are justly esteem’d among the ablest and most expert navigators in England.

This town however populous and large, was ever contained in one parish, and had but one church; but within these two years they have built another very fine church, near the south-end of the town. The old church is dedicated to St. Nicholas, and was built by that famous Bishop of Norwich, Will. Herbert, who flourished in the reign of William II, and Hen. I. William of Malmsbury calls him Vir pecuniosus; he might have called him Vir Pecuniosissimus, considering the times he lived in, and the works of charity and munificence, which he has left as witnesses of his immense riches; for he built the cathedral church; the priory for sixty monks; the bishop’s palace, and the parish-church of St. Leonard, all in Norwich; this great church at Yarmouth, the church of St. Margaret at Lynn, and of St. Mary at Elmham. He remov’d the episcopal see from Thetford to Norwich, and instituted the Cluniack Monks at Thetford, and gave them, or built them a house. This old church, is very large, and has a high spire, which is a useful sea-mark.

Here is one of the finest market-places, and the best serv’d with provisions, in England, London excepted, and the inhabitants are so multiplied in a few years, that they seem to want room in their town, rather than people to fill it, as I have observ’d above.

The streets are all exactly strait from north to south, with lanes or alleys, which they call rows, crossing them in strait lines also from east to west; so that it is the most regular built town in England, and seems to have been built all at once; Or, that the dimensions of the houses, and extent of the streets, were laid out by consent.

They have particular privileges in this town, and a jurisdiction by which they can try, condemn, and execute in especial cases, without waiting for a warrant from above; and this they exerted once very smartly, in executing a captain of one of the king’s ships of war in the reign of King Charles II, for a murther committed in the street, the circumstance of which did indeed call for justice; but some thought they would not have ventur’d to exert their power as they did; however, I never heard that the government resented it, or blamed them for it.

It is also a very well governed town; and I have no where in England observed the Sabbath-Day so exactly kept, or the breach so continually punished as in this place, which I name to their honour.

Among all these regularities, it is no wonder if we do not find abundance of revelling, or that there is little encouragement to assemblies, plays, and gaming-meetings at Yarmouth, as in some other places; and yet I do not see that the ladies here come behind any of the neighbouring counties, either in beauty, breeding, or behaviour; to which may be added too, not at all to their disadvantage, that they generally go beyond them in fortunes.

From Yarmouth I resolv’d to pursue my first design, (viz.) To view the sea-side on this coast, which is particularly famous for being one of the most dangerous and most fatal to the sailors in all England, I may say in all Britain; and the more so, because of the great number of ships which are continually going and coming this way, in their passage between London and all the northern coasts of Great-Britain. Matters of antiquity are not my enquiry, but principally observations on the present state of things, and if possible, to give such accounts of things worthy of recording, as have never been observed before; and this leads me the more directly to mention the commerce and the navigation when I come to towns upon the coast, as what few writers have yet medled with.

The reason of the dangers of this particular coast, are found in the situation of the county, and in the course of ships sailing this way, which I shall describe as well as I can, thus; the shoar from the mouth of the river of Thames to Yarmouth Road, lies in a strait line from S.S.E. to N.N.W. the land being on the W. or larboard side.

From Winterton Ness, which is the utmost northerly point of land in the county of Norfolk, and about four miles beyond Yarmouth, the shoar falls off for near sixty miles to the west, as far as Lynn and Boston, till the shoar of Lincolnshire tends north again for about sixty miles more, as far as the Humber, whence the coast of Yorkshire, or Holderness, which is the East Riding, shoots out again into the sea, to the Spurn, and to Flambro’ Head, as far east almost as the shoar of Norfolk had given back at Winterton, making a very deep gulph or bay, between those two points of Winterton and the Spurn Head; so that the ships going north, are oblig’d to stretch away to sea from Winterton Ness, and leaving the sight of land in that deep bay which I have mention’d, that reaches to Lynn, and the shoar of Lincolnshire, they go, I say, N. or still N.N.W. to meet the shoar of Holdemess, which I said runs out into the sea again at the Spurn; This they leave also and the first land they make, or desire to make, is called as above, Flambro’ Head; so that Winterton Ness and Flambro’ Head, are the two extremes of this course, there is, as I said, the Spurn Head indeed between; but as it lies too far in towards the Humber, they keep out to the north to avoid coming near it.

In like manner the ships which come from the north, leave the shoar at Flambro’ Head, and stretch away S.S.E. for Yarmouth Roads; and the first land they make is Winterton Ness (as above). Now, the danger of the place is this; If the ships coming from the north are taken with a hard gale of wind from the S.E. or from any point between N.E. and S.E. so that they cannot, as the seamen call it, weather Winterton Ness, they are thereby kept in within that deep bay; and if the wind blows hard, are often in danger of running on shoar upon the rocks about Cromer, on the north coast of Norfolk, or stranding upon the flat shoar between Cromer and Wells; all the relief they have, is good ground tackle to ride it out, which is very hard to do there, the sea coming very high upon them; Or if they cannot ride it out then, to run into the bottom of the great bay I mention’d, to Lynn or Boston, which is a very difficult and desperate push: So that sometimes in this distress whole fleets have been lost here all together.

The like is the danger to ships going northward, if after passing by Winterton they are taken short with a north-east wind, and cannot put back into the Roads, which very often happens, then they are driven upon the same coast, and embay’d just as the latter. The danger on the north part of this bay is not the same, because if ships going or coming should be taken short on this side Flambro’, there is the River Humber open to them, and several good roads to have recourse to, as Burlington Bay, Grimsby Road, and the Spurn Head, and others, where they ride under shelter.

The dangers of this place being thus consider’d, ’tis no wonder, that upon the shoar beyond Yarmouth, there are no less than four light-houses kept flaming every night, besides the lights at Castor, north of the town, and at Goulston S, all which are to direct the sailors to keep a good offing, in case of bad weather, and to prevent their running into Cromer Bay, which the seamen call the Devils Throat.

As I went by land from Yarmouth northward, along the shoar towards Cromer aforesaid, and was not then fully master of the reason of these things, I was surprised to see, in all the way from Winterton, that the farmers, and country people had scarce a barn, or a shed, or a stable; nay, not the pales of their yards, and gardens, not a hogstye, not a necessary-house, but what was built of old planks, beams, wales and timbers, &c. the. wrecks of ships, and ruins of mariners and merchants’ fortunes; and in some places were whole yards fill’d, and piled up very high with the same stuff laid up, as I suppos’d to sell for the like building purposes, as there should be occasion.

About the year 1692, (I think it was that year) there was a melancholy example of what I have said of this place; a fleet of 200 sail of light colliers (so they call the ships bound northward empty to fetch coals from Newcastle to London) went out of Yarmouth Roads with a fair wind, to pursue their voyage, and were taken short with a storm of wind at N.E, after they were past Winterton Ness, a few leagues; some of them, whose masters were a little more wary than the rest, or perhaps, who made a better judgment of things, or who were not so far out as the rest, tack’d, and put back in time, and got safe into the roads; but the rest pushing on, in hopes to keep out to sea, and weather it, were by the violence of the storm driven back, when they were too far embay’d to weather Winterton Ness, as above; and so were forc’d to run west, every one shifting for themselves, as well as they could; some run away for Lyn Deeps but few of them, (the night being so dark) cou’d find their way in there; some but very few rid it out, at a distance; the rest being above 140 sail were all driven on shore, and dash’d to pieces, and very few of the people on board were sav’d: At the very same unhappy juncture, a fleet of loaden ships were coming from the north, and being just crossing the same bay, were forcibly driven into it, not able to weather the Ness, and so were involved in the same ruin as the light fleet was; also some coasting vessels loaden with corn from Lyn, and Wells, and bound for Holland, were with the same unhappy luck just come out, to begin their voyage, and some of them lay at anchor; these also met with the same misfortune, so that in the whole, above 200 sail of ships, and above a thousand people perished in the disaster of that one miserable night, very few escaping.

Cromer is a market town close to the shoar of this dangerous coast, I know nothing it is famous for (besides it’s being thus the terror of the sailors) except good lobsters, which are taken on that coast in great numbers, and carryed to Norwich, and in such quantities sometimes too, as to be convey’d by sea to London.

Farther within the land, and between this place and Norwich, are several good market towns, and innumerable villages, all diligently applying to the woollen manufacture, and the country is exceeding fruitful and fertil, as well in corn as in pastures; particularly, (which was very pleasant to see) the phesants were in such great plenty, as to be seen in the stubbles like cocks and hens; a testimony tho’ (by the way) that the county had more tradesmen than gentlemen in it; indeed this part is so entirely given up to industry, that what with the seafaring men on the one side, and the manufactures on the other, we saw no idle hands here, but every man busie on the main affair of life, that is to say, getting money: Some of the principal of these towns are Alsham, North Walsham, South Walsham, Wursted, Caston, Reepham, Holt, Saxthorp, St. Faith’s, Blikling, and many others. Near the last Sir John Hobart, of an antient family in this county, has a noble seat, but old built. This is that St. Faiths, where the drovers bring their black cattle to sell to the Norfolk graziers, as is observed above. From Cromer, we ride on the strand or open shoar to Weyburn Hope, the shoar so flat that in some places the tide ebbs out near two miles: From Weyburn west lyes Clye, where there are large salt-works, and very good salt made, which is sold all over the county, and some times sent to Holland, and to the Baltick: From Clye, we go to Masham, and to Wells, all towns on the coast, in each whereof there is a very considerable trade cary’d on with Holland for corn, which that part of the county is very full of: I say nothing of the great trade driven here from Holland, back again to England, because I take it to be a trade carryed on with much less honesty than advantage; especially while the clandestine trade, or the art of smuggling was so much in practice; what it is now, is not to my present purpose.

Near this town lye the Seven Burnhams, as they are call’d, that is to say seven small towns, all called by the same name, and each employ’d in the same trade of carrying corn to Holland, and bringing back ———&c.

From hence we turn to the S.W. to Castle-Rising, an old decay’d burrough town with perhaps not ten families in it, which yet (to the scandal of our prescription right) sends two members to the British Parliament, being as many as the city of Norwich itself, or any town in the kingdom, London excepted can do.

On our left we see Walsingham, an antient town, famous for the old ruins of a monastery of note there, and the shrine of our Lady, as noted as that of St. Thomas-a-Becket at Canterbury, and for little else.

Near this place are the seats of the two ally’d families of the Lord Viscount Townsend, and Robert Walpole, Esq; the latter at this time one of the lords commissioners of the Treasury, and minister of state, and the former one of the principal secretaries of state to King GEORGE, of which again.

From hence we went to Lyn, another rich and populous thriving port-town. It stands on more ground than the town of Yarmouth, and has I think parishes, yet I cannot allow that it has more people than Yarmouth, if so many. It is a beautiful well built, and well situated town, at the mouth of the River Ouse, and has this particular attending it, which gives it a vast advantage in trade; namely, that there is the greatest extent of inland navigation here, of any port in England, London excepted. The reason whereof is this, that there are more navigable rivers empty themselves here into the sea, including the Washes which are branches of the same port, than at any one mouth of waters in England, except the Thames and the Humber. By these navigable rivers the merchants of Lynn supply about six counties wholly, and three counties in part, with their goods, especially wine and coals, (viz.) By the Little Ouse, they send their goods to Brandon, and Thetford, by the Lake to Mildenhall, Barton-Mills, and St. Edmunds-Bury; by the river Grant to Cambridge, by the Great Ouse it self to Ely, to St. Ives, to St. Neots, to Barford-Bridge, and to Bedford; by the River Nyne, to Peterboro’; by the dreyns and washes to Wysbich, to Spalding, Market-Deeping, and Stamford; besides the several counties, into which these goods are carryed by land carriage, from the places where the navigation of those rivers ends; which has given rise to this observation on the town of Lynn, that they bring in more coals, than any sea-port between London and Newcastle; and import more wines than any port in England, except London and Bristol; their trade to Norway, and to the Baltick Sea is also great in proportion, and of late years they have extended their trade farther to the southward.

Here are more gentry, and consequently is more gayety in this town than in Yarmouth, or even in Norwich it self; the place abounding in very good company.

The situation of this town renders it capable of being made very strong, and in the late wars it was so; a line of fortification being drawn round it at a distance from the walls; the ruins, or rather remains of which works appear very fair to this day; nor would it be a hard matter to restore the bastions, with the ravelins and counterscarp, upon any sudden emergency, to a good state of defence; and that in a little time, a sufficient number of workmen being employed, especially because they are able to fill all their ditches with water from the sea, in such a manner as that it cannot be drawn off.

There is, in the market-place of this town, a very fine statue of King William on horseback, erected at the charge of the town. The Owse is mighty large and deep, close to the very-town itself, and ships of good burthen may come up to the key; but there is no bridge, the stream being too strong, and the bottom moorish and unsound: Nor for the same reason is the anchorage computed the best in the world; but there are good roads farther down.

They pass over here in boats into the fenn-country, and over the famous washes into Lincolnshire, but the passage is very dangerous and uneasy, and where passengers often miscarry and are lost; but then it is usually on their venturing at improper times, and without the guides, which if they would be persuaded not to do, they would very rarely fail of going or coining safe.

From Lynn, I bent my course to Downham, where is an ugly wooden bridge over the Ouse; from whence we pass’d the fenn country to Wisbich, but saw nothing that way to tempt our curiosity but deep roads, innumerable dreyns and dykes of water, all navigable, and a rich soil, the land bearing a vast quantity of good hemp; but a base unwholsom air; so we came back to Ely, whose cathedral, standing in a level flat country, is seen far and wide; and of which town, when the minster, so they call it, is describ’d, every thing remarkable is said that there is room to say; and of the minster this is the most remarkable thing that I could hear, namely, that some of it is so antient, totters so much with every gust of wind, looks so like a decay, and seems so near it, that when ever it does fall, all that ’tis likely will be thought strange in it, will be, that it did not fall a hundred years sooner.

From hence we came over the Ouse, and in a few miles to Newmarket: In our way near Snaybell we saw a noble seat of the late Admiral Russel, now Earl of Orford, a name made famous by the glorious victory obtain’d under his command over the French fleet, and the burning their ships at La Hogue; a victory equal in glory to, and infinitely more glorious to the English nation in particular, than that at Blenheim, and above all more to the particular advantage of the Confederacy, because it so broke the heart of the naval power of France, that they have not fully recover’d it to this day: But of this victory it must be said, it was owing to the haughty, rash, and insolent orders given by the King of France to his admiral, (viz.) To fight the Confederate fleet wherever he found them, without leaving room for him to use due caution if he found them too strong; which pride of France was doubtless a fate upon them, and gave a cheap victory to the Confederates; the French coming down rashly, and with the most impolitick bravery, with about five and forty sail to attack between seventy and eighty sail; by which means they met their ruin; whereas, had their own fleet been join’d, it might have cost more blood to have mastered them, if it had been done at all.

The situation of this house is low, and on the edge of the fenn-country, but the building is very fine, the avenues noble, and the gardens perfectly finished; the apartments also are rich; and I see nothing wanting but a family and heirs, to sustain the glory and inheritance of the illustrious ancestor, who rais’d it, sed caret pedibus, these are wanting.

Being come to Newmarket in the month of October, I had the opportunity to see the horse-races; and a great concourse of the nobility and gentry, as well from London as from all parts of England; but they were all so intent, so eager, so busy upon the sharping part of the sport, their wagers and bets, that to me they seem’d just as so many horse-coursers in Smithfield, descending (the greatest of them) from their high dignity and quality, to picking one another’s pockets, and biting one another as much as possible, and that with such eagerness, as that it might be said they acted without respect to faith, honour, or good manners.

There was Mr. Frampton, the oldest, and as some say, the cunningest jockey in England, one day he lost 1000 guineas, the next he won two thousand; and so alternately he made as light of throwing away five hundred or one thousand pounds at a time, as other men do of their pocket-money, and as perfectly calm, cheerful, and unconcerned, when he had lost one thousand pounds, as when he had won it. On the other side, there was Sir R——— Fagg, of Sussex, of whom fame says he has the most in him and the least to shew for it, relating to jockeyship, of any man there; yet he often carry’d the prize; his horses, they said, were all cheats, how honest soever their master was; for he scarce ever produced a horse but he look’d like what he was not, and was what no body cou’d expect him to be: If he was as light as the wind, and could fly like a meteor, he was sure to look as clumsie, and as dirty, and as much like a cart-horse as all the cunning of his master and the grooms could make him; and just in this manner he bit some of the greatest gamesters in the field.

I was so sick of the jockeying part, that I left the crowd about the posts, and pleased my self with observing the horses; how the creatures yielded to all the arts and managements of their masters; how they took their airings in sport, and play’d with the daily heats which they ran over the course before the grand day; but how! as knowing the difference equally with their riders, would they exert their utmost strength at the time of the race itself; and that to such an extremity, that one or two of them died in the stable when they came to be rubb’d after the first heat.

Here I fansy’d myself in the Circus Maximus at Rome, seeing the antient games, and the racings of the chariots and horsemen; and in this warmth of my imagination I pleas’d and diverted myself more and in a more noble manner, than I could possibly do in the crowds of gentlemen at the weighing and starting posts, and at their coming in; or at their meetings at the coffee-houses and gaming-tables after the races were over, where there was little or nothing to be seen, but what was the subject of just reproach to them, and reproof from every wise man that look’d upon them. N.B. Pray take it with you as you go, you see no ladies at New-Market, except a few of the neighbouring gentlemen’s families who come in their coaches on any particular day to see a race and so go home again directly.

As I was pleasing myself with what was to be seen here, I went in the intervals of the sport to see the fine seats of the gentlemen in the neighbouring county, for this part of Suffolk, being an open champain country, and a healthy air, is form’d for pleasure, and all kinds of country diversions; nature, as it were, inviting the gentlemen to visit her, where she was fully prepar’d to receive them; in conformity to which kind summons they came; for the country is, as it were, cover’d with fine palaces of the nobility, and pleasant seats of the gentlemen.

The Earl of Orford’s house I have mentioned already, the next is Euston Hall, the seat of the Duke of Grafton; it lies in the open country towards the side of Norfolk, not far from Thetford; a place capable of all that is pleasant and delightful in nature, and improved by art to every extreme that Nature is able to produce.

From thence I went to Rushbrook, formerly the seat of the noble family of Jermyns, lately Lord Dover, and now of the house of Davers. Here Nature, for the time I was there, droopt, and veil’d all the beauties of which she once boasted; the family being in tears, and the house shut up; Sir Robert Davers, the head thereof, and knight of the shire for the county of Suffolk, and who had married the eldest daughter of the late Lord Dover, being just dead, and the corpse lying there in its funeral form of ceremony, not yet buried; yet all look’d lovely in their sorrow, and a numerous issue promising and grown up, intimated that the family of Davers would still flourish, and that the beauties of Rushbrook, the mansion of the family, were not form’d with so much art in vain, or to die with the present possessor.

After this we saw Brently, the seat of the Earl of Dysert, and the antient palace of my Lord Cornwallis, with several others of exquisite situation, and adorn’d with the beauties both of art and nature; so that I think, any traveller from abroad, who would desire to see how the English gentry live, and what pleasures they enjoy, should come into Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and take but a light circuit among the country seats of the gentlemen on this side only, and they would be soon convinc’d, that not France, no not Italy itself, can out-do them, in proportion to the climate they lived in.

I had still the county of Cambridge to visit, to compleat this tour of the eastern part of England, and of that I come now to speak.

We enter Cambridgeshire out of Suffolk with all the advantage in the world; the county beginning upon those pleasant and agreeable plains call’d New Market-Heath, where passing the Devil’s Ditch, which has nothing worth notice but its name, and that but fabulous too, from the hills call’d Gogmagog, we see a rich and pleasant vale westward, covered with corn-fields, gentlemen’s seats, villages, and at a distance, to crown all the rest, that antient and truly famous town and university of Cambridge; capital of the county, and receiving its name from, if not as some say, giving name to it; for if it be true ——that the town takes its name of Cambridge from its bridge over the River Cam; then certainly the shire or county, upon the division of England into counties, had its name from the town, and Cambridgeshire signifies no more or less than the county of which Cambridge is the capital town.

As my business is not to lay out the geographical situation of places, I say nothing of the buttings and boundings of this county: It lies on the edge of the great level, call’d by the people here the fenn-country; and great part, if not all, the Isle of Ely, lies in this county and Norfolk: The rest of Cambridgeshire is almost wholly a corn country; and of that corn five parts in six of all they sow, is barly, which is generally sold to Ware and Royston, and other great malting-towns in Hertfordshire, and is the fund from whence that vast quantity of malt, call’d Hertfordshire malt is made, which is esteem’d the best in England. As Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, are taken up in manufacturing, and fam’d for industry, this county has no manufacture at all; nor are the poor, except the husbandmen, fam’d for any thing so much as idleness and sloth, to their scandal be it spoken; what the reason of it is, I know not.

It is scarce possible to talk of anything in Cambridgeshire but Cambridge itself; whether it be that the county has so little worth speaking of in it, or that the town has so much, that I leave to others; however, as I am making modern observations, not writing history, I shall look into the county as well as into the colleges, for what I have to say.

As I said, I first had a view of Cambridge from Gogmagog Hills: I am to add, that there appears on the mountain that goes by this name, an antient camp, or fortification, that lies on the top of the hill, with a double or rather treble rampart and ditch, which most of our writers say was neither Roman nor Saxon, but British: I am to add, that King James II. caused a spacious stable to be built in the area of this camp, for his running-horses, and made old Mr. Frampton, whom I mention’d above, master or inspector of them: The stables remain still there, tho’ they are not often made use of. As we descended westward, we saw the fenn country on our right, almost all cover’d with water like a sea, the Michaelmas rains having been very great that year, they had sent down great floods of water from the upland countries, and those fenns being, as may be very properly said, the sink of no less than thirteen counties; that is to say, that all the water, or most part of the water of thirteen counties, falls into them, they are often thus overflow’d. The rivers which thus empty themselves into these fenns, and which thus carry off the water, are the Cam or Grant, the Great Ouse, and Little Ouse, the Nene, the Welland, and the river which runs from Bury to Milden-Hall; the counties which these rivers drain, as above, are as follows,

Lincoln, Warwick, Norfolk,
*Cambridge, Oxford, Suffolk,
*Huntingdon, Leicester, Essex.
*Bedford, *Northampton,
Buckingham, *Rutland,

N.B. Those mark’d with (*) empty all their waters this way, the rest but in part.

In a word, all the water of the middle part of England which does not run into the Thames or the Trent, comes down into these fenns.

In these fenns are abundance of those admirable pieces of art call’d duckoys; that is to say, Places so adapted for the harbour and shelter of wild-fowl, and then furnish’d with a breed of those they call decoy-ducks, who are taught to allure and entice their land to the places they belong to, that it is incredible what quantities of wild-fowl of all sorts, duck, mallard, teal, widgeon, &c. they take in those duckoys every week, during the season; it may indeed be guess’d at a little by this, that there is a duckoy not far from Ely, which pays to the landlord, Sir Tho. Hare 500l. a year rent, besides the charge of maintaining a great number of servants for the management; and from which duckoy alone they assured me at St. Ives, (a town on the Ouse, where the fowl they took was always brought to be sent to London;) that they generally sent up three thousand couple a week.

There are more of these about Peterbro’ who send the fowl up twice a week in waggon loads at a time, whose waggons before the late Act of Parliament to regulate carriers, I have seen drawn by ten, and twelve horses a piece, they were loaden so heavy.

As these fenns appear cover’d with water, so I observ’d too, that they generally at this latter part of the year appear also cover’d with foggs, so that when the Downs and higher grounds of the adjacent country were gilded by the beams of the sun, the Isle of Ely look’d as if wrapp’d up in blankets, and nothing to be seen, but now and then, the lanthorn or cupola of Ely Minster.

One could hardly see this from the hills and not pity the many thousands of families that were bound to or confin’d in those foggs, and had no other breath to draw than what must be mix’d with those vapours, and that steam which so universally overspread the country: But notwithstanding this, the people, especially those that are used to it, live unconcern’d, and as healthy as other folks, except now and then an ague, which they make light of, and there are great numbers of very antient people among them.

I now draw near to Cambridge, to which I fansy I look as if I was afraid to come, having made so many circumlocutions beforehand; but I must yet make another digression before I enter the town; (for in my way, and as I came in from New Market, about the beginning of September;) I cannot omit, that I came necessarily through Sturbridge Fair, which was then in its height.

If it is a diversion worthy a book to treat of trifles, such as the gayety of Bury Fair, it cannot be very unpleasant, especially to the trading part of the world, to say something of this fair, which is not only the greatest in the whole nation, but in the world; nor, if I may believe those who have seen them all, is the fair at Leipsick in Saxony, the mart at Frankfort on the Main, or the fairs at Neuremberg, or Augsburg, any way to compare to this fair at Sturbridge.

It is kept in a large corn-field, near Casterton, extending from the side of the River Cam, towards the road, for about half a mile square.

If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents; for all the fair is kept in tents, and booths: On the other hand, to ballance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their business of the fair, and remov’d and clear’d the field by another certain day in September, the plowmen may come in again, with plow and cart, and overthrow all and trample it into the dirt; and as for the filth, dung, straw, &c. necessarily left by the fair-keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and carting upon, and hardening the ground.

It is impossible to describe all the parts and circumstances of this fair exactly; the shops are placed in rows like streets, whereof one is call’d Cheapside; and here, as in several other streets, are all sorts of trades, who sell by retale, and who come principally from London with their goods; scarce any trades are omitted, goldsmiths, toyshops, brasiers, turners, milleners, haberdashers, hatters, mercers, drapers, pewtrers, china-warehouses, and in a word all trades that can be named in London; with coffee-houses, taverns, brandy-shops, and eating-houses, innumerable, and all in tents, and booths, as above.

This great street reaches from the road, which as I said goes from Cambridge to New-Market, turning short out of it to the right towards the river, and holds in a line near half a mile quite down to the river-side: In another street parallel with the road are like rows of booths, but larger, and more intermingled with wholesale dealers, and one side, passing out of this last street to the left hand, is a formal great square, form’d by the largest booths, built in that form, and which they call the Duddery; whence the name is deriv’d, and what its signification is, I could never yet learn, tho’ I made all possible search into it. The area of this square is about 80 to a 100 yards, where the dealers have room before every booth to take down, and open their packs, and to bring in waggons to load and unload.

This place is separated, and peculiar to the wholesale dealers in the woollen manufacture. Here the Booths, or tents, are of a vast extent, have different apartments, and the quantities of goods they bring are so great, that the insides of them look like another Blackwell-Hall, being as vast ware-houses pil’d up with goods to the top. In this Duddery, as I have been inform’d, there have been sold one hundred thousand pounds worth of woollen manufactures in less than a week’s time, besides the prodigious trade carry’d on here, by wholesale-men, from London, and all parts of England, who transact their business wholly in their pocket-books, and meeting their chapmen from all parts, make up their accounts, receive money chiefly in bills, and take orders: These they say exceed by far the sales of goods actually brought to the fair, and deliver’d in kind; it being frequent for the London wholesale men to carry back orders from their dealers for ten thousand pounds worth of goods a man, and some much more. This especially respects those people, who deal in heavy goods, as wholesale grocers, salters, brasiers, iron-merchants, wine-merchants, and the like; but does not exclude the dealers in woollen manufactures, and especially in mercery goods of all sorts, the dealers in which generally manage their business in this manner.

Here are clothiers from Hallifax, Leeds, Wakefield and Huthersfield in Yorkshire, and from Rochdale, Bury, &c. in Lancashire, with vast quantities of Yorkshire cloths, kerseyes, pennistons, cottons, &c. with all sorts of Manchester ware, fustians, and things made of cotton wool; of which the quantity is so great, that they told me there were near a thousand horse-packs of such goods from that side of the country, and these took up a side and half of the Duddery at least; also a part of a street of booths were taken up with upholsterer’s ware, such as tickings, sackings, Kidderminster stuffs, blankets rugs, quilts, &c.

In the Duddery I saw one ware-house, or booth, with six apartments in it, all belonging to a dealer in Norwich stuffs only, and who they said had there above twenty thousand pounds value, in those goods, and no other.

Western goods had their share here also, and several booths were fill’d as full with serges, du-roys, druggets, shalloons, cantaloons, Devonshire kersies, &c. from Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, and other parts west, and some from London also.

But all this is still outdone, at least in show, by two articles, which are the peculiars of this fair, and do not begin till the other part of the fair, that is to say for the woollen manufacture, begins to draw to a close: These are the WOOLL, and the HOPS, as for the hops, there is scarce any price fix’d for hops in England, till they know how they sell at Sturbridge Fair; the quantity that appears in the fair is indeed prodigious, and they, as it were, possess a large part of the field on which the fair is kept, to themselves; they are brought directly from Chelmsford in Essex, from CanterburyMaidstone in Kent, and from Farnham in Surrey, besides what are brought from London, the growth of those, and other places.

Enquiring why this fair should be thus, of all other places in England, the center of that trade; and so great a quantity of so bulky a commodity be carryed thither so far: I was answer’d by one thoroughly acquainted with that matter thus: The hops, said he, for this part of England, grow principally in the two counties of Surrey and Kent, with an exception only to the town of Chelmsford in Essex, and there are very few planted any where else.

There are indeed in the west of England some quantities growing; as at Wilton, near Salisbury; at Hereford and Broomsgrove, near Wales, and the like; but the quantity is inconsiderable, and the places remote, so that none of them come to London.

As to the north of England they formerly used but few hops there, their drink being chiefly pale smooth ale, which required no hops, and consequently they planted no hops in all that part of England, north of Trent; nor did I ever see one acre of hop-ground planted beyond Trent, in my observations; but as for some years past, they not only brew great quantities of beer in the north; but also use hops in the brewing then-ale much more than they did before; so they all come south of Trent to buy their hops; and here being vast quantities bought, ’tis great part of their back carriage into Yorkshire, and Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and all those counties; nay, of late, since the Union, even to Scotland it self; for I must not omit here also to mention, that the river Grant, or Cam, which runs close by the N.W. side of the fair in its way from Cambridge to Ely, is navigable, and that by this means, all heavy goods are brought even to the fair-field, by water carriage from London, and other parts; first to the port of Lynn, and then in barges up the Ouse, from the Ouse into the Cam, and so, as I say, to the very edge of the fair.

In like manner great quantities of heavy goods, and the hops among the rest, are sent from the fair to Lynn by water, and shipped there for the Humber, to Hull, York, &c. and for New-Castle upon Tyne, and by New-Castle, even to Scotland itself. Now as there is still no planting of hops in the north, tho’ a great consumption, and the consumption increasing daily, this, says my friend, is one reason why at Sturbridge Fair there is so great a demand for the hops: he added, that besides this, there were very few hops, if any worth naming, growing in all the counties even on this side Trent, which were above forty miles from London; those counties depending on Sturbridge Fair for their supply, so the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, Lincoln, Leicester, Rutland, and even to Stafford, Warwick and Worcestershire, bought most if not all of their hops at Sturbridge Fair.

These are the reasons why so great a quantity of hops are seen at this fair, as that it is incredible, considering too, how remote from this fair the growth of them is, as above.

This is likewise a testimony of the prodigious resort of the trading people of all parts of England to this fair; the quantity of hops that have been sold at one of these fairs is diversly reported, and some affirm it to be so great, that I dare not copy after them; but without doubt it is a surprising account, especially in a cheap year.

The next article brought hither, is wool, and this of several sorts, but principally fleece wool, out of Lincolnshire, where the longest staple is found; the sheep of those countries being of the largest breed.

The buyers of this wool, are chiefly indeed the manufacturers of Norfolk and Suffolk, and Essex, and it is a prodigious quantity they buy.

Here I saw what I have not observ’d in any other country of England, namely, a pocket of wool. This seems to be first called, so in mockery, this pocket being so big, that it loads a whole waggon, and reaches beyond the most extream parts of it, hanging over both before, and behind, and these ordinarily weigh a ton or 25 hundred weight of wool, all in one bag.

The quantity of wool only, which has been sold at this place at one fair, has been said to amount to fifty or sixty thousand, pounds in value, some say a great deal more.

By these articles a stranger may make some guess, at the immense trade carry’d on at this place; what prodigious quantities of goods are bought, and sold here, and what a, confluence of people are seen here from all parts of England.

I might go on here to speak of several other sorts of English, manufactures, which are brought hither to be sold; as all sorts of wrought iron, and brass ware from Birmingham; edg’d tools, knives, &c. from Sheffield; glass ware, and stockings, from Nottingham, and Leicester; and an infinite throng of other things of smaller value, every morning.

To attend this fair, and the prodigious conflux of people, which come to it, there are sometimes no less than fifty hackney coaches, which come from London, and ply night and morning to carry the people to and from Cambridge; for there the gross of the people lodge; nay, which is still more strange, there are wherries brought from London on waggons to plye upon the little river Cam, and to row people up and down from the town, and from the fair as occasion presents.

It is not to be wondered at, if the town of Cambridge cannot receive, or entertain the numbers of people that come to this fair; not Cambridge only, but all the towns round are full; nay, the very barns, and stables are turn’d into inns, and made as fit as they can to lodge the meaner sort of people: As for the people in the fair, they all universally eat, drink, and sleep in their booths, and tents; and the said booths are so intermingled with taverns, coffee-houses, drinking-houses, eating-houses, cooks-shops, &c. and all in tents too; and so many butchers, and higglers from all the neighbouring counties come into the fair every morning, with beef, mutton, fowls, butter, bread, cheese, eggs, and such things; and go with them from tent to tent, from door to door, that there’s no want of any provisions of any kind, either dress’d, or undress’d.

In a word, the fair is like a well fortify’d city, and there is the least disorder and confusion (I believe) that can be seen any where, with so great a concourse of people.

Towards the latter end of the fair, and when the great hurry of wholesale business begins to be over, the gentry come in, from all parts of the county round; and tho’ they come for their diversion; yet ’tis not a little money they lay out; which generally falls to the share of the retailers, such as toy-shops, goldsmiths, brasiers, ironmongers, turners, milleners, mercers, &c. and some loose coins, they reserve for the puppet-shows, drolls, rope-dancers, and such like; of which there is no want, though not considerable like the rest: The last day of the fair is the horse-fair where the whole is clos’d with both horse and foot-races, to divert the meaner sort of people only, for nothing considerable is offer’d of that kind: Thus ends the whole fair and in less than a week more there is scarce any sign left that there has been such a thing there: except by the heaps of dung and straw; and other rubbish which is left behind, trod into the earth, and which is as good as a summer’s fallow for dunging to the land; and as I have said above, pays the husbandmen well for the use of it.

I should have mention’d, that here is a court of justice always open, and held every day in a shed built on purpose in the fair; this is for keeping the peace, and deciding controversies in matters deriving from the business of the fair: The magistrates of the town of Cambridge are judges in this court, as being in their jurisdiction, or they holding it by special priviledge: Here they determine matters in a summary way, as is practis’d in those we call Pye-Powder Courts in other places, or as a court of conscience; and they have a final authority without appeal.

I come now to the town, and university of Cambridge; I say the town and university, for tho’ they are blended together in the situation, and the colleges, halls, and houses for literature are promiscuously scatter’d up and down among the other parts, and some even among the meanest of the other buildings; as Magdalen College over the bridge, is in particular; yet they are all encorporated together, by the name of the university, and are govern’d apart, and distinct from the town, which they are so intermixed with.

As their authority is distinct from the town, so are their priviledges, customs, and government; they choose representatives, or Members of Parliament for themselves, and the town does the like for themselves, also apart.

The town is govern’d by a mayor, and aldermen. The university by a chancellor, and vice-chancellor, &c. Tho’ their dwellings are mix’d, and seem a little confus’d, their authority is not so; in some cases the vice-chancellor may concern himself in the town, as in searching houses for the scholars at improper hours, removing scandalous women, and the like.

But as the colleges are many, and the gentlemen entertain’d in them are a very great number, the trade of the town very much depends upon them, and the tradesmen may justly be said to get their bread by the colleges; and this is the surest hold the university may be said to have of the townsmen and by which they secure the dependence of the town upon them, and consequently their submission.

I remember some years ago a brewer, who being very rich and popular in the town, and one of their magistrates, had in several things so much opposed the university, and insulted their vice-chancellor, or other heads of houses, that in short the university having no other way to exert themselves, and show their resentment, they made a by-law or order among themselves, that for the future they would not trade with him; and that none of the colleges, halls, &c. would take any more beer of him; and what follow’d? The man indeed brav’d it out a while, but when he found he cou’d not obtain a revocation of the order, he was fain to leave off his brewhouse, and if I remember right, quitted the town.

Thus I say, interest gives them authority; and there are abundance of reasons why the town shou’d not disoblige the university, as there are some also on the other hand, why the university shou’d not differ to any extremity with the town; nor, such is their prudence, do they let any disputes between them run up to any extremities, if they can avoid it. As for society; to any man who is a lover of learning, or of learn’d men, here is the most agreeable under heaven; nor is there any want of mirth and good company of other kinds: But ’tis to the honour of the university to say, that the governors so well understand their office, and the governed their duty, that here is very little encouragement given to those seminaries of crime the assemblies, which are so much boasted of in other places.

Again, as dancing, gaming, intriguing, are the three principal articles which recommend those assemblies; and that generally the time for carrying on affairs of this kind, is the night, and sometimes all night; a time as unseasonable as scandalous; add to this, that the orders of the university admit no such excesses: I therefore say, as this is the case, ’tis to the honour of the whole body of the university, that no encouragement is given to them here.

As to the antiquity of the university in this town, the originals and founders of the several colleges, their revenues, laws, government and governors, they are so effectually and so largely treated by other authors, and are so foreign to the familiar design of these letters, that I refer my readers to Mr. Camden’s Britannia, and the author of the Antiquities of Cambridge, and other such learned writers, by whom they may be fully informed.

The present vice-chancellor is Dr. Snape, formerly master of Eaton School near Windsor; and famous for his dispute with and evident advantage over the late Bishop of Bangor, in the time of his government; the dispute between the university and the master of Trinity College has been brought to a head, so as to employ the pens of the learned on both sides; but at last prosecuted in a judicial way, so as to deprive Dr. Bently of all his dignities and offices in the university; but the Dr. flying to the royal protection, the university is under a writ of mandamus, to shew cause why they do not restore the doctor again, to which it seems they demur, and that demur has not, that we hear, been argued, at least when these sheets were sent to the press; what will be the issue time must shew.

From Cambridge the road lies north-west, on the edge of the fenns, to Huntingdon, where it joins the Great North-Road; on this side, ’tis all an agreeable corn country, as above; adorn’d with several seats of gentlemen, but the chief is the noble house, seat, or mansion of Wimple, or Wimple-Hall, formerly built at a vast expence, by the late Earl of Radnor; adorn’d with all the natural beauties of situation; and to which was added all the most exquisite contrivances which the best heads cou’d invent to make it artificially as well as naturally pleasant.

However, the fate of the Radnor family so directing, it was bought, with the whole estate about it, by the late Duke of Newcastle; in a partition of whose immense estate, it fell to the Right Honourable the Lord Harley, (son and heir apparent of the present Earl of Oxford and Mortimer) in right of the Lady Harriot Cavendish, only daughter of the said Duke of Newcastle, who is married to his lordship, and brought him this estate, and many other, sufficient to denominate her the richest heiress in Great-Britain.

Here his lordship resides, and has already so recommended himself to this country, as to be by a great majority chosen knight of the shire for the county of Cambridge.

From Cambridge, my design obliging me, and the direct road, in part concurring, I came back thro’ the west part of the county of Essex, and at Saffron Walden I saw the ruins of the once largest and most magnificent pile in all this part of England, (viz.) Audley End; built by, and decaying with the noble Dukes and Earls of Suffolk.

A little north of this part of the country rises the River Stour, which for a course of fifty miles or more, parts the two counties of Suffolk and Essex; passing thro’ or near Haveril, Clare, Cavendish, Halsted, Sudbury, Buers, Nayland, Stretford, Dedham, Manningtree, and into the sea at Harwich; assisting by its waters to make one of the best harbours for shipping that is in Great-Britain; I mean Orwell Haven, or Harwich, of which I have spoken largely already.

As we came on this side we saw at a distance Braintree and Bocking, two towns, large, rich and populous, and made so originally by the bay trade, of which I have spoken at large at Colchester, and which flourishes still among them.

The manour of Braintree I found descended by purchase, to the name of Olmeus, the son of a London merchant of the same name; making good what I had observed before, of the great number of such who have purchased estates in this county.

Near this town is Felsted, a small place, but noted for a free-school, of an antient foundation; for many years under the mastership of the late reverend Mr. Lydiat, and brought by him to the meridian of its reputation: ’Tis now supplied, and that very worthily, by the reverend Mr, Hutchins.

Near to this is the priory of Lees, a delicious seat of the late Dukes of Manchester, but sold by the present duke to the Dutchess Dowager of Bucks; his grace the Duke of Manchester removing to his yet finer seat of Kimbolton in Northamptonshire, the antient mansion of the family. From hence keeping the London road I came to Chelmsford, mentioned before, and Ingerstone, five miles west, which I mention again; because in the parish-church of this town are to be seen the antient monuments of the noble family of Petre; whose seat, and a large estate, lie in the neighbourhood; and whose whole family, by a constant series of beneficent actions to the poor, and bounty upon all charitable occasions, have gain’d an affectionate esteem thro’ all that part of the country, such as no prejudice of religion could wear out, or perhaps ever may; and I must confess, I think, need not; for good and great actions command our respect, let the opinions of the persons be otherwise what they will.

From hence we crossed the country to the great forest, called Epping Forest, reaching almost to London. The country on that side of Essex is called the Roodings, I suppose because there are no less than ten towns almost together, called by the name of Roding, and is famous for good land, good malt, and dirty roads; the latter indeed in the winter are scarce passable for horse or man. In the midst of this we see Chipping Onger, Hatfield Broad-Oak, Epping, and many forest-towns, fam’d, as I have said, for husbandry and good malt; but of no other note. On the south-side of the county is Waltham-Abbey; the ruins of the abbey remain; and tho’ antiquity is not my proper business, I cou’d not but observe, that King Harold, slain in the great battle in Sussex against William the Conqueror, lies buried here; his body being begg’d by his mother, the Conqueror allowed it to be carried hither; but no monument was, as I can find, built for him, only a flat grave-stone, on which was engraven, Harold Infoelix.

From hence I came over the forest again, that is to say, over the lower or western part of it, where it is spangled with fine villages, and these villages fill’d with fine seats, most of them built by the citizens of London, as I observed before; but the lustre of them seems to be entirely swallow’d up in the magnificent palace of the Lord Castlemain, whose father, Sir Josiah Child, as it were, prepar’d it in his life for the design of his son, tho’ altogether unforeseen; by adding to the advantage of its situation innumerable rows of trees, planted in curious order for avenues and visto’s, to the house, all leading up to the place where the old house stood, as to a center.

In the place adjoining, his lordship, while he was yet Sir Richard Child only, and some years before he began the foundation of his new house, laid out the most delicious as well as most spacious pieces of ground for gardens that is to be seen in all this part of England. The green-house is an excellent building fit to entertain a prince; ’tis furnish’d with stoves and artificial places for heat from an apartment, in which is a bagnio, and other conveniences, which render it both useful and pleasant; and these gardens have been so the just admiration of the world, that it has been the general diversion of the citizens to go out to see them, till the crowds grew too great, and his lordship was oblig’d to restrain his servants from shewing them, except on one or two days in a week only.

The house is built since these gardens have been finish’d: The building is all of Portland stone in the front, which makes it look extremely glorious and magnificent at a distance; it being the particular property of that stone, except in the streets of London, where it is tainted and ting’d with the smoak of the city, to grow whiter and whiter the longer it stands in the open air.

As the front of the house opens to a long row of trees, reaching to the great road at Leighton Stone; so the back-face, or front, if that be proper, respects the gardens, and with an easy descent lands you upon the terras, from whence is a most beautiful prospect to the river, which is all form’d into canals and openings, to answer the views from above, and beyond the river, the walks and wildernesses go on to such a distance, and in such a manner up the hill, as they before went down, that the sight is lost in the woods adjoining, and it looks all like one planted garden as far as the eye can see.

I shall cover as much as possible the melancholy part of a story, which touches too sensibly, many, if not most of the great and flourishing families in England: Pity and matter of grief is it to think that families, by estate, able to appear in such a glorious posture as this, should ever be vulnerable by so mean a disaster as that of stock-jobbing: But the general infatuation of the day is a plea for it; so that men are not now blamed on that account: South-Sea was a general possession; and if my Lord Castlemain was wounded by that arrow shot in the dark, ’twas a misfortune: But ’tis so much a happiness, that it was not a mortal wound, as it was to some men, who once seem’d as much out of the reach of it; and that blow, be it what it will, is not remember’d for joy of the escape; for we see this noble family, by prudence and management rise out of all that cloud, if it may be allow’d such a name, and shining in the same full lustre as before.

This cannot be said of some other families in this county, whose fine parks and new-built palaces are fallen under forfeitures and alienations by the misfortunes of the times, and by the ruin of their masters fortunes in that South-Sea Deluge.

But I desire to throw a veil over these things, as they come in my way; ’tis enough that we write upon them as was written upon King Harold’s tomb at Waltham-Abbey, INFAELIX, and let all the rest sleep among things that are the fittest to be forgotten.

From my Lord Castlemain’s house, and the rest of the fine dwellings on that side of the forest, for there are several very good houses at Wanstead, only that they seem all swallow’d up in the lustre of his lordship’s palace; I say, from thence I went south, towards the great road over that part of the forest call’d the Flatts, where we see a very beautiful, but retired and rural seat of Mr. Lethulier’s, eldest son of the late Sir John Lethulier, of Lusum in Kent, of whose family I shall speak when I come on that side.

By this turn I came necessarily on to Stratford, where I set out: And thus having finished my first circuit, I conclude my first letter; and am,

SIR,

Your most humble,
And obedient servant.

Appendix to Letter I

Whoever travels, as I do, over England, and writes the account of his observations, will, as I noted before, always leave something, altering or undertaking, by such a growing, improving nation as this; or something to discover in a nation, where so much is hid, sufficient to employ the pens of those that come after him, or to add, by way of Appendix to what: he has already observ’d.

This is my case, with respect to the particulars which follow: I. Since these sheets were in the press, a noble palace of Mr. Walpole’s, at present first commissioner of the treasury, privy-counsellor, &c. to King George, is, as it were, risen out of the ruins of the ancient seat of the family of Walpole, at Houghton, about 8 miles distant from Lynn, and on the north coast of Norfolk, near the sea.

As the house is not yet finished, and when I pass’d by it, was but newly design’d; it cannot be expected that I should be able to give a particular description of what it will be: I can do little more than mention, that it appears already to be exceeding magnificent, and suitable to the genius of the great founder.

But a friend of mine, who lives in that county, has sent me the following lines, which, as he says, are to be plac’d upon the building; whether on the frize of the cornish, or over the portico, or on what part of the building, of that I am not as yet certain: The inscription is as follows, viz.

H. M. P.
Fundamen ut essem Domus
In Agro Natali Extruendae,
Robertus ille Walpole
Quem nulla nesciet Posteritas:
Faxit Deus.
Postquam Maturus Annis Dominus.
Diu Laetatus fuerit absoluta
Incolumem tueantur Incolumes.
Ad Summam omnium Diem
Et nati matorum et qui nascentur ab illis,
Hic me Posuit.

A second thing proper to be added here, by way of Appendix, relates to what I have mention’d of the Port of London, being bounded by the Naze on the Essex shore, and the North Foreland on the Kentish shore, which some people, guided by the present usage of the custom-house, may pretend is not so, to answer such objectors. The true state of that case stands thus.

I. The clause taken from the Act of Parliament establishing the extent of the Port of London, and publish’d, in some of the books of rates, is this:

To prevent all future differences and disputes touching the extent and limits of the Port of London, the said port is declared to extend, and be accounted, from the promentary, or point, call’d the North Foreland, in the Isle of Thanet, and from thence northward in a right line to the point call’d the NAZE, beyond the Gunfleet, upon the coast of Essex; and so continued westward throughout the river Thames, and the several channels, streams and rivers falling into it, to London-Bridge; saving the usual and known rights, liberties and privileges of the ports of Sandwich, and Ipswich, and either of them, and the known members thereof, and of the customers, comptrolers, searchers, and their deputies, of and within the said ports of Sandwich and Ipswich, and the several creeks, harbours and havens to them, or either of them, respectively belonging, within the counties of Kent and Essex.

II. Notwithstanding what is above written, the Port of London, as in use since the said Order, is understood to reach no farther than Gravesend in Kent, and Tilbury Point in Essex; and the ports of Rochester, Milton and Feversham, belong to the port of Sandwich.

In like manner the ports of Harwich, Colchester, Wevenhoe, Malden, Leigh, &c. are said to be members of the port of Ipswich.

This observation may suffice for what is needful to be said upon the same subject, when I may come to speak of the port of Sandwich, and its members, and their privileges, with respect to Rochester, Milton, Feversham, &c. in my circuit thro’ the county of Kent.

Letter II. Containing A Description Of The Sea-Coasts Of Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, And Of Part Of Surrey

Kent Coast and Maidstone

SIR — As in my first journey I went over the eastern counties of ENGLAND, viz. ESSEX, SUFFOLK, NORFOLK, and CAMBRIDGE, and took my course on that side the river Thames, to view the sea-coasts, harbours, &c. so being now to traverse the southern counties, I begin with the other side of the Thames, and shall surround the sea-coast of KENT, as I did that of NORFOLK and SUFFOLK, and perhaps it is as fruitful of instructing and diverting observations as any of the other.

I took boat at Tower-Wharf, sending my horses round by land to meet me at Greenwich, that I might begin my journey at the beginning of the county, and here I had the advantage of making my first step into the county of Kent, at a place which is the most delightful spot of ground in Great-Britain; pleasant by situation, those pleasures encreas’d by art, and all made compleatly agreeable by the accident of fine buildings, the continual passing of fleets of ships up and down the most beautiful river in Europe; the best air, best prospect, and the best conversation in England.

The Royal Hospital for Seamen, though not yet finished; the park, the queen’s house, the Observatory on the hill, commonly call’d Flamstead-House, are all things so well known, they need no particular description.

The ground, part of this hospital now stands upon, and is to stand upon, is the same on which formerly stood the royal palace of our kings. Here Henry VIII. held his royal feasts with justs and tournaments, and the ground which was call’d the Tilt-yard, is the spot on which the easternmost wing of the hospital is built; the park, (for it was even then a park also) was enlarged, wall’d about, and planted with beautiful rows, or walks of trees by King Charles II. soon after the Restoration; and the design or plan of a royal palace was then lay’d out, one wing of which was finished and covered in a most magnificent manner, and makes now the first wing of the hospital as you come to it from London: The building is regular, the lower part a strong Dorick, the middle part a most beautiful Corinthian, with an Attick above all, to compleat the height; the front to the water-side is extreamly magnificent and graceful; embellished with rich carv’d work and fine devices, such as will hardly be outdone in this, or any age for beauty or art.

They must be very ignorant of our English affairs, who have published very lately that Queen Elizabeth built the royal palace of Greenwich; whereas it is evident, that it was the palace of King Henry VIII. her father, before she was born; and this is prov’d beyond contradiction by this particular circumstance, that her majesty was born in this very palace which she is there said to have built.

But the beauty of Greenwich is owing to the lustre of its inhabitants, where there is a kind of collection of gentlemen, rather than citizens, and of persons of quality and fashion, different from most, if not all, the villages in this part of England.

Here several of the most active and useful gentlemen of the late armies, after having grown old in the service of their country, and cover’d with the honours of the field, are retired to enjoy the remainder of their time, and reflect with pleasure upon the dangers they have gone thro’, and the faithful services they have performed both abroad and at home.

Several generals, and several of the inferior officers, I say, having thus chosen this calm retreat, live here in as much honour and delight as this world can give.

Other gentlemen still in service, as in the navy ordnance, docks, yards, &c. as well while in business, as after laying down their employments, have here planted themselves, insomuch, that the town of Greenwich begins to out-swell its bounds, and extends itself not only on this side the park to the top of the heath, by the way call’d Crum-Hill, but now stretches out on the east-side, where Sir John Vanburg has built a house castle-wise, and where in a little time ’tis probable, several streets of like buildings will be erected, to the enlarging and beautifying the town, and encreasing the inhabitants; who, as I have said, are already the chief beauty and ornament of the place: We are told also that leave will be obtained to build a new church on that side; the parish church, tho’ new rebuilt, and very large and beautiful, not being sufficient to receive the inhabitants, much less will it be so, if the buildings go on to encrease, as they have done, and as they now seem to do.

The river of Thames is here very broad, and the channel deep, and the water at some very high spring-tides is salt; but in ordinary tides, is very sweet and fresh, especially at the tide of ebb.

The country behind Greenwich adds to the pleasure of the place: Black-Heath, both for beauty of situation, and an excellent air, is not out-done by any spot of ground so near the river and so near land in England.

On the east-side stands an hospital very particular for Its foundation or design, tho’ thro’ the misfortunes of the times, the generous design of the founder has been much straiten3 d, and in great part, defeated.

It was built by Sir John Morden a Turkey merchant of London, but who liv’d in a great house at the going off from the heath, a little south of the hospital on the road to Eltham; his first design, as I had it from his own mouth the year before lie began to build, was to make apartments for forty decayed merchants, to whom he resolv’d to allow 4ol. per annum, each; with coals, a gown, (and servants to look after their apartments) and many other conveniences so as to make their lives as comfortable as possible, and that, as they had liv’d like gentlemen, they might dye so.

Sir John Morden and his lady lye bury’d in a vault in the chancel of the chapel of this hospital: The chapel is a very neat building facing the entrance into the court; the lodgings for the merchants, are on either side; two apartments in each stair case, with cellars for their conveniences, coals, beer, 8cc. and each apartment consists of a bed-chamber, and a study, or large closet, for their retreat, and to divert themselves in with books, &c.

They have a publick kitchen, a hall to dine in, and over the hall is a large room for the trustees (who manage the whole) to meet in; there is also a very good apartment for the chaplain, whose sallery is 50l. a year; there are also dwellings for the cooks, buttlers, porter, the women and other servants, and reasonable salaries allow’d them: And behind the chapel is a handsome burying ground wall’d in; there are also very good gardens; In a word, it is the noblest foundation, and most considerable single piece of charity that has been erected in England since Sutton’s Hospital in London: I call it single, because it has been built and endow’d by one single hand; the situation is very pleasant, and the air very healthy and good.

There is erected over the gate, since Sir John’s death, his statue in stone, set up by his lady, and since her death, her own is set up near it, by the trustees, she having been a benefactress to the foundation many ways since his decease.

There is a velvet pall given, by her ladyship in particular, to be laid up in the chapel for the use of the gentlemen; as also a large quantity of communion-plate; and the chaplain is obliged to read prayers twice every day, viz. at eleven a clock, and at three; at which all the pensioners are oblig’d to attend.

On the other side of the heath, north, is Charleton, a village famous, or rather infamous for the yearly collected rabble of mad-people, at Horn-Fair; the rudeness of which I cannot but think, is such as ought to be suppressed, and indeed in a civiliz’d well govern’d nation, it may well be said to be unsufferable. The mob indeed at that time take all kinds of liberties, and the women are especially impudent for that day; as if it was a day that justify’d the giving themselves a loose to all manner of indecency and immodesty, without any reproach, or without suffering the censure which such behaviour would deserve at another time.

The introduction of this rude assembly, or the occasion of it, I can meet with very little account of, in antiquity; and I rather recommend it to the publick justice to be suppress’d, as a nusance and offence to all sober people, than to spend any time to enquire into its original.

There are some very good houses lately built in this town, and abating the rabble and hurry of the 19th of October, as above, ’tis indeed a very pleasant village; standing on the top of a high hill, yet sheltered on one side by Shooter’s -Hill, which is much higher, and on the other side, over-looking the marshes and the river Thames, on which it has a very agreeable prospect from London almost to Gravesend .

Thro’ this town lies the road to Woolwich, a town on the bank of the same river, wholly taken up by, and in a manner rais’d from, the yards, and publick works, erected there for the publick service; here, when the business of the royal navy encreased, and Queen Elizabeth built larger and greater ships of war than were usually employ’d before, new docks, and launches were erected, and places prepared for the building and repairing ships of the largest size; because, as here was a greater depth of water and a freer chanel, than at Deptford, (where the chief yard in the river of Thames was before) so there was less hazard in the great ships going up and down; the croud of merchant-ships at Deptford, being always such, as that it could not be so safe to come up thither, as to put in at Woolwich.

At this dock the Royal-Sovereign was built, once the largest ship in the whole royal navy, and in particular esteem’d, for so large a ship, the best sailor in the world. Here also was rebuilt the Royal Prince, now call’d the Queen, a first rate, carrying a hundred guns, and several others: Close under the south-shore from the west-end of Woolwich, the Thames is very deep, and the men of war lye there moor’d, and as we call it, laid up; their topmasts, and all their small rigging taken down and laid in ware-houses; this reaches as high as the point over-against Bow-River and is call’d Bugby’s -Hole.

The docks, yards, and all the buildings belonging to it, are encompassed with a high wall, and are exceeding spacious and convenient; and are also prodigious full of all manner of stores of timber, plank, masts, pitch, tar, and all manner of naval provisions to such a degree, as is scarce to be calculated.

Besides the building-yards, here is a large rope-walk where the biggest cables are made for the men of war; and on the east or lower part of the town is the gun-yard, or place set a part for the great guns belonging to the ships, commonly call’d the Park, or the Gun-Park; where is a prodigious quantity of all manner of ordnance-stores, such as are fit for sea-service, that is to say, cannon of all sorts for the ships of war, every ship’s guns by themselves; heavy cannon for batteries, and mortars of all sorts and sizes; insomuch, that, as I was inform’d, here has been sometimes laid up at one time between seven and eight thousand pieces of ordnance, besides mortars and shells without number.

Here also is the house where the firemen and engineers prepare their fireworks, charge bombs, carcasses, and grenades for the publick service, in time of war; and here (if I remember right, it was in the time of a Dutch war) by mischance, the fire in the laboratory took hold of some combustibles, which spreading fir’d first a bomb or shell, and the bursting of that shell blew up all the works with such a terrible blast and noise, as shook and shattered the whole town of Woolwich almost in pieces, and terrify’d the people to the last degree, but kill’d no person as I heard of, except about eleven men who were in or near the fireworking house, where it first took hold.

In this park, close on the south bank of the river, a large battery of forty pieces of heavy cannon was rais’d, to have saluted the Dutch, if they had thought fit to have ventured up the river in 1667, as was given out they would when they burnt our ships at Chatham; and large furnaces and forges were erected to have furnish’d the gunners with red hot bullets for that service; but the Dutch had no design that way and did their business with far less hazard, and as much to our disgrace in another place.

Here is usually a guardship riding, especially in time of service; also here is a large hulk made of the carcass of an old man of war, sufficiently large for setting the masts of the biggest ships in the navy. The Thames is here at high water near a mile over, and the water salt upon the flood; and as the chanel lyes strait east and west for about three miles, the tide runs very strong; ’tis entirely free from shoals and sands, and has seven or eight fathom water, so that the biggest ships, and a great many of them, might ride here with safety even at low water.

From this town there is little remarkable upon the river, till we come to Gravesend, the whole shore being low, and spread with marshes and unhealthy grounds, except with small intervals, where the land bends inward as at Erith, Greenwhich, North-Fleet, &c. in which places the chalk hills come close to the river, and from thence the city of London, the adjacent countries, and even Holland and Flanders, are supply’d with lime, for their building, or chalk to make lime, and for other uses.

From these chalky cliffs on the river side, the rubbish of the chalk, which crumbles away when they dig the larger chalk for lime, or (as we might call it) the chips of the chalk, and which they must be at the charge of removing to be out of their way, is bought and fetch’d away by lighters and hoys, and carry’d to all the ports and creeks in the opposite county of Essex, and even to Suffolk and Norfolk, and sold there to the country farmers to lay upon their land, and that in prodigious quantities; and so is it valued by the farmers of those countries, that they not only give from two shillings and six pence, to four shillings a load for it, according to the distance the place is from the said chalk-cliff, but they fetch it by land-carriage ten miles, nay fifteen miles, up into the country.

This is the practice in all the creeks and rivers in Essex, even to Malden, Colchester, the Nase, and into Harwich Harbour up to Maningtree, and to Ipswich; as also in Suffolk, to Albro’, Orford, Dunwich, Swold, and as high as Yarmouth in Norfolk.

Thus the barren soil of Kent, for such the chalky grounds are esteem’d, make the Essex lands rich and fruitful, and the mixture of earth forms a composition, which out of two barren extreams, makes one prolifick medium; the strong clay of Essex and Suffolk is made fruitful by the soft meliorating melting chalk of Kent, which fattens and enriches it.

On the back-side of these marshy grounds in Kent at a small distance, lies the road from London to Dover, and on that highway, or near it, several good towns; for example, Eltham, formerly a royal palace when the Court was kept at Greenwich; and Queen Elizabeth, who (as before) was born at Greenwich, was often carry’d, as they say, to Eltham by her nurses to suck in the wholesome air of that agreeable place; but at present there are few or no signs of the old palace to be seen.

It is now a pleasant town, very handsomely built, full of good houses, and many families of rich citizens inhabit here: (As I observed of the villages adjacent to London in other counties) So it is here, they bring a great deal of good company with them: Also abundance of ladies of very good fortunes dwell here, and one sees at the church such an appearance of the sex, as is surprising; but ’tis complain’d of that the youths of these families where those beauties grow, are so generally or almost universally bred abroad, either in Turkey, Italy, or Spain, as merchants, or in the army or court as gentlemen; that for the ladies to live at Eltham, is, as it were, to live recluse and out of sight; since to be kept where the gentlemen do not come, is all one as to be kept where they cannot come. This they say threatens Eltham with a fatal turn, unless the scene alters in a few years, and they tell us, that all the ladies will abandon the place.

In the neighbourhood of this place at LVSVM, Sir John Lethulier, a Turkey merchant, liv’d for many years, and to a great age, and has establish’d his family in the separate houses of three or four several sons, to all which he has left plentiful estates in this country, but especially in Essex, where his eldest son has a very noble seat, and estate near Barking.

From this side of the country all pleasant and gay, we go over Shooter’s Hill, where the face of the world seems quite alter’d; for here we have but a chalky soil, and indifferently fruitful, far from rich; much overgrown with wood, especially coppice-wood, which is cut for faggots and bavins, and sent up by water to London. Here they make those faggots which the wood-mongers call ostrey wood, and here in particular those small light bavins which are used in taverns in London to light their faggots, and are call’d in the taverns a brush, the woodmen call them pimps; ’tis incredible what vast quantities of these are lay’d up at Woolwich, Erith, and Dartford; but since the taverns in London are come to make coal fires in their upper rooms, that cheat of a trade declines; and tho’ that article would seem to be trifling hi it self, ’tis not trifling to observe what an alteration it makes in the value of those woods in Kent, and how many more of them than usual are yearly stubbed up, and the land made fit for the plow.

As I passed, I saw Gravesend from the hills, but having been often in the town, I know enough to be able to say, that there is nothing considerable in it; except first that it is the town where the great ferry (as they call it) is kept up between London and East-Kent, it is hardly credible what numbers of people pass here every tide, as well by night as by day, between this town and London: Almost all the people of East-Kent, when they go for London, go no farther by land than this town; and then for six-pence in the tilt-boat, or one shilling in a small boat or wherry, are carry’d to London by water.

About 25 years ago one of these tilt-boats was cast away, occasioned by the desperate obstinacy and rudeness of the steersman or master, as they call him, who would tack again and stand over upon a wind, in the reach call’d Long-Reach, contrary to the advice and intreaties not of the passengers only but of his own rowers, who told him it blew a storm and she would founder; but he call’d them fools, bid the wind blow-devil, (a rude sailor’s proverb) the more wind the better boat, till coming into the chanel where the sea ran very high, he took in a wave, or a sea, as they call it, which run her down, and founder’d her, as was foretold; and himself and three and fifty passengers were all drown’d, only about five escaping by swimming.

The other thing for which this town is worth notice, is, that all the ships which go to sea from London, take, as we say, their departure from hence; for here all outward-bound ships must stop, come to an anchor, and suffer what they call a second clearing, (viz.) here a searcher of the customs comes on board, looks over all the coquets or entries of the cargo, and may, if he pleases, rummage the whole loading, to see if there are no more goods than are enter’d; which however they seldom do, tho’ they forget not to take a compliment for their civility, and besides being well treated on board, have generally three or five guns fir’d in honour to them when they go off.

The method of causing all ships to stop here before they go, is worth observing, and is as follows:

When a merchant-ship comes down from London, (if they have the tide of ebb under foot, or a fresh gale of wind from the west, so that they have, what they call fresh-way, and the ships come down apace) they generally hand some of their sails, haul up a fore-sail or main-sail, or lower the fore-top sail; so to slaken her way, as soon as they come to the Old Man’s Head; when they open the reach, which they call Gravesend Reach, which begins about a mile and half above the town, they do the like, to signify that they intend to bring too, as the sailors call it, and come to an anchor.

As soon as they come among the ships that are riding in the road, (as there are always a great many) the centinel at the block-house, as they call it, on Gravesend side fires his musquet, which is to tell the pilot he must bring too; if he comes on, as soon as the ship passes broad side with the block-house, the centinel fires again, which is as much as to say, Why don’t you bring too? if he drives a little farther, he fires a third time, and the language of that is, Bring too immediately, and let go your anchor, or we will make you.

If the ship continues to drive down, and does not let go her anchor, the gunner of the fort is fetch’d, and he fires a piece of cannon tho’ without ball; and that is still a threat, tho’ with some patience, and is to say, Will you come to an anchor or won’t you? If he still ventures to go on, by which he gives them to understand he intends to run for it; then the gunner fires again, and with a shot, and that shot is a signal to the fortress over the river, (viz.) Tilbury Fort, (which I describ’d in my account of Essex) and they immediately let fly at the ship from the guns on the east bastion and after from all the guns they can bring to bear upon her; it is very seldom that a ship will venture their shot, because they can reach her all the way unto the Hope, and round the Hope-Point almost to Hole-Haven.

Yet I happen’d once to be upon the shore just by Tilbury-Fort, when a ship ventur’d to run off in spight of all those fireings; and it being just at the first shoot of the ebb, and when a great fleet of light colliers and other ships were under sail too; by that time, the ship escaping came round the Hope-Point, she was so hid among the other ships, that the gunners on the bastion hardly knew who to shoot at; upon which they mann’d out several boats with soldiers, in hopes to overtake her or to make signals to some men of war at the Nore, to man out their boats, and stop her, but she laugh’d at them all; for as it blew a fresh gale of wind at south-west, and a tide of ebb strong under her foot, she went three foot for their one, and by that time the boats got down to Hole Haven, the ship was beyond the Nore, and as it grew dark, they soon lost sight of her, nor could they ever hear to this day what ship it was, or on what account she ventured to run such a risque.

Another time I was with some merchants in a large yatch, bound to France; they had a great quantity of block-tin on board, and other goods, which had not been enter’d at the custom-house; and the master or captain told us, he did not doubt but he would pass by Gravesend without coming to an anchor; he lay, when this thought came into his head, at an anchor in Gray’s Reach just above the Old Man’s Head, mention’d above, which is a point or head of land on the Essex shore, which makes the bottom of Gray’s Reach and the upper end of Gravesend Reach: He observ’d that the mornings were likely to be exceeding foggy; particularly on the morning next after his resolution of trying there was so thick a fog, that it was scarce possible to see from the main-mast to the bow-sprit, even of a hoy; it being high water, he resolv’d to weigh and drive, as he call’d it, and so he did: When he came among the other ships and over against the town, his greatest danger was running foul of them, to prevent which he kept a man lying on his belly at the bow-sprit end, to look out, and so, tho’ not without some danger too, he went clear: As for Gravesend or Tilbury-Fort, they could see no more of us than they could of London-Bridge; and we drove in this fog undiscern’d by the forts of the custom-house men, as low as Hole-Haven, and went afterwards clear away to Caen in Normandy without being visited.

But such attempts as these, are what would very hardly be brought to pass again now, nor is the risque worth any body’s running if the value be considerable that may be lost; and therefore one may venture to say, that all the ships which go out of the river from London, are first clear’d here, even the empty colliers and coasters go on shore, and give an account who they are, and take a signal from the customs-house office, and pay six-pence, and then pass on: As for ships coming in, they all go by here without any notice taken of them, unless it be to put waiters on board them, if they are not supply’d before.

From Gravesend we see nothing remarkable on the road but GAD’S-HILL, a noted place for robbing of sea-mem after they have received their pay at Chatham. Here it was that famous robbery was commited in the year 1676 or thereabouts; it was about four a clock in the morning when a gentleman was robb’d by one Nicks on a bay mare, just on the declining part of the hill, on the west-side, for he swore to the spot and to the man; Mr. Nicks who robb’d him, came away to Gravesend, immediately ferry’d over, and, as he said, was stopp’d by the difficulty of the boat, and of the passage, near an hour; which was a great discouragement to him, but was a kind of bait to his horse: From thence he rode cross the county of Essex, thro’ Tilbury, Hornden, and Bilerecay to Chelmsford: Here he stopp’d about half an hour to refresh his horse, and gave him some balls; from thence to Braintre, Bocking, Wethersfield; then over the downs to Cambridge, and from thence keeping still the cross roads, he went by Fenny Stanton to Godmanchester, and Huntington, where he baited himself and his mare about an hour; and, as he said himself, slept about half an hour, then holding on the North Road, and keeping a full larger gallop most of the way, he came to York the same afternoon, put off his boots and riding cloaths, and went dress’d as if he had been an inhabitant of the place, not a traveller, to the bowling-green, where, among other gentlemen, was the lord mayor of the city; he singling out his lordship, study’d to do something particular that the mayor might remember him by, and accordingly lays some odd bett with him concerning the bowls then running, which should cause the mayor to remember it the more particularly; and then takes occasion to ask his lordship what a, clock it was; who, pulling out his watch, told him the hour, which was a quarter before, or a quarter after eight at night.

Some other circumstances, it seems, he carefully brought into their discourse, which should make the lord mayor remember the day of the month exactly, as well as the hour of the day.

Upon a prosecution which happen’d afterwards for this robbery, the whole merit of the case turn’d upon this single point: The person robb’d swore as above to the man, to the place, and to the time, in which the fact was committed: Namely, that he was robb’d on Gad’s -Hill in Kent, on such a day, and at such a time of the day, and on such a part of the hill, and that the prisoner at the bar was the man that robb’d; him: Nicks, the prisoner, deny’d the fact, call’d several persons to his reputation, alledg’d that he was as far off as Yorkshire at that time, and that particularly the day whereon the prosecutor swore he was robb’d, he was at bowles on the publick green in the city of York; and to support this, he produced the Lord Mayor of York to testify that he was so, and that the mayor acted so and so with him there as above.

This was so positive, and so well attested, that the jury acquitted him on a bare supposition, that it was impossible the man could be at two places so remote on one and the same day. There are more particulars related of this story, such as I do not take upon me to affirm; namely, That King Charles II. prevailed on him on assurance of pardon, and that he should not be brought into any farther trouble about it, to confess the truth to him privately, and that he own’d to his majesty that he commited the robbery, and how he rode the journey after it, and that upon this the king gave him the name or title of Swift Nicks, instead of Nicks; but these things, I say, I do not relate as certain: I return to the business in hand.

From Gad’s -Hill we come to Rochester Bridge, the largest, highest, and the strongest built of all the bridges in England, except London-Bridge; some indeed say, the bridge of Newcastle upon Tyne, exceeds all the bridges in England for strength; and it is indeed very firm and wide, and has a street of houses upon it like London-Bridge, and a gate in the middle as large as a little castle, of which in its place; but then it is neither so high nor so long as this bridge at Rochester.

Rochester, Stroud, and Chatham, are three distinct places, but contiguous, except the interval of the river between the two first, and a very small marsh or vacancy between Rochester and Chatham.

There’s little remarkable in Rochester, except the ruins of a very old castle, and an antient but not extraordinary cathedral; but the river, and its appendices are the most considerable of the kind in the world. This being the chief arsenal of the royal navy of Great-Britain. The buildings here are indeed like the ships themselves, surprisingly large, and in their several kinds beautiful: The ware-houses, or rather streets of ware-houses, and store-houses for laying up the naval treasure are the largest in dimension, and the most in number, that are any where to be seen in the world: The rope-walk for making cables, and the forges for anchors and other iron-work, bear a proportion to the rest; as also the wet-dock for keeping masts, and yards of the greatest size, where they lye sunk in the water to preserve them, the boat-yard, the anchor yard; all like the whole, monstrously great and extensive, and are not easily describ’d.

We come next to the stores themselves, for which all this provision is made; and first, to begin with the ships that are laid up there: The sails, the rigging, the ammunition, guns, great and small-shot, small-arms, swords, cutlasses, half pikes, with all the other furniture belonging to the ships that ride at their moorings in the river Medway: These take up one part of the place, having separate buildings, and store-houses appropriated to them, where the furniture of every ship lies in particular ware-houses by themselves, and may be taken out on the most hasty occasion without confusion, fire excepted.

N.B. The powder is generally carry’d away to particular magazines to avoid disaster.

Besides these, there are store-houses for laying up the furniture, and stores for ships; but which are not appropriated, or do not belong (as it is expressed by the officers) to any particular ship; but lye ready to be delivered out for the furnishing other ships to be built, or for repairing and supplying the ships already there, as occasion may require.

For this purpose there are separate and respective magazines of pitch, tarr, hemp, flax, tow, rosin, oyl, tallow; also of sail cloth, canvas, anchors, cables, standing and running rigging, ready fitted, and cordage not fitted; with all kinds of ship-chandlery necessaries, such as blocks, tackles, runners, &c. with the cooks, boatswains, and gunners stores, and also anchors of all sizes, grapnells, chains, bolts, and spikes, wrought and unwrought iron, cast-iron work, such as potts, caldrons, furnaces, &c. also boats, spare-masts and yards; with a great quantity of lead and nails, and other necessaries, (too many to be enumerated) whose store looks as if it were inexhaustible.

To observe these things deliberately, one wou’d almost wonder what ships they were, and where they should be found, which cou’d either for building, or repairing, fiting, or refiting, call for such a quantity of all those things; but when, on the other hand, one sees the ships, and considers their dimension, and consequently the dimension of all things which belong to them; how large, how strong every thing must be; how much, of the materials must go to the making every thing proportionable to the occasion, the wonder would change its prospect, and one would be as much amaz’d to think how and where they should be supply’d.

The particular government of these yards, as they are call’d, is very remarkable, the commissioners, clerks, accomptants, &c. within doors, the store-keepers, yard-keepers, dock-keepers, watchmen, and all other officers without doors, with the subordination of all officers one to another respectively, as their degree and offices require, is admirable. The watchmen are set duly every night at stated and certain places, within the several yards, with every one a bell over his head, which they ring or toll every hour, giving so many strokes as the hour reckons, and then one taking it from another through every part of the yard, and of all the yards, makes the watching part be performed in a very exact and regular manner. In the river there is a guard-boat, which, as the main guard in a garrison, goes the grand-rounds at certain times, to see that every centinel does his duty on board the ships; these go by every ship in the river, and see that the people on board are at their post: If the ship does not challenge, that is to say, If the man plac’d to look out does not call, Who comes there? the guard-boat boards them immediately, to examine who is deficient in their duty.

They told us an odd story of a guard-boat which having not been challeng’d by the person who ought to have been walking on the forecastle of the ship, boarded them on the bow, and as the boat’s crew was entering the ship by the fore-chains they found a man fallen over board, but the lap of his coat catching in a block, was drawn so hard in by the running of the rope in the block, that it held the man fast; but he was fallen so low, that his head and arms hung in the water, and he was almost drown’d: However it seems he was not quite dead; so that catching hold of him, and pulling him out of the water, they saved his life: But they added, as the main part of the story, that the man could never give any account of his disaster, or how he came to fall over-board, only said that it must be the Devil that threw him over-board, for nothing else could do it. How true this passage may be, I do not undertake to enter upon the debate of.

The expedition that has been sometimes used here in fitting out men of war, is very great, and as the workmen relate it, ’tis indeed incredible; particularly, they told us, That the Royal Sovereign, a first rate of 106 guns, was riding at her moorings, entirely unrigg’d, and nothing but her three masts standing, as is usual when a ship is lay’d up, and that she was completely rigg’d, all her masts up, her yards put too, her sails bent, anchors and cables on board, and the ship sailed down to Black-Stakes in three days, Sir Cloudesly Shovell being then her captain.

I do not vouch the thing, but when I consider, first, that every thing lay ready in her store-houses, and wanted nothing but to be fetch’d out and carry’d on board; a thousand or fifteen hundred men to be employ’d in it and more if they were wanted; and every man, knowing his business perfectly well, boats, carriages, pullies, tacklers, cranes, and hulk all ready, I do not know, but it might be done in one day if it was try’d; certain it is, the dexterity of the English sailors in those things is not to be match’d by the world.

The building-yards, docks, timber-yard, deal-yard, mast-yard, gun-yard, rope-walks; and all the other yards and places, set apart for the works belonging to the navy, are like a well ordered city; and tho’ you see the whole place as it were in the utmost hurry, yet you see no confusion, every man knows his own business; the master builders appoint the working, or converting, as they call it, of every piece of timber; and give to the other head workmen, or foremen their moulds for the squaring and cutting out of every piece, and placing it in its proper byrth (so they call it) in the ship that is in building, and every hand is busy in pursuing those directions, and so in all the other works.

It is about sixteen or eighteen miles from Rochester Bridge to Sheerness Fort by water on the river Medway, of this it is about fourteen miles to Black-Stakes, the channel is so deep all the way, the banks soft, and the reaches of the river so short, that in a word, ’tis the safest and best harbour in the world; and we saw two ships of eighty guns, each riding a float at low water within musquet-shot of Rochester Bridge. The ships ride as in a mill-pond, or a wet-dock, except that being moor’d at the chains, they swing up and down with the tide; but as there is room enough, so they are moor’d in such manner, that they cannot swing foul of one another; ’tis as safe (I say) as in a wet-dock, nor did I ever hear of any accident that befel any of the king’s ships here, I mean by storms and weather; except in that dreadful tempest in 1703, when one ship, (viz.) the Royal Catherine was driven on shoar, and receiving some damage sunk, and the ship also being old, could not be weigh’d again; but this was such a storm as never was known before, and ’tis hoped the like may never be known again.

There are two castles on the shore of this river, the one at Upnore, where there is a good platform of guns, and which guards two reaches of the river, and is supposed to defend all the ships which ride above, between that and the bridge; also on the other shore is Gillingham Castle, form’d for the same purpose, and well furnish’d with guns which command the river, besides which there is a fort or platform of guns at a place call’d the swamp and another at Cockham Wood. But all these are added, or at least additions made to them, since the time that the Dutch made that memorable attempt upon the royal navy in this river (viz.) on the 22d of June, in the year 1667; for at that time all was left unguarded, and as it were, secure; there were but four guns that could be used at Upnore, and scarce so many at Gillingham, the carriages being rotten and broke; and in a word, every thing concurring to invite the enemy. There were about twelve guns at the Isle of Shepey, where since, Sheerness Fort is built; but the Dutch soon beat them from those guns, and made the place too hot for them, dismounting also most of the guns, after which they went boldly up to Black-Stakes with their whole squadron; and after that seven of their biggest men of war went up as high as Upnore, where they did what mischief they could, and went away again, carrying off the Royal Charles, a first rate ship of 100 guns, and burning the London, and several others, besides the damaging most of the ships which were within their reach; and all things consider’d, it was a victory, that they went away without ruining all the rest of the navy that was in that river.

But as this is a dull story in it self, so it is none of my present business farther than to introduce what follows; namely, That this allarm gave England such a sense of the consequence of the river Medway, and of the docks and yards at Chatham, and of the danger the royal navy lay exposed to there, that all these doors which were open then, are lock’d up and sufficiently barr’d since that time; and ’tis not now in the power of any nation under heaven, no, tho’ they should be masters at sea, unless they were masters at land too at the same time, to give us such another affront; for besides all the castles, lines of guns, and platforms on each side the river Medway, as we go up, as above; there is now a royal fort built at the point of the Isle of Shepey, call’d Sheerness, which guards that entrance into the river: This is a regular, and so compleat a fortification, and has such a line of heavy cannon commanding the mouth of the river, that no man of war, or fleet of men of war, would attempt to pass by as the Dutch did; or at least cou’d not effect it without hazard of being torn to pieces by those batteries.

SHEERNESS is not only a fortress, but a kind of town, with several streets in it, and inhabitants of several sorts; but chiefly such whose business obliges them to reside here: The officers of the ordnance have here apartments, and an office, they being often oblig’d to be here many days together; especially in time of war, when the rendezvous of the fleet is at the Nore, to see to the furnishing every ship with military stores as need requires, and to cheque the officers of the ships in their demands of those stores, and the like.

Here is also a yard for building ships, with a dock; the reason of which, is to repair any ship speedily that may meet with any accident, either riding at the Nore, or in any service at sea near the river. But then ’tis to be observ’d, that those are but fifth and sixth rate ships, small frigats, yatches, and such vessels; at biggest, nothing above a fourth rate can come in here. The Sheerness galley, as I am told, was built here, and had her name on that occasion. This yard is a late thing also, and built many years since the fort.

This fort commands only the entrance into the Medway, or that branch of the Medway, properly, which they call West-Swale: The East-Swale, not navigable by ships of force, goes in by the town of Queenborough, passes east, makes the Isle of Shepey, parting it on the south side, and opens to the sea, near Feversham, and Swale-Cliff, and is therefore of small consequence. As for the expression of a certain author, that Sheerness divides the mouth of the two rivers, Thames and Medway, ’tis not said for want of ignorance, and cannot be true in fact; the mouth of the Medway opening into the Thames, and the mouth of the Thames, not being within twenty miles of it, (viz.) from the Nase and North-Foreland.

At the south-west point of the Isle of Shepey, where the East-Swale parts from the West, and passes on, as above, stands a town memorable for nothing, but that which is rather a dishonour to our country than otherwise: Namely, Queenborough, a miserable, dirty, decay’d, poor, pitiful, fishing town; yet vested with corporation priviledges, has a mayor, aldermen, &c. and his worship the mayor has his mace carry’d before him to church, and attended in as much state and ceremony as the mayor of a town twenty times as good: I remember when I was there, Mr. Mayor was a butcher, and brought us a shoulder of mutton to our inn himself in person, which we bespoke for our dinner, and afterwards he sat down and drank a bottle of wine with us.

But that which is still worse, and which I meant in what I said before, is, that this town sends two burgesses to Parliament, as many as the borough of Southwark, or the city of Westminster: Tho’ it may be presumed all the inhabitants are not possessed of estates answerable to the rent of one good house in either of those places I last mentioned: The chief business of this town, as I could understand, consists in ale-houses, and oyster-catchers.

Here we took boat, and went up the East-Swale to a town, which lies, as it were hid, in the country, and among the creeks; for ’tis out of the way, and almost out of sight, as well by water as by land, I mean Milton; it lyes up so many creeks and windings of the water, that nobody sees it by water, but they who go on purpose out of the way to it; and as to the road, it lyes also about a mile on the left-hand of the great road, as we pass thro’ Sittingbourn, so that no body sees it on that side neither, unless they go on purpose out of the road to it; and yet it is a large town, has a considerable market, and especially for corn, and fruit and provisions, which they send to London by water.

From hence following the coast, and the great road together, for they are still within view of one another, we come to Feversham, a large populous, and as some say, a rich town: Tho’ here is no particular remarkable trade, either for manufacture or navigation; the principal business we found among them, was fishing for oysters, which the Dutch fetch hence in such extraordinary quantities, that when I was there, we found twelve large Dutch hoys and doggers lying there to load oysters; and some times, as they told us, there are many more: This is greatly to the advantage of the place, as it employs abundance of men and boats in drudging for the oysters, which they catch in great plenty, in the mouth of the East-Swale; which, as I said above, enters in this part of the country into the sea, and opens very wide.

It was at the mouth of this Swale, namely, at Shell-Ness, so call’d from the abundance of oyster-shells always lying there, that the smack in which the late King James II. was embark’d for his escape into France, ran on shoar, and being boarded by the fishermen, the king was taken prisoner; and I must mention it to the reproach of the people of Feversham, let the conduct of that unfortunate prince be what it will, that the fishermen and rabble can never be excus’d, who treated the king, even after they were told who he was, with the utmost indecency, using his majesty; (for he was then their sovereign, even in the acknowledged sense of his enemies) I say, using him with such indignity in his person, such insolence in their behaviour, and giving him such opprobrious and abusive language, and searching him in the rudest and most indecent manner, and indeed rifling him; that the king himself said, he was never more apprehensive of his life than at that time. He was afterwards carry’d by them up to the town, where he was not much better treated for some time, till some neighbouring gentlemen hi the county came in, who understood their duty better, by whom he was at least preserv’d from farther violence, till coaches and a guard came from London, by the Prince of Orange’s order, to bring him with safety and freedom to London; where he was at least for the present much better received, as in the history of those times is to be seen.

While I was near this town some years ago, a most surprising accident happen’d, namely, the blowing up of a powder-mill, which stood upon the river, close to the town; the blast was not only frightful, but it shatter’d the whole town, broke the windows, blew down chimneys, and gable-ends not a few; also several people were kill’d at the powder-house it self, tho’ not any, as I remember, in the town: but what was most remarkable in it all, was, that the eldest son of the master of the powder-mill, a youth of about fifteen years of age, who was not in the mill, or near it, when it blew up; but in a boat upon the river, rowing cross for his diversion, was kill’d by a piece of the building of the mill, which blew up into the air by the force of the powder, and fell down upon him in the boat: I know nothing else this town is remarkable for, except the most notorious smuggling trade, carry’d on partly by the assistance of the Dutch, in their oyster-boats, and partly by other arts, in which they say, the people hereabouts are arriv’d to such a proficiency, that they are grown monstrous rich by that wicked trade; nay, even the owling trade (so they call the clandestine exporting of wool) has seem’d to be transposed from Rumney Marsh to this coast, and a great deal of it had been carry’d on between the mouth of the East-Swale and the North-Foreland.

As to the landing goods here from Holland and France, such as wine and brandy from the latter, and pepper, tea, coffee, callicoes, tobacco, and such goods, (the duties of which being very high in England, had first been drawn back by debentures) that black trade has not only been carry’d on here, as I was informed, but on both sides the river, on the Essex as well as the Kentish shores, of which I shall speak again in its place.

From this East Swale, and particularly from these last three towns, Queenborough, Milton, and Feversham, the fish-market at Billingsgate is supply’d with several sorts of fish; but particularly with the best and largest oysters, such as they call stewing oysters: which are generally call’d also Milton Oysters; some of which are exceeding large, as also with a very great quantity of others of a lesser size, as they are from the Essex side, with a smaller and greener sort, call’d Wallfleot; so that the whole city of London is chiefly supplied with oysters from this part of the Thames.

From hence also are sent by water to London very great quantities of fruit; that is to say, apples and cherries; which are produc’d in this county, more than hi any county in England, especially cherries; and this leads me to cross the hills from Milton to Maidstone, a town on the river Medway, about ten miles distant.

This is a considerable town, very populous, and the inhabitants generally wealthy; ’tis the county town, and the river Medway is navigable to it by large hoys, of fifty to sixty tuns burthen, the tide flowing quite up to the town; round this town are the largest cherry orchards, and the most of them that are in any part of England; and the gross of the quantity of cherries, and the best of them which supply the whole city of London come from hence, and are therefore call’d Kentish cherries.

Here likewise, and in the country adjacent, are great quantities of hops planted, and this is call’d the Mother of Hop Grounds in England; being the first place in England where hops were planted in any quantity, and long before any were planted at Canterbury, tho’ that be now supposed to be the chief place in England, as shall be observ’d in its place: These were the hops, I suppose, which were planted at the beginning of the Reformation, and which gave occasion to that old distich:

Hops, Reformation, bays, and beer,

Came into England all in a year.

Maidstone is eminent for the plenty of provisions, and richness of lands in the country all round it, and for the best market in the county, not Rochester, no not Canterbury excepted.

From this town, and the neighbouring parts, London is supplied with more particulars than from any single market town in England, which I mention in pursuance of my first resolution of observing, how every part of England furnishes something to the city of London.

1. From the wild of Kent, which begins but about six miles off, and particularly from that part which lyes this way; they bring the large Kentish bullocks, fam’d for being generally all red, and with their horns crooked inward, the two points standing one directly against the other, they are counted the largest breed in England.

2. From the same country are brought great quantities of the largest timber for supply of the king’s yards at Chattham, and often to London; most of which comes by land carriage to Maidstone.

3. From the country adjoining to Maidstone also, is a very great quantity of corn brought up to London, besides hops and cherries, as above.

4. Also a kind of paving stone, about eight to ten inches square, so durable that it scarce ever wears out; ’tis used to pave court-yards, and passages to gentlemens houses, being the same the Royal Exchange at London is pav’d with, which has never yet wanted the least repair.

5. Also fine white sand for the glass-houses, esteem’d the best in England for melting into flint-glass, and looking glass-plates; and for the stationer’s use also, vulgarly call’d writing-sand.

6. Also very great quantities of fruit, such as Kentish pipins, runetts, &c. which come up as the cherries do, whole hoy-loads at a time to the wharf, call’d the Three Cranes, in London; which is the greatest pipin market perhaps in the world.

At Maidstone you begin to converse with gentlemen, and persons of rank of both sexes, and some of quality: All that side of the county which I have mentioned already, as it is marshy, and unhealthy, by its situation among the waters; so it is embarass’d with business, and inhabited chiefly by men of business, such as ship-builders, fisher-men, seafaring-men, and husband-men, or such as depend upon them, and very few families of note are found among them. But as soon as we come down Boxley Hill from Rochester, or Hollingbourn-Hill, from Milton, and descend from the poor chalky downs, and deep foggy marshes, to the wholesome rich soil, the well wooded, and well water’d plain on the banks of the Medway, we find the country every where spangl’d with populous villages, and delicious seats of the nobility and gentry; and especially on the north-side of the river, beginning at Aylesford, on the Medway, and looking east towards the sea: This Aylesford was formerly the seat of Sir John Banks, and since descended, by his daughter, to Heneage Lord Finch, brother to the Earl of Nottingham, and created Earl of Aylesford, which estate he came to in right of his said lady: the country this way, I say, is full of gentlemens houses, reckoning from this Aylesford, below Maidstone, on the Medway to Eastwell, near Ashford, the seat of the Earl of Winchelsea; another noble family of the name of Finch also; tho’ not nearly ally’d to the Nottingham house.

Among these are the antient families of Fane, Colepeper, Deerham, Honywood, Wotton, Roberts, Hales, and others, with some good families extinct and gone, whose names however remain in memory.

This neighbourhood of persons of figure and quality, makes Maidstone a very agreeable place to live in, and where a man of letters, and of manners, will always find suitable society, both to divert and improve himself; so that here is, what is not often found, namely, a town of very great business and trade, and yet full of gentry, of mirth, and of good company.

It is to be recorded here for the honour of the gentry in this part of England; that tho’ they are as sociable and entertaining as any people are, or can be desir’d to be, and as much fam’d for good manners, and good humour; yet the new mode of forming assemblies so much, and so fatally now in vogue, in other parts of England, could never prevail here; and that tho’ there was an attempt made by some loose persons, and the gentlemen, and ladies, did for a little while appear there; yet they generally dislik’d the practice, soon declin’d to give their company, as to a thing scandalous, and so it drop’d of course.

There is not much manufacturing in this county; what is left, is chiefly at Canterbury, and in this town of Maidstone, and the neighbourhood; the manufacture of this town is principally in thread, that is to say, linnen thread, which they make to pretty good perfection, tho’ not extraordinary fine. At Cranbrook, Tenterden, Goudhurst, and other villages thereabout, which are also in the neighbourhood of this part, on the other side the Medway, there was once a very considerable cloathing trade carry’d on, and the yeomen of Kent, of which so much has been fam’d, were generally the inhabitants on that side, and who were much enrich’d by that clothing trade; but that trade is now quite decay’d, and scarce ten clothiers left in all the county.

These clothiers and farmers, and the remains of them, upon the general elections of members of parliament for the county, show themselves still there, being ordinarily 14 or 1500 freeholders brought from this side of the county; and who for the plainness of their appearance, are call’d the gray coats of Kent; but are so considerable, that who ever they vote for is always sure to carry it, and therefore the gentlemen are very careful to preserve their interest among them.

This town of Maidstone is a peculiar of the Archbishoprick of Canterbury, and the Archbishop for the time being, is the proper incumbent, or parson of the parish, and puts in a curate to officiate for him. Here is the county gaol also, and generally the assizes, and always the elections are held here: Here was a hot action in the time of the Civil Wars, between a party of gentlemen who took arms for the king, and who being defeated here, march’d boldly towards London, as if they had intended to go directly thither; but turn’d short, and to their enemies surprise, unexpectedly cross’d the Thames, and joining some Essex gentlemen of the same party, went to Colchester, where they suffered a furious siege and blockade; and defended the town to the last extremity, as you have seen hi my account of that place.

Canterbury and Sussex

In prosecution of my journey east, I went from hence to Canterbury; of which town and its antiquities so much has been said, and so accurately, that I need do no more than mention it by recapitulation; for, as I have said, the antiquities, and histories of particular places is not my business here, so much as the present state of them. However I observe here.

1. That the first Christian bishop, if not the first Christian preacher, that ever came to England, (for I know not what to say to the story of Joseph of Arimathea, and his holy thorn at Glassenbury) landed in this country, and settled in this place; I mean St. Augustin, sent over by Gregory, Bishop of Rome. This Gregory it seems was a true primitive Christian Bishop of Rome; not such as since are called so; long before they assum’d the title of popes, or that usurp’d honour of Universal Bishop.

2. That, seven Bishops of Canterbury, from St. Augustine, inclusive of himself, lye bury’d here in one vault.

3. That Thomas Becket, or Thomas a Becket, as some call him, arch-bishop of this see, and several arch-bishops before him, plagued, insulted, and tyranniz’d over the Kings of England, their soveraigns, in an unsufferable manner.

4. That the first of these, having made himself intolerable to King Henry II, by his obstinacy, pride and rebellion, was here murther’d by the connivance, and as some say, by the express order of the king, and that they shew his blood upon the pavement to this day.

5. That he was afterwards canoniz’d, and his shrine made the greatest idol of the world; and they show the stone-steps ascending to his shrine, worn away to a slope, by the knees of the pilgrims, and ignorant people who came thither to pray to him, and to desire him to pray for them.

6. That the bodies of King Henry IV and of Edward the Black Prince are buried here, and the magnificent effigies of the latter very curiously carv’d and engrav’d, lyes on his tomb, or monument; also that King Stephen should have lain here, but on some scruple of the monks, the corpse was stopt short on the road, and was afterwards buried at Feversham, about seven miles off. What the monks objected, or whether they had no money offered them, is not recorded with the rest of the story.

7. That the immense wealth offer’d by votaries, and pilgrims, for several ages to the altar, or shrine of this mock saint, Thomas Becket, was such, that Erasmus Roterdamus, who was in the repository and saw it, relates of it, That the whole place glitter’d and shone with gold and diamonds.

8. That all this immense treasure, with the lands and revenues of the whole monastery were seiz’d upon, and taken away by King Henry VIII, at the general suppression of religious houses, except such as are annex’d to the Dean and Chapter, and to the revenue of the arch-bishoprick, which are not large.

The church is a noble pile of building indeed, and looks venerable and majestick at a distance, as well as when we come nearer to it. The old monastery of all, with the church there, dedicated to St. Augustine, and in the porch of which St. Augustine himself, with the six bishops above mention’d lye buried, stands at, or rather stood at a distance, and the ruins of it shew the place sufficiently; what remains of the old buildings about Christ-Church, or the cathedral, are principally the cloyster, and the bishop’s palace, which however is rather to be call’d a building raised from the old house, than a part of it.

Under the church is a large Protestant French church, given first by Queen Elizabeth to the Walloons, who fled hither from the persecution of the Duke D’Alva, and the King of France; and whose number has been since very much encreased by the particular cruelty of Louis XIV.

The close or circumvallation, where the houses of the prebendaries, and other persons belonging to the cathedral stand, is very spacious and fair, and a great many very good houses are built in it, and some with good gardens; where those gentlemen live at large, and among whom a very good neighbourhood is kept up; as for the town, its antiquity seems to be its greatest beauty: The houses are truly antient, and the many ruins of churches, chapels, oratories, and smaller cells of religious people, makes the place look like a general ruin a little recovered.

The city will scarce bear being call’d populous, were it not for two or three thousand French Protestants, which, including men, women and children, they say there are in it, and yet they tell me the number of these decreases daily.

The employment of those refugees was chiefly broad silk weaving; but that trade was so decay’d before the first Act for Prohibiting the Wearing of East India Silks pass’d, that there were not twenty broad looms left in the city, of near three hundred, that had formerly been there; upon the passing that Act, the trade reviv’d again and the number of master workmen encreased, and the masters encreased; and the masters which were there before, encreasing their works also, the town fill’d again, and a great many looms were employ’d; but after this by the encroaching of the printed callicoes, chints, &c. and the prevailing of the smuggling trade as above, the silk trade decay’d a second time. But now the use and wear of printed callicoes and chints, being by Act of Parliament severely prohibited, ’tis expected the silk trade at Canterbury will revive a third time, and the inhabitants promise themselves much from it.

But the great wealth and encrease of the city of Canterbury, is from the surprizing encrease of the hop-grounds all round the place; it is within the memory of many of the inhabitants now living, and that none of the oldest neither, that there was not an acre of ground planted with hops in the whole neighbourhood, or so few as not to be worth naming; whereas I was assured that there are at this time near six thousand acres of ground so planted, within a very few miles of the city; I do not vouch the number, and I confess it seems incredible, but I deliver it as I received it.

It is observed that the ground round this city proves more particularly fruitful for the growth of hops than of any other production, which was not at first known; but which, upon its being discover’d, set all the world, speaking in the language of a neighbourhood, a digging up their grounds and planting; so that now they may say without boasting, there is at Canterbury the greatest plantation of hops in the whole island.

The river Stour was made navigable to this city, by virtue of an Act of Parliament in the reign of King Henry VIII, but the person who undertook it, not meeting with encouragement, and failing in the carrying it on, the locks and sluices are all run to decay, and the citizens are oblig’d to fetch all their heavy goods, either from Fordwich, three miles off, or from Whitstable seven miles off; the latter they chuse for such heavy goods as come from London; as oyl, wine, grocery, &c. because ’tis the less hazard by sea; but as for coals, deals, &c. they come by way of Sandwich, and are brought up the river to Fordwich, as above.

In the neighbourhood of this city are some antient families, as Sir Tho. Hales, the Lord Strangford, Sir Henry Oxenden, and several others, the two former Roman; also Sir George Rook, famous for his services at sea against the French; the last of which was in the Streights, where the French fleet was commanded by the Count de Tourville, Admiral of France; where both sides fought with such equal gallantry, and resolution, and the strength of the fleets were so equal, tho’ the French the most in number of the two, that neither seem’d to seek a second engagement; and of which the following lines were made by some of the merry wits of that time.

The great Tourville Sir George did beat,
The great Sir George beat him;
But if they chance again to meet,
George will his jacket trim:
They both did fight, they both did beat,
They both did run away;
They both did strive again to meet,
The clean contrary way.

The shore from Whitstable, and the East-Swale, affords nothing remarkable but sea-marks, and small towns on the coast, till we come to Margate and the North Foreland; the town of Margate is eminent for nothing that I know of, but for King William’s frequently landing here in his returns from Holland, and for shipping a vast quantity of corn for London Market, most, if not all of it, the product of the Isle of Thanet, in which it stands.

On the north-east point of this land, is the promontory, or head-land which I have often mentioned, call’d the North Foreland; which, by a line drawn due north to the Nase in Essex, about six miles short of Harwich, makes the mouth of the river of Thames, and the Port of London: As soon as any vessels pass this Foreland from London, they are properly said to be in the open sea; if to the north, they enter the German Ocean, if to the south, the Chanel, as ’tis call’d, that is the narrow seas between England and France; and all the towns or harbours before we come this length, whether on the Kentish or Essex shoar, are call’d members of the Port of London.

From this point westward, the first town of note is Ramsgate, a small port, the inhabitants are mighty fond of having us call it Roman’s -Gate; pretending that the Romans under Julius Caesar made their first attempt to land here, when he was driven back by a storm; but soon returned, and coming on shore, with a good body of troops beat back the Britains, and fortify’d his camp, just at the entrance of the creek, where the town now stands; all which may be true for ought any one knows, but is not to be prov’d, either by them or any one else; and is of so little concern to us, that it matters nothing whether here or at Deal, where others pretend it was.

It was from this town of Ramsgate, that a fellow of gigantick strength, tho’ not of extraordinary stature, came abroad in the world, and was call’d the English Sampson, and who suffer’d men to fasten the strongest horse they could find to a rope, and the rope round his loins, sitting on the ground, with his feet strait out against a post, and no horse could stir him; several other proofs of an incredible strength he gave before the king, and abundance of the nobility at Kensington, which no other man could equal; but his history was very short, for in about a year he disappear’d, and we heard no more of him since.

Sandwich is the next town, lying in the bottom of a bay, at the mouth of the river Stour, an old, decay’d, poor, miserable town, of which when I have said that it is an antient town, one of the Cinque Ports, and sends two members to Parliament; I have said all that I think can be worth any bodies reading of the town of Sandwich.

From hence to Deal is about —— miles. This place is famous for the road for shipping, so well known all over the trading world, by the name of the Downs, and where almost all ships which arrive from foreign parts for London, or go from London to foreign parts, and who pass the Channel, generally stop; the homeward-bound to dispatch letters, send their merchants and owners the good news of their arrival, and set their passengers on shoar, and the like; and the outward-bound to receive their last orders, letters, and farewells from owners, and friends, take in fresh provisions, &c.

Sometimes, and when the wind presents fair, ships do come in here, and pass thro’ at once, without coming to an anchor; for they are not oblig’d to stop, but for their own convenience: This place would be a very wild and dangerous road for ships, were it nor for the South Foreland, a head of land, forming the east point of the Kentish shoar; and is called, the South, as its situation respects the North Foreland; and which breaks the sea off, which would otherwise come rowling up from the west, this and a flat, or the bank of sands, which for three leagues together, and at about a league, or league and half distance run parallel with the shore, and are dry at low water, these two I say, break all the force of the sea, on the east and south, and south-west; so that the Downs is counted a very good road-

And yet on some particular winds, and especially, if they over-blow, the Downs proves a very wild road; ships are driven from their anchors, and often run on shoar, or are forced on the said sands, or into Sandwich-Bay, or Ramsgate-Peer, as above, in great distress; this is particularly when the wind blows hard at S.E. or at E. by N. or E.N.E. and some other points; and terrible havock has been made in the Downs at such times.

But the most unhappy account that can be given of any disaster in the Downs, is in the time of that terrible tempest, which we call by way of distinction, the Great Storm, being on 27th of November 1703, unhappy in particular; for that there chanced just at that time to be a great part of the royal navy under Sir Cloudesly Shovel, just come into the Downs, in their way to Chatham, to be laid up.

Five of the biggest ships had the good hap to push thro’ the Downs the day before, finding the wind then blow very hard, and were come to an anchor at the Gunfleet; and had they had but one fair day more, they had been all safe at the Nore, or in the river Medway at Blackstakes.

There remained in the Downs about twelve sail when this terrible blast began, at which time England may be said to have received the greatest loss that ever happen’d to the royal navy at one time; either by weather, by enemies, or by any accident whatsoever; the short account of it, as they shewed it me in the town, I mean of what happened in the Downs, is as follows.

The Northumberland, a third rate, carrying 70 guns, and 353 men; the Restoration, a second rate, carrying 76 guns, and 386 men; the Sterling-Castle, a second rate, carrying 80 guns, and 400 men, but had but 349 men on board; and the Mary, a third rate, of 64 guns, having 273 men on board; these were all lost, with all their men, high and low; except only one man out of the Mary, and 70 men out of the Sterling-Castle, who were taken up by boats from Deal.

All this was besides the loss of merchants ships, which was exceeding great, not here only, but in almost all the ports in the south, and west of England; and also in Ireland, which I shall have occasion to mention again in another place.

From hence we pass over a pleasant champain country, with the sea, and the coast of France, clear in your view; and by the very gates of the antient castle (to the town) of Dover: As we go, we pass by Deal Castle, and Sandown Castle, two small works, of no strength by land, and not of much use by sea; but however maintained by the government for the ordinary services of salutes, and protecting small vessels, which can lye safe under their cannon from picaroons, privateers, &c. in time of war.

Neither Dover nor its castle has any thing of note to be said of them, but what is in common with their neighbours; the castle is old, useless, decay’d, and serves for little; but to give the title and honour of government to men of quality, with a salary, and sometimes to those that want one.

The town is one of the Cinque Ports, sends members to Parliament, who are call’d barons, and has it self an ill repaired, dangerous, and good for little harbour and peir, very chargeable and little worth: The packets for France go off here, as also those for Nieuport, with the mails for Flanders, and all those ships which carry freights from New-York to Holland, and from Virginia to Holland, come generally hither, and unlade their goods, enter them with, and show them to the custom-house officers, pay the duties, and then enter them again by certificate, reload them, and draw back the duty by debenture, and so they go away for Holland.

In the time of the late war with France, here was a large victualling-office kept for the use of the navy, and a commissioner appointed to manage it, as there was also at Chatham, Portsmouth, and other places; but this is now unemploy’d: The Duke of Queensberry in Scotland, who was lord commissioner to the Parliament there, at the time of making the Union, was after the said Union created Duke of Dover, which title is possessed now by his son.

From this place the coast affords nothing of note; but some other small Cinque-Ports, such as Hith and Rumney, and Rye; and as we pass to them Folkstone, eminent chiefly for a multitude of fishing-boats belonging to it, which are one part of the year employ’d in catching mackarel for the city of London: The Folkstone men catch them, and the London and Barking mackarel-smacks, of which I have spoken at large in Essex, come down and buy them, and fly up to market with them, with such a cloud of canvas, and up so high that one would wonder their small boats cou’d bear it and should not overset: About Michaelmas these Folkstone barks, among others from Shoreham, Brighthelmston and Rye, go away to Yarmouth, and Leostoff, on the coast of Suffolk and Norfolk, to the fishing-fair, and catch herrings for the merchants there, of which I have spoken at large in my discourse on that subject.

As I rode along this coast, I perceiv’d several dragoons riding, officers, and others arm’d and on horseback, riding always about as if they were huntsmen beating up their game; upon inquiry I found their diligence was employ’d in quest of the owlers, as they call them, and sometimes they catch some of them; but when I came to enquire farther, I found too, that often times these are attack’d in the night, with such numbers, that they dare not resist, or if they do, they are wounded and beaten, and sometimes kill’d; and at other times are oblig’d, as it were, to stand still, and see the wool carry’d off before their faces, not daring to meddle; and the boats taking it in from the very horses backs, go immediately off, and are on the coast of France, before any notice can be given of them, while the other are as nimble to return with their horses to their haunts and retreats, where they are not easily found out.

But I find so many of these desperate fellows are of late taken up, by the courage and vigilance of the soldiers, that the knots are very much broken, and the owling-trade much abated, at least on that side; the French also finding means to be supply’d from Ireland with much less hazard, and at very little more expence.

From Rumney-Marsh the shoar extends it self a great way into the sea, and makes that point of land, call’d Dengey-Ness; between this point of land and Beachy, it was that the French in the height of their naval glory took the English and Dutch fleets at some disadvantage, offering them battle, when the French were so superior in number, that it was not consistent with humane prudence to venture an engagement, the French being ninety two ships of the line of battle, and the English and Dutch, put together, not sixty sail; the French ships also generally bigger: yet such was the eagerness of both the English and Dutch seamen, and commanders, that it was not without infinite murmurings, that Admiral Herbert stood away, and call’d off the Dutch, who had the van, from engaging; the English it seems believ’d themselves so superior to the French when they came to lye broad-side and broad-side, yard-arm and yard-arm, as the seamen call it in an engagement, that they would admit of no excuse for not fighting; tho’ according to all the rules of war, no admiral could justify hazarding the royal navy on such terms; and especially the circumstances of the time then considered, for the king was in Ireland, and King James ready in France, if the English and Dutch fleets had received a blow, to have embark’d with an army for England, which perhaps would have hazarded the whole Revolution; so that wise men afterwards, and as I have been told the king himself upon a full hearing justify’d the conduct of Admiral Herbert, and afterwards created him Earl of Torrington.

Here, or rather a little farther, we saw the bones of one of the Dutch men of war, which was burnt and stranded by the French in that action; the towns of Rye, Winchelsea, and Hastings, have little in them to deserve more than a bare mention; Rye would flourish again, if her harbour, which was once able to receive the royal navy, cou’d be restor’d; but as it is, the bar is so loaded with sand cast up by the sea, that ships of 200 tun chuse to ride it out under Dengey or Beachy, tho’ with the greatest danger, rather than to run the hazard of going into Rye for shelter: It is true there is now an Act of Parliament pass’d for the restoring this port to its former state, when a man of war of 70 guns might have safely gone in; but ’tis very doubtful, whether it will be effectual to the main end or no, after so long a time.

Indeed our merchants ships are often put to great extremity hereabout, for there is not one safe place for them to run into, between Portsmouth and the Downs; whereas in former days, Rye-Bay was an asylum, a safe harbour, where they could go boldly in, and ride safe in all weathers, and then go to sea again at pleasure.

From a little beyond Hastings to Bourn, we ride upon the sands in a straight line for eighteen miles, all upon the coast of Sussex, passing by Pemsey, or Pevensey Haven, and the mouth of the river, which cometh from Battle, without so much as knowing that there was a river, the tide being out, and all the water of the ordinary chanel of the river sinking away in the sands: This is that famous strand where William the Norman landed with his whole army; and near to which, namely, at the town of Battle abovenamed, which is about nine miles off, he fought that memorable fight with Harold, then King of England; in which the fate of this nation was determined, and where victory gave the crown to the Conqueror and his race, of the particulars of all which, our histories are full; this town of Battle is remarkable for little now, but for making the finest gun-powder, and the best perhaps in Europe. Near this town of Battle, they show us a hill with a beacon upon it, which since the beacon was set up, indeed has been call’d Beacon Hill, as is usual in such cases; but was before that call’d Standard-Hill, being the place where William the Conqueror set up his great standard of defiance, the day before the great battle with Harold and the English.

From the beginning of Rumney Marsh, that is to say, at Sandgate, or Sandfoot Castle near Hith, to this place, the country is a rich fertile soil, full of feeding grounds, and where an infinite number of large sheep are fed every year, and sent up to London market; these Rumney Marsh sheep, are counted rather larger than the Leicester-shire and Lincolnshire sheep, of which so much is said elsewhere.

Besides the vast quantity of sheep as above, abundance of large bullocks are fed in this part of the country; and especially those they call stall’d oxen, that is, house fed, and kept within the farmers sheds or yards, all the latter season, where they are fed for the winter market. This I noted, because these oxen are generally the largest beef in England.

From hence it was that, turning north, and traversing the deep, dirty, but rich part of these two counties, I had the curiosity to see the great foundaries, or iron-works, which are in this county, and where they are carry’d on at such a prodigious expence of wood, that even in a country almost all over-run with timber, they begin to complain of the consuming it for those furnaces, and leaving the next age to want timber for building their navies: I must own however, that I found that complaint perfectly groundless, the three counties of Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, (all which lye contiguous to one another) being one inexhaustible store-house of timber never to be destroyed, but by a general conflagration, and able at this time to supply timber to rebuild all the royal navies in Europe, if they were all to be destroy’d, and set about the building them together.

After I had fatigued my self in passing this deep and heavy part of the country, I thought it would not be foreign to my design, if I refreshed my self with a view of Tunbridge-Wells, which were not then above twelve miles out of my way.

When I came to the wells, which were five miles nearer to me than the town, supposing me then at Battle to the southward of them; I found a great deal of good company there, and that which was more particular, was, that it happened to be at the time when his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was there with abundance of the nobility, and gentry of the country, who to honour the prince’s coming, or satisfy their own curiosity, throng’d to that place; so that at first I found it very difficult to get a lodging.

The prince appeared upon the walks, went into the raffling shops, and to every publick place, saw every thing, and let every body see him, and went away, with the Duke of Dorset, and other of his attendance for Portsmouth; so in two or three days, things return’d all to their antient chanel, and Tunbridge was just what it used to be.

The ladies that appear here, are indeed the glory of the place; the coming to the Wells to drink the water is a meer matter of custom; some drink, more do not, and few drink physically: But company and diversion is in short the main business of the place; and those people who have nothing to do any where else, seem to be the only people who have any thing to do at Tunbridge.

After the appearance is over at the Wells, (where the ladies axe all undress’d) and at the chapel, the company go home; and as if it was another species of people, or a collection from another place, you are surpriz’d to see the walks covered with ladies compleatly dress’d and gay to profusion; where rich cloths, jewels, and beauty not to be set out by (but infinitely above) ornament, dazzles the eyes from one end of the range to the other.

Here you have all the liberty of conversation in the world, and any thing that looks like a gentleman, has an address agreeable, and behaves with decency and good manners, may single out whom he pleases, that does not appear engag’d, and may talk, rally, be merry, and say any decent thing to them; but all this makes no acquaintance, nor is it taken so, or understood to mean so; if a gentleman desires to be more intimate, and enter into any acquaintance particular, he must do it by proper application, not by ordinary meeting on the walks, for the ladies will ask no gentleman there, to go off the walk, or invite any one to their lodgings, except it be a sort of ladies of whom I am not now speaking.

As for gaming, sharping, intrieguing; as also fops, fools, beaus, and the like, Tunbridge is as full of these, as can be desired, and it takes off much of the diversion of those persons of honour and virtue, who go there to be innocently recreated: However a man of character, and good behaviour cannot be there any time, but he may single out such company as may be suitable to him, and with whom he may be as merry as heart can wish.

The air here is excellent good, the country healthful, and the provisions of all sorts very reasonable: Particularly, they are supply’d with excellent fish, and that of almost all sorts, from Rye, and other towns on the sea-coast; and I saw a turbut of near 20l. weight sold there for 3s.: In the season of mackarel, they have them here from Hastings, within three hours of their being taken out of the sea, and the difference which that makes in their goodness, I need not mention.

They have likewise here abundance of wild-fowl, of the best sorts; such as pheasant, partridge, woodcock, snipe, quails, also duck, mallard, teal, &c. particularly they have from the South-Downs, the bird call’d a wheat ear, or as we may call them, the English ortolans, the most delicious taste for a creature of one mouthful, for ’tis little more, that can be imagined; but these are very dear at Tunbridge, they are much cheaper at Seaford, Lewis, and that side of the country.

In a word, Tunbridge wants nothing that can add to the felicities of life, or that can make a man or woman compleatly happy, always provided they have money; for without money a man is no-body at Tunbridge, any more than at any other place; and when any man finds his pockets low, he has nothing left to think of, but to be gone, for he will have no diversion in staying there any longer.

And yet Tunbridge also is a place in which a lady however virtuous, yet for want of good conduct may as soon shipwreck her character as in any part of England; and where, when she has once injur’d her reputation, ’tis as hard to restore it; nay, some say no lady ever recovered her character at Tunbridge, if she first wounded it there: But this is to be added too, that a lady very seldom suffers that way at Tunbridge, without some apparent folly of her own; for that they do not seem so apt to make havock of one another’s reputation here, by tattle and slander, as I think they do in some other places in the world; particularly at Epsome, Hampstead, and such like places; which I take to be, because the company who frequent Tunbridge, seem to be a degree or two above the society of those other places, and therefore are not so very apt, either to meddle with other peoples affairs, or to censure if they do; both which are the properties of that more gossiping part of the world.

In this I shall be much misunderstood, if it is thought I mean the ladies only, for I must own I look just the other way; and if I may be allow’d to use my own sex so coursly, it is really among them that the ladies characters first, and oftnest receive unjust wounds; and I must confess the malice, the reflections, the busy meddling, the censuring, the tatling from place to place, and the making havock of the characters of innocent women, is found among the men gossips more than among their own sex, and at the coffee-houses more than at the tea-table; then among the women themselves, what is to be found of it there, is more among the chamber-maids, than among their mistresses; slander is a meanness below persons of honour and quality, and to do injustice to the ladies, especially, is a degree below those who have any share of breeding and sense: On this account you may observe, ’tis more practis’d among the citizens than among the gentry, and in country towns and villages, more than in the city, and so on, till you come to the meer canail, the common mobb of the street, and there, no reputation, no character can shine without having dirt thrown upon it every day: But this is a digression.

I left Tunbridge, for the same reason that I give, why others should leave it, when they are in my condition; namely, that I found my money almost gone; and tho’ I had bills of credit to supply my self in the course of my intended journey; yet I had none there; so I came away, or as they call it there, I retir’d; and came to Lewes, through the deepest, dirtiest, but many ways the richest, and most profitable country in all that part of England.

The timber I saw here was prodigious, as well in quantity as in bigness, and seem’d in some places to be suffered to grow, only because it was so far off of any navigation, that it was not worth cutting down and carrying away; in dry summers, indeed, a great deal is carry’d away to Maidstone, and other places on the Medway; and sometimes I have seen one tree on a carriage, which they call there a tug, drawn by two and twenty oxen, and even then, ’tis carry’d so little a way, and then thrown down, and left for other tugs to take up and carry on, that sometimes ’tis two or three year before it gets to Chatham; for if once the rains come in, it stirs no more that year, and sometimes a whole summer is not dry enough to make the roads passable: Here I had a sight, which indeed I never saw in any other part of England: Namely, that going to church at a country village, not far from Lewis, I saw an ancient lady, and a lady of very good quality, I assure you, drawn to church in her coach with six oxen; nor was it done in frolic or humour, but meer necessity, the way being so stiff and deep, that no horses could go in it.

Lewis is a fine pleasant town, well built, agreeably scituated in the middle of an open champaign country, and on the edge of the South Downs, the pleasantest, and most delightful of their kind in the nation; it lies on the bank of a little wholsome fresh river, within twelve miles of the sea; but that which adds to the character of this town, is, that both the town and the country adjacent, is full of gentlemen of good families and fortunes, of which the Pelhams may be named with the first, whose chief was by King William made a baron, and whose eldest son succeeding to the greatest part of the estate of that English Crassus, the late Duke of Newcastle, has since brought the title and honour of Newcastle to the house of Pelham. Here are also the antient families of Gage, Shelly, &c. formerly Roman, but now Protestant, with many others.

From this town, following still the range of the South Downs, west; we ride in view of the sea, and on a fine carpet ground, for about twelve miles to Bright Helmston, commonly call’d Bredhemston, a poor fishing town, old built, and on the very-edge of the sea: Here again, as I mentioned at Folkstone and Dover, the fisher-men having large barks go away to Yarmouth, on the coast of Norfolk, to the fishing fair there, and hire themselves for the season to catch herrings for the merchants; and they tell us, that these make a very good business of it.

The sea is very unkind to this town, and has by its continual encroachments, so gained upon them, that in a little time more they might reasonably expect it would eat up the whole town, above 100 houses having been devoured by the water in a few years past; they are now obliged to get a brief granted them, to beg money all over England, to raise banks against the water; the expence of which, the brief expresly says, will be eight thousand pounds; which if one were to look on the town, would seem to be more than all the houses in it are worth.

From hence, still keeping the coast close on the left, we come to Shoreham, a sea-faring town, and chiefly inhabited by ship-carpenters, ship-chandlers, and all the several trades depending upon the building and fitting up of ships, which is their chief business; and they are fam’d for neat building, and for building good sea-boats; that is to say, ships that are wholesome in the sea, and good sailors; but for strong building, they do not come up to Yarmouth, Ipswich, and the north.

The builders of ships seemed to plant here, chiefly because of the exceeding quantity and cheapness of timber in the country behind them; being the same wooded country I mentioned above, which still continues thro’ this county and the next also: The river this town stands upon, tho’ not navigable for large vessels, yet serves them to bring down this large timber in floats from Bramber, Stenning, and the country adjacent; which is as it were all covered with timber.

Here in the compass of about six miles are three burrough towns, sending members to Parliament, (viz.) Shoreham, Bramber, and Stenning: and Shoreham, Stenning are tolerable little market-towns; but Bramber (a little ruin of an old castle excepted) hardly deserves the name of a town, having not above fifteen or sixteen families in it, and of them not many above asking you an alms as you ride by; the chiefest house in the town is a tavern, and here, as I have been told, the vintner, or ale-house-keeper rather, for he hardly deserv’d the name of a vintner, boasted, that upon an election, just then over, he had made 300l. of one pipe of canary.

This is the second town in this county, where the elections have been so scandalously mercenary; and of whom it is said, there was in one king’s reign more money spent at elections, than all the lands in the parishes were worth, at twenty years purchase; the other town I mean is Winchelsea, a town, if it deserves the name of a town, which is rather the skeleton of an ancient city than a real town, where the antient gates stand near three miles from one another over the fields, and where the ruins are so bury’d, that they have made good corn fields of the streets, and the plow goes over the foundations, nay, over the first floors of the houses, and where nothing of a town but the destruction of it seems to remain; yet at one election for this town the strife was such between Sir John Banks, father-in-law to the Earl of Aylesford, and Colonel Draper, a neighbouring gentleman, that I was told in the country the latter spent 11000l . at one election, and yet lost it too; what the other spent who opposed him, may be guest at, seeing he that spent most was always sure to carry it in those days.

Bramber is the very exemplification of this, with this difference only, namely, that at the former they have given it over, at the latter it seems to be rather worse than ever.

Near Stenning, the famous Sir John Fagg had a noble antient seat, now possessed with a vast estate by his grandson, Sir Robert Fagg; but I mention the antient gentleman on this occasion, that being entertained at his house, in the year 1697, he show’d me in his park four bullocks of his own breeding, and of his own feeding, of so prodigious a size, and so excessively overgrown by fat, that I never saw any thing like them; and the bullock which Sir Edward Blacket, in Yorkshire, near Rippon, fed, and caused to be shew’d about for a sight at Newcastle upon Tyne, was not any way equal to the least of them, nor had it so much flesh on it by near twenty stone a quarter.

While I continued at Sir John’s, some London butchers came down to see them, and in my hearing offered Sir John six and twenty pound a head for them, but he refused it; and when I mov’d him afterward to take the money, he said No, he was resolv’d to have them to Smithfield himself, that he might say he had the four biggest bullocks in England at market.

He continued positive, and did go up to Smithfield-Market with them; but whether it was that they sunk a little hi the driving, or that the butchers play’d a little upon him, I cannot tell; but he was obliged to sell them for twenty five pound a head when he came there: I knew one of the butchers that bought them, and on a particular occasion enquir’d of him what they weighed when kill’d, and he assur’d me that they weigh’d eighty stone a quarter, when kill’d and cut-out; which is so incredible, that if I had not been well assur’d of the truth of it, I should not have ventur’d thus to have recorded it: But by this may be judg’d something of the largeness of the cattle in the Wild of Kent and Sussex, for it is all the same, of which I mention’d something before, and for this reason I tell the story.

From hence we come to Arundel, a decayed town also; but standing near the mouth of a good river, call’d Arun, which signifies, says Mr, Cambden, the swift, tho’ the river it self is not such a rapid current as merits that name; at least it did not seem to be so to me.

The principal advantage to the country from this river, is the shipping of great quantities of large timber here; which is carry’d up the Thames to Woolwich and Deptford, and up the Medway to Chatham; as also westward to Portsmouth, and even to Plymouth, to the new dock there, that is to say, it goes to all the king’s yards, where the business of the navy is carry’d on: The timber shipped off here is esteemed the best, as it is also the largest that is brought by sea from any part of England; also great quantities of knee timber is had here, which is valuable in its kind above the strait timber, being not only necessary, but scarce, I mean that which is very large.

This river, and the old decay’d, once famous castle at Arundel, which are still belonging to the family of Howards, Earls of Arundel, a branch of the Norfolk family, is all that is remarkable here; except it be that in this river are catch’d the best mullets, and the largest in England, a fish very good in it self, and much valued by the gentry round, and often sent up to London.

From hence to the city of Chichester are twelve miles, and the most pleasant beautiful country in England, whether we go by the hill, that is the Downs, or by the plain, (viz.) the enclosed country. To the north of Arundel, and at the bottom of the hills, and consequently in the Wild, is the town of Petworth, a large handsome country market-town, and very populous, and as it stands upon an ascent, and is dry and healthy, it is full of gentlemens families, and good well built houses both in the town and neighbourhood; but the beauty of Petworth, is the antient seat of the old family of Peircy, Earls of Northumberland, now extinct; whose daughter, the sole heiress of all his vast estates, marry’d the present Duke of Somerset; of the noble and antient family of Seymour, and among other noble seats brought his grace this of Petworth.

The duke pull’d down the antient house, and on the same spot has built from the ground, one of the finest piles of building, and the best model’d houses then in Britain: It has had the misfortune to be once almost demolish’d by fire, but the damage is fully repaired; but another disaster to the family can never be repaired, which has happen’d to it, even while these sheets were writing; namely, the death of the dutchess, who dy’d in November 1722, and lies buried in the burying place of the family of Seymor, Dukes of Somerset, in the cathedral church of Salisbury.

Her Grace was happy in a numerous issue, as well as in a noble estate; and besides two sons and one daughter, which lye bury’d with her, has left one son and ——— daughters still living. I shall have occasion to mention the Northumberland estates again, when I come to speak of the other fine seats, which the duke enjoys in right of his late dutchess, and the many old castles which were formerly part of that Northumberland estate.

The duke’s house at Petworth, is certainly a compleat building in it self, and the apartments are very noble, well contriv’d, and richly furnish’d; but it cannot be said, that the situation of the house is equally designed, or with equal judgment as the rest; the avenues to the front want space, the house stands as it were with its elbow to the town, its front has no visto answerable, and the west front look’d not to the parks or fine gardens, but to the old stables.

To rectify this, when it was too late to order it any other way, the duke was oblig’d to pull down those noble buildings; I mean the mews, or stables, the finest of their kind in all the south of England, and equal to some noblemens whole houses, and yet even the demolishing the pile has done no more than open’d a prospect over the country, whereas had the house been set on the rising ground, on the side of the park, over against the north wing of the house, and a little more to the westward, the front had been south to the town, the back front to the parks, which were capable of fountains, canals, vistos, and all the most exquisite pieces of art, that sets out the finest gardens, whereas all now lyes on one angle, or opposite to one wing of the house. But with all these disadvantages, the house it self is a noble pile of building, and by far the finest in all this part of Britain.

From Petworth west, the country is a little less woody than the Wild, and there begin to show their heads above the trees, a great many fine seats of the nobility and gentlemen of the country, as the Duke of Richmond’s seat at Goodwood, near Chichester. (This family also is in tears, at the writing these sheets, for the death of her grace the dutchess, who dyed the beginning of the month of December, and is bury’d in Westminster Abbey; and here the year closing, I think ’tis very-remarkable, that this year 1722, no less than five dukes and two dutchesses are dead (viz.) the Dukes of Bucks, Bolton, Rutland, Manchester, and Marlborough, and the Dutchesses of Somerset and Richmond; besides earls (viz.) the Earl of Sunderland, of Stamford, Exeter, and others; and since the above was written, and sent to the press, the Duke of Richmond himself is also dead.) The seats of the late Earl of Tankerville, and the Earl of Scarborough, the antient house of the Lord Montacute at Midhurst, an antient family of the sirname of Brown, the eldest branch of the house: These and a great many more lying so near together, make the country hereabout much more sociable and pleasant than the rest of the woody country, call’d The Wild, of which I have made mention so often; and yet I cannot say much for the city of Chichester, in which, if six or seven good families were removed, there would not be much conversation, except what is to be found among the canons, and dignitaries of the cathedral.

The cathedral here is not the finest in England, but is far from being the most ordinary: The spire is a piece of excellent workmanship, but it received such a shock about ——— years ago, that it was next to miraculous, that the whole steeple did not fall down; which in short, if it had, would almost have demolished the whole church.

It was a fire-ball, if we take it from the inhabitants, or, to speak in the language of nature, the lightning broke upon the steeple, and such was the irresistible force of it, that it drove several great stones out of the steeple, and carry’d them clear off, not from the roof of the church only, but of the adjacent houses also, and they were found at a prodigious distance from the steeple, so that they must have been shot out of the places where they stood in the steeple, as if they had been shot out of a cannon, or blown out of a mine: One of these stones of at least a ton weight, by estimation, was blown over the south side, or row of houses in the West-Street, and fell on the ground in the street at a gentleman’s door, on the other side of the way; and another of them almost as big was blown over both sides of the said West-Street, into the same gentleman’s garden, at whose door the other stone lay, and no hurt was done by either of them; whereas if either of those stones had fallen upon the strongest built house in the street, it would have dash’d it all to pieces, even to the foundation: This account of the two stones, I relate from a person of undoubted credit, who was an eye-witness, and saw them, but had not the curiosity to measure them, which he was very sorry for. The breach it made in the spire, tho’ within about forty five foot of the top, was so large, that as the workmen said to me, a coach and six horses might have driven through it, and yet the steeple stood fast, and is now very substantially repaired; withal, showing that it was before, an admirable sound and well finished piece of workmanship.

They have a story in this city, that when ever a bishop of that diocess is to dye, a heron comes and sits upon the pinnacle of the spire of the cathedral: This accordingly happen’d, about ——— when Dr. ——— Williams was bishop: A butcher Standing at his shop-door, in the South-Street, saw it, and ran in for his gun, and being a good marks-man shot the heron, and kill’d it, at which his mother was very angry with him, and said he had kill’d the bishop, and the next day news came to the town that Dr. Williams, the last bishop was dead; this is affirm’d by many people inhabitants of the place.

This city is not a place of much trade, nor is it very populous; but they are lately fallen into a very particular way of managing the corn trade here, which it is said turns very well to account; the country round it is very fruitful, and particularly in good wheat, and the farmers generally speaking, carry’d all their wheat to Farnham, to market, which is very near forty miles by land-carriage, and from some parts of the country more than forty miles.

But some money’d men of Chichester, Emsworth, and other places adjacent, have join’d their stocks together, built large granaries near the Crook, where the vessels come up, and here they buy and lay up all the corn which the country on that side can spare; and having good mills in the neighbourhood, they grind and dress the corn, and send it to London in the meal about by Long Sea, as they call it; nor now the war is over do they make the voyage so tedious as to do the meal any hurt, as at first in the time of war was sometimes the case for want of convoys.

It is true, this is a great lessening to Farnham Market, but that is of no consideration in the case; for, if the market at London is supply’d, the coming by sea from Chichester is every jot as much a publick good, as the encouraging of Farnham Market, which is of it self the greatest corn-market in England, London excepted. Notwithstanding all the decrease from this side of the country, this carrying of meal by sea met with so just an encouragement from hence, that it is now practised from several other places on this coast, even as far as Shampton.

Hampshire and Surrey

From Chichester the road lying still west, passes in view of the Earl of Scarborough’s fine seat at Stansted, a house seeming to be a retreat, being surrounded with thick woods, thro’ which there are the most pleasant agreeable visto’s cut, that are to be seen any where in England, particularly, because through the west opening, which is from the front of the house, they sit in the dining-room of the house, and see the town and harbour of Portsmouth, the ships at Spithead, and also at St. Helens; which when the royal navy happens to be there, as often happen’d during the late war, is a most glorious sight.

This house was fatal to Dr. Williams, mentioned above, Bishop of Chichester, who having been here to make a visit to the late Earl of Scarborough, was thrown out of his coach, or rather threw himself out, being frighted by the unruliness of his horses, and broke his leg in the fall, which, his lordship being in years, was mortal to him: He dy’d in a few days after.

From hence we descend gradually to Portsmouth, the largest fortification, beyond comparison, that we have in England, but it was not with any consideration, that the author before recited could say, it was the only regular fortification in England; especially the same writer owning afterwards that Shireness, Languardfort, and Tilbury, were all regular fortifications, as they really are.

The situation of this place is such, that it is chosen, as may well be said, for the best security to the navy above all the places in Britain; the entrance into the harbour is safe, but very narrow, guarded on both sides by terrible platforms of cannon, particularly on the Point; which is a suburb of Portsmouth properly so call’d, where there is a brick platform built with two tire of guns, one over another, and which can fire so in cover, that the gunners cannot be beaten from their guns, or their guns easily dismounted; the other is from the point of land on the side of Gosport, which they call Gilkicker, where also they have two batteries.

Before any ships attempt to enter this port by sea, they must also pass the cannon of the main platform of the garrison, and also another at South-Sea-Castle; so that it is next to impossible that any ships could match the force of all those cannon, and be able to force their way into the harbour; in which I speak the judgment of men well acquainted with such matters, as well as my own opinion, and of men whose opinion leads them to think the best of the force of naval batteries too; and who have talk’d of making no difficulty to force their way through the Thames, in the teeth of the line of guns at Tilbury; I say, they have talk’d of it, but it was but talk, as any one of judgment would imagin, that knew the works at Tilbury, of which I have spoken in its place: The reasons, however, which they give for the difference, have some force in them, as they relate to Portsmouth, tho’ not as they relate to Tilbury; (viz.) That the mouth or entrance into Portsmouth is narrow, and may be lock’d up with booms, which before the ships could break, and while they were lying at them to break them away, they would be torn in pieces by the battery at the Point: (next) That the guns on the said battery at the Point at Portsmouth, are defended as above, with ambruziers, and the gunners stand cover’d, so that they cannot so soon be beaten from their guns, or their guns so soon dismounted by the warm quarter of a three deck ship, as at Tilbury, where all the gunners and guns too must stand open, both to small and great shot: Besides at Tilbury, while some of the ships lay battering the fort, others would pass behind them, close under the town, and if one or more received damage from the fort, the rest would pass in the cloud of smoke, and perhaps might compass their design, as is the case in all places, where the entrance is broad; whereas at Portsmouth, they would be batter’d within little more than pistol shot, and from both sides of the way; whereas at Tilbury there are very few guns on the Gravesend side of the river.

But to avoid comparing of strengths, or saying what may be done in one place, and not done in another; ’tis evident, in the opinion of all that I have met with, that the greatest fleet of ships that ever were in the hands of one nation at a time, would not pretend, if they had not an army also on shoar, to attack the whole work, to force their entrance into the harbour at Portsmouth.

As to the strength of the town by land, the works are very large and numerous, and besides the battery at the Point aforesaid, there is a large hornwork on the south-side, running out towards South-Sea Castle; there is also a good counterscarp, and double mote, with ravelins in the ditch, and double pallisadoes, and advanced works to cover the place from any approach, where it may be practicable: The strength of the town is also considerably augmented on the land-side, by the fortifications raised in King William’s time about the docks and yards, which are now perfected, and those parts made a particular strength by themselves; and tho’ they are indeed in some sense independent one of another, yet they cover and strengthen one another, so as that they cannot be separately attack’d on that side, while they are both in the same hands.

These docks and yards are now like a town by themselves, and are a kind of marine corporation, or a government of their own kind within themselves; there being particular large rows of dwellings, built at the publick charge, within the new works, for all the principal officers of the place; especially the commissioner, the agent of the victualling, and such as these; the tradesmen likewise have houses here, and many of the labourers are allow’d to live in the bounds as they can get lodging.

The town of Portsmouth, besides its being a fortification, is a well inhabited, thriving, prosperous corporation; and hath been greatly enrich’d of late by the fleet’s having so often and so long lain there, as well as large fleets of merchant-men, as the whole navy during the late war; besides the constant fitting out of men here, and the often paying them at Portsmouth, has made a great confluence of people thither on their private business, with other things, which the attendance of those fleets hath required: These things have not only been a great advantage to the town, but has really made the whole place rich, and the inhabitants of Portsmouth are quite another sort of people than they were a few years before the Revolution; this is what Mr. Cambden takes notice of, even so long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth; that “Portsmouth was populous in time of war, but not so in time of peace”: but now the business of the navy is so much encreased, and so much of it always done here, that it may be said, there is as much to do at Portsmouth now in time of peace, as there was then in time of war, and more too.

There is also this note to be put upon the two great arsenals of England, Portsmouth, and Chatham; Namely, That they thrive by a war, as the war respects their situation (viz.) That when a war with France happens, or with Spain, then Portsmouth grows rich, and when a war with Holland, or any of the Powers of the north, then Chatham, and Woolwich, and Deptford are in request; but of this I shall speak again, when I come to speak of the like antithesis between Plymouth and the Humber, or Portsmouth and the Firth of Edinburgh.

The government of the place is by a mayor and aldermen, &c. as in other corporations, and the civil government is no more interrupted by the military, than if there was no garrison there, such is the good conduct of the governors, and such it has always been, since our soveraigns have ceas’d to encourage the soldiery to insult the civil magistrates: And we have very seldom had any complaint on either side, either of want of discipline among the soldiers, or want of prudence in the magistrates: The inhabitants indeed necessarily submit to such things as are the consequence of a garrison town, such as being examin’d at the gates, such as being obliged to keep garrison hours, and not be let out, or let in after nine a clock at night, and the like; but these are things no people will count a burthen, where they get their bread by the very situation of the place, as is the case here.

Since the encrease of business at this place, by the long continuance of the war, the confluence of people has been so great, and the town not admitting any enlargement for buildings, that a kind of a suburb, or rather a new town has been built on the healthy ground adjoining to the town, which is so well built, and seems to encrease so fast, that in time it threatens to outdo for numbers of inhabitants, and beauty of buildings, even the town it self; and particularly by being unconfin’d by the laws of the garrison, as above, and unencumbered with the corporation burthens, freedoms, town duties, services, and the like.

From Portsmouth west, the country lyes low and flat, and is full of creeks and inlets of the sea and rivers, all the way to Southampton, so that we ferry over three times in about eighteen miles; besides going over one bridge, namely, at Tichfield: The first of these ferries is that at Portsmouth it self, (viz.) cross the mouth of the harbour, from the Point above-mention’d to Gosport; from thence we ride to Tichfield, as above, where we pass the river Alre, which rises in the same county at Alresford, or near it, which is not above twenty two miles off; and yet it is a large river here, and makes a good road below, call’d Tichfield Bay: Thence at about four miles we pass another river at Busselton, narrow in breadth, but exceeding deep, and eminent for its being able to carry the biggest ships: Here is a building yard for ships of war, and in King William’s time, two eighty gun ships were launched here. It seems the safety of the creek, and the plenty of timber in the country behind it, is the reason of building so much in this place.

From hence when we come opposite to Southampton, we pass another creek, being the mouth of the river Itchen which comes down from Winchester, and is both very broad and deep, and the ferry men having a very sorry boat, we found it dangerous enough passing it: On the other bank stands the antient town of Southampton, and on the other side of Southampton comes down another large river, entring Southampton Water by Red-Bridge; so that the town of Southampton stands upon a point running out into the sea, between two very fine rivers, both navigable, up some length into the country, and particularly useful for the bringing down timber out of one of the best wooded counties in Britain; for the river on the west side of the town in particular comes by the edge of the great forest, call’d New-Forest; here we saw a prodigious quantity of timber, of an uncommon size, vastly large, lying on the shoar of the river, for above two miles in length, which they told us was brought thither from the forest, and left there to be fetch’d by the builders at Portsmouth-Dock, as they had occasion for it.

In riding over the south part of Hampshire, I made this observation about that growth of timber, which I mention in supplement to what I said before concerning our timber being wasted and decayed in England, (viz.) that notwithstanding the very great consumption of timber in King William’s reign, by building or rebuilding almost the whole navy; and notwithstanding so many of the king’s ships were built hereabouts, besides abundance of large merchant ships, which were about that time built at Southampton, at Redbridge, and at Bursleton, &c. yet I saw the gentlemens estates, within six, eight, or ten miles of Southampton, so over-grown with wood, and their woods so full of large full grown timber, that it seem’d as if they wanted sale for it, and that it was of little worth to them. In one estate at Hursely in particular near Winchester, the estate since bought by Mr. Cardonell, late manager for the Duke of Marlborough, and formerly belonging to Mr. Cromwell, grandson to Oliver Cromwell, the whole estate not above 8ool . per ann. in rent, they might have cut twenty thousand pounds worth of timber down, and yet have left the woods in a thriving condition; in another estate between that and Petersfield, of about 1000l . per ann. they told me they could fell a thousand pounds a year in good large timber fit for building, for twenty years together, and do the woods no harm: Colonel Norton also, a known gentleman, whose seat at Southwick is within six miles of Portsmouth, and within three miles of the water carriage; this gentleman they told me had an immense quantity of timber, some growing within sight of the very docks in Portsmouth: Farther west it is the like, and as I rode through New-Forest, I cou’d see the antient oaks of many hundred years standing, perishing with their wither’d tops advanced up in the air, and grown white with age, and that could never yet get the favour to be cut down, and made serviceable to their country.

These in my opinion are no signs of the decay of our woods, or of the danger of our wanting timber in England; on the contrary, I take leave to mention it again, that if we were employ’d in England, by the rest of the world, to build a thousand sail of three deck ships, from 80 to 100 guns, it might be done to our infinite advantage, and without putting us in any danger of exhausting the nation of timber.

I shall give other hints of the like, when I come to speak of Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and the counties which we call inland, where the timber is really of small value, for want of water carriage to carry it away; likewise again in the counties northward, bordering upon the Humber, and upon all the northern rivers, not to say a word of Ireland; which is still a store-house of timber, more inexhaustible if possible than England.

Southampton is a truly antient town, for ’tis in a manner dying with age; the decay of the trade is the real decay of the town; and all the business of moment that is transacted there, is the trade between us and the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, with a little of the wine trade, and much smuggling: The building of ships also is much stop’d of late; however, the town is large, has many people in it, a noble fair High-Street, a spacious key; and if its trade should revive, is able to entertain great numbers of people: There is a French church, and no inconsiderable congregation, which was a help to the town, and there are still some merchants who trade to Newfoundland, and to the Streights with fish; but for all other trade, it may be said of Southampton as of other towns, London has eaten it up. The situation of the town between two rivers was to its advantage formerly in point of strength, and the town was wall’d with a very strong wall, strengthened with a rampart, and a double ditch; but I don ot hear that they ever were put to make much use of them.

Whatever the fable of Bevis of Southampton, and the gyants in the woods thereabouts may be deriv’d from, I found the people mighty willing to have those things pass for true; and at the north gate of the town, the only entrance from the land side, they have the figures of two eminent champions, who might pass for gyants if they were alive now, but they can tell us very little of their history, but what is all fabulous like the rest, so I say no more of them.

I was now at the extent of my intended journey west, and thought of looking no farther this way for the present, so I came away north east, leaving Winchester a little on the left, and came into the Portsmouth road at Petersfield, a town eminent for little, but its being full of good inns, and standing in the middle of a country, still over-grown with a prodigious quantity of oak-timber. From hence we came to Alton, and in the road thither, began a little to taste the pleasure of the Western Downs, which reach from Winchester almost to Alton.

The Duke of Bolton has two very noble seats in this country, one between Alton and Alresford; and one at Basing, of which hereafter. Alton is a small market-town, of no note, neither is there any considerable manufacture in all this part of England; except a little drugget and shalloon making, which begins hereabouts, otherwise the whole counties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire, are not employ’d in any considerable woollen manufacture; what there is, I have spoken of about Cranbrook in Kent, Guilford, and Farnham in Surrey, and a little in the north part of Barkshire, all which put together, is not equal to one ordinary manufacturing village in Essex or Norfolk.

From Alton we came to Farnham, of which I can only say, that it is a large populous market-town, the farthest that way in the county of Surrey, and without exception the greatest corn-market in England, London excepted; that is to say, particularly for wheat, of which so vast a quantity is brought every market-day to this market, that a gentleman told me, he once counted on a market-day eleven hundred teams of horse, all drawing waggons, or carts, loaden with wheat at this market; every team of which is supposed to bring what they call a load, that is to say, forty bushel of wheat to market; which is in the whole, four and forty thousand bushel; but I do not take upon me to affirm this relation, or to say whether it be a probable opinion or not; I know some have thought the quantity has been much more; but this also was, I suppose, before the people of Chichester and Emsworth on one side, and Southampton, Tichfield, and Redbridge on the other, took to the trade of sending their wheat in meal to London by sea, as is mentioned above,

At this town is a castle eminent for this, that it was built by a Bishop of Winchester; and tho’ its antiquity is evident, as far back as King Stephen; yet it remains to the Bishops of Winchester to this day. Here the said Bishops of Winchester usually keep their ordinary residence, and tho’ the county of Surrey, be generally speaking within the diocess, they may be truly said to reside in the middle of their ecclesiastical dominion. The Farnham people it seems, or some of the country folks, notwithstanding the liberality and bounty of the several bishops, who, if some people may be believ’d, have been very good, benefactors to the town; I say, notwithstanding all this, have of late been very unkind to the bishop, in pulling down the pale of his park, and plundering it of the deer, killing, wounding, and disabling, even those they cou’d not carry away.

From Farnham, that I might take in the whole county of Surrey, I took the coach-road, over Bagshot-Heath, and that great forest, as ’tis call’d, of Windsor: Those that despise Scotland, and the north part of England, for being full of wast and barren land, may take a view of this part of Surrey, and look upon it as a foil to the beauty of the rest of England; or a mark of the just resentment shew’d by Heaven upon the Englishmen’s pride; I mean the pride they shew in boasting of their country, its fruitfulness, pleasantness, richness, the fertility of the soil, &c. whereas here is a vast tract of land, some of it within seventeen or eighteen miles of the capital city; which is not only poor, but even quite steril, given up to barrenness, horrid and frightful to look on, not only good for little, but good for nothing; much of it is a sandy desert, and one may frequently be put in mind here of Arabia Deserta, where the winds raise the sands, so as to overwhelm whole caravans of travellers, cattle and people together; for in passing this heath, in a windy day, I was so far in danger of smothering with the clouds of sand, which were raised by the storm, that I cou’d neither keep it out of my mouth, nose or eyes; and when the wind was over, the sand appeared spread over the adjacent fields of the forest some miles distant, so as that it ruins the very soil. This sand indeed is checked by the heath, or heather, which grows in it, and which is the common product of barren land, even in the very Highlands of Scotland; but the ground is otherwise so poor and barren, that the product of it feeds no creatures, but some very small sheep, who feed chiefly on the said heather, and but very few of these, nor are there any villages, worth mentioning, and but few houses, or people for many miles far and wide; this desart lyes extended so much, that some say, there is not less than a hundred thousand acres of this barren land that lyes all together, reaching out every way in the three counties of Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire; besides a great quantity of land, almost as bad as that between Godalming and Petersfield, on the road to Portsmouth, including some hills, call’d the Hind Head and others.

Thro’ this desart, for I can call it no less, we come into the great western road, leading from London to Salisbury, Exeter, &c. and pass the Thames at Stanes; and here I could not but call to mind, upon viewing the beautiful prospect of the river, and of the meadows, on the banks of the river, on the left hand of the road, I say, I cou’d not but call to mind those two excellent lines of Sir John Denham, in his poem, call’d Cooper’s Hill, viz.

Tho’ deep, yet clear, tho’ gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without overflowing full.

Here I remembered that I had yet left the inland towns of the two counties of Kent and Sussex, and almost all the county of Surrey out of my account; and that having as it were taken a circuit round the coast only, I had a great many places worth viewing to give an account of; I therefore left Windsor, which was within my view, on one side of the river, and Hampton Court on the other, as being the subject of another letter; and resolv’d to finish my present view, in the order I had begun it; That is to say, to give an account of the whole country as I come on; that I may make no incongruous transitions from one remote part of England to another, at least as few as may be.

From Stanes therefore I turn’d S. and S.E. to Chertsey, another market-town, and where there is a bridge over the Thames: This town was made famous, by being the burial place of Henry VI. till his bones were after removed to Windsor by Henry VII. also by being the retreat of the incomparable Cowley, where he liv’d withdrawn from the hurries of the Court and town, and where he dy’d so much a recluse, as to be almost wholly taken up in country business, farming and husbandry, for his diversion, not for bread, according to the publick flight of his own fancy.

From this town wholly employ’d, either in malting, or in barges to carry it down the river to London; I went away south to Woking, a private country market-town, so out of all road, or thorough-fare, as we call it, that ’tis very little heard of in England; it claims however some honour, from its being once the residence of a royal branch of the family of Plantagenet, the old Countess of Richmond, mother to King Henry VII, who made her last retreat here, where the king her son built, or rather repaired, an old royal house, on purpose for her residence, and where she ended her days in much honour and peace; the former part of her life having been sufficiently exposed to the storms and dangers of the times; especially under the tyranny and turbulent reign of the two precedent monarchs.

From hence we came to Guilford, a well known and considerable market-town: It has the name of being the county town, tho’ it cannot properly be call’d so; neither the county gaol being here, or the assizes, any more than in common with other towns: But the election indeed for Parliament men for the county is always held here. The river which according to Mr. Camden is call’d the Wey, and which falls into the Thames at Oatlands, is made navigable to this town, which adds greatly to its trade; and by this navigation a very great quantity of timber is brought down to London, not from the neighbourhood of this town only, but even from the woody parts of Sussex and Hampshire above thirty miles from it, the country carriages bringing it hither in the summer by land: This navigation is also a mighty support to the great corn-market at Farnham, which I have mentioned so often: For as the meal-men and other dealers buy the corn at that market, much of it is brought to the mills on this river; which is not above seven miles distant, and being first ground and dress’d, is then sent down in the meal by barges to London; the expence of which is very small, as is practised on the other side of the Thames, for above fifty miles distance from London.

Here, as I observed in its place, is a small remainder of an old manufacture, that is to say, of the clothing trade, and it extends it self to Godalming, Haselmeer, and the vale country, on the side of the Holmwood; a place of which I shall speak on another occasion, quite to Darking: These cloths of a middling price, have formerly been in great repute, and then again were almost quite decay’d, but by the application and skill of the clothiers, maintained the credit of their make, and are encourag’d, and indeed revived in reputation of late years, when the clothiers of Cranbrook and Tenterden in Kent, whose goods are of the same kind, are almost sunk to nothing, as I have already observed.

This clothing trade, however small, is very assistant to the poor of this part of the country, where the lands, as I have noted, are but indifferent; except just above the great towns, and where abundance of the inhabitants are what we call cottagers, and live chiefly by the benefit of the large commons and heath ground, of which the quantity is so very great.

From this town of Guilford, the road to Farnham is very remarkable, for it runs along west from Guilford, upon the ridge of a high chalky hill, so narrow that the breadth of the road takes up the breadth of the hill, and the declivity begins on either hand, at the very hedge that bounds the highway, and is very steep, as well as very high; from this hill is a prospect either way, so far that ’tis surprising; and one sees to the north, or N.W. over the great black desart, call’d Bagshot-Heath, mentioned above, one way, and the other way south east into Sussex, almost to the South Downs, and west to an unbounded length, the horizon only restraining the eyes: This hill being all chalk, a traveller feels the effect of it in a hot summer’s day, being scorch’d by the reflection of the sun from the chalk, so as to make the heat almost insupportable; and this I speak by my own experience: This hill reaches from Guilford town’s end to within a mile and half of Farnham.

The hill, or the going up to it from Guilford rather, is call’d St. Katharine’s -Hill, and at the top of the ascent from the town stands the gallows, which is so placed, respecting the town, that the towns people from the High-Street may sit at their shop doors, and see the criminals executed.

The great road from London to Chichester, and from London to Portsmouth, lying thro’ this town; it is consequently a town very well furnish’d with inns for accommodation of travellers, as is Godalming, also the next town within three miles of it.

From Guilford there lies a cross-road, as it may be call’d, to London, not frequented by coaches or carriers, or the ordinary passengers to London; tho’ ’tis by some reckon’d the nearest way, and is without question much the pleasanter road, if it is not the pleasantest in this part of England: (viz.) From this town to Letherhead, ten miles from Letherhead to London, over Banstead Downs fifteen miles, or if you please by Epsome seventeen miles; which, tho’ it is call’d the farthest way, makes amends abundantly by the goodness of the way, and the advantage and pleasantness of the road.

The ten miles from Guilford to Leatherhead make one continued line of gentlemens houses, lying all, or most of them, on the west side of the road, and their parks, or gardens almost touching one another: Here are pleasantly seated several very considerable persons, as the posterity of Sir Tho. Bludworth, once Lord Mayor of London, a person famous for the implacable passion he put the people of London in, by one rash expression, at the time of the Great Fire: (viz.) “That it was nothing, and they might piss it out”; which was only spoken at the beginning of the fire, when neither Sir Thomas or the citizens themselves cou’d foresee the length it would go; and without any design to lessen their endeavours to quench it: But this they never forgot, or forgave to him, or his family after him; but fix’d the expression on him, as a mark of indelible reproach, even to this day: Among the other fine seats hi this row, is that of Arthur Moor, Esq; at Fetcham, where no cost has been spar’d to make a most beautiful and delicious situation be beholden to art, and which is set out at an immense charge: Near to Guilford, at the village of Clendon, at the west end of this line of fine seats, is the antient mansion of the Onslow’s: The father of the present lord, was Sir Richard Onslow, Baronet; several years one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury or Admiralty; and created Baron Onslow by King GEORGE.

The seat is old, and the estate is old too (but the latter is much the better for its age) for it has been many years in the family, as appears in Mr. Camden, and has gone on, encreasing from hand to hand. The late Lord Onslow improved and beautify’d both the house and the estate too very much. The house has several times been honoured with the presence of both King William and King George; the former erected an annual race for a royal plate of 100 guineas, call’d the King’s Gold Plate, to be run for every year, and the latter has been so good, as twice at least to honour the diversion with his presence.

At the like distance north from Guilford, and on the banks of the Wey, is a fine seat, every way as fit for the possession of a peer as is Clendon Park; and belonging to a branch of the same family, (viz.) to Denzil Onslow, Esq; uncle to the present Lord Onslow, younger brother to his father the first lord: This seat is call’d Pyrford, and is exceeding pleasant, especially for the most beautiful intermixture of wood, and water in the park, and gardens, and grounds adjoining; by which the possessor, whose genius lay wonderfully in improving lands, and making things more pleasant, brought Pyrford to such a perfection, as to be inferior to very few, if any, of the finest houses in Surrey; particularly in one thing, which is not found in all that part of England; namely, a duckoy, which adjoins to his park, and which makes the rest inimitably agreeable.

At the north east end of this range of fine seats, is Letherhead, a little thorough-fare town, with a stone-bridge over the river Mole; this river is called the Mole, from its remarkable sinking into the earth, at the foot of Box-Hill, near a village call’d Mickleham, and working its way under ground like a mole, rising again at or near this town of Leatherhead, where its wandering streams are united again, and form a pretty large river, as they were before, running together under Leatherhead Bridge, and from thence to Cobham, and so it pursues its course to the Thames, which it joins at Molesy, which takes its name to be sure from the name of the river Mole.

And here I cannot but take notice of an unaccountable error. which all the writers I have met with fall unwarily into, on account of this little river hiding itself in the earth, and finding its way under ground, from the foot of Beechworth, more properly Betsworth-Castle, near Box-Hill, and then rising again at Letherhead, as above; as if the water had at once ingulph’d itself in a chasm of the earth, or sunk in a whirlpit, as is said of the Caspian-Sea, which they say rises again in the Persian Gulph with the same violence that it ingulphs it self: Tis strange this error should prevail in this manner, and with men of learning too, and in a case so easily discover’d and so near. But thus it is, nor is it at all remote from the true design of this work, to undeceive the world in the false or mistaken accounts, which other men have given of things, especially when those mistakes are so demonstrably gross; and when the subject is significant too, as in this part now in hand: Mr. Camden expresses it thus: “The Mole,” says he, “coming to White-Hill,” (he should have said Box-Hill) “hides it self, or is rather swallow’d up at the foot of it; and for that reason the place is call’d Swallow, but after two miles it bubbles up, and rises again”; then he adds, (alluding to the river Guadiana in Castile) “that the inhabitants of this tract no less than the Spaniards may boast of having a bridge that feeds several flocks of sheep.” Thus far Mr. Camden. The right reverend and learned editor of the Additions to Mr. Camden, makes it yet worse, speaking of Beechworth Castle, which is a mile before we come to Darking; and ’tis at the foot of this castle here, says his lordship, that the river Mole being nigh to the precipice of Box-Hill is swallow’d up.

Now ’tis something strange for me to take upon me, after two such authorities, to say, that neither of these is right. The accounts are so positive, that many curious people have rid thither to see this place, call’d Swallow, and to see this Beechworth Castle, at the foot of which the river is swallow’d up, not doubting but they should see some wonderful gulph, in which a whole river should be at once as it were bury’d alive; for Mr. Camden says, “ Swallow is the place “: The bishop says,” near Beechworth-Castle the river is swallowed up”; nay, and to make the wonder appear more conformable to the relation, the map of the county of Surrey, plac’d in Mr. Camden, makes a large blank between the river as swallowed up, a little off of Darking, and its rising again as at Leatherhead, breaking the river off abruptly, as if pouring its waters all at once into a great gulph, like one of the common-shores of the streets of London, and bringing it out again at once, just as the water of the brook running into Fleet-Ditch, comes out from under Holbourn-Bridge.

Now after all these plausible stories,, the matter of fact is this, and no more; and even of this, the thing is wonderful enough too: But I say, it is thus, and no more, (viz.)

The river Mole passes by Beechworth Castle in a full stream; and for near a mile farther on the west of the castle, it takes into its stream Darking-Brook, as they call it, and has upon it a large corn-mill, call’d Darking-Mill; below this it runs close at the foot of Box-Hill, near that part of the hill, which is call’d the Stomacher; then, as if obstructed by the hill, it turns a little south, and runs cross the road which leads from Darking to Leatherhead, where it is apparently rapid and strong; and then fetches a circuit round a park, formerly belonging to Sir Richard Studdolph, and which is part of it, within sight of Leatherhead, and so keeps a continued chanel to the very town of Leatherhead; so that there is no such thing as a natural bridge, or a river lost, no, not at all; and in the winter, in time of floods the stream will be very large, and rapid all the way above ground, which I affirm of my own knowledge, having seen it so, on many occasions.

But the true state of the case is this, the current of the river being much obstructed by the interposition of those hills, call’d Box-Hill, which tho’ descending in a kind of vale, as if parted to admit the river to pass, and making that descent so low as to have the appearance of a level, near a village call’d Mickleham; I say, these hills yet interrupting the free course of the river, it forces the waters as it were to find their way thro’ as well as they can; and in order to this, beginning, I say, where the river comes close to the foot of the precipice of Box-Hill, call’d the Stomacher, the waters sink insensibly away, and in some places are to be seen (and I have seen them) little chanels which go out on the sides of the river, where the water in a stream not so big as would fill a pipe of a quarter of an inch diameter, trills away out of the river, and sinks insensibly into the ground.

In this manner it goes away, lessening the stream for above a mile, near two, and these they call the Swallows; and the whole ground on the bank of the river, where it is flat and low, is full of these subterraneous passages; so that if on any sudden rain the river swells over the banks, it is observed not to go back into the chanel again when the flood abates, but to sink away into the earth in the meadows, where it spreads; a remarkable proof of which I shall give presently.

But now take this with you as you go, that these Swallows, for they are many, and not one call’d the Swallow, as is said in Mr. Camden; these Swallows (I say) tho’ they diminish the stream much, do not so drink it up as to make it disappear: But that, where it crosses the road near Mickleham, it runs, as I have said, very sharp and broad, nor did I ever know it dry in the dryest summer in that place, tho’ I liv’d in the neighbourhood several years: On the contrary I have known it so deep, that waggons and carriages have not dar’d to go thro’; but never knew it, I say, dry in the greatest time of drought.

Below this place the hills rise again on the other side very high, and particularly on the ridge, which the country people call the Ashcom-Hills, and they seem to force the river again west; so it surrounds most of the park I mentioned above, and has several bridges upon it, and by this time indeed, so much of it is sunk away, that in a very dry summer the chanel, tho’ full of water in pits and holes cannot be perceiv’d to run; but this must be, I say, in a very dry season, and still there is the chanel visible where it runs at other times fiercely enough.

This part which I say has the least water, continuing about half a mile, we then perceive the chanel insensibly to have more water than before: That is to say, that as it sunk in gradually and insensibly, so it takes vent again in the like manner in thousands of little springs, and unseen places, very few in any quantity, till in another half mile, it is a full river again, and passes in full streams under Leatherhead-Bridge, as above, and for the truth of this, I appeal to the knowledge of the inhabitants of Darking, Mickleham, Leatherhead, and all the country round.

A farther proof of this, and which is the account which I promised above, relating to the gradual sinking away of the water, take as follows: It was in the year 1676, in the month of October, or thereabouts, that there happen’d a very sudden hasty land flood, which swell’d the river to a very great height; and particularly so high, that at Beechworth-Castle, and other gentlemen’s seats, near the river, where they had fish-ponds that were fed by the river, it over-flowed their ponds, and carry’d off all their fish, or at least they thought so: Sir Adam Brown liv’d then at Beechworth-Castle, a gentleman in those days, well known in the country, for he was many years Knight of the Shire, of the family of Browns, a branch of the house of Montacutes at Midhurst, mentioned before, but a collateral line; another of the Browns liv’d at Bucknal, another at Darking, which I mention chiefly, because some ignorant writers, particularly the late Atlas, has confounded the title of Montacute with the sirname of Montague, which is quite another family, and generation, not at all ally’d, and nothing near so antient, but this by the by.

Sir Adam Brown’s son, and the young gentlemen of these, and other neighbouring families, disturbed at the loss of their fish, and mov’d by the report, came all down to Darking; where they raised a little troop of the young fellows and boys of the town, and all went together, to that part of the river which runs by the foot of the Stomacher, as I said they call it, on Box-Hill.

There was a low flat piece of meadow ground, lying close to the river on one side; just opposite to which, the hill lying also-close to the river, made up the bank on the other: This piece of ground might contain about four or five acres, and lying, hollow in the middle, like the shape of a dripping-pan, was by the overflowing of the river full of water, and so full, that the bank, which lay close to the river, tho’ higher than the rest, was not to be seen.

The gentlemen set themselves and all their little army at work, to raise this bank, which I say, lay between the river and the hollow of the field, so as to separate the water in the hollow part of the field from that in the river, and having so many hands, they effected that part the first day; and made a solid dam or bank, so that they cou’d walk upon it dry footed; then they made a return to it, at the upper, or east end of the field; so that in short, no more water could run into the field from any part of the river.

When this was done, they built hutts or booths, and made fires, and sent for victuals and drink to treat their young company, and there they encamp’d, as if they waited some great event; and so indeed they did, for in about two nights and a day, exclusive of the time they took in making their dams, the water sunk all away in the field; and the consequence of that was, that the fish being surrounded, were catch’d, as it were, in a trap, for they cou’d not be swallow’d up with the water; and the purchase fully recompenc’d their labour, for the like quantity of fish, great and small, I believe was never taken at once in this kingdom, out of so small a river.

This story would have nothing in it wonderful, or to make it worth recording, were it not so evident a demonstration of the manner of this river losing it self under ground, or being swallowed up, as they call it; for this field where the water sunk away is just at the place, which Mr. Cambden calls the Swallows, near the village of Mickleham; and under the precipice of the hill, and yet the water was two nights and a day, as I say, sinking leisurely off; and in this manner, and in no other, does the whole river, or so much of it as passes under ground, sink away.

The town of Darking is eminent for several little things worth observation; as first, for the great Roman highway, call’d Stormy-street, which Mr. Cambden says, passes through the very church-yard of this town: Secondly, for a little common or heath, call’d the Cottman Dean, or the dean or heath of poor cottagers, for so the word signifies, belonging to the town; and where their alms-house stands; which some learned physicians have singled out for the best air in England: Thirdly, for Mr. Howard’s house and garden, call’d Deaden, the garden is so naturally mounded with hills, that it makes a compleat amphitheatre, being an oblong square, the area about eighty yards by forty, and the hills unpassably steep, serve instead of walls, and are handsomely planted with trees, whose tops rising above one another gradually, as the hill rises at their roots, make a most beautiful green wall, of perhaps fifty or sixty foot high; at the north end, which is the entrance, is the house, which closes it wholly; and at the south end, the antient possessor, Mr. Howard, by what we call perforation, caused a vault or cave to be made quite through the hill, which came out again into a fine vineyard, which he planted the same year, on the south side, or slope of the hill, and which they say has produced since most excellent good wines, and a very great quantity of them.

Mr. Howard was an honourable and antient gentleman, younger brother to the old Duke of Norfolk, then living: (viz.) In the year 1676, for in that year, or the year before, was that vineyard planted, and tho’ Mr. Howard was then upwards of sixty years of age, he enjoy’d that pleasant seat near thirty years after.

At this town liv’d another antient gentleman and his son, of a very good family; (viz.) Augustin Bellson, Esq; or as some write it Belschon, the father was measured seven foot and half an inch high, allowing all that he might have sunk, for his age, being seventy one years old; and the son measured two inches taller than his father.

These families were Roman, as were several others thereabouts at that time; but were soon after that, upon the breaking out of the Popish Plot, dispers’d; some one way, and some another, as the fate of those times oblig’d them to do; tho’ I do not remember that any part of the scenes of treason were lay’d about Darking, or that any of the Romish gentlemen thereabout were charged with being concern’d with them.

The market of Darking cannot be omitted, as it relates to my design of giving an account of the several parts of England; from whence this great city of London, and all the dainty doings, which are to be seen there, as to eating, is supply’d with provisions.

This market is of all the markets in England famous for poultry; and particularly for the fattest geese, and the largest capons, the name of a Darking Capon being well known among the poulterers in Leaden-Hall Market; in a word, they are brought to this market from as far as Horsham in Sussex; and ’tis the business of all the country, on that side for many miles, to breed and fatten them up, insomuch, that ’tis like a manufacture to the country people; and some of these capons are so large, as that they are little inferior to turkeys; and I have seen them sold for 4s. to 4s. 6d.each, and weighing from 4/. to 5 or 61. a peice.

Once a year here is also a fair, (viz.) on Holy Thursday, chiefly for lambs, and the greatest fair in England of that kind: I have pass’d over the so much celebrated house of Mr. Evelyn at Wotton, near Darking, not that it is not worth notice, but because so many other writers have said so much of it.

On the top of Box-Hill, and in view of this town, grows a very great beech-tree, which by way of distinction is call’d the Great Beech, and a very great tree it is; but I mention it on the following account, under the shade of this tree, was a little vault or cave, and here every Sunday, during the summer season, there used to be a rendezvous of coaches and horsemen, with abundance of gentlemen and ladies from Epsome to take the air, and walk in the box-woods; and in a word, divert, or debauch, or perhaps both, as they thought fit, and the game encreased so much, that it began almost on a sudden, to make a great noise in the country.

A vintner who kept the King’s -Arms-Inn, at Darking, taking notice of the constant and unusual flux of company thither, took the hint from the prospect of his advantage, which offer’d, and obtaining leave of Sir Adam Brown, whose mannor and land it was, furnish’d this little cellar or vault with tables, chairs, &c. and with wine and eatables to entertain the ladies and gentlemen on Sunday nights, as above; and this was so agreeable to them as that it encreased the company exceedingly; in a word, by these means, the concourse of gentry, and in consequence of the country people, became so great, that the place was like a little fair; so that at length the country began to take notice of it, and it was very offensive, especially to the best governed people; this lasted some years, I think two or three, and tho’ complaint was made of it to Sir Adam Brown, and the neighbouring justices; alledging the revelling, and the indecent mirth that was among them, and on the Sabbath Day too, yet it did not obtain a suitable redress: whereupon a certain set of young men, of the town of Darking, and perhaps prompted by some others, resenting the thing also, made an unwelcome visit to the place once on a Saturday night, just before the usual time of their wicked mirth, and behold when the coaches and ladies, &c. from Epsome appear’d the next afternoon, they found the cellar or vault, and all that was in it, blown up with gun-powder; and so secret was it kept, that upon the utmost enquiry it cou’d never be heard, or found out who were the persons that did it: That action put an end to their revels for a great while; nor was the place ever repaired that I heard of, at least it was not put to the same wicked use that it was employ’d in before.

From this hill, and particularly from this part of it, is a fair view in clear weather quite over the Wild of Sussex, to the South-Downs; and by the help of glasses, those who know where things are scituated, may plainly see the town of Horsham, Ashdown-Forest, the Duke of Somerset’s house at Petworth, and the South-Downs, as they range between Brighthelmston and Arundel; besides an unbounded prospect into Kent.

The vale beneath this hill is for many miles east and west, call’d the Holmward, by some the Holm-Wood, others Holmsdale; but more vulgarly the Homeward: In the woody part of which are often found outlying red deer, and in the days of King James II. or while he was Duke of York, they have hunted the largest stags here that have been seen in England; the duke took great care to have them preserved for his own sport, and they were so preserv’d for many years; but have since that been most of them destroyed.

This Homeward, or Holmwood, is a vale, which is now chiefly grown with furz, famous for the country people gathering such quantities of strawberries, as they carry them to market by horse-loads: I saw neither town or village, for many miles on it, much less any gentlemen’s seats, only cottages and single houses; but vast quantities of geese and poultry, which as is said above, employs all the country in breeding them up: There has been large timber here, (they say) but most of it is cut down and gone, except that where there are any woods standing, the timber is still exceeding good and large.

It is suggested that this place was in antient times so unpassable a wild, or overgrown waste, the woods so thick, and the extent so large, reaching far into Sussex, that it was the retreat for many ages of the native Britons, who the Romans cou’d never drive out; and after that it was the like to the Saxons, when the Danes harrass’d the nation with their troops, and ravag’d the country wherever they came; and on this account they retain here in memory the following lines.

This is Holmes Dale,
Never conquer’d, never shall.

But this is a piece of history, which I leave as I find it; the country tho’ wild still, and perhaps having the same countenance now in many places, as it had above a thousand years ago; yet in other places is cultivated, and has roads passable enough in the summer quite thro’ it, on every side, and the woods are clear’d off in a great measure as above.

Keeping at the bottom of these hills, and yet not enter’d into this vale, the county is dry, and rather sandy or gravel, and is full of gentlemen’s houses, and of good towns; but if we go but a little to the right hand south, into the said wild part, ’tis a deep, strong, and in the wet season, an unpassable clay.

Here travelling east at the foot of the hills, we came to Rygate, a large market-town with a castle, and a mansion-house, inhabited for some years by Sir John Parsons, once Lord Mayor of London, and whose son is hi a fair way to be so also; being one of the aldermen and sheriffs of the said city at the writing these sheets.

Here are two miserable borough towns too, which nevertheless send each of them two members to Parliament, to wit, Gatton under the side of the hill, almost at Rygate; and Bleechingly, more eastward on the same cross-road, which we were upon before: In the first of these Sir John Thomson, (afterwards Lord Haversham) having purchas’d the mannor, was always elected; as Mr. Paul Docminique, an Italian merchant, has been since: The last was for many years, the estate of Sir Robert Clayton, a known citizen, and benefactor to the city of London, whose posterity still enjoy it: And at either town the purchasers seem to buy the election with the property.

At Nutfield, between Rygate and Bleechingly, is another branch of the family of Evelyn, who have flourish’d there many years, tho’ in a kind of retreat, and are often chosen representatives for the town of Bleechingly, which is just at their door.

From hence, crossing still the roads leading from London into Sussex, we come to a village call’d Godstone, which lyes on the road from London to Lewis; and keeping on (east) we come to Westerham, the first market town in Kent on that side: This is a neat handsome well built market-town, and is full of gentry, and consequently of good company. The late Earl of Jersey built, or rather finished, for it was begun by a private gentleman, a very noble house here, which still remains in the family, and is every year made finer and finer.

All this part of the country is very agreeably pleasant, wholesome and fruitful, I mean quite from Guildford to this place; and is accordingly overspread with good towns, gentlemen’s houses, populous villages, abundance of fruit, with hop-grounds and cherry orchards, and the lands well cultivated; but all on the right-hand, that is to say, south, is exceedingly grown with timber, has abundance of waste and wild grounds, and forests, and woods, with many large iron-works, at which they cast great quantities of iron caldrons, chimney-backs, furnaces, retorts, boiling pots, and all such necessary things of iron; besides iron cannon, bomb-shells, stink-pots, hand-grenadoes, and cannon ball, &c. in an infinite quantity, and which turn to very great account; tho’ at the same time the works are prodigiously expensive, and the quantity of wood they consume is exceeding great, which keeps up that complaint I mention’d before; that timber would grow scarce, and consequently dear, from the great quantity consumed in the iron-works in Sussex.

From hence going forward east, we come to Riverhead, a town on the road from London to Tunbridge; and then having little to speak of in Kent, except some petty market-towns, such as Wrotham, commonly call’d Rootham, Town-Mailing, Cranbrook, and the like; of which something had been observed, as I travell’d forward, in the beginning of this circuit, I turn’d north, and came to Bromley, a market-town, made famous by an hospital, lately built there by Dr. Warner, Lord Bishop of Rochester, for the relief of the widows of clergy-men, which was not only well endow’d at first, but has had many gifts and charities bestow’d on it since, and is a very noble foundation for the best of charities in the world; besides it has been an example, and an encouragement to the like in other places, and has already been imitated, as Mr. Camden’s most reverend continuator assures us, by the Bishops of Winchester and Salisbury in their diocesses.

Near this town we turn’d away by Beckenham, and thro’ Norwood to Croydon; in the way we saw Dullige or Sydenham Wells, where great crouds of people throng every summer from London to drink the waters, as at Epsome and Tunbridge; only with this difference, that as at Epsome and Tunbridge, they go more for the diversion of the season, for the mirth and the company; for gaming, or intrieguing, and the like, here they go for meer physick, and this causes another difference; Namely, that as the nobility and gentry go to Tunbridge, the merchants and rich citizens to Epsome; so the common people go chiefly to Dullwich and Stretham; and the rather also, because it lyes so near London, that they can walk to it in the morning, and return at night; which abundance do; that is to say, especially of a Sunday, or on holidays, which makes the better sort also decline the place; the croud on those days being both unruly and unmannerly.

Croydon is a great corn-market, but chiefly for oats and oatmeal, all for London still; the town is large and full of citizens from London, which makes it so populous; it is the antient palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and several of them lye buried here; particularly that great man, Archbishop Whitgift, who not only repair’d the palace, but built the famous hospital and school, which remains there to this day, to the singular honour of the giver.

In the gardens of this episcopal palace, the Lady Dowager Onslow, mother of the present lord of that name, of whom mention has been made, was very unhappily drown’d about two year since, in one of the fish-ponds, whether she did it herself, or whether by accident, or how, ’tis not the business of such a work as this to enquire; her daughter being the wife of Sir John Williams, merchant of London, had hired the house, and she was in his family.

From hence we pass’d by Beddington, where is still the seat or mansion house of Sir Nicholas Carew, it was a fine building in Mr. Camden’s time; but is now almost rebuilt from the ground, by the present owner, Sir Nicholas Carew, who now possesses that estate, and who is one of the representatives for the county of Surrey; the house is magnificently great, and the gardens are exquisitely fine; yet architects say, that the two wings are too deep for the body of the house, that they should either have been wider asunder, or not so long; the court before them is extreamly fine, and the canal in the park, before the court, is so well that nothing can be better, having a river running through it; the gardens are exceedingly enlarged, they take up all the flat part of the park, with vista’s, or prospects thro’ the park, for two or three miles; the orange-trees continue, and are indeed wonderful; they are the only standard orange-trees in England, and have moving houses to cover them in the winter; they are loaded with fruit in the summer, and the gardners told us, they have stood in the ground where they now grow above 80 years.

I am sorry to record it to the reproach of any person in their grave, that the ancestor of this family, tho’ otherwise a very honest gentleman, if fame lyes not, was so addicted to gaming, and so unfortunately over-match’d in his play, that he lost this noble seat and parks, and all the fine addenda which were then about it, at one night’s play, some say, at one cast of dice, to Mr. Harvey of Comb, near Kingston; What misery had befallen the family, if the right of the winner had been prosecuted with rigour, as by what I have heard it would have been, is hard to write: But God had better things in store for the gentleman’s posterity than he took thought for himself; and the estate being entail’d upon the heir, the loser dy’d before it came into possession of the winner, and so it has been preserv’d, and the present gentleman has not only recovered the disaster, but as above, has exceedingly improved it all.

From hence it is but a little mile to Cashalton, a country village scituate among innumerable springs of water, which all together, form a river in the very street of the town, and joining the other springs which come from Croydon and Bedington, make one stream, which are call’d the river Wandell: This village seated among such delightful springs, is yet all standing upon firm chalk; and having the Downs close adjoining, makes the most agreeable spot on all this side of London, as is abundantly testify’d by its being, as it were, crouded with fine houses of the citizens of London; some of which are built with such a profusion of expence, that they look rather like seats of the nobility, than the country houses of citizens and merchants; particularly those of Sir William Scawen, lately deceased; who besides an immense estate in money has left, as I was told, one article of nine thousand pounds a year to his heir; and was himself since the Fire of London, only Mr. Scawen, a Hamborough merchant, dealing by commission, and not in any view of such an encrease of wealth, or any thing like it.

The other house is that of Sir John Fellows, late sub-governor of the South-Sea Company, who having the misfortune to fall in the general calamity of the late directors, lost all his unhappy wealth, which he had gain’d in the company, and a good and honestly gotten estate of his own into the bargain: I cannot dwell on the description of all the fine houses in this and the neighbouring vilages; I shall speak of them again in bulk with their neighbours, of Mitcham, Stretham, Tooting, Clapham, and others; but I must take a trip here cross the Downs to Epsome-

Banstead Downs need no description other than this, that their being so near London, and surrounded as they are with pleasant villages, and being in themselves perfectly agreeable, the ground smooth, soft, level and dry; (even in but a few hours after rain) they conspire to make the most delightful spot of ground, of that kind in all this part of Britain.

When on the publick race days they are cover’d with coaches and ladies, and an innumerable company of horsemen, as well gentlemen as citizens, attending the sport; and then adding to the beauty of the sight, the racers flying over the course, as if they either touched not, or felt not the ground they run upon; I think no sight, except that of a victorious army, under the command of a Protestant King of Great Britain could exceed it.

About four miles, over those delicious Downs, brings us to Epsome, and if you will suppose me to come there in the month of July, or thereabouts, you may think me to come in the middle of the season, when the town is full of company, and all disposed to mirth and pleasantry; for abating one unhappy stock jobbing year, when England took leave to act the frantick, for a little while; and when every body’s heads were turn’d with projects and stocks, I say, except this year, we see nothing of business in the whole conversation of Epsome; even the men of business, who are really so when in London; whether it be at the Exchange, the Alley, or the Treasury-Offices, and the Court; yet here they look as if they had left all their London thoughts behind them, and had separated themselves to mirth and good company; as if they came hither to unbend the bow of the mind, and to give themselves a loose to their innocent pleasures; I say, innocent, for such they may enjoy here, and such any man may make his being here, if he pleases.

As, I say, this place seems adapted wholly to pleasure, so the town is suited to it; ’tis all rural, the houses are built at large, not many together, with gardens and ground about them; that the people who come out of their confined dwellings in London, may have air and liberty, suited to the design of country lodgings.

You have no sooner taken lodgings, and enter’d the apartments, but if you are any thing known, you walk out, to see who and who’s together; for ’tis the general language of the place, Come let’s go see the town, folks don’t come to Epsome to stay within doors.

The next morning you are welcom’d with the musick under your chamber window; but for a shilling or two you get rid of them, and prepare for going to the Wells.

Here you have the compliment of the place, are enter’d into the list of the pleasant company, so you become a citizen of Epsome for that summer; and this costs you another shilling, or if you please, half a crown: Then you drink the waters, or walk about as if you did; dance with the ladies, tho’ it be in your gown and slippers; have musick and company of what kind you like, for every man may sort himself as he pleases; The grave with the grave, and the gay with the gay, the bright, and the wicked; all may be match’d if they seek for it, and perhaps some of the last may be over-match’d, if they are not upon their guard.

After the morning diversions are over, and every one are walk’d home to their lodgings, the town is perfectly quiet again; nothing is to be seen, the Green, the Great Room, the raffling-shops all are (as if it was a trading town on a holiday) shut up; there’s little stirring, except footmen, and maid servants, going to and fro of errands, and higglers and butchers, carrying provisions to people’s lodgings.

This takes up the town till dinner is over, and the company have repos’d for two or three hours in the heat of the day; then the first thing you observe is, that the ladies come to the shady seats, at their doors, and to the benches in the groves, and cover’d walks; (of which, every house that can have them, is generally supply’d with several). Here they refresh with cooling liquors, agreeable conversation, and innocent mirth.

Those that have coaches, or horses (as soon as the sun declines) take the air on the Downs, and those that have not, content themselves with staying a little later, and when the air grows cool, and the sun low, they walk out under the shade of the hedges and trees, as they find it for their diversion: In the mean time, towards evening the Bowling-green begins to fill, the musick strikes up in the Great Room, and company draws together a-pace: And here they never fail of abundance of mirth, every night being a kind of ball; the gentlemen bowl, the ladies dance, others raffle, and some rattle; conversation is the general pleasure of the place, till it grows late, and then the company draws off; and, generally speaking, they are pretty well as to keeping good hours; so that by eleven a clock the dancing generally ends, and the day closes with good wishes, and appointments to meet the next morning at the Wells, or somewhere else.

The retir’d part of the world, of which also there are very many here, have the waters brought home to their apartments in the morning, where they drink and walk about a little, for assisting the physical operation, till near noon, then dress dinner, and repose for the heat as others do; after which they visit, drink tea, walk abroad, come to their lodgings to supper, then walk again till it grows dark, and then to bed: The greatest part of the men, I mean of this grave sort, may be supposed to be men of business, who are at London upon business all the day, and thronging to their lodgings at night, make the families, generally speaking, rather provide suppers than dinners; for ’tis very frequent for the trading part of the company to place their families here, and take their horses every morning to London, to the Exchange, to the Alley, or to the warehouse, and be at Epsome again at night; and I know one citizen that practised it for several years together, and scarce ever lay a night in London during the whole season.

This, I say, makes the good wives satisfy themselves with providing for the family, rather at night than at noon, that their husbands may eat with them; after which they walk abroad as above, and these they call the sober citizens, and those are not much at the Wells, or at the Green; except sometimes, when they give themselves a holiday, or when they get sooner home than usual.

Nor are these which I call the more retir’d part the company, the least part of those that fill up the town of Epsome, nor is their way of living so retir’d, but that there is a great deal of society, mirth, and good manners, and good company among these too.

The fine park of the late Earl of Berkeley, near Epsome, was formerly a great addition to the pleasure of the place, by the fine walks and cool retreats there; but the earl finding it absolutely necessary, for a known reason, to shut it up, and not permit any walking there, that relief to the company was abated for some years; but the pleasures of nature are so many round the town, the shady trees so every where planted, and now generally well grown, that it makes Epsome like a great park fill’d with little groves, lodges and retreats for coolness of air, and shade from the sun; and I believe, I may say, it is not to be matched in the world, on that account; at least, not in so little a space of ground.

It is to be observ’d too, that for shady walks, and innumerable numbers of trees planted before the houses, Epsome differs much from it self, that is to say, as it was twenty or thirty years ago; for then those trees that were planted, were generally young, and not grown; and now not only all the trees then young, are grown large and fair, but thousands are planted since; so that the town, at a distance, looks like a great wood full of houses, scatter’d every where, all over it.

In the winter this is no place for pleasure indeed; as it is full of mirth and gayety in the summer, so the prospect in the winter presents you with little, but good houses shut up, and windows fasten’d; the furniture taken down, the families remov’d, the walks out of repair, the leaves off of the trees, and the people out of the town; and which is still worse, the ordinary roads both to it, and near it, except only on the side of the Downs, are deep, stiff, full of sloughs, and, in a word, impassable; for all the country, the side of the Downs, as I have said, only excepted, is a deep stiff clay; so that there’s no riding in the winter without the utmost fatiegue, and some hazard, and this is the reason that Epsome is not (like Hampstead or Richmond) full of company in winter as well as summer.

From Epsome that I might thoroughly visit the county of Surrey, I rode over those clays, and through very bad roads to Kingstone, and from thence keeping the bank of the river on my right hand, I had a fine view of Hampton-Court, at a distance, but had reserved it for another journey; and was bound now in search of a piece of antiquity to satisfy my own curiosity, this was to Oatland, that I might see the famous place where Julius Caesar pass’d the river Thames in the sight of the British army, and notwithstanding they had stuck the river full of sharp stakes for three miles together.

The people said several of those stakes were still to be seen in the bottom of the river, having stood there for now above 1760 years; but they cou’d show me none of them, tho’ they call the place Coway Stakes to this day; I cou’d make little judgment of the thing, only from this, that it really seems probable, that this was the first place where Caesar at that time cou’d find the river fordable, or any way passable to him, who had no boats, no pontons, and no way to make bridges over, in the teeth of so powerful, and so furious an enemy; but the Roman valour and discipline surmounted all difficulties, and he pass’d the army, routing the Britons; whose king and general, Cassibellanus, never offer’d a pitch’d battle to the Romans afterward.

Satisfy’d with what little I cou’d see here, which indeed was nothing at all, but the meer place, said to be so; and which it behov’d me to believe, only because it was not unlikely to be true; I say, satisfy’d with this, I came back directly to Kingstone, a good market-town, but remarkable for little, only that they say, the antient British and Saxon kings were usually crown’d here in former times, which I will neither assert or deny.

But keeping the river now on my left, as I did before on my right-hand, drawing near to London, we came to Hame and Peterson, little villages; the first, famous for a most pleasant pallace of the late Duke of Lauderdale, close by the river; a house King Charles II. used to be frequently at, and be exceedingly pleased with; the avenues of this fine house to the land side, come up to the end of the village of Peterson, where the wall of New Park comes also close to the town, on the other side; in an angle of which stood a most delicious house, built by the late Earl of Rochester, Lord High Treasurer in King James II’s . reign, as also in part of Queen Ann’s reign, which place he discharged so well, that we never heard of any misapplications, so much as suggested, much less inquired after.

I am oblig’d to say only, that this house stood here; for even while this is writing the place seems to be but smoaking with the ruins of a most unhappy disaster, the whole house being a few months ago burnt down to the ground with a fire, so sudden, and so furious, that the family who were all at home, had scarce time to save their lives.

Nor was the house, tho’ so exquisitely finished, so beautiful within and without, the greatest loss sustained; the rich furniture, the curious collection of paintings; and above all, the most curious collection of books, being the library of the first Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor of England, and author of that most excellent History of the Rebellion, of which the world knows so much; I say, this library, as I am assur’d, was here wholly consumed; a loss irreparable, and not to be sufficiently regretted by all lovers of learning, having among other valuable things, several manuscripts relating to those times, and to things transacted by himself, and by the king his master, both at home and abroad; and of other antient things, collected by that noble and learned author in foreign countries; which both for their rariety, antiquity, and authority, were of an inestimable value.

From hence we come to Richmond, the delightful retreat of their royal highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and where they have spent the fine season every summer for some years: The prince’s Court being so near must needs have fill’d Richmond, which was before a most agreeable retreat for the first and second rate gentry, with a great deal of the best company in England: This town and the country adjacent, encrease daily in buildings, many noble houses for the accommodation of such, being lately rais’d and more in prospect: But ’tis fear’d should the prince come, for any cause that may happen, to quit that side of the country, those numerous buildings must abate in the value which is now set upon them: The company however, at Richmond, is very great in the winter, when the prince’s Court is not there; because of the neighbourhood of so many gentlemen, who live constantly there, and thereabouts; and of its nearness to London also; and in this it has the advantage both of Epsome and Tunbridge.

Here are wells likewise, and a mineral-water, which tho’ not so much us’d as that at Epsome and Tunbridge, are yet sufficient to keep up the forms of the place, and bring the company together in the morning, as the musick does in the evening; and as there is more of quality in and about the place than is ordinarily to be seen at Epsome, the company is more shining, and sometimes even illustriously bright.

Mr. Temple created Baron Temple, of the kingdom of Ireland, even since this circuit was performed; and who is the son and successor to the honour, estate, and great part of the character of the great Sir William Temple, has a fine seat and gardens (hard by) at Shene; The gardens are indeed exquisitely fine, being finished, and even contrived by the great genius of Sir William, his father; and as they were his last delight in life, so they were every way suited to be so, to a man of his sense and capacity, who knew what kind of life was best fitted to make a man’s last days happy.

It is not easy to describe the beauty with which the banks of the Thames shine on either side of the river, from hence to London, much more than our ancestors, even of but one age ago, knew any thing of: If for pleasant villages, great houses, palaces, gardens, &c. it was true in Queen Elizabeth’s time, according to the poet, that

The Thames with royal Tyber may compare. I say, if this were true at that time, what may be said of it now? when for one fine house that was to be seen then, there are a hundred; nay, for ought I know, five hundred to be seen now, even as you sit still in a boat, and pass up and down the river.

First beginning from Ham-House, as above, the prince’s palace salutes the eye, being formerly no more than a lodge in the park, and by that means belonging to the ranger, who was then, the (since unhappy) Duke of Ormond, and who, with other branches of a noble estate, lost this among the rest by his precipitate retreat from the Parliamentary justice: I have seen many of the seats of the nobility in France, and some larger, but none finer than this, except such as had been lay’d out at the royal expence.

From Richmond to London, the river sides are full of villages, and those villages so full of beautiful buildings, charming gardens, and rich habitations of gentlemen of quality, that nothing in the world can imitate it; no, not the country for twenty miles round Paris, tho’ that indeed is a kind of prodigy.

To enumerate the gentlemen’s houses in their view, would be too long for this work to describe them, would fill a large folio; it shall suffice to observe something concerning the original of the strange passion, for fine gardens, which has so commendably possess’d the English gentlemen of late years, for ’tis evident it is but of late years.

It is since the Revolution that our English gentlemen, began so universally, to adorn their gardens with those plants, we call ever greens, which leads me to a particular observation that may not be improper in this place; King William and Queen Mary introduced each of them two customs, which by the people’s imitating them became the two idols of the town, and indeed of the whole kingdom; the queen brought in (I.) the love of fine East-India callicoes, such as were then call’d Masslapatan chints, atlasses, and fine painted callicoes, which afterwards descended into the humours of the common people so much, as to make them greivous to our trade, and ruining to our manufactures and the poor; so that the Parliament were oblig’d to make two Acts at several times to restrain, and at last prohibit the use of them: (2.) The queen brought in the custom or humour, as I may call it, of furnishing houses with china-ware, which increased to a strange degree afterwards, piling their china upon the tops of cabinets, scrutores, and every chymney-piece, to the tops of the ceilings, and even setting up shelves for their china-ware, where they wanted such places, till it became a grievance in the expence of it, and even injurious to their families and estates.

The good queen far from designing any injury to the country where she was so entirely belov’d, little thought she was in either of these laying a foundation for such fatal excesses, and would no doubt have been the first to have reform’d them had she lived to see it.

The king on his part introduc’d (1.) the love of gardening;* and (2.) of painting: In the first his majesty was particularly delighted with the decoration of ever greens, as the greatest addition to the beauty of a garden, preserving the figure of the place, even in the roughest part of an inclement and tempestuous winter.

Sir Stephen Fox’s gardens at Istleworth, and Sir William Temple’s at Eastshene, mentioned above, were the only two gardens where they had entirely persued this method at that time, and of Sir Stephen’s garden, this was to be said, that almost all his fine ever-greens were raised in the places where they stood; Sir Stephen taking as much delight to see them rise gradually, and form them into what they were to be, as to buy them of the nursery gardeners, finish’d to his hand; besides that by this method his greens, the finest in England, cost him nothing but the labour of his servants, and about ten years patience; which if they were to have been purchased, would not have cost so little as ten thousand pounds, especially at that time: It was here that King William was so pleased that according to his majesty’s usual expression, when he lik’d a place very well, he stood, and looking round him from the head of one of the canals, Well says his majesty, I cou’d dwell here five days; every thing was so exquisitely contriv’d, finish’d, and well kept, that the king, who was allow’d to be the best judge of such things then living in the world, did not so much as once say, this or that thing cou’d have been better.

With the particular judgment of the king, all the gentlemen in England began to fall in; and in a few years fine gardens, and fine houses began to grow up in every corner; the king began with the gardens at Hampton-Court and Kensington, and the gentlemen follow’d every where, with such a gust that the alteration is indeed wonderful thro’ the whole kingdom; but no where more than in the two counties of Middlesex and Surrey, as they border on the river Thames; the beauty and expence of which are only to be wonder’d at, not described; they may indeed be guess’d at, by what is seen in one or two such as these nam’d: But I think to enter into a particular of them would be an intolerable task, and tedious to the reader.

That these houses and gardens are admirably beautiful in their kind, and in their separate, and distinct beauties, such as their scituation, decoration, architect, furniture, and the like, must be granted; and many descriptions have been accurately given of them, as of Ham-House, Qew-Green, the Prince’s House, Sir William Temple’s, Sir Charles Hedges, Sion-House, Osterly, Lord Ranelagh’s at Chelsea-Hospital; the many noble seats in Istleworth, Twittenham, Hamersmith, Fullham, Puttney, Chelsea, Battersea, and the like.

But I find none has spoken of what I call the distant glory of all these buildings: There is a beauty in these things at a distance, taking them en passant, and in perspective, which few people value, and fewer understand; and yet here they are more truly great, than in all their private beauties whatsoever; Here they reflect beauty, and magnificence upon the whole country, and give a kind of a character to the island of Great Britain in general. The banks of the Sein are not thus adorn’d from Paris to Roan, or from Paris to the Loign above the city: The Danube can show nothing like it above and below Vienna, or the Po above and below Turin; the whole country here shines with a lustre not to be described; Take them in a remote view, the fine seats shine among the trees as jewels shine in a rich coronet; in a near sight they are meer pictures and paintings; at a distance they are all nature, near hand all art; but both in the extreamest beauty.

In a word, nothing can be more beautiful; here is a plain and pleasant country, a rich fertile soil, cultivated and enclosed to the utmost perfection of husbandry, then bespangled with villages; those villages fill’d with these houses, and the houses surrounded with gardens, walks, vistas, avenues, representing all the beauties of building, and all the pleasures of planting: It is impossible to view these countries from any rising ground and not be ravish’d with the delightful prospect: For example, suppose you take your view from the little rising hills about Clapham, if you look to the east, there you see the pleasant villages of Peckham and Camberwell, with some of the finest dwellings about London; as (1) the Lord Powis’s at Peckham: (2) a house built by a merchant, one Collins, but now standing empty at Camberwell, but justly call’d a picture of a house, and several others: Then turning south, we see Loughborough-House near Kennington, Mr. Howland’s, now the Dutchess of Bedford’s, at Stretham; Sir Richard Temple’s house near Croydon; a whole town of fine houses at Cashalton; Sir Nicholas Carew’s, and Sir John Lake’s at Bedington; Sir Theodore Janssen another South-Sea forfeiture at Wimbleton; Sir James Bateman’s at Tooting; besides an innumerable number in Clapham it self: On the south west also you have Mr. Harvey’s at Coomb, formerly the palace of a king; with all the villages mentioned above, and the country adjoining fill’d with the palaces of the British nobility and gentry already spoken of; looking north, behold, to crown all, a fair prospect of the whole city of London it self; the most glorious sight without exception, that the whole world at present can show, or perhaps ever cou’d show since the sacking of Rome in the European, and the burning the Temple of Jerusalem in the Asian part of the world.

Add to all this, that these fine houses and innumerable more, which cannot be spoken of here, are not, at least very few of them, the mansion houses of families, the antient residences of ancestors, the capital messuages of the estates; nor have the rich possessors any lands to a considerable value about them; but these are all houses of retreat, like the Bastides of Marseilles, gentlemen’s meer summer-houses, or citizen’s country-houses; whither they retire from the hurries of business, and from getting money, to draw their breath in a clear air, and to divert themselves and families in the hot weather; and they that are shut up, and as it were strip’d of their inhabitants in the winter, who return to smoke and dirt, sin and seacoal, (as it was coursly expressed) in the busy city; so that in short all this variety, this beauty, this glorious show of wealth and plenty, is really a view of the luxuriant age which we live in, and of the overflowing riches of the citizens, who in their abundance make these gay excursions, and live thus deliciously all the summer, retiring within themselves in the winter, the better to lay up for the next summer’s expence.

If this then is produced from the gay part of the town only, what must be the immense wealth of the city it self, where such a produce is brought forth? where such prodigious estates are raised in one man’s age; instances of which we have seen in those of Sir Josiah Child, Sir John Lethulier, Sir James Bateman, Sir Robert Clayton, Sir William Scawen, and hundreds more; whose beginnings were small, or but small compar’d, and who have exceeded even the greatest part of the nobility of England in wealth, at their death, and all of their own getting.

It is impossible in one journey to describe effectually this part of the county of Surrey, lying from Kingston to London and Greenwich, where I set out: That is, including the villages of Richmond, Petersham, Eastshene, Mortlock, Putney, Wandsworth, Barn-Elms, Battersey, Wimbleton, Tooting, Clapham, Camberwell, Peckham and Deptford; the description would swell with the stories of private families, and of the reasons of these opulent foundations, more than with their history.

It would also take up a large chapter in this book, to but mention the overthrow, and catastrophe of innumerable wealthy city families, who after they have thought their houses establish’d, and have built their magnificent country seats, as well as others, have sunk under the misfortunes of business, and the disasters of trade, after the world has thought them pass’d all possibility of danger; such as Sir Joseph Hodges, Sir Justus Beck, the widow Cock at Camberwell, and many others; besides all the late South-Sea directors, all which I chuse to have forgotten, as no doubt they desire to be, in recording the wealth and opulence of this part of England, which I doubt not to convince you infinitely out does the whole world.

I am come now to Southwark, a suburb to, rather than a part of London; but of which this may be said with justice.

A royal city were not London by.

To give you a brief description of Southwark, it might be call’d a long street, of about nine miles in length, as it is now built on eastward; reaching from Vaux-Hall to London-Bridge, and from the bridge to Deptford, all up to Deptford-Bridge, which parts it from Greenwich, all the way winding and turning as the river winds and turns; except only in that part, which reaches from Cuckold’s -Point to Deptford, which indeed winds more than the river does.

In the center, which is opposite to the bridge, it is thicken’d with buildings, and may be reckoned near a mile broad; (viz.) from the bridge to the end of Kent-street and Blackman-street, and about the Mint; but else the whole building is but narrow, nor indeed can it be otherwise; considering the length of it.

The principal beauty of the borrough of Southwark, consists in the prodigious number of its inhabitants: Take it as it was antiently bounded, it contain’d nine parishes; but as it is now extended, and, as I say, joins with Deptford, it contains eleven large parishes: According to the weekly-bills, for the year 1722, the nine parishes only bury’d 4166, which is about one sixth part of the whole body, call’d London; the bill of mortallity for that year, amounting in all to 25750.

The first thing we meet with considerable, is at the Spring-Garden, just at the corner, where the road turns away to go from Vaux-Hall Turnpike, towards Newington, there are the remains of the old lines cast up in the times of the Rebellion, to fortify this side of the town; and at that corner was a very large bastion, or rather a fort, and such indeed they call it; which commanded all the pass on that side, and farther on, where the openings near St. George’s -Fields are, which they now call the Ducking-Pond, there was another; the water they call the Ducking-Pond, is evidently to this day the moat of the fort, and the lines are so high, and so undemolish’d still, that a very little matter would repair and perfect them again.

From hence they turn’d south east, and went to the windmill, at the end of Blackman-street, where they crossed the road, and going to the end of Kent-street, we see another great bastion; and then turning S.E. till they come to the end of Barnaby-street, or rather beyond, among the tanners, and there you see another fort, so plain, and so undemolish’d, the grass growing now over the works, that it is as plain as it was, even when it was thrown down.

Here is also another remain of antiquity, the vestiges of which are easy to be traced; (viz.) The place where by strength of men’s hands, they turn’d the channel of this great river of Thames, and made a new course for the waters, while the great bridge, which is now standing, was built: Here it is evident they turn’d the waters out: (viz.) About a place call’d Nine Elms, just beyond Vaux-Hall, where now a little brook, from the Wash-way at Kennington, and which they once attempted to make navigable, enters the Thames, from thence it cross’d the great road, a little beyond the end of the houses in Newington; between which and Kennington Common, on the left of the road, as you go south, there is a very large pond, or lake of water, part of the channel not fill’d up to this day; from thence it enter’d the marshes between Rotherif and Deptford, where for many years after there remained a drain for the water, upon which was a large mill-pond and dam, and where since was built the second great wet-dock, said to belong to the Duke of Bedford’s estate, and call’d at first Snellgrove’s -Dock, because built by one Mr. Snellgrove, a shipwright, whose building-yards adjoin’d it. A farther description of Southwark, I refer till I come to speak of London, as one general appellation for the two cities of London and Westminster; and all the burrough of Southwark, and all the buildings and villages included within the bills of mortallity, make but one London, in the general appellation, of which in its order. I am, &c.

Letter III. Containing A Description Of The South Coasts Of Hampshire, Wilts, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, And Cornwall

London to Winchester

SIR — I find so much left to speak of, and so many things to say in every part of England, that my journey cannot be barren of intelligence, which way soever I turn; no, tho’ I were to oblige myself to say nothing of any thing that had been spoken of before.

I intended once to have gone due west this journey; but then I should have been obliged to croud my observations so close, (to bring Hampton-Court, Windsor, Blenheim, Oxford, the Bath and Bristol, all into one letter; all those remarkable places lying in a line, as it were, in one point of the compass) as to have made my letter too long, or my observations too light and superficial, as others have done before me.

This letter will divide the weighty task, and consequently make it fit lighter on the memory, be pleasanter to the reader, and make my progress the more regular: I shall therefore take in Hampton-Court and Windsor in this journey; the first at my setting out, and the last at my return, and the rest as their situation demands.

As I came down from Kingston, in my last circuit, by the south bank of the Thames, on the Surrey side of the river; so I go up to Hampton Court, now, on the north bank, and on the Middlesex side, which I mention, because as the sides of the country bordering on the river, lie parallel, so the beauty of the country, the pleasant situations, the glory of innumerable fine buildings, noblemens and gentlemens houses, and citizens retreats, are so equal a match to what I had described on the other side, that one knows not which to give the preference to: But as I must speak of them again, when I come to write of the county of Middlesex, which I have now purposely omitted; so I pass them over here, except the palace of Hampton only, which I mentioned in Middlesex, for the reasons above.

Hampton Court lyes on the north bank of the river Thames, about two small miles from Kingston, and on the road from Stanes to Kingston Bridge; so that the road straightening the parks a little, they were obliged to part the parks, and leave the Paddock, and the Great Park, part on the other side the road; a testimony of that just regard that the Kings of England always had, and still have, to the common good, and to the service of the country, that they would not interrupt the course of the road, or cause the poor people to go out of the way of their business, to or from the markets and fairs, for any pleasure of their own whatsoever.

The palace of Hampton-Court was first founded, and built from the ground, by that great statesman, and favourite of King Henry VIII. Cardinal Wolsey; and if it be a just observation any where, as is made from the situation of the old abbies and monasteries, the clergy were excellent judges of the beauty and pleasantness of the country, and chose always to plant in the best; I say, if it was a just observation in any case, it was in this; for if there be a situation on the whole river between Stanes-Bridge and Windsor-Bridge, pleasanter than another, it is this of Hampton; close to the river, yet not offended by the rising of its waters in floods, or storms, near to the reflux of the tides, but not quite so near as to be affected with any foulness of the water, which the flowing of the tides generally is the occasion of. The gardens extend almost to the bank of the river, yet are never overflow’d; nor are there any marshes on either side the river to make the waters stagnate, or the air unwholesome on that account. The river is high enough to be navigable, and low enough to be a little pleasantly rapid; so that the stream looks always chearful, not slow and sleeping, like a pond. This keeps the waters always clear and clean, the bottom in view, the fish playing, and in sight; and, in a word, it has every thing that can make an inland; or, as I may call it, a country river, pleasant and agreeable.

I shall sing you no songs here of the river in the first person of a water nymph, a goddess, (and I know not what) according to the humour of the ancient poets. I shall talk nothing of the marriage of old Isis, the male river, with the beautiful Thame, the female river, a whimsy as simple as the subject was empty, but I shall speak of the river as occasion presents, as it really is made glorious by the splendor of its shores, gilded with noble palaces, strong fortifications, large hospitals, and publick buildings; with the greatest bridge, and the greatest city in the world, made famous by the opulence of its merchants, the encrease and extensiveness of its commerce; by its invincible navies, and by the innumerable fleets of ships sailing upon it, to and from all parts of the world.

As I meet with the river upwards in my travels thro’ the inland country, I shall speak of it, as it is the chanel for conveying an infinite quantity of provisions from remote counties to London, and enriching all the counties again that lye near it, by the return of wealth and trade from the city; and in describing these things I expect both to inform and divert my readers, and speak, in a more masculine manner, more to the dignity of the subject, and also more to their satisfaction, than I could do any other way.

There is little more to be said of the Thames, relating to Hampton-Court, than that it adds, by its neighbourhood, to the pleasure of the situation; for as to passing by water too and from London; tho’ in summer ’tis exceeding pleasant, yet the passage is a little too long to make it easy to the ladies, especially to be crowded up in the small boats, which usually go upon the Thames for pleasure.

The prince and princess, indeed, I remember came once down by water, upon the occasion of her royal highnesses being great with child, and near her time; so near, that she was delivered within two or three days after: But this passage being in the royal barges, with strength of oars, and the day exceeding fine, the passage, I say, was made very pleasant, and still the more so, for being short. Again, this passage is all the way with the stream, whereas, in the common passage, upwards, great part of the way is against the stream, which is slow and heavy.

But be the going and coming how it will by water, ’tis an exceeding pleasant passage by land, whether we go by the Surrey side or the Middlesex side of the water, of which I shall say more in its place.

The situation of Hampton-Court being thus mention’d, and its founder, ’tis to be mention’d next, that it fell to the Crown in the forfeiture of his eminence the cardinal, when the king seiz’d his effects and estate, by which this and Whitehall, another house of his own building also, came to King Henry VIII. two palaces fit for the Kings of England, erected by one cardinal, are standing monuments of the excessive pride, as well as the immense wealth of that prelate, who knew no bounds of his insolence and ambition, till he was overthrown at once by the displeasure of his master.

Whoever knew Hampton-Court before it was begun to be rebuilt, or alter’d, by the late King William, must acknowledge it was a very compleat palace before, and fit for a king; and tho’ it might not, according to the modern method of building, or of gardening, pass for a thing exquisitely fine; yet it had this remaining to itself, and perhaps peculiar; namely, that it shewed a situation exceedingly capable of improvement, and of being made one of the most delightful palaces in Europe.

This Her Majesty Queen Mary was so sensible of, that while the king had order’d the pulling down the old apartments, and building it up in that most beautiful form, which we see them now appear in, her majesty, impatient of enjoying so agreeable a retreat, fix’d upon a building formerly made use of chiefly for landing from the river, and therefore call’d the Water Gallery; and here, as if she had been conscious that she had but a few years to enjoy it, she order’d all the little neat curious things to be done, which suited her own conveniences, and made it the pleasantest little thing within doors that could possibly be made, tho’ its situation being such, as it could not be allowed to stand after the great building was finished; we now see no remains of it.

The queen had here her gallery of beauties, being the pictures, at full length, of the principal ladies attending upon her majesty, or who were frequently in her retinue; and this was the more beautiful sight, because the originals were all in being, and often to be compar’d with their pictures. Her majesty had here a fine apartment, with a sett of lodgings, for her private retreat only, but most exquisitely furnish’d; particularly a fine chints bed, then a great curiosity; another of her own work, while in Holland, very magnificent, and several others; and here was also her majesty’s fine collection of Delft ware, which indeed was very large and fine; and here was also a vast stock of fine China ware, the like whereof was not then to be seen in England; the long gallery, as above, was fill’d with this china, and every other place, where it could be plac’d, with advantage.

The queen had here also a small bathing-room, made very fine, suited either to hot or cold bathing, as the season should invite; also a dairy, with all its conveniences, in which her majesty took great delight: All these things were finish’d with expedition, that here their majesties might repose while they saw the main building go forward. While this was doing, the gardens were laid out, the plan of them devised by the king himself; and especially the amendments and alterations were made by the king, or the queen’s particular special command, or by both; for their majesties agreed so well in their fancy, and had both so good judgment in the just proportions of things, which are the principal beauties of a garden, that it may be said they both order’d every thing that was done.

Here the fine parcel of limes, which form the semi-circle on the south front of the house, by the iron gates, looking into the park, were by the dextrous hand of the head gardener, remov’d, after some of them had been almost thirty years planted in other places, tho’ not far of. I know the King of France, in the decoration of the gardens of Versailles, had oaks remov’d, which, by their dimensions, must have been above an hundred years old, and yet were taken up with so much art, and by the strength of such engines, by which such a monsterous quantity of earth was raised with them, that the trees could not feel their remove; that is to say, their growth was not at all hinder’d. This I confess, makes the wonder much the less in those trees at Hampton-Court gardens; but the performance was not the less difficult or nice, however, in these, and they thrive perfectly well.

While the gardens were thus laid out, the king also directed the laying the pipes for the fountain and jette d’eau’s; and particularly the dimensions of them, and what quantity of water they should cast up, and encreas’d the number of them after the first design.

The ground on the side of the other front, has receiv’d some alterations since the taking down the water gallery; but not that part immediately next the lodgings: The orange trees, and fine Dutch bays, are plac’d within the arches of the building under the first floor: so that the lower part of the house was all one as a green house for some time: Here stands advanced, on two pedestals of stone, two marble vases, or flower pots, of most exquisite workmanship; the one done by an Englishman, and the other by a German: ’Tis hard to say which is the best performance, tho’ the doing of it was a kind of tryal of skill between them; but it gives us room, without partiality, to say they were both masters of their art.

The parterre on that side descends from the terrass walk by steps, and on the left a terrass goes down to the water-side, from which the garden on the eastward front is overlook’d, and gives a most pleasant prospect.

The fine scrolls and bordure of these gardens were at first edg’d with box; but on the queen’s disliking the smell, those edgings were taken up, but have since been planted again, at least in many places, nothing making so fair and regular an edging as box, or is so soon brought to its perfection.

On the north side of the house, where the gardens seem’d to want skreening from the weather, or the view of the chapel, and some part of the old building requir’d to be cover’d from the eye; the vacant ground, which was large, is very happily cast into a wilderness, with a labyrinth, and espaliers so high, that they effectually take off all that part of the old building, which would have been offensive to the sight. This labyrinth and wilderness is not only well design’d, and compleatly finished, but is perfectly well kept, and the espaliers fill’d exactly, at bottom to the very ground, and are led up to proportion’d heights on the top; so that nothing of that kind can be more beautiful.

The house itself is every way answerable on the outside to the beautiful prospect, and the two fronts are the largest, and, beyond comparison, the finest of the kind in England: The great stairs go up from the second court of the palace on the right hand, and lead you to the south prospect.

I hinted in my last that King William brought into England the love of fine paintings, as well as that of fine gardens; and you have an example of it in the cartoons, as they are call’d, being five pieces of such paintings, as, if you will believe men of nice judgment and great travelling, are not to be match’d in Europe: The stories are known, but especially two of them, viz. that of St. Paul preaching on Mars-Hill to the self-wise Athenians, and that of St. Peter passing sentence of death on Ananias; I say, these two strike the mind with the utmost surprize; the passions are so drawn to the life, astonishment, terror and death in the face of Ananias; zeal and a sacred fire in the eyes of the blessed apostle; fright and surprize upon the countenances of the beholders in the piece of Ananias; all these describe themselves so naturally, that you cannot but seem to discover something of the like passions, even in seeing them.

In the other, there is the boldness and courage with which St. Paul undertook to talk to a sett of men, who he knew despis’d all the world, as thinking themselves able to teach them any thing: In the audience, there is anticipating pride and conceit in some, a smile or fleer of contempt in others, but a kind of sensible conviction, tho’ crush’d in its beginning, on the faces of the rest; and all together appear confounded, but have little to say, and know nothing at all of it, they gravely put him off to hear him another time; all these are seen here in the very dress of the face; that is, the very countenances which they hold while they listen to the new doctrine, which the apostle preached to a people at that time ignorant of it.

The other of the cartoons are exceeding fine; but I mention these as the particular two which are most lively, which strike the fancy the soonest at first view: ’Tis reported, but with what truth I know not, that the late French king offer’d an hundred thousand louis d’ors for these pictures; but this, I say, is but a report: The king brought a great many other fine pieces to England, and with them the love of fine paintings so universally spread itself among the nobility and persons of figure all over the kingdom, that it is incredible what collections have been made by English gentlemen since that time; and how all Europe has been rumag’d, as we may say, for pictures to bring over hither, where, for twenty years, they yielded the purchasers, such as collected them for sale, immense profit: But the rates are abated since that, and we begin to be glutted with the copies and frauds of the Dutch and Flemish painters, who have imposed grossly upon us. But to return to the palace of Hampton-Court: Queen Mary liv’d not to see it compleatly finished; and her death, with the other difficulties of that reign, put a stop to the works for some time, till the king reviving his good liking of the place, set them to work again, and it was finished, as we see it: But I have been assur’d, that had the peace continu’d, and the king liv’d to enjoy the continuance of it, his majesty had resolv’d to have pull’d down all the remains of the old building; such as the chapel, and the large court within the first gate, and to have built up the whole palace after the manner of those two fronts already done. In these would have been an entire sett of rooms of state for the receiving, and, if need had been, lodging, and entertaining any foreign prince, with his retinue; also offices for all the Secretaries of State, Lords of the Treasury, and of trade; to have repair’d to for the dispatch of such business, as it might be necessary to have done there upon the king’s longer residence there than ordinary; as also apartments for all the great officers of the houshold; so that had the house had two great squares added, as was design’d, there would have been no room to spare, or that would not have been very well fill’d: But the king’s death put an end to all these things.

Since the death of King William, Hampton-Court seem’d abandon’d of its patron: They have gotten a kind of proverbial saying relating to Hampton-Court, viz. That it has been generally chosen by every other prince, since it became a house of note. King Charles was the first that delighted in it since Queen Elizabeth’s time; as for the reigns before, it was but newly forfeited to the Crown, and was not made a royal house till King Charles I. who was not only a prince that delighted in country retirements, but knew how to make choice of them by the beauty of their situation, the goodness of the air, &c. he took great delight here, and, had he liv’d to enjoy it in peace, had purposed to make it another thing than it was: But we all know what took him off from that felicity, and all others; and this house was at last made one of his prisons by his rebellious subjects.

His son, King Charles II. may well be said to have an aversion to the place, for the reason just mention’d, namely, the treatment his royal father met with there; and particularly that the rebel and murtherer of his father, Cromwell, afterwards possess’d this palace, and revel’d here in the blood of the royal party, as he had done in that of his sovereign; King Charles II. Therefore chose Windsor, and bestow’d a vast sum in beautifying the castle there, and which brought it to the perfection we see it in at this day; some few alterations excepted, done hi the time of King William.

King William, for King James is not to be nam’d as to his choice of retir’d palaces, his delight running quite another way; I say, King William fix’d upon Hampton Court; and it was in his reign that Hampton Court put on new cloaths, and being dress’d gay and glorious, made the figure we now see it in.

The late queen, taken up for part of her reign in her kind regards to the prince her spouse, was oblig’d to reside where her care of his health confin’d her, and in this case kept for the most part at Kensington, where he died; but her majesty always discovered her delight to be at Windsor, where she chose the little house, as ’twas call’d, opposite to the castle, and took the air in her chaise in the parks and forest, as she saw occasion.

Now Hampton Court, by the like alternative, is come into request again; and we find his present majesty, who is a good judge too of the pleasantness and situation of a place of that kind, has taken Hampton-Court into his favour, and has made it much his choice for the summer’s retreat of the Court, and where they may best enjoy the diversions of the season: When Hampton Court will find such another favourable juncture as in King William’s time, when the remainder of her ashes shall be swept away, and her compleat fabric, as design’d by King William, shall be finish’d, I cannot tell; but if ever that shall be, I know no palace in Europe, Versailles excepted, which can come up to her, either for beauty and magnificence, or for extent of building, and the ornaments attending it.

From Hampton Court I directed my course for a journey into the south west part of England; and, to take up my beginning where I concluded my last, I cross’d to Chertsey on the Thames, a town I mentioned before; from whence crossing the Black Desert, as I call’d it, of Bagshot-Heath, I directed my course for Hampshire, or Hantshire, and particularly for Basingstoke; that is to say, that a little before I pass’d into the great western road upon the heath, somewhat west of Bagshot, at a village called Blackwater, and enter’d Hampshire, near Hartleroe.

Before we reach Basingstoke, we get rid of that unpleasant country, which I so often call a desart, and enter into a pleasant fertile country, enclosed and cultivated like the rest of England; and passing a village or two, we enter Basingstoke, in the midst of woods and pastures, rich and fertile, and the country accordingly spread with the houses of the nobility and gentry, as in other places: On the right hand, a little before we come to the town, we pass at a small distance the famous fortress, so it was then, of Basing, being a house belonging then to the Marquis of Winchester, the great ancestor of the present family of the Dukes of Bolton.

This house, garrison’d by a resolute band of old soldiers, was a great curb to the rebels of the Parliament Party, almost thro7 that whole war; till it was, after a vigorous defence, yielded to the conquerors, by the inevitable fate of things at that time. The old house is indeed demolish’d; but the successor of the family, the first Duke of Bolton, has erected a very noble fabrick in the same place, or near it, which, however, is not equal to the magnificence which fame gives to the ancient house, whose strength of building only, besides the out-works, withstood the battery of cannon in several attacks, and repuls’d the Roundheads, three or four times, when they attempted to besiege it: ’Tis incredible what booty the garrison of this place pick’d up, lying, as they did, just on the great western road, where they intercepted the carriers, plundered the waggons, and suffer’d nothing to pass; to the great interruption of the trade of the city of London.

Basingstoke is a large populous market town, has a good market for corn, and lately, within a very few years, is fallen into a manufacture, viz. of making druggets and shalloons, and such slight goods, which, however, employs a good number of the poor people, and enables them to get their bread, which knew not how to get it before.

From hence the great western road goes on to Whitchurch and Andover, two market towns, and sending members to Parliament; at the last of which, the Downs, or open country, begins, which we in general, tho’ falsly, call Salisbury-Plain: But my resolution being to take in my view what I had pass’d by before; I was oblig’d to go off to the left hand, to Alresford and Winchester.

Alresford was a flourishing market town, and remarkable for this; That tho’ it had no great trade, and particularly very little, if any manufactures, yet there was no collection in the town for the poor, nor any poor low enough to take alms of the parish, which is what I do not think can be said of any town in England besides.

But this happy circumstance, which so distinguish’d Alresford from all her neighbours, was brought to an end in the year ——— when, by a sudden and surprizing fire, the whole town, with both the church and the market-house, was reduc’d to a heap of rubbish; and, except a few poor hutts at the remotest ends of the town, not a house left standing: The town is since that very handsomely rebuilt, and the neighbouring gentlemen contributed largely to the relief of the people, especially, by sending in timber towards their building; also their Market-house is handsomely built; but the church not yet, tho’ we hear there is a fund raising likewise for that.

Here is a very large pond, or lake of water, kept up to a head, by a strong batterd’eau, or dam, which the people tell us was made by the Romans; and that it is to this day part of the great Roman highway, which leads from Winchester to Alton, and, as ’tis supposed, went on to London, tho’ we no where see any remains of it, except between Winchester and Alton, and chiefly between this town and Alton.

Near this town, a little north-west, the Duke of Bolton has another seat, which, tho’ not large, is a very handsome beautiful palace, and the gardens not only very exact, but very finely situate, the prospect and visto’s noble and great, and the whole very well kept.

From hence, at the end of seven miles over the Downs, we come to the very ancient city of Winchester; not only the great church, which is so famous all over Europe, and has been so much talk’d of, but even the whole city has, at a distance, the face of venerable, and looks ancient a far off; and yet here are many modern buildings too, and some very handsome; as the college schools; with the bishop’s palace, built by Bishop Morley, since the late wars; the old palace of the bishop having been ruin’d by that known church incendiary, Sir William Waller, and his crew of plunderers; who, if my information is not wrong, as I believe it is not, destroyed more monuments of the dead, and defac’d more churches, than all the Round-heads in England beside.

This church, and the schools, also are accurately described by several writers, especially by the Monasticon, where their antiquity and original is fully set forth: The outside of the church is as plain and course, as if the founders had abhor’d ornaments, or that William of Wickham had been a Quaker, or at least a Quietist: There is neither statue, or a nich for a statue, to be seen on all the outside; no carv’d work, no spires, towers, pinacles, balustrades, or any thing; but meer walls, buttresses, windows, and coins, necessary to the support and order of the building: It has no steeple, but a short tower covered flat, as if the top of it had fallen down, and it had been cover’d in haste to keep the rain out, till they had time to build it up again.

But the inside of the church has many very good things in it, and worth observation; it was for some ages the burying place of the English Saxon kings; whose reliques, at the repair of the church, were collected by Bishop Fox, and, being put together into large wooden chests, lin’d with lead, were again interr’d at the foot of the great wall in the choir, three on one side, and three on the other; with an account whose bones are in each chest, whether the division of the reliques might be depended upon, has been doubted, but is not thought material, so that we do but believe they are all there.

The choir of the church appears very magnificent; the roof is very high, and the Gothick work in the arch’d part is very fine, tho’ very old; the painting in the windows is admirably good, and easy to be distinguished by those that understand those things: The steps ascending to the choir make a very fine show, having the statues of King James, and his son King Charles, in copper, finely cast; the first on the right hand, and the other on the left, as you go up to the choir.

The choir is said to be the longest in England; and as the number of prebendaries, canons, &c. are many, it required such a length. The ornaments of the choir are the effects of the bounty of several bishops; the fine altar (the noblest in England by much) was done by Bishop Morley; the roof, and the coat of arms of the Saxon and Norman kings, were done by Bishop Fox; and the fine throne, for the bishop in the choir, was given by Bishop Mew, in his life-time; and it was well it was; for if he had order’d it by will, there is reason to believe it had never been done. That reverend prelate, notwithstanding he enjoy’d so rich a bishoprick, scarce leaving money enough behind him, to pay for his coffin.

There are a great many persons of rank bury’d in this church, besides the Saxon kings, mentioned above; and besides several of the most eminent bishops of the see: Just under the altar lyes a son of William the Conqueror, without any monument; and behind the altar, under a very fine and venerable monument, lyes the famous Lord Treasurer, Weston, late Earl of Portland, Lord High Treasurer of England under King Charles I. His effigy is in copper armour, at full length, with his head rais’d on three cushions of the same, and is a very magnificent work: There is also a very fine monument of Cardinal Beaufort, in his cardinal’s robes and hat.

The monument of Sir John Cloberry is extraordinary, but more, because it puts strangers upon enquiring into his story, than for any thing wonderful in the figure, it being cut in a modern dress; the habit gentlemen wore in those times, which, being now so much out of fashion, appears mean enough: But this gentleman’s story is particular, being the person solely entrusted with the secret of the Restoration of King Charles II. as the messenger that pass’d between General Monk on one hand, and Mr. Montague, and others entrusted by King Charles II. on the other hand; which he manag’d so faithfully, as to effect that memorable event, to which England owes the felicity of all her happy days since that time; by which faithful service, Sir John Cloberry, then a private musqueteer only, rais’d himself to the honour of a knight, with the reward of a good estate from the bounty of the king.

Every body that goes into this church, and reads what is to be read there, will be told, that the body of the church was built by the famous William of Wickham; whose monument, intimating his fame, lyes in the middle of that part, which was built at his expence.

He was a courtier before a bishop; and tho’ he had no great share of learning, he was a great promoter of it, and a lover of learned men: His natural genius was much beyond his acquir’d parts, and his skill in politicks beyond his ecclesiastick knowledge: He is said to have put his master, King Edward III. to whom he was Secretary of State, upon the two great projects which made his reign so glorious, viz. First, upon setting up his claim to the crown of France, and pushing that claim by force of arms, which brought on the war with France, in which that prince was three times victorious in battle. (2.) Upon setting up, or instituting the Order of the Garter; in which he (being before that made Bishop of Winchester) obtain’d the honour for the Bishops of Winchester, of being always prelates of the Order, as an appendix to the bishoprick; and he himself was the first prelate of the Order, and the ensigns of that honour are joyn’d with his episcopal ornaments, in the robing of his effigy on the monument above.

To the honour of this bishop, there are other foundations of his, as much to his fame as that of this church, of which I shall speak in their order; but particularly the college in this city, which is a noble foundation indeed: The building consists of two large courts, in which are the lodgings for the masters and scholars, and in the center a very noble chapel; beyond that, in the second court, are the schools, with a large cloyster beyond them, and some enclosures laid open for the diversion of the scholars. There also is a great hall, where the scholars dine: The funds for the support of this college are very considerable; the masters live in a very good figure, and their maintenance is sufficient to support it: They have all seperate dwellings in the house, and all possible conveniences appointed them.

The scholars have exhibitions at a certain time of continuance here, if they please to study, in the new college at Oxford, built by the same noble benefactor, of which I shall speak in its order. The clergy here live at large, and very handsomely, in the close belonging to the cathedral; where, besides the bishop’s palace, mention’d above, are very good houses, and very handsomely built, for the prebendaries, canons, and other dignitaries of this church: The deanary is a very pleasant dwelling, the gardens very large, and the river running thro’ them; but the floods in winter sometimes incommode the gardens very much.

This school has fully answer’d the end of the founder, who, tho’ he was no great scholar, resolv’d to erect a house for the making the ages to come more learned than those that went before; and it had, I say, fully answer’d the end, for many learned and great men have been rais’d here, some of whom we shall have occasion to mention as we go on.

Among the many private inscriptions in this church, we found one made by Dr. Over, once an eminent physician in this city, on a mother and child, who, being his patients, died together, and were bury’d in the same grave, and which intimate, that one died of a fever, and the other of a dropsy.

Surrepuit natum febris matrem Abstulit Hydrops,
Igne Prior fatis, altera Cessit Aqua.

As the city it self stands in a vale on the bank, and at the conjunction of two small rivers, so the country rising every way, but just as the course of the water keeps the valley open, you must necessarily, as you go out of the gates, go up hill every way: But when once ascended, you come to the most charming plains, and most pleasant country of that kind in England; which continues, with very small intersections of rivers and valleys, for above fifty miles, as shall appear in the sequel of this journey.

At the west gate of this city was anciently a castle, known to be so by the ruins, more than by any extraordinary notice taken of it in history: What they say of it, that the Saxon kings kept their Court here, is doubtful, and must be meant of the West Saxons only; and as to the tale of King Arthur’s round table, which, they pretend, was kept here for him, and his two dozen of knights; which table hangs up still, as a piece of antiquity, to the tune of 1200 years, and has, as they pretend, the names of the said knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man can read: All this story I see so little ground to give the least credit to, that I look upon it, and it shall please you, to be no better than a FIBB.

Where this castle stood, or whatever else it was, for some say there was no castle there, the late King Charles II. mark’d out, a very noble design; which had he livd, would certainly have made that part of the country, the New-Market of the ages to come; for the country hereabout far excels that of New-Market Heath, for all kinds of sport and diversion, fit for a prince, no body can dispute; and as the design included a noble palace, sufficient like Windsor, for a summer residence of the whole Court, it would certainly have diverted the king from his cursory journeys to New-Market.

The plan of this house has received several alterations; and as it is never like to be finish’d, ’tis scarce worth recording the variety: The building is begun, and the front next the city carry’d up to the roof, and cover’d; but the remainder is not begun: There was a street of houses design’d from the gate of the palace down to the town, but it was never begun to be built; the park mark’d out was exceeding large, near ten miles in circumference, and ended west upon the open downs, in view of the town of Stockbridge.

This house was afterwards settled with a royal revenue also, as an appenage, establish’d by Parliament upon Prince George of Denmark for his life, in case he had out-liv’d the queen: But his royal highness dying before her majesty, all hope of seeing this design perfected, or the house finished, is now vanish’d.

I cannot omit that there are several publick edifices in this city, and in the neighbourhood; as the hospitals, and the building adjoining near the east gate; and towards the north, a piece of an old monastry undemolish’d, and which is still preserved to the religion, being the residence of some private Roman Catholick gentlemen, where they have an oratory, and, as they say, live still according to the rules of St. Benedict. This building is call’d Hide-House; and, as they live very usefully and, to the highest degree, obliging among their neighbours, they meet with no obstruction or disturbance from any body.

Winchester is a place of no trade, other than is naturally occasion’d by the inhabitants of the city and neighbouring villages, one with another: Here is no manufacture, no navigation; there was indeed an attempt to make the river navigable from Southampton; and it was once made practicable, but it never answer’d the expence, so as to give encouragement to the undertakers.

Here is a great deal of good company; and abundance of gentry being in the neighbourhood, it adds to the sociableness of the place: The clergy also here are, generally speaking, very rich, and very numerous.

As there is such good company, so they are gotten into that new-fashion’d way of conversing by assemblies: I shall do no more than mention them here; they are pleasant and agreeable to the young people, and some times fatal to them, of which, in its place; Winchester has its share of the mirth: May it escape the ill consequences.

The hospital on the south of this city, at a miles distance on the road to Southampton, is worth notice:?Tis said to be founded by King William Rufus, but was not endow’d or appointed till later times by Cardinal Beaufort. Every traveller that knocks at the door of this house, in his way, and asks for it, claims the relief of a piece of white bread and a cup of beer; and this donation is still continued; a quantity of good beer is set apart every day to be given away; and what is left, is distributed to other poor, but none of it kept to the next day.

How the revenues of this hospital, which should maintain the master and thirty private gentlemen, who they call Fellows, but ought to call Brothers, is now reduc’d to maintain only fourteen, while the master lives in a figure equal to the best gentleman in the country, would be well worth the enquiry of a proper visitor, if such can be nam’d:?Tis a thing worthy of complaint, when publick charaties, design’d for the relief of the poor, are embezzel’d and depredated by the rich, and turn’d to the support of luxury and pride.

Salisbury and Dorset

From Winchester, is about 25 miles, and over the most charming plains that can any where be seen, (far in my opinion) excelling the plains of Mecca, we come to Salisbury; the vast flocks of sheep, which one every where sees upon these downs, and the great number of those flocks, is a sight truly worth observation; ’tis ordinary for these flocks to contain from 3 to 5000 in a flock; and several private farmers hereabouts have two or three such flocks.

But ’tis more remarkable still; how a great part of these downs comes by a new method of husbandry, to be not only made arable, which they never were in former days, but to bear excellent wheat, and great crops too, tho’ otherwise poor barren land, and never known to our ancestors to be capable of any such thing; nay, they would perhaps have laugh’d at any one that would have gone about to plough up the wild downs and hills, where the sheep were wont to go: But experience has made the present age wiser, and more skilful in husbandry; for by only folding the sheep upon the plow’d lands, those lands, which otherwise are barren, and where the plow goes within three or four inches of the solid rock of chalk, are made fruitful, and bear very good wheat, as well as rye and barley: I shall say more of this when I come to speak of the same practice farther in the country.

This plain country continues in length from Winchester to Salisbury 25 miles, from thence to Dorchester 22 miles, thence to Weymouth 6 miles, so that they lye near 50 miles in length, and breadth; they reach also in some places 35 to 40 miles: They who would make any practicable guess at the number of sheep usually fed on these downs, may take it from a calculation made, as I was told, at Dorchester, that there were 600000 sheep fed within 6 miles of that town, measuring every way round, and the town in the center.

As we pass’d this plain country, we saw a great many old camps, as well Roman as British, and several remains of the ancient inhabitants of this kingdom, and of their wars, battles, entrenchments, encampments, buildings, and other fortifications, which are indeed very agreeable to a traveller, that has read any thing of the history of the country. Old Sarum is as remarkable as any of these, where there is a double entrenchment, with a deep graffe, or ditch, to either of them; the area about 100 yards in diameter, taking in the whole crown of the hill, and thereby rendering the ascent very difficult: Near this, there is one farm house, which is all the remains I could see of any town in or near the place, for the encampment has no resemblance of a-town; and yet this is called the borough of Old Sarum, and sends two members to Parliament, who, those members can justly say, they represent, would be hard for them to answer.

Some will have it, that the old city of Sorbiodunum, or Salisbury, stood here, and was afterwards, for I know not what reasons, remov’d to the low marshy grounds, among the rivers, where it now stands: But as I see no authority for it, other than mere tradition, I believe my share of it, and take it ad referendum.

Salisbury itself is indeed a large and pleasant city; tho’ I do not think it at all the pleasanter for that which they boast so much of; namely, the water running thro’ the middle of every street, or that it adds any thing to the beauty of the place, but just the contrary; it keeps the streets always dirty, full of wet and filth, and weeds, even in the middle of summer.

The city is plac’d upon the confluence of two large rivers, the Avon and the Willy, either of them considerable rivers, but very large, when joyn’d together, and yet larger when they receive a third river, viz. the Naddir, which joyns them near Clarendon Park, about three miles below the city; then, with a deep channel, and a current less rapid, they run down to Christ Church, which is their port, and where they empty themselves into the sea; from that town upwards, towards Salisbury, they are made navigable too within two miles, and might be so quite into the city, were it not for the strength of the stream.

As the city of Winchester is a city without trade, that is to say, without any particular manufactures; so this city of Salisbury, and all the county of Wilts, of which it is the capital, are full of a great variety of manufactures; and those some of the most considerable in England; namely, the cloathing trade, and the trade of flannels, drugets, and several other sorts of manufactures, of which in their order.

The city of Salisbury has two remarkable manufactures carried on in it, and which employ the poor of great part of the country round; namely, fine flannels, and long cloths for the Turkey trade, call’d Salisbury Whites: The people of Salisbury are gay and rich, and have a flourishing trade; and there is a great deal of good manners and good company among them; I mean, among the citizens, besides what is found among the gentlemen; for there are many good families in Salisbury, besides the citizens.

This society has a great addition from the Closs, that is to say, the circle of ground wall’d in adjacent to the cathedral; in which the families of the prebendaries and commons, and others of the clergy belonging to the cathedral have their houses, as is usual in all cities where there are cathedral churches. These are so considerable here, and the place so large, that it is (as it is call’d in general) like another city.

The cathedral is famous for the height of its spire, which is without exception the highest, and the handsomest in England, being from the ground 410 foot, and yet the walls so exceeding thin, that at the upper part of the spire upon a view made by the late Christopher Wren, the wall was found to be less than five inches thick; upon which a consultation was had, whether the spire, or at least the upper part of it should be taken down, it being suppos’d to have receiv’d some damage by the great storm in the year 1703; but it was resolv’d in the negative, and Sir Christopher order’d it to be so strengthened with bands of iron plates, as has effectually secur’d it; and I have heard some of the best architects say, it is stronger now than when it was first built.

They tell us here long stories of the great art us’d in laying the first foundations of this church; the ground being marshy and wet, occasioned by the channels of the rivers; that it was laid upon piles according to some, and upon woolpacks according to others; but this is not suppos’d by those who know, that the whole country is one rock of chalk, even from the tops of the highest hills, to the bottom of the deepest rivers.

They tell us, this church was 40 years a building, and cost an immense sum of money, but it must be acknowledged that the inside of the work is not answerable in the decoration of things, to the workmanship without; the painting in the choir is mean, and more like the ordinary method of common drawing room, or tavern painting, than that of a church; the carving is good, but very little of it, and it is rather a fine church than finely set off.

The ordinary boast of this building, that there were as many gates as months, as many windows as days, as many marble pillars as hours in the year, is now no recommendation at all. However the mention of it must be preserved.

As many days as in one year there be,
So many windows in one church we see;
As many marble pillars there appear,
As there are hours throughout the fleeting year;
As many gates as moons one year do view:
Strange tale to tell, yet not more strange than true.

There are however some very fine monuments in this church; particularly one belonging to the noble family of Seymours, since Dukes of Somerset, (and ancestors of the present flourishing family,) which on a most melancholly occasion has been now lately open’d again to receive the body of the late Dutchess of Somerset, the happy consort for almost 40 years of his grace the present duke; and only daughter and heiress of the antient and noble family of Piercy, Earls of Northumberland, whose great estate she brought into the family of Somerset, who now enjoy it.

With her was bury’d at the same time her graces daughter the Marchioness of Caermarthen, being married to the Marquess of Caermarthen, son and heir apparent to the Lord of Leeds, who dy’d for grief at the loss of the dutchess her mother, and was buried with her; also her second son the Duke Piercy Somerset, who dyed a few months before, and had been buryed in the abby-church of Westminster, but was order’d to be remov’d and laid here with the ancestors of his house; and I hear his grace designs to have a yet more magnificent monument erected in this cathedral for them, just by the other, which is there already.

How the Dukes of Somerset came to quit this church for their burying-place, and be laid in Westminster-Abbey, that I know not; but ’tis certain that the present duke has chosen to have his family laid here with their ancestors, and to that end has caused the corps of his son the Lord Piercy, as above, and one of his daughters who had been buryed in the Abbey, to be remov’d and brought down to this vault, which lyes in that they call the Virgin Mary’s Chappel behind the altar. There is, as above, a noble monument for a late Duke and Dutchess of Somerset in the place already; with their pourtraits at full length, their heads lying upon cushions, the whole perfectly well wrought in fine polish’d Italian marble, and their sons kneeling by them; those I suppose to be the father of the great Duke of Somerset, uncle to King Edward IV, but after this the family lay in Westminster-Abbey, where there is also a fine monument for that very duke who was beheaded by Edward VI, and who was the great patron of the Reformation.

Among other monuments of noble men in this cathedral they show you one that is very extraordinary, and to which there hangs a tale: There was in the reign of Philip and Mary a very unhappy murther committed by the then Lord Sturton, or Stourton, a family since extinct, but well known till within a few years in that country.

This Lord Stourton being guilty of the said murther, which also was aggravated with very bad circumstances, could not obtain the usual grace of the Crown, (viz.) to be beheaded, but Queen Mary positively ordered that like a common malefactor he should die at the gallows: After he was hang’d, his friends desiring to have him bury’d at Salisbury, the bishop would not consent that he should be buryed in the cathedral, unless as a farther mark of infamy, his friends would submit to this condition (viz.) That the silken halter in which he was hang’d should be hanged up over his grave in the church, as a monument of his crime; which was accordingly done, and there it is to be seen to this day.

The putting this halter up here, was not so wonderful to me as it was, that the posterity of that lord, who remain’d in good rank sometime after, should never prevail to have that mark of infamy taken off from the memory of their ancestor.

There are several other monuments in this cathedral, as particularly of two noblemen of antient families in Scotland, one of the name of Hay, and one of the name of Gordon; but they give us nothing of their history, so that we must be content to say there they lye, and that’s all.

The cloyster, and the chapter-house adjoyning to the church, are the finest here of any I have seen in England; the latter is octogon, or eight square, and is 150 foot in its circumference; the roof bearing all upon one small marble pillar in the center, which you may shake with your hands; and it is hardly to be imagin’d it can be any great support to the roof, which makes it the more curious, it is not indeed to be match’d I believe in Europe.

From hence directing my course to the sea-side in pursuit of my first design, viz. of viewing the whole coast of England, I left the great road, and went down the east side of the river towards New-Forest, and Lymington; and here I saw the antient house and seat of Clarendon, the mansion of the antient family of Hide, ancestors of the great Earl of Clarendon, and from whence his lordship was honoured with that title, or the house erected into an honour in favour of his family.

But this being a large county, and full of memorable branches of antiquity, and modern curiosity, I cannot quit my observations so soon, but being happily fix’d by the favour of a particular friend at so beautiful a spot of ground as this of Clarendon Park, I made several little excursions from hence to view the northern parts of this county; a county so fruitful of wonders, that tho’ I do not make antiquity my chief search, yet I must not pass it over entirely, where so much of it, and so well worth observation is to be found, which would look as if I either understood not the value of the study, or expected my readers should be satisfy’d with a total omission of it.

I have mention’d that this county is generally a vast continued body of high chalky hills, whose tops spread themselves into fruitful and pleasant downs and plains, upon which great flocks of sheep are fed, &c. But the reader is desir’d to observe these hills and plains are most beautifully intersected, and cut thro’ by the course of divers pleasant and profitable rivers; in the course, and near the banks, of which there always is a chain of fruitful meadows, and rich pastures, and those interspers’d with innumerable pleasant towns, villages, and houses, and among them many of considerable magnitude; so that while you view the downs, and think the country wild and uninhabited; yet when you come to descend into these vales you are surprised with the most pleasant and fertile country in England.

There are no less than four of these rivers which meet all together, at, or near the city of Salisbury, especially the waters of three of them run thro’ the streets of the city; the Nadder and the Willy, and the Avon, and the course of these three lead us thro’ the whole mountainous part of the county, the two first joyn their waters at Wilton; the shire-town, tho’ a place of no great notice now; and these are the waters which run thro’ the canal, and the gardens of Wilton House, the seat of that ornament of nobility and learning, the Earl of Pembroke.

One cannot be said to have seen any thing that a man of curiosity would think worth seeing in this county, and not have been at Wilton House; but not the beautiful building, not the antient trophy of a great family, not the noble scituation, not all the pleasures of the gardens, parks, fountains, hare-warren, or of whatever is rare either in art or nature are equal to, that yet more glorious sight, of a noble princely palace, constantly filled with its noble and proper inhabitants; viz. the lord and proprietor, who is indeed a true patriarchal monarch, reigns here with an authority agreeable to all his subjects (family); and his reign is made agreeable, by his first practising the most exquisite government of himself, and then guiding all under him by the rules of honour and vertue; being also himself perfectly master of all the needful arts of family government; I mean needful to make that government, both easy, and pleasant to those who are under it, and who therefore willingly, and by choice conform to it.

Here an exhaulted genius is the instructor, a glorious example the guide, and a gentle well directed hand the governour and law-giver to the whole; and the family like a well govern’d city appears happy, flourishing and regular, groaning under no grievance, pleas’d with what they enjoy, and enjoying every thing which they ought to be pleas’d with.

Nor is the blessing of this noble resident extended to the family only, but even to all the country round, who in their degree feel the effects of the general beneficence; and where the neighbourhood, however poor, receive all the good they can expect, and are sure to have no injury, or oppression.

The canal before the house lyes parallel with the road, and receives into it the whole river Willey, or at least is able to do so; it may indeed be said, that the river is made into a canal; when we come into the court-yards before the house there are several pieces of antiquity to entertain the curious; as particularly, a noble column of porphyry, with a marble statue of Venus on the top of it. In Italy, and especially at Rome and Naples, we see a great variety of fine columns, and some of them of excellent workmanship, and antiquity, and at some of the Courts of the Princes of Italy the like is seen; as especially at the Court of Florence; but in England I do not remember to have seen any thing like this, which as they told me is two and thirty foot high and of excellent workmanship, and that it came last from Candia, but formerly from Alexandria; what may belong to the history of it any further, I suppose is not known, at least they could tell me no more of it, who shew’d it me.

On the left of the court was formerly a large grotto, and curious water-works, and in a house, or shed, or part of the building which open’d with two folding doors, like a coach-house, a large equestrian statue of one of the ancestors of the family in compleat armour, as also another of a Roman emperor in brass, but the last time I had the curiosity to see this house, I mist that part; so that I supposed they were remov’d.

As the present Earl of Pembroke, the lord of this fine palace, is a nobleman of great personal merit, many other ways; so he is a man of learning, and reading, beyond most men of his lordship’s high rank in this nation, if not in the world; and as his reading has made him a master of antiquity, and judge of such pieces of antiquity, as he has had opportunity to meet with in his own travels, and otherwise in the world; so it has given him a love of the study, and made him a collector of valuable things, as well in painting as in sculpture, and other excellencies of art, as also of nature; in so much that Wilton-House is now a meer musaeum, or a chamber of rarities, and we meet with several things there, which are to be found no where else in the world.

As his lordship is a great collector of fine paintings; so I know no nobleman’s house in England, so prepar’d, as if built on purpose to receive them; the largest, and the finest pieces that can be imagin’d extant in the world, might have found a place here capable to receive them; I say, they might have found, as if they could not now, which is in part true; for at present the whole house is so compleatly fill’d, that I see no room for any new peice to crowd in, without displacing some other fine piece that hung there before; as for the value of the piece, that might so offer to succeed the displac’d, that the great judge of the whole collection, the earl himself, must determine, and as his judgment is perfectly good, the best picture would be sure to possess the place. In a word: Here is without doubt the best, if not the greatest collection of rarities, and paintings, that are to be seen together, in any one nobleman’s, or gentleman’s house in England. The piece of our Saviour washing his disciples feet, which they shew you in one of the first rooms you go into, must be spoken of by every body that has any knowledge of painting, and is an admirable piece indeed.

You ascend the great stair case, at the upper end of the hall, which is very large; at the foot of the stair-case you have a Bacchus large as the life, done in fine Peloponesian marble; carrying a young Bacchus on his arm, the young one eating grapes, and letting you see by his countenance, that he is pleas’d with the tast of them; nothing can be done finer, or more lively represent the thing intended; namely the gust of the appetite, which if it be not a passion, ’tis an affection, which is as much seen in the countenance, perhaps more than any other: One ought to stop every two steps of this stair-case, as we go up, to contemplate the vast variety of pictures, that cover the walls, and of some of the best masters in Europe, and yet this is but an introduction to what is beyond them.

When you are entered the appartments, such variety seizes you every way, that you scarce know to which hand to turn your self: First, on one side you see several rooms fill’d with paintings, as before, all so curious, and the variety such, that ’tis with reluctance, that you can turn from them; while looking another way, you are call’d off by a vast collection of busto’s, and pieces of the greatest antiquity of the kind, both Greek, and Romans; among these, there is one of the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius in basso relievo; I never saw any thing like what appears here, except in the chamber of rarieties at Munick in Bavaria.

Passing these, you come into several large rooms, as if contriv’d for the reception of the beautiful guests that take them up; one of these is near 70 foot long and the ceiling 26 foot high, with another adjoyning of the same height, and breadth, but not so long: Those together might be call’d the Great Gallery of Wilton, and might vie for paintings with the gallery of Luxemburg in the Fauxbourg of Paris.

These two rooms are fill’d with the family pieces of the house of Herbert, most of them by Lilly, or Vandyke, and one in particularly, out does all that ever I met with, either at home, or abroad, ’tis done, as was the mode of painting at that time, after the manner of a family piece of King Charles I. with his queen, and children, which before the burning of White-Hall, I remember to hang at the east end of the Long Gallery in the palace.

This piece fills the farther end of the great room which I just now mention’d, it contains the Earl of Montgomery, ancestor of the house of Herbert, not then Earls of Pembroke, and his lady, sitting, and as big as the life; there are about them, their own five sons, and one daughter, and their daughter-in-law, who was daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, marry’d to the elder Lord Herbert, their eldest son; it is enough to say of this piece, ’tis worth the labour of any lover of art to go 500 miles to see it; and I am inform’d several gentlemen of quality have come from France almost on purpose; It would be endless to describe the whole set of the family pictures, which take up this room, unless we would enter into the roof-tree of the family; and set down a genealogical line of the whole house.

After we have seen this fine range of beauties, for such indeed they are; far from being at an end of your surprize, you have three or four rooms still upon the same floor, fill’d with wonders, as before: Nothing can be finer than the pictures themselves, nothing more surprising than the number of them; at length you descend the back-stairs, which are in themselves large, tho’ not like the other: However, not a hands breadth is left to crowd a picture in of the smallest size, and even the upper rooms, which might be call’d garrets, are not naked, but have some very good pieces in them.

Upon the whole, the genius of the noble collector may be seen in this glorious collection, than which, take them together, there is not a finer in any private hand in Europe, and in no hand at all in Britain, private or publick.

The gardens are on the south of the house, and extend themselves beyond the river, a branch of which runs thro’ one part of them, and still south of the gardens in the great park, which extending beyond the vale, mounts the hill opening at the last to the great down, which is properly call’d by way of distinction, Salisbury-Plain, and leads from the city of Salisbury, to Shaftesbury; here also his lordship has a hare-warren (as ’tis call’d) tho’ improperly; it has indeed been a sanctuary for the hares for many years; but the gentlemen complain that it marrs their game, for that as soon as they put up a hare for their sport, if it be any where within two or three miles, away she runs for the warren, and there is an end of their pursuits; on the other hand, it makes all the countrymen turn poachers, and destroy the hares, by what means they can; but this is a smaller matter, and of no great import one way or other.

From this pleasant and agreeable days work, I return’d to Clarendon, and the next day took another short tour to the hills, to see that celebrated piece of antiquity, the wonderful Stone-Henge, being six miles from Salisbury north, and upon the side of the river Avon, near the town of Amesbury: ’Tis needless, that I should enter here into any part of the dispute about which our learned antiquaries have so puzzl’d themselves, that several books, and one of them, in folio, has been published about it; some alledgmg it to be a heathen, or pagan temple, and altar, or place of sacrifice, as Mr. Jones; others, a monument, or trophy of victory; others a monument for the dead, as Mr. Aubury, and the like: Again, some will have it be British, some Danish, some Saxon, some Roman, and some before them all, Phenician.

I shall suppose it, as the majority of all writers do, to be a monument for the dead, and the rather, because men’s bones have been frequently dug up in the ground near them. The common opinion that no man could ever count them, that a baker carry’d a basket of bread, and laid a loaf upon every-stone, and yet could never make out the same number twice; This, I take, as a meer country fiction, and a ridiculous one too; the reason why they cannot easily be told, is, that many of them lye half, or part buryed in the ground, and a piece here, and a piece there, only appearing above the grass, it cannot be known easily, which belong to one stone, and which to another, or which are separate stones, and which are joyned under ground to one another; otherwise, as to those which appear, they are easie to be told, and I have seen them told four times after one another, beginning every time at a different place, and every time they amounted to 72 in all; but then this was counting every peice of a stone of bulk, which appear’d at above the surface of the earth, and was not evidently part of, and adjoining to another, to be a distinct and separate body, or stone by it self.

The form of this monument is not only described but delineated in most authors, and indeed ’tis hard to know the first, but by the last; the figure was at first circular, and there were at least four rows or circles, within one another; the main stones were placed upright, and they were joyn’d on the top by cross stones, laid from one to another, and fastn’d with vast mortices and tenants: Length of time has so decay’d them, that not only most of the cross stones which lay on the top are fallen down, but many of the upright also, notwithstanding the weight of them is so prodigious great: How they came thither, or from whence, no stones of that kind being now to be found in any part of England near it, is still the mistery, for they are of such immense bulk that no engines, or carriages which we have in use in this age could stir them.

Doubtless they had some method in former days in foreign countries, as well as here, to move heavier weights than we find practicable now; How else did Solomons workmen build the battlement, or additional wall to support the precipeice of Mount Moriah, on which the temple was built? which was all built of great stones of Parian marble, each stone being forty cubits long, and fourteen cubits broad, and eight cubits high, or thick, which reckoning each cubit at two foot and half of our measure, as the learned agree to do, was 100 foot long, 35 foot broad, and 20 foot thick.

These stones at Stonehenge, as Mr. Cambden describes them, and in which others agree, were very large, tho’ not so large, the upright stones 24 foot high, 7 foot broad, 16 foot round; and weight 12 ton each; and the cross stones on the top, which he calls coronets, were 6 or 7 ton, but this does not seem equal, for if the cross stones weigh’d six, or seven ton, the others, as they appear now, were at least 5 or 6 times as big, and must weigh in proportion; and therefore, I must think their judgment much nearer the case who judge the upright stones at 16 ton, or thereabouts, supposing them to stand a great way into the earth, as ’tis not doubted but they do; and the coronets, or cross stones, at about two ton, which is very large too, and as much as their bulk can be thought to allow.

Upon the whole, we must take them as our ancestors have done; Namely, for an erection, or building so antient, that no history has handed down to us the original, as we find it then uncertain, we must leave it so: ’Tis indeed a reverend piece of antiquity, and ’tis a great loss that the true history of it is not known; But since it is not, I think the making so many conjectures at the reality, when they know they can but guess at it, and above all the insisting so long, and warmly on their private opinions, is but amusing themselves and us with a doubt, which perhaps lyes the deeper for their search into it.

The downs and plains in this part of England being so open, and the surface so little subject to alteration, there are more remains of antiquity to be seen upon them, than in other places; for example, I think they tell us there are three and fifty antient encampments, or fortifications to be seen in this one county, some whereof are exceeding plain to be seen, some of one form, some of another; some of one nation, some of another, British, Danish, Saxon, Roman, as at Ebb-down, Burywood, Oldburgh-Hill, Cummerford, Roundway-Down, St. Ann’s -Hill, Bratton-Castle, Clay-Hill, Stournton-Park, Whitecole-Hill, Battlebury, Scrathbury, Yanesbury, Frippsbury, Suthbury-Hill, Amesbury, Great Bodwyn, Easterley, Merdon, Aubery, Martenscil-Hill, Barbury-Castle, and many more.

Also the Barrows, as we all agree to call them, are very many in number in this county, and very obvious, having suffered very little decay. These are large hillocks of earth cast up, as the antients agree, by the soldiers over the bodies of their dead comrades slain in battle; several hundreds of these are to be seen, especially in the north part of this county, about Marlbro’ and the downs, from thence to St. Ann’s -Hill, and even every way, the downs are full of them.

I have done with matters of antiquity for this county, unless you will admit me to mention the famous parliament in the reign of Hen. II. held at Clarendon, where I am now writing, and another intended to be held there in Rich. 2d’s time, but prevented by the barons, being then up in arms against the king.

Near this place at Farlo was the birth-place of the late Sir Stephen Fox, and where the town sharing in his good fortune, shews several marks of his bounty, as particularly, the building a new church from the foundation, and getting an Act of Parliament past, for making it parochial, it being but a chappel of ease before to an adjoyning parish: Also Sir Stephen built and endow’d an alms-house here for six poor women, with a master and a free-school; the master is to be a clergyman, and to officiate in the church, that is to say, is to have the living, which including the school is very sufficient.

I am now to pursue my first design, and shall take the west part of Wiltshire in my return, where are several things still to be taken notice of, and some very well worth our stay. In the mean time I went on to Langbro’ a fine seat of my Lord Colerain, which is very well kept, tho’ the family it seems is not much in this country, having another estate, and dwelling at Tottenham-High-Cross near London.

From hence in my way to the sea-side I came to New-Forest, of which I have said something already with relation to the great extent of ground, which lyes wast, and in which there is so great a quantity of large timber, as I have spoken of already.

This wast and wild part of the country was, as some record, lay’d open, and wast for a forest, and for game, by that violent tyrant William the Conqueror, and for which purpose he unpeopled the country, pull’d down the houses, and which was worse, the churches of several parishes or towns, and of abundance of villages, turning the poor people out of their habitations, and possessions, and laying all open for his deer: The same histories likewise record that two of his own blood and posterity, and particularly his immediate successor William Rufus lost their lives in this forest: One (viz.) the said William Rufus being shot with an arrow directed at a deer, which the king, and his company were hunting, and the arrow glancing on a tree, chang’d his course and struck the king full on the breast, and kill’d him; This they relate as a just judgment of God on the cruel devastation made here by the Conqueror; Be it so or not, as heaven pleases; but that the king was so kill’d, is certain, and they show the tree, on which the arrow glanc’d, to this day; in King Charles II. time, it was ordered to be surrounded with a pale, but as great part of the paleing is down with age; whether the tree be really so old, or not, is to me a great question; the action being near 700 year ago.

I cannot omit to mention here a proposal made a few years ago to the late Lord Treasurer, Godolphin, for re-peopling this forest, which for some reasons I can be more particular in, than any man now left alive, because I had the honour to draw up the scheme, and argue it before that noble lord, and some others who were principally concern’d at that time in bringing over, or rather providing for when they were come over, the poor inhabitants of the Palatinate; a thing in it self commendable, but as it was manag’d, made scandalous to England, and miserable to those poor people.

Some persons being ordered by that noble lord, above mention’d, to consider of measures, how the said poor people should be provided for, and whether they could be provided for, or no, without injury to the publick: The answer was grounded upon this maxim, that the number of inhabitants is the wealth and strength of a kingdom, provided those inhabitants were such, as by honest industry applied themselves to live by their labour, to whatsoever trades, or employments they were brought up: In the next place it was inquir’d, what employments those poor people were brought up to? It was answer’d, there were husbandmen, and artificers of all sorts, upon which the proposal was as follows.

NEW FOREST in Hampshire was singl'd out to be the place.

Here it was propos’d to draw a great square-line, containing four thousand acres of land, marking out two large highways, or roads thro’ the center, crossing both ways, so that there should be a thousand acres in each division, exclusive of the land contain’d in the said cross roads.

Then it was propos’d to single out twenty men, and their families, who should be recommended as honest industrious men, expert in, or at least capable of being instructed in husbandry, curing and cultivating of land, breeding and feeding cattle, and the like; To each of these should be parcell’d out in equal distributions, two hundred acres of this land, so that the whole four thousand acres should be fully distributed to the said twenty families, for which they should have no rent to pay, and be liable to no taxes, but such as provided for their own sick or poor, repairing their own roads, and the like: This exemption from rent and taxes, to continue for twenty years, and then to pay each 50l . a year to the queen; that is to say, to the Crown.

To each of these families, who I wou’d now call farmers, it was propos’d to advance 200l . in ready money, as a stock to set them to work, to furnish them with cattle, horses, cows, hogs, &c. and to hire and pay labourers, to enclose, clear, and cure the land; which it would be supposed the first year would not be so much to their advantage as afterwards; allowing them timber out of the forest to build themselves houses, and barns, sheds, and offices, as they should have occasion; also for carts, waggons, ploughs, harrows, and the like necessary things, care to be taken, that the men and their families went to work forthwith according to the design.

Thus twenty families would be immediately supplyed, and provided for, for there would be no doubt, but these families with so much land given them gratis, and so much money to work with, would live very well; but what would this do for the support of the rest? who were suppos’d to be to every twenty farmers, forty or fifty families of other people; some of one trade, some of another, with women and children? to this it was answer’d, that these twenty farmers would by the consequence of their own settlements, provide for, and employ such a proportion of others of their own people, that by thus providing for twenty families in a place, the whole number of Palatinates would have been provided for, had they been 20000 more in number than they were, and that without being any burthen upon, or injury to the people of England; on the contrary, they would have been an advantage, and an addition of wealth and strength to the nation, and to the country in particular where they should be thus seated: For example;

As soon as the land was mark’d out, the farmers put in possession of it, and the money given them, they should be oblig’d to go to work, in order to their settlement; suppose it then to be in the spring of the year, when such work was most proper; First all hands would be requir’d, to fence, and part off the land, and clear it of the timber, or bushes, or what ever else was upon it, which requir’d to be remov’d: The first thing therefore which the farmers would do, would be to single out from the rest of their number, every one three servants, that is to say, two men, and a maid; less cou’d not answer the preparations they would be oblig’d to make, and yet work hard themselves also; by the help of these, they would with good management soon get so much of their land cur’d, fenc’d off, plow’d, and sow’d, as should yeild them a sufficiency of corn and kitchin stuff, the very first year, both for horse-meat, hog-meat, food for the family, and some to carry to market too, by which to bring in money to go farther on, as above.

At the first entrance, they were to have the tents allow’d them to live in, which they then had from the Tower; but as soon as leisure, and conveniences admitted, every farmer was obliged to begin to build him a farm house, which he would do gradually, some and some, as he could spare time from his other works, and money from his little stock.

In order to furnish himself with carts, waggons, plows, harrows, wheel-barrows, hurdles, and all such necessary utentisils of husbandry; there would be an absolute necessity of wheelwrights, or cartwrights, one at least to each division.

Thus by the way, there would be employed three servants to each farmer, that makes sixty persons.

Four families of wheelwrights, one to each division: which suppose five in a family, makes 20 persons; suppose four head carpenters, with each three men, and as at first all would be building together, they would to every house building have at least one labourer, four families of carpenters, five to each family, and three servants, is thirty two persons, one labourer to each house building, is twenty persons more.

Thus here would be necessarily brought together, in the very first of the work 132 persons, besides the head farmers, who at five also to each family are hundred more, in all two hundred thirty two.

For the necessary supply of these with provisions, cloaths, houshold-stuff, &c. for all should be done among themselves; first, they must have at least four butchers with their families; twenty persons, four shoemakers with their families, and each shoemaker two journeymen for every trade; would encrease the number of customers to every trade: This is twenty eight persons more.

They would then require a hatmaker, a glover, at least two ropemakers, four taylors, three weavers of woollen, and three weavers of linnen, two basketmakers, two common brewers, ten or twelve shop-keepers to furnish chandlery and grocery wares; and as many for drapery and mercery, over and above what they could work, this makes two and forty families more, each at five in a family, which is two hundred and ten persons; all the labouring part of these must have at least two servants, the brewers more, which I cast up at forty more.

Add to these two ministers, one clerk, one sexton, or gravedigger with their families, two physicians, three apothecaries, two surgeons, less there could not be, only that for the beginning it might be said the physicians should be surgeons, and I take them so; this is forty five persons, besides servants; so that in short, to omit many tradesmen more who would be wanted among them, there would necessarily, and voluntarily follow, to these twenty families of farmers at least six hundred more of their own people.

It is no difficult thing to show that the ready money of 4000l. which the government was to advance to those twenty farmers, would employ and pay, and consequently subsist all these numerous dependants, in the works which must severally be done for them, for the first year; after which the farmers would begin to receive their own money back again; for all these tradesmen must come to their own market to buy corn, flesh, milk, butter, cheese, bacon, &c. which after the first year the farmers having no rent to pay, would have to spare sufficiently, and so take back their own money with advantage; I need not go on to mention, how by consequence provisions encreasing, and money circulating, this town should encrease in a very little time.

It was propos’d also that for the encouragement of all the handicraftsmen, and labouring poor, who either as servants, or as labourers for day-work, assisted the farmers or other tradesmen, they should have every man three acres of ground given them, with leave to build cottages upon the same, the allotments to be upon the waste, at the end of the cross-roads where they entered the town.

In the center of the square was laid out a circle of twelve acres of ground, to be cast into streets for inhabitants to build on, as their ability would permit; all that would build to have ground gratis for twenty years, timber out of the forest, and convenient yards, gardens and orchards allotted to every house.

In the great streets near where they cross each other, was to be built a handsome market-house, with a town-hall for parish or corporation business, doing justice and the like; also shambles, and in a handsome part of the ground mention’d to be laid out for streets, as near the center as might be, was to be ground laid out for the building a church, which every man should either contribute to the building of, in money, or give every tenth day of his time to assist in labouring at the building.

I have omitted many tradesmen, who would be wanted here, and would find a good livelihood among their country folks; only to get accidental work, as daymen, or labourers; of which such a town would constantly employ many, as also poor women for assistance in families, such as midwives, nurses, &c.

Adjacent to the town was to be a certain quantity of common land, for the benefit of the cottages; that the poor might have a few sheep, or cows as their circumstances required; and this to be appointed at the several ends of the town.

There was a calculation made of what encrease here would be, both of wealth and people in twenty years in this town; what a vast consumption of provisions they would cause, more than the four thousand acres of land given them would produce; by which consumption and encrease, so much advantage would accrue to the publick stock, and so many subjects be added to the many thousands of Great Britain; who in the next age would be all true born Englishmen, and forget both the language, and nation from whence they came; and it was in order to this that two ministers were appointed, one of which should officiate in English, and the other in High Dutch; and withal to have them oblig’d by a law to teach all their children both to speak, read and write the English language.

Upon their encrease they would also want barbers, and glasiers, painters also, and plumbers; a wind-mill or two, and the millers and their families, a fulling-mill, and a cloth worker; as also a master clothier, or two, for making a manufacture among them for their own wear, and for employing the women and children; a dyer or two, for dying their manufactures; and, which above all, is not to be omitted, four families at least of smiths, with every one two servants; considering that besides all the family work, which continually employs a smith, all the shoeing of horses, all the iron-work of plows, carts, waggons, harrows, &c. must be wrought by them.

There was no allowance made for inns, and ale-houses, seeing it would be frequent that those who kept publick houses of any sort, would likewise have some other employment to carry on.

This was the scheme for settling the Palatinates, by which means twenty families of farmers, handsomely set up, and supported, would lay a foundation, as I have said, for six or seven hundred of the rest of their people; and as the land in New Forest is undoubtedly good, and capable of improvement by such cultivation, so other wastes in England are to be found as fruitful as that; and twenty such villages might have been erected, the poor strangers maintain’d, and the nation evidently be better’d by it; as to the money to be advanced, which in the case of twenty such settlements, at 4000l. each, would be 80000l. two things were answer’d to it.

1. That the annual rent to be received for all those lands after twenty years, would abundantly pay the publick for the first disbursses on the scheme above, that rent being then to amount to 40000l . per ann.

2. More money than would have done this, was expended, or rather thrown away upon them here, to keep them in suspense, and afterwards starve them; sending them a begging all over the nation, and shipping them off to perish in other countries: Where the mistake lay, is none of my business to enquire.

I reserv’d this account for this place, because I pass’d in this journey over the very spot where the design was laid out; namely, near Lindhurst, in the road from Rumsey to Limington, whither I now directed my course.

Limington is a little, but populous sea port, standing opposite to the Isle of Weight, in the narrow part of the streight, which ships some times pass thro’, in fair weather, call’d, the Needles; and right against an ancient town of that island call’d Yarmouth, and which, in distinction from the great town of Yarmouth in Norfolk, is call’d South Yarmouth: This town of Limington is chiefly noted for making fine salt, which is indeed excellent good; and from whence all these south parts of England are supply’d, as well by water as by land carriage; and sometimes, tho’ not often, they send salt to London, when contrary winds having kept the northern fleets back, the price at London has been very high; but this is very seldom and uncertain. Limington sends two members to Parliament, and this and her salt trade is all I can say to her; for tho’ she is very well situated, as to the convenience of shipping, I do not find they have any foreign commerce, except it be what we call smugling, and roguing; which, I may say, is the reigning commerce of all this part of the English coast, from the mouth of the Thames to the Land’s End of Cornwall.

From hence there are but few towns on the sea coast west, tho’ there are several considerable rivers empty themselves into the sea, nor are there any harbours, or sea ports of any note, except Pool: As for Christ Church, tho’ it stands at the mouth of the Avon, which, as I have said, comes down from Salisbury, and brings with it all the waters of the south and east parts of Wiltshire; and receives also the Stour and Piddle, two Dorsetshire rivers, which bring with them all the waters of the north part of Dorsetshire; yet it is a very inconsiderable poor place, scarce worth seeing, and less worth mentioning in this account; only, that it sends two members to Parliament, which many poor towns in this part of England do, as well as that.

From hence I stept up into the country north-west, to see the ancient town of Wimburn, or Wimburnminster; There I found nothing remarkable, but the church, which is indeed a very great one, ancient, and yet very well built, with a very firm strong square tower, considerably high; but was, without doubt, much finer, when on the top of it, stood a most exquisite spire, finer and taller, if fame lyes not, than that at Salisbury, and, by its situation, in a plainer, flatter country, visible, no question, much farther: But this most beautiful ornament was blown down by a sudden tempest of wind, as they tell us, in the year 1622.

The church remains a venerable piece of antiquity, and has in it the remains of a place, once, much more in request than it is now; for here are the monuments of several noble families; and in particular of one king, viz. King Etheldred, who was slain in battle by the Danes: He was a prince fam’d for piety and religion, and, according to the zeal of these times, was esteem’d as a martyr; because venturing his life against the Danes, who were heathens, he died fighting for his religion and his country. The inscription upon his grave is preserv’d, and has been carefully repair’d, so as to be easily read, and is as follows:

In hoc loco quiescit Corpus S. Etheldredi, Regis West Saxonum, Martyris, qui Anno Dom. DCCCLXXII. xxiii. Aprilis per Manus Danorum Paganorum Occubuit.

In English thus:

Here rests the body of Holy Etheldred, King of the West Saxons, and martyr, who fell by the hands of the pagan Danes, in the year of our Lord 872, the 23d of April.

Here are also the monuments of the great Marchioness of Exeter, mother of Edward Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, and last of the family of Courtneys who enjoy’d that honour; as also of John de Beaufort Duke of Somerset, and his wife, grand-mother of King Henry VII. by her daughter Margaret, Countess of Richmond.

This last lady I mention, because she was foundress of a very fine free-school, which has since been enlarg’d, and had a new benefactress in Queen Elizabeth, who has enlarg’d the stipend and annex’d it to the foundation: The famous Cardinal Pool was dean of this church before his exaltation.

Having said this of the church, I have said all that is worth naming of the town; except that the inhabitants, who are many, and poor, are chiefly maintained by the manufacture of knitting stockings, which employs great part indeed of the county of Dorset, of which this is the first town eastward.

South of this town, over a sandy wild and barren country, we came to Pool, a considerable sea-port, and indeed the most considerable in all this part of England; for here I found some ships, some merchants, and some trade; especially, here were a good number of ships fitted out every year to the Newfoundland fishing, in which the Pool men were said to have been particularly successful for many years past.

The town sits in the bottom of a great bay, or inlet of the sea, which entring at one narrow mouth opens to a very great breadth within the entrance, and comes up to the very shoar of this town; it runs also west up almost to the town of Wareham, a little below which, it receives the rivers Froom and Piddle, the two principal rivers of the county.

This place is famous for the best, and biggest oysters in all this part of England, which the people of Pool pretend to be famous for pickling, and they are barrell’d up here, and sent not only to London, but to the West Indies, and to Spain, and Italy, and other parts. ’Tis observed more pearl are found in the Pool oysters, and larger than in any other oysters about England.

As the entrance into this large bay is narrow, so it is made narrower by an island, call’d Branksey, which lying in the very mouth of the passage, divides it into two, and where there is an old castle, call’d Branksey Castle, built to defend the entrance, and this strength was very great advantage to the trade of this port, in the time of the late war with France.

Wareham is a neat town, and full of people, having a share of trade with Pool it self, it shows the ruins of a large town, and ’tis apparent has had eight churches, of which they have three remaining.

South of Wareham, and between the bay I have mentioned and the sea, lyes a large tract of land, which being surrounded by the sea, except on one side is call’d an island, tho’ it is really what should be call’d a peninsula; this tract of land is better inhabited than the sea coast of this west end of Dorsetshire generally is, and the manufacture of stockings is carry’d on there also; it is called the Isle of Purbeck, and has in the middle of it a large market-town, call’d Corf, and from the famous castle there, the whole town is now call’d Corf-Castle, it is a corporation, sending members to Parliaments.

This part of the country is eminent for vast quarreys of stone, which is cut out flat, and us’d in London in great quantities for paving court-yards, alleys, avenues to houses, kitchins, footways on the sides of the high-streets, and the like; and is very profitable to the place, as also in the number of shipping employed in bringing it to London. There are also several rocks of very good marble, only that the veins in the stone are not black and white, as the Italian, but grey, red, and other colours.

From hence to Weymouth, which is ——— miles we rode in view of the sea; the country is open, and in some respects pleasant, but not like the northern parts of the county, which are all fine carpet ground, soft as velvet, and the herbage, sweet as garden herbs, which makes their sheep be the best in England, if not in the world, and their wool fine to an extream.

I cannot omit here a small adventure, which was very surprising to me on this journey; passing this plain country, we came to an open piece of ground where a neighbouring gentleman had at a great expence laid out a proper piece of land for a Decoy, or Duck-coy, as some call it; the works were but newly done, the planting young, the ponds very large, and well made; but the proper places for shelter of the fowl not cover’d, the trees not being grown, and men were still at work improving, and enlarging, and planting on the adjoyning heath, or common: Near the decoy keeper’s house, were some places where young decoy-ducks were hatch’d, or otherwise kept to fit them for their work; To preserve them from vermin, polecats, kites, and such like, they had set traps, as is usual in such cases, and a gibbet by it, where abundance of such creatures as were taken were hang’d up for show.

While the decoy man was busy showing the new-works, he was alarm’d with a great cry about this house for Help, Help, and away he run, like the wind, guessing, as we suppos’d, that something was catch’d in the trap.

It was a good big boy about 13 or 14 year old, that cry’d out, for coming to the place, he found a great fowl catch’d by the leg in the trap, which yet was so strong, and so outrageous, that the boy going too near him, he flew at him, and frighted him, bit him, and beat him with his wings, for he was too strong for the boy; as the master ran from the decoy, so another man-servant ran from the house, and finding a strange creature fast in the trap, not knowing what it was, laid at him with a great stick; the creature fought him a good while, but at length he struck him an unlucky blow, which quieted him; after this we all came up to see what was the matter, and found a monstruous eagle caught by the leg in the trap, and kill’d by the fellow’s cudgel, as above.

When the master came to know what it was, and that his man had kill’d it, he was ready to kill the fellow for his pains, for it was a noble creature indeed, and would have been worth a great deal to the man to have it shown about the country, or to have sold to any gentleman curious in such things; but the eagle was dead, and there we left it:?Tis probable this eagle had flown over the sea from France, either there, or at the Isle of Weight, where the Channel is not so wide; for we do not find that any eagles are known to breed in those parts of Britain.

From hence we turn’d up to Dorchester, the county town, tho’ not the largest town in the county; Dorchester is indeed a pleasant agreeable town to live in, and where I thought the people seem’d less divided into factions and parties, than in other places; for though here are divisions and the people are not all of one mind, either as to religion, or politicks, yet they did not seem to separate with so much animosity as in other places: Here I saw the Church of England clergymen, and the Dissenting minister, or preacher drinking tea together, and conversing with civility and good neighbourhood, like catholick Christians, and men of a catholick, and extensive charity: The town is populous, tho’ not large, the streets broad, but the buildings old, and low; however, there is good company and a good deal of it; and a man that coveted a retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time, and as well in Dorchester, as in any town I know in England.

The downs round this town are exceeding pleasant, and come up on every side, even to the very streets end; and here it was that they told me, that there were 600 thousand sheep fed on the downs, within six miles of the town; that is, six miles every way, which is twelve miles in diameter, and thirty six miles in circumference. This I say, I was told, I do not affirm it to be true; but when I viewed the country round, I confess I could not but incline to believe it.

It is observable of these sheep, that they are exceeding fruitful, and the ews generally bringing two lambs, and they are for that reason bought by all the farmers thro’ the east part of England, who come to Burford Fair in this country to buy them, and carry them into Kent and Surry eastward, and into Buckinghamshire, and Bedfordshire, and Oxfordshire north, even our Bansted Downs in Surrey, so fam’d for good mutton, is supply’d from this place: The grass, or herbage of these downs is full of the sweetest, and the most aromatick plants, such as nourish the sheep to a strange degree, and the sheeps dung again nourishes that herbage to a strange degree; so that the valleys are render’d extreamly fruitful, by the washing of the water in hasty showers from off these hills.

An eminent instance of this is seen at Amesbury in Wiltshire, the next county to this, for it is the same thing in proportion over this whole county: I was told that at this town there was a meadow on the bank of the river Avon, which runs thence to Salisbury, which was let for 12/. a year per acre for the grass only: This I enquired particularly after, at the place, and was assur’d by the inhabitants as one man, that the fact was true, and was shew’d the meadows; the grass which grew on them was such as grew to the length of ten or twelve foot, rising up to a good height, and then taking root again, and was of so rich a nature as to answer very well such an extravagant rent.

The reason they gave for this, was the extraordinary richness of the soil, made so, as above, by the falling, or washing of the rains from the hills adjacent, by which tho’ no other land thereabouts had such a kind of grass, yet all other meadows, and low grounds of the valley were extreamly rich in proportion.

There are abundance of good families, and of very antient lines in the neighbourhood of this town of Dorchester, as the Napiers, the Courtneys, Strangeways, Seymours, Banks, Tregonells, Sedenhams, and many others, some of which have very great estates in the county, and in particular Colonel Strangeways, Napier, and Courtney. The first of these is master of the famous swannery, or nursery of swans, the like of which I believe is not in Europe; I wonder any man should pretend to travel over this country, and pass by it too, and then write his account, and take no notice of it.

From Dorchester it is six miles to the sea side south, and the ocean in view almost all the way: The first town you come to is Weymouth, or Weymouthand Melcomb, two towns lying at the mouth of a little rivulet, which they call the Wey, but scarce claims the name of a river; however, the entrance makes a very good, tho’ small harbour, and they are joyn’d by a wooden bridge; so that nothing but the harbour parts them; yet they are seperate corporations, and choose each of them two Members of Parliament, just as London and Southwark.

Weymouth is a sweet, clean, agreeable town, considering its low situation, and close to the sea; ’tis well built, and has a great many good substantial merchants in it; who drive a considerable trade, and have a good number of ships belonging to the town: They carry on now, in time of peace, a trade with France; but besides this, they trade also to Portugal, Spain, Newfoundland, and Virginia; and they have a large correspondence also up in the country for the consumption of their returns; especially the wine trade, and the Newfoundland trade are considerable here.

Without the harbour is an old castle, call’d Sandfoot Castle, and over-against them, where there is a good road for ships to put in on occasions of bad weather, is Portland Castle, and the road is call’d Portland Road: While I was here once, there came a merchant ship into that road, call’d Portland Road, under a very hard storm of wind; she was homeward bound from Oporto for London, laden with wines, and as she came in, she made signals of distress to the town, firing guns for help, and the like, as is usual in such cases; it was hi the dark of the night that the ship came in, and, by the help of her own pilot, found her way into the road, where she came to an anchor, but, as I say, fir’d guns for help.

The venturous Weymouth-men went off, even before it was light, with two boats to see who she was, and what condition she was in, and found she was come to an anchor, and had struck her top-masts; but that she had been in bad weather, had lost an anchor and cable before, and had but one cable to trust to, which did hold her, but was weak; and as the storm continued to blow, they expected every hour to go on shore, and split to pieces.

Upon this, the Weymouth boats came back with such diligence, that, in less than three hours, they were on board them again with an anchor and cable, which they immediately bent in its place, and let go to assist the other, and thereby secur’d the ship:?Tis true, that they took a good price of the master for the help they gave him; for they made him draw a bill on his owners at London for 12l. for the use of the anchor, cable, and boat, besides some gratuities to the men: But they sav’d the ship and cargo by it, and in three or four days the weather was calm, and he proceeded on his voyage, returning the anchor and cable again; so that, upon the whole, it was not so extravagant as at first I thought it to be.

The Isle of Portland, on which the castle I mentioned stands, lies right against this port of Weymouth: Hence it is, that our best and whitest free stone comes, with which the cathedral of St. Paul’s, the Monument, and all the publick edifices in the city of London, are chiefly built; and ’tis wonderful, and well worth the observation of a traveller to see the quarries in the rocks, from whence they are cut out, what stones, and of what prodigious a size are cut out there.

The island is indeed little more than one continued rock of free stone, and the height of the land is such, that from this island they see, in clear weather, above half over the Channel to France, tho’ the Channel here is very broad; the sea off of this island, and especially to the west of it, is counted the most dangerous part of the British Channel: Due south, there is almost a continued disturbance in the waters, by reason of what they call two tides meeting, which I take to be no more than the setts of the currents from the French coast, and from the English shore meeting: This they call Portland Race; and several ships, not aware of these currents, have been embay’d to the west of Portland, and been driven on shore on the beach, (of which I shall speak presently) and there lost.

To prevent this danger, and guide the mariner in these distresses, they have, within these few months, set up two light-houses on the two points of that island; and they had not been many months set up, with the directions given to the publick for their bearings, but we found three outward-bound East-India ships which were in distress in the night, in a hard extream gale of wind, were so directed by those lights, that they avoided going on shore by it, which, if the lights had not been there, would inevitably happened to their destruction.

This island, tho’ seemingly miserable, and thinly inhabited, yet the inhabitants being almost all stone-cutters, we found there was no very poor people among them; and when they collected money for the rebuilding St. Paul’s, they got more in this island than in the great town of Dorchester, as we were told.

Tho’ Portland stands a league off from the main land of Britain, yet it is almost joyn’d by a prodigious riffe of beach, that is to say, of small stones cast up by the sea, which runs from the island so near the shore of England, that they ferry over with a boat and a rope, the water not being above half a stones throw over; and the said rifle of beach ending, as it were, at that inlet of water, turns away west, and runs parallel with the shore quite to Abbotsbury, which is a town about seven miles beyond Weymouth.

I name this for two reasons; first, to explain again what I said before, of ships being embay’d and lost here: This is when ships coming from the westward omit to keep a good offing, or are taken short by contrary winds, and cannot weather the high land of Portland, but are driven between Portland and the main land; if they can come to an anchor, and ride it out, well and good, and if not, they run on shore on that vast beach, and are lost without remedy.

On the inside of this beach, and between it, and the land, there is, as I have said, an inlet of water, which they ferry over, as above, to pass and repass to and from Portland: This inlet opens at about two miles west, and grows very broad, and makes a kind of lake within the land of a mile and a half broad, and near three miles in length, the breadth unequal. At the farthest end west of this water is a large duck-coy, and the verge of the water well grown with wood, and proper groves of trees for cover for the foul; in the open lake, or broad part, is a continual assembly of swans: Here they live, feed and breed, and the number of them is such, that, I believe, I did not see so few as 7 or 8000. Here they are protected, and here they breed in abundance; we saw several of them upon the wing, very high in the air, whence we supposed, that they flew over the riffe of beach, which parts the lake from the sea to feed on the shores as they thought fit, and so came home again at their leisure.

From this duck-coy west, the lake narrows, and at last almost closes, till the beach joyns the shore; and so Portland may be said not to be an island, but part of the continent; and now we came to Abbotsbury, a town anciently famous for a great monastery, and now eminent for nothing but its ruins.

From hence we went on to Bridport, a pretty large corporation town on the sea shore, tho’ without a harbour: Here we saw boats all the way on the shore fishing for mackerell, which they take in the easiest manner imaginable; for they fix one end of the net to a pole, set deep into the sand, then the net being in a boat, they row right out into the water some length, then turn, and row parallel with the shore, vering out the net all the while, till they have let go all the net, except the line at the end, and then the boat rows on shore, when the men haling the net to the shore at both ends, bring to shore with it such fish, as they surrounded in the little way they rowed; this, at that time, proved to be an incredible number, insomuch, that the men could hardly draw them on shore: As soon as the boats had brought their fish on shore, we observed a guard, or watch, placed on the shore in several places, who we found had their eye not on the fishermen, but on the country people, who came down to the shore to buy their fish; and very sharp we found they were; and some that came with small carts were obliged to go back empty, without any fish. When we came to enquire into the particulars of this, we found, that these were officers placed on the shore by the justices and magistrates of the towns about, who were order’d to prevent the country farmers buying the mackerell to dung their land with them, which was thought to be dangerous, as to infection: In short, such was the plenty of fish that year, that mackerell, the finest and largest I evei saw, were sold at the sea side a hundred for a penny.

From Bridport, a town in which we see nothing remarkable, we came to Lime, the town particularly made famous by the landing of the Duke of Monmouth, and his unfortunate troop, in the time of King James II. of which I need say nothing, the history of it being so recent in the memory of so many living.

This is a town of good figure, and has in it several eminent merchants, who carry on a considerable trade to France, Spain, Newfoundland, and the Streights; and tho’ they have neither creek or bay, road, or river, they have a good harbour; but ’tis such a one as is not in all Britain besides, if there is such a one in any part of the world.

It is a massy pile of building, consisting of high and thick walls of stone, rais’d, at first, with all the methods that skill and art could devise, but maintained now with very little difficulty: The walls are rais’d in the main sea, at a good distance from the shore; it consists of one main and solid wall of stone, large enough for carts and carriages to pass on the top, and to admit houses and ware houses to be built on it; so that it is broad as a street; opposite to this, but farther into the sea, is another wall of the same workmanship, which crosses the end of the first wall, and comes about with a tail, parallel to the first wall.

Between the point of the first or main wall, is the entrance into the port, and the second, or opposite wall, breaking the violence of the sea from the entrance, the ships go into the basin, as into a peer, or harbour, and ride there as secure as in a mill pond, or as in a wet dock.

The town’s people have the benefit of this wonderful harbour, and it is carefully kept in repair, as indeed it behoves them to do; but they could give me nothing of the history of it; nor do they, as I could perceive, know anything of the original of it, or who built it; it was lately almost beaten down by a storm, but is repair’d again.

This work is call’d the COBB: The custom-house officers have a lodge and warehouse upon it, and there were several ships of very good force, and rich in value, in the basin of it when I was there: It might be strengthen’d with a fort, and the walls themselves are firm enough to carry what guns they please to plant upon it; but they did not seem to think it needful; and as the shore is convenient for batteries, they have some guns planted in proper places, both for the defence of the COBB, and the town also.

This town is under the government of a mayor and aldermen, and may pass for a place of wealth, considering the bigness of it: Here we found the merchants began to trade in the pitchard fishing, tho’ not to so considerable a degree as they do farther west; the pitchards seldom coming up so high eastward as Portland, and not very often so high as Lime.

It was in sight of these hills that Queen Elizabeth’s fleet, under the command of the Lord Howard of Effingham, then admiral, began first to engage in a close, and resolv’d fight with the invincible Spanish Armada, in 1588: Maintaining the fight, the Spaniards making eastward, till they came the length of Portland Race, where they gave it over; the Spaniards having receiv’d considerable damage, and keeping then closer together. Off of the same place was a desperate engagement in the year 1672, between the English and Dutch, in which the Dutch were worsted, and driven over to the coast of France, and then glad to make home to refit and repair.

While we stay’d here some time viewing this town and coast, we had opportunity to observe the pleasant way of conversation, as it is manag’d among the gentlemen of this county, and their families, which are without reflection some of the most polite and well bred people in the isle of Britain: As their hospitality is very great, and their bounty to the poor remarkable, so their generous friendly way of living with, visiting, and associating one with another is as hard to be describ’d, as it is really to be admir’d; they seem to have a mutual confidence in, and friendship with one another, as if they were all relations; nor did I observe the sharping tricking temper, which is too much crept in among the gameing and horse-racing gentry in some parts of England, to be so much known among them, any otherwise than to be abhorr’d; and yet they sometimes play too, and make matches, and horse-races, as they see occasion.

The ladies here do not want the help of assemblies to assist in match-making; or half-pay officers to run away with their daughters, which the meetings, call’d assemblies in some other parts of England, are recommended for: Here’s no Bury Fair, where the women are scandalously said to carry themselves to market, and where every night they meet at the play, or at the assembly for intreague, and yet I observ’d that the women do not seem to stick on hand so much in this country, as in those countries, where those assemblies are so lately set up; the reason of which I cannot help saying, if my opinion may bear any weight, is, that the Dorsetshire ladies are equal in beauty, and may be superiour in reputation; In a word, their reputation seems here to be better kept; guarded by better conduct, and manag’d with more prudence, and yet the Dorsetshire ladies, I assure you, are not nuns, they do not go vail’d about streets, or hide themselves when visited; but a general freedom of conversation, agreeable, mannerly, kind, and good runs thro’ the whole body of the gentry of both sexes, mix’d with the best of behaviour, and yet govern’d by prudence and modesty; such as I no where see better in all my observation, thro’ the whole isle of Britain. In this little interval also I visited some of the biggest towns in the north-west part of this county, as Blandford, a town on the river Stour in the road between Salisbury and Dorchester, a handsome well built town, but chiefly famous for making the finest bonelace in England, and where they shew’d me some so exquisitely fine, as I think I never saw better in Flanders, France or Italy, and which they said, they rated at above 30l . sterling a yard; but I suppose there was not much of this to be had, but ’tis most certain, that they make exceeding rich lace in that county, such as no part of England can equal.

From thence I went west to Stourbridge, vulgarly call’d Strabridge; the town, and the country round is employ’d in the manufacture of stockings, and which was once famous for making the finest, best, and highest priz’d knit stockings in England; but that trade now is much decay’d by the encrease of the knitting-stocking engine, or frame, which has destroyed the hand knitting-trade for fine stockings thro’ the whole kingdom, of which I shall speak more in its place.

From hence I came to Shireburn, a large and populous town, with one collegiate, or conventual church, and may properly claim to have more inhabitants in it than any town in Dorsetshire, tho’ it is neither the county town, or does it send members to Parliament; the church is still a reverend pile, and shews the face of great antiquity. Here begins the Wiltshire medley cloathing, tho’ this town be in Dorsetshire; of which I shall speak at large in its place, and therefore I omit any discourse of it here.

Shaftsbury is also on the edge of this county, adjoyning to Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, being 14 miles from Salisbury, over that fine down or carpet ground, which they call particularly, or properly Salisbury Plain. It has neither house or town in view all the way, and the road which often lyes very broad, and branches off insensibly, might easily cause a traveller to loose his way, but there is a certain never failing assistance upon all these downs for telling a stranger his way, and that is the number of shepherds feeding, or keeping their vast flocks of sheep, which are every where in the way, and who, with a very little pains, a traveller may always speak with. Nothing can be like it, the Arcadians plains of which we read so much pastoral trumpery in the poets, could be nothing to them.

This Shaftsbury is now a sorry town, upon the top of a high hill, and which closes the plain, or downs, and whence nature presents you a new scene or prospect, (viz.) of Somerset and Wiltshire, where ’tis all enclosed, and grown with woods, forests, and planted hedge-rows: The country rich, fertile and populous, the towns and houses standing thick, and being large and full of inhabitants, and those inhabitants fully employed in the richest and most valuable manufacture in the world, (viz.) the English cloathing, as well, the medley, or mixt clothing, as whites; as well for the home trade, as the foreign trade; of which I shall take leave to be very particular in my return thro’ the west and north part of Wiltshire, in the latter part of this work.

In my return to my western progress, I pass’d some little part of Somersetshire, as thro’ Evil, or Yeovil, upon the river Ivil, in going to which we go down a long steep hill, which they call Babylon-Hill; but from what original I could find none of the country people to inform me.

This Yeovil is a market town of good resort, and some clothing is carry’d on, in, and near it, but not much, its main manufacture at this time is making of gloves.

It cannot pass my observation here, that when we are come this length from London, the dialect of the English tongue, or the country way of expressing themselves is not easily understood, it is so strangely altered; it is true, that it is so in many parts of England besides, but in none in so gross a degree as in this part; This way of boorish country speech, as in Ireland, it is call’d the brogue upon the tongue; so here ’tis call’d jouringand ’tis certain, that tho’ the tongue be all meer natural English, yet those that are but a little acquainted with them, cannot understand one half of what they say: It is not possible to explain this fully by writing, because the difference is not so much in the orthography of words, as in the tone, and diction; their abridging the speech, cham for I am, chil for I will, don, for put on, and doff, for put off, and the like. And I cannot omit a short story here on this subject; coming to a relations house, who was a school-master at Martock in Somersetshire, I went into his school to beg the boys a play day, as is usual in such cases; I should have said to beg the master a play day, but that by the way; coming into the school, I observed one of the lowest scholars was reading his lesson to the usher, which lesson it seems was a chapter in the Bible, so I sat down by the master, till the boy had read out his chapter: I observed the boy read a little oddly in the tone of the country, which made me the more attentive, because on enquiry, I found that the words were the same, and the orthography the same as in all our Bibles. I observed also the boy read it out with his eyes still on the book, and his head like a meer boy, moving from side to side, as the lines reach’d cross the columns of the book; his lesson was in the Cant. 5. 3. of which the words are these,

“I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on, I have wash’d my feet, how shall I defile them?” The boy read thus, with his eyes, as I say, full on the text.

“Chav a doffed my cooat, how shall I don’t, chav a wash’d my veet, how shall I moil’em?”

How the dexterous dunce could form his mouth to express so readily the words, (which stood right printed in the book) in his country jargon, I could not but admire; I shall add to this another piece as diverting, which also happened in my knowledge at this very town of Yeovil, tho’ some years ago.

There liv’d a good substantial family in the town, not far from the Angel Inn, a well known house, which was then, and I suppose is still the chief inn of the town. This family had a dog, which among his other good qualities, for which they kept him (for he was a rare house dog) had this bad one, that he was a most notorious thief; but withal, so cunning a dog, and managed himself so warily, that he preserved a mighty good reputation among the neighbourhood; as the family was well beloved in the town, so was the dog; he was known to be a very useful servant to them, especially in the night, when he was fierce as a lion, but in the day the gentlest, lovingest creature that could be, and as they said, all the neighbours had a good word for this dog.

It happen’d that the good wife, or mistress at the Angel Inn, had frequently missed several pieces of meat out of the pail, as they say, or powdering-tub, as we call it; and that some very large pieces; ’tis also to be observ’d the dog did not stay to eat (what he took) upon the spot, in which case some pieces, or bones, or fragments might be left, and so it might be discovered to be a dog; but he made cleaner work, and when he fastened upon a piece of meat he was sure to carry it quite away, to such retreats as he knew he could be safe in, and so feast upon it at leisure.

It happen’d at last, as with most thieves it does, that the inn-keeper was too cunning for him, and the poor dog was nabb’d, taken in the fact, and could make no defence.

Having found the thief, and got him in custody, the master of the house, a good humour’d fellow, and loth to disoblige the dog’s master, by executing the criminal, as the dog-law directs; mitigates his sentence, and handled him as follows; first taking out his knife, he cut off both his ears, and then bringing him to the threshold, he chop’d off his tail; and having thus effectually dishonour’d the poor cur among his neighbours, he tyed a string about his neck, and a piece of paper to the string directed to his master, and with these witty west country verses on it.

To my honour’d master —— Esq;

Hail master a cham a’ com hoam
So cut as an ape, and tail have I noan,
For stealing of beef, and pork, out of the pail,
For thease they’v cut my ears, for th’ wother my tail;
Nea measter, and us tell thee more nor that
And’s come there again, my brains will be flat.

I could give many more accounts of the different dialects of the people of this country, in some of which they are really not to be understood, but the particulars have little or no diversion in them, they carry it such a length, that we see their j curing speech even upon their monuments, and grave-stones; As for example, even in some of the church-yards of the city of Bristol, I saw this excellent poetry after some other lines ——

And when that thou doest hear of thick,
Think of the glass that runneth quick.

But I proceed into Devonshire, from Evil we came to Crookorn, thence to Chard, and from thence into the same road I was in before at Honiton.

This is a large and beautiful market-town, very populous, and well built, and is so very remarkably pav’d with small pebbles, that on either sides the way a little channel is left shouldered up on the sides of it; so that it holds a small stream of fine clear running water with a little square dipping place left at every door, so that every family in the town has a clear clean running river, (as it may be call’d) just at their own door, and this so much finer, so much pleasanter, and agreeable to look on, then that at Salisbury, which they boast so much of, that in my opinion, there is no comparison.

Here we see the first of the great serge manufacture of Devonshire, a trade too great to be described in miniature, as it must be, if I undertake it here; and which takes up this whole county, which is the largest and most populous in England, Yorkshire excepted, (which ought to be esteem’d three counties, and is indeed divided as such into the East, West and North Riding;) but Devonshire one entire county, is so full of great towns, and those towns so full of people, and those people so universally employ ‘d in trade, and manufactures, that not only it cannot be equall’d in England, but perhaps not in Europe.

In my travel thro’ Dorsetshire, I ought to have observ’d that the biggest towns in that county sent no members to Parliament, and that the smallest did; that is to say, that Sherborn, Blandford, Winbornminster, Sturmister, and several other towns choose no members, whereas Weymouth, Melcom, and Bridport, were all burgess towns; but now we come to Devonshire, we find almost all the great towns, and some smaller choosing members also; It is true, there are some large populous towns that do not choose, but then there are so many that do, that the county seems to have no injustice, for they send up six and twenty members.

However, as I say above, there are several great towns which do not choose Parliament men, of which Bidiford is one, Crediton or Kirton another, Ilfracomb a third, but those excepted the principal towns in the county do all choose Members of Parliament.

Honiton is one of those, and may pass not only for a pleasant good town, as before, but stands in the best and pleasantest part of the whole county; and I cannot but recommend it to any gentlemen that travel this road, that if they please to observe the prospect for half a mile, till their coming down the hill, and to the entrance into Honiton, the view of the country is the most beautiful landskip in the world, a meer picture; and I do not remember the like in any one place in England; ’tis observable that the market of this town was kept originally on the Sunday, till it was chang’d by the direction of King John.

From Exeter to Land’s End

From Honiton the country is exceeding pleasant still, and on the road they have a beautiful prospect almost all the way to Exeter, which is twelve miles; on the left hand of this road lyes that part of the county, which they call the South Hams, and which is famous for the best cyder in that part of England; also the town of St. Mary Oterey, commonly call’d St. Mary Autree: They tell us the name is deriv’d from the river Ottery, and that, from the multitude of otters found always in that river, which however to me seems fabulous; nor does there appear to be any such great number of otters in that water, or in the county about, more than is usual in other counties, or in other parts of the county about them; they tell us they send 20000 hogsheds of cyder hence every year to London, and which is still worse, that it is most of it bought there by the merchants to mix with their wines, which if true, is not much to the reputations of the London vintners; but that by the by.

From hence we came to Exeter, a city famous for two things, which we seldom find unite in the same town, (viz.) that ’tis full of gentry, and good company, and yet full of trade and manufactures also; the serge market held here every week is very well worth a strangers seeing, and next to the Brigg-Market at Leeds in Yorkshire, is the greatest in England. The people assur’d me that at this market is generally sold from 60 to 70 to 80, and sometimes a hundred thousand pounds value in serges in a week. I think ’tis kept on Mondays.

They have the river Esk here, a very considerable river, and principal in the whole county; and within three miles, or thereabouts, it receives ships of any ordinary burthen, the port there being call’d Topsham; but now by the application, and at the expence of the citizens, the channel of the river is so widened, deepen’d, and cleans’d from the shoal, which would otherwise interrupt the navigation, that the ships come now quite up to the city, and there with ease both deliver and take in their lading.

This city drives a very great correspondence with Holland, as also directly to Portugal, Spain and Italy; shipping off vast quantities of the woollen-manufactures, especially, to Holland, the Dutch giving very large commissions here for the buying of serges perpetuan’s, and such goods; which are made not only in and about Exeter, but at Crediton, Honiton, Culliton, St. Mary Autry, Newton-Bushell, Ashburton and especially at Tiverton, Cullumbton, Bampton, and all the north east part of the county, which part of the county is, as it may be said, fully employed, the people made rich, and the poor that are properly so call’d, well subsisted, and employ’d by it.

Excester is a large rich, beautiful, populous, and was once a very strong city; but as to the last, as the castle, the walls, and all the old works are demolished, so were they standing, the way of managing seiges, and attacks of towns is such now, and so alter’d from what it was in those days, that Excester in the utmost strength it could ever boast, would not now hold out five days open trenches; nay, would hardly put an army to the trouble of opening trenches against it at all. This city was famous in the late civil unnatural war, for its loyalty to the king, and for being a sanctuary to the queen, where her majesty resid’d for sometime, and here she was delivered of a daughter, being the Princess Henrietta Maria, of whom our histories give a particular account, so I need say no more of it here.

The cathedral church of this city is an antient beauty, or as it may be said, it is beautiful for its antiquity; But it has been so fully, and often described that it would look like a meer coppying from others to mention it: There is a good library kept in it, in which are some manuscripts, and particularly an old missal, or mass-book, the leaves of velum, and famous for its most exquisite writing.

This county, and this part of it in particular, has been famous for the birth of several eminent men, as well for learning, as for arts, and for war, as particularly:

1. Sir William Petre, who the learn’d Dr. Wake, now Archbishop of Canterbury, and author of the Additions to Mr. Cambden, says, was Secretary of State, and Privy Counsellor to King Hen. VIII. Ed. VI. Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, and seven times sent ambassador into foreign countries.

2. Sir Thomas Bodley, famous, and of grateful memory to all learned men, and lovers of letters, for his collecting, and establishing, the best library in Britain; which is now at Oxford, and is call’d after his name the Bodleian Library to this day.

3. Also Sir Francis Drake, born at Plymouth.

4. Sir Walter Raleigh, of both those I need say nothing: Fame publishes their merit upon every mention of their names.

5. That great patron of learning —— Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, and of several other valuable pieces.

6. Of Dr. Arthur Duck, a fam’d civilian, and well known by his works among the learned advocates of Doctors Commons.

7. Dr. John Moreman of Southold, famous for being the first clergyman in England, who ventured to teach his parishoners the Lord’s Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments in the English tongue; and reading them so publickly in the parish church of Mayenhennet, in this county, of which he was vicar.

8. Dr. John De Brampton, a man of great learning, who flourished in the reign of Hen. VI. was famous, for being the first that read Aristotle publickly in the University of Cambridge, and for several learned books of his writing, which are now lost.

9. Peter Blundel, a clothier, who built the free-school at Tiverton, and endowed it very handsomely, of which in its place.

10. Sir John Glanvill, a noted lawyer, and one of the judges of the Common Pleas.

11. Sergeant Glanvill his son, as great a lawyer as his father.

12. Sir John Maynard, an eminent lawyer of later years; one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal under King William III. all these three were born at Tavistock.

13. Sir Peter King, the present Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and many others.

I shall take the north part of this county in my return from Cornwall; so I must now lean to the south, that is to say, to the south coast, for in going on indeed, we go south west. About 22 miles from Excester we go to Totness, on the river Dart. This is a very good town; of some trade, but has more gentlemen in it than tradesmen of note; they have a very fine stone-bridge here over the river, which being within seven or eight miles of the sea, is very large, and the tide flows 10 or 12 foot at the bridge. Here we had the diversion of seeing them catch fish, with the assistance of a dog. The case is this, on the south side of the river, and on a slip, or narrow cut or channel made on purpose for a mill, there stands a corn-mill; the mill tayl, or floor for the water below the wheels is wharft up on either side with stone, above high-water mark, and for above 20 or 30 foot in length below it, on that part of the river towards the sea; at the end of this wharfing is a grating of wood, the cross-bars of which stand bearing inward, sharp at the end, and pointing inward towards one another, as the wyers of a mouse-trap.

When the tide flows up, the fish can with ease go in between the points of these cross-bars, but the mill being shut down they can go no farther upwards; and when the water ebbs again, they are left behind, not being able to pass the points of the grating, as above, outwards; which like a mouse-trap keeps them in, so that they are left at the bottom with about a foot, or a foot and half water. We were carryed hither at low water, where we saw about 50 or 60 small salmon, about 17 to 20 inches long, which the country people call salmon peal, and to catch these, the person who went with us, who was our landlord at a great inn next the bridge, put in a net on a hoop at the end of a pole, the pole going cross the hoop, which we call in this country a shove net: The net being fix’d at one end of the place they put in a dog, who was taught his trade before hand, at the other end of the place, and he drives all the fish into the net, so that only holding the net still in its place, the man took up two or three and thirty salmon peal at the first time.

Of these we took six for our dinner, for which they ask’d a shilling, (viz.) two pence a piece, and for such fish not at all bigger, and not so fresh, I have seen 6s . 6d. each given at a London fish-market, whither they are some time brought from Chichester by land carriage.

This excessive plenty of so good fish, and other provisions being likewise very cheap in proportion, makes the town of Totness a very good place to live in; especially for such as have large families, and but small estates, and many such are said to come into those parts on purpose for saving money, and to live in proportion to their income.

From hence we went still south about seven miles, (all in view of this river) to Dartmouth, a town of note, seated at the mouth of the river Dart, and where it enters into the sea at a very narrow, but safe entrance; The opening into Dartmouth Harbour is not broad, but the channel deep enough for the biggest ship in the royal navy; the sides of the entrance are high mounded with rocks; without which just at the first narrowing of the passage, stands a good strong fort without a platform of guns, which commands the port.

The narrow entrance is not much above half a mile, when it opens and makes a basin, or harbour able to receive 500 sail of ships of any size, and where they may ride with the greatest safety, even as in a mill-pond, or wet-dock: I had the curiosity here with the assistance of a merchant of the town to go out to the mouth of the haven in a boat to see the entrance, and castle, or fort that commands it; and coming back with the tide of flood, I observ’d some small fish to skip, and play upon the surface of the water, upon which I ask’d my friend what fish they were; immediately one of the rowers or seamen starts up in the boat, and throwing his arms abroad, as if he had been betwitch’d, cryes out as loud as he could baul, “a scool, a scool.” The word was taken to the shore as hastily as it would have been on land if he had cry’d fire; and by that time we reach’d the keys, the town was all in a kind of an uproar.

The matter was, that a great shoal, or as they call it a scool of pilchards came swimming with the tide of flood directly, out of the sea into the harbour. My friend whose boat we were in, told me this was a surprize which he would have been very glad of, if he could but have had a days or two’s warning, for he might have taken 200 tun of them, and the like was the case of other merchants in town; for in short, no body was ready for them, except a small fishing boat, or two; one of which went out into the middle of the harbour, and at two or three hawls, took about forty thousand of them. We sent our servant to the key to buy some, who for a half-penny, brought us seventeen, and if he would have taken them, might have had as many more for the same money; with these we went to dinner; the cook at the inn broil’d them for us, which is their way of dressing them, with pepper and salt, which cost us about a farthing; so that two of us, and a servant din’d, and at a tavern too, for three farthings, dressing and all, and this is the reason of telling the tale; What drink, wine, or beer we had, I do not remember, but whatever it was, that we paid for by it self; but for our food we really din’d for three farthings, and very well too: Our friend treated us the next day with a dish of large lobsters, and I being curious to know the value of such things, and having freedom enough with him to enquire; I found that for 6d. or 8d. they bought as good lobsters there, as would have cost in London 3s. to 3s. 6d. each.

In observing the coming in of those pilchards, as above, we found that out at sea, in the offing, beyond the mouth of the harbour there was a whole army of porpuses, which as they told us pursued the pilchards, and ’tis probable drove them into the harbour, as above. The scool it seems drove up the river a great way, even as high as Totness Bridge, as we heard afterwards; so that the country people who had boats, and nets, catch’d as many as they knew what to do with, and perhaps liv’d upon pilchards for several days; but as to the merchant’s and trade, their coming was so suddain, that it was no advantage to them.

Round the west side of this basin, or harbour in a kind of a semicircle, lyes the town of Dartmouth, a very large and populous town, tho’ but meanly built, and standing on the side of a steep hill; yet the key is large, and the street before it spacious. Here are some very flourishing merchants, who trade very prosperously, and to the most considerable trading ports of Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the Plantations; but especially, they are great traders to Newfoundland, and from thence to Spain, and Italy with fish, and they drive a good trade also, in their own fishery of pilchards, which is hereabouts carried on with the greatest number of vessels of any port, in the west, except Falmouth.

A little to the southward of this town, and to the east of the port, is Torbay, of which I know nothing proper to my observation, more than that it is a very good road for ships, tho’ sometimes, especially with a southerly, or S.E. wind, ships have been oblig’d to quit the bay, and put out to sea, or run into Dartmouth for shelter.

I suppose I need not mention, that they had from the hilly part of this town, and especially from the hills opposite to it, the noble prospect, and at that time particularly delightful, of the Prince of Orange’s fleet, when he came to that coast, and as they entered into Torbay, to land; the prince and his army being in a fleet of about 600 sail of transport ships, besides 50 sail of men of war of the line, all which with a fair wind, and fine weather came to an anchor there at once.

This town as most of the towns of Devonshire are, is full of Dissenters, and a very large meeting-house they have here; how they act here with respect to the great dispute about the doctrine of the Trinity, which has caus’d such a breach among those people at Excester, and other parts of the county, I cannot give any account of. This town sends two members to Parliament.

From hence we went to Plympton, a poor and thinly inhabited town, tho’ blest with the like privilege of sending members to the Parliament; of which I have little more to say, but that from thence the road lyes to Plymouth, distance about six miles.

Plymouth is indeed a town of consideration, and of great importance to the publick. The situation of it between two very large inlets of the sea, and in the bottom of a large bay, which is very remarkable for the advantage of navigation. The Sound, or bay is compass’d on every side with hills, and the shear generally steep and rocky, tho’ the anchorage is good, and it is pretty safe riding: In the entrance to this bay, lyes a large and most dangerous rock, which at high-water is covered, but at low-tide lyes bare, where many a good ship has been lost, even in the view of safety, and many a ships crew drown’d in the night, before help could be had for them.

Upon this rock, which was call’d the Edystone, from its situation, the famous Mr. Winstanley undertook to build a light-house for the direction of sailors, and with great art, and expedition finished it; which work considering its height, the magnitude of its building, and the little hold there was, by which it was possible to fasten it to the rock, stood to admiration, and bore out many a bitter storm.

Mr. Winstanly often visited, and frequently strengthened the building, by new works, and was so confident of its firmness, and stability, that he usually said, he only desir’d to be in it when a storm should happen, for many people had told him, it would certainly fall, if it came to blow a little harder than ordinary.

But he happen’d at last to be in it once too often; Namely, when that dreadful tempest blew, Nov. the 27, 1703. This tempest began on the Wednesday before, and blew with such violence, and shook the light-house so much, that as they told me there, Mr. Winstanly would fain have been on shoar, and made signals for help, but no boats durst go off to him; and to finish the tragedy, on the Friday, Nov. 26, when the tempest was so redoubled, that it became a terror to the whole nation; the first sight there seaward, that the people of Plymouth, were presented with in the morning after the storm, was the bare Eddystone, the light-house being gone; in which Mr. Winstanly, and all that were with him perish’d, and were never seen, or heard of since: But that which was a worse loss still, was, that a few days after a merchant’s ship call’d the Winchelsea homeward bound from Virginia, not knowing the Eddystone lighthouse was down; for want of the light that should have been seen run foul of the rock it self, and was lost with all her lading, and most of her men, but there is now another light-house built on the same rock.

What other disasters happen’d at the same time, in the Sound, and in the roads about Plymouth, is not my business: They are also publish’d in other books, to which I refer.

One thing, which I was a witness too, on a former journey to this place, I cannot omit: It was the next year after that great storm, and but a little sooner in the year, being in August, I was at Plymouth, and walking on the Hoo, which is a plain on the edge of the sea, looking to the road, I observed the evening so serene, so calm, so bright, and the sea so smooth, that a finer sight, I think, I never saw; there was very little wind, but what was, seem’d to be westerly; and, about an hour after, it blew a little breeze at south west, with which wind there came into the Sound, that night, and the next morning, a fleet of fourteen sail of ships, from Barbadoes; richly loaden, for London: Having been long at sea, most of the captains and passengers came on shore to refresh themselves, as is usual, after such tedious voyages, and the ships rode all in the Sound on that side next to Catwater: As is customary, upon safe arriving to their native country, there was a general joy and rejoycing, both on board and on shore.

The next day the wind began to freshen, especially in the afternoon, and the sea to be disturbed, and very hard it blew at night, but all was well for that time; but the night after it blew a dreadful storm, not much inferior, for the time it lasted, to the storm mentioned above, which blew down the light-house on the Eddy Stone; about midnight the noise indeed was very dreadful, what with the roaring of the sea, and of the wind, intermixed with the firing of guns for help from the ships, the cries of the seamen and people on shore, and, which was worse, the cries of those, which were driven on shore by the tempest, and dash’d in pieces. In a word, all the fleet, except three, or thereabouts, were dash’d to pieces against the rocks, and sunk in the sea, most of the men being drowned: Those three, who were sav’d, received so much damage, that their lading was almost all spoil’d: One ship in the dark of the night, the men not knowing where they were, run into Catwater, and run on shore there, by which she was however sav’d from shipwreck, and the lives of her crew were saved also.

This was a melancholly morning indeed; nothing was to be seen but wrecks of the ships, and a foaming furious sea, hi that very place where they rode all in joy and triumph, but the evening before: The captains, passengers and officers who were, as I have said, gone on shoar, between the joy of saving their lives, and the affliction of having lost their ships, their cargoes, and their friends, were objects indeed worth our compassion and observation; and there was a great variety of the passions to be observed in them: Now lamenting their losses, then giving thanks for their deliverance, many of the passengers had lost their all, and were, as they expressed themselves, utterly undone; they were, I say, now lamenting their losses, with violent excesses of grief; then giving thanks for their lives, and that they should be brought on shore, as it were, on purpose to be sav’d from death; then again in tears for such as were drowned; the various cases were indeed very affecting, and, in many things, very instructing.

As, I say, Plymouth lyes in the bottom of this Sound, in the center between the two waters, so there lies against it, in the same position, an island, which they call St. Nicholas, on which there is a castle, which commands the entrance into Ham-Oze, and indeed that also into Catwater in some degree: In this island the famous General Lambert, one of Cromwell’s great agents, or officers in the Rebellion was imprison’d for life, and liv’d many years there.

On the shore, over-against this island, is the citadel of Plymouth, a small, but regular fortification, inaccessible by sea, but not exceeding strong by land, except that they say the works are of a stone, hard as marble, and would not soon yield to the batteries of an enemy: But that is a language our modern engineers now laugh at.

The town stands above this, upon the same rock, and lyes sloping on the side of it, towards the east; the inlet of the sea, which is call’d Catwater, and which is a harbour, capable of receiving any number of ships, and of any size, washing the eastern shore of the town, where they have a kind of natural mole, or haven, with a key, and all other conveniencies for bringing in vessels for loading and unloading; nor is the trade carried on here inconsiderable in it self, or the number of merchants small.

The other inlet of the sea, as I term it, is on the other side of the town, and is call’d Ham-Oze, being the mouth of the river Tamar, a considerable river, which parts the two counties of Devon and Cornwall: Here the war with France making it necessary that the ships of war should have a retreat nearer hand than at Portsmouth, the late King William order’d a wet dock, with yards, dry docks, launches, and conveniencies of all kinds for building, and repairing of ships to be built; and with these followed necessarily the building of store-houses and warehouses, for the rigging, sails, naval and military stores, &c. of such ships as may be appointed to be laid up there, as now several are, with very handsome houses for the commissioners, clerks, and officers of all kinds usual in the kings yards, to dwell in: It is in short, now become as compleat an arsenal, or yard, for building and fitting men of war as any of the government are masters of, and perhaps much more convenient than some of them, tho’ not so large.

The building of these things, with the addition of rope walks, and mast-yards, &c. as it brought abundance of trades-people, and workmen to the place, so they began by little and little to build houses on the lands adjacent, till at length there appeared a very handsome street, spacious and large, and as well inhabited, and so many houses are since added, that it is become a considerable town, and must of consequence in time draw abundance of people from Plymouth it self.

However, the town of Plymouth is, and will always be a very considerable town, while that excellent harbour makes it such a general port for the receiving all the fleets of merchants ships from the southward, as from Spain, Italy, the West-Indies, &c. who generally make it the first port to put in at for refreshment, or safety, from either weather or enemies.

The town is populous and wealthy, having, as above, several considerable merchants, and abundance of wealthy shop-keepers, whose trade depends upon supplying the sea-faring people, that upon so many occasions put into that port; as for gentlemen, I mean those that are such by family, and birth, and way of living, it cannot be expected to find many such in a town, meerly depending on trade, shipping and sea-faring business, yet I found here some men of value, persons of liberal education, general knowledge, and excellent behaviour, whose society obliges me to say, that a gentleman might find very agreeable company in Plymouth.

From Plymouth we pass the Tamar, over a ferry to Saltash, a little poor shattered town, the first we sat foot on in the county of Cornwall. The Tamar here is very wide, and the ferry boats bad, so that I thought my self well escap’d, when I got safe on shore in Cornwall.

Saltash seems to be the ruins of a larger place, and we saw many houses as it were falling down, and I doubt not but the mice and rats have abandoned many more, as they say they will, when they are likely to fall; yet this town is govern’d by a mayor and aldermen, has many privileges, sends members to Parliament, takes toll of all vessels that pass the river, and have the sole oyster fishing in the whole river, which is considerable. Mr. Carew, author of the Survey of Cornwall, tells us a strange story of a dog in this town, of whom it was observ’d, that if they gave him any large bone, or piece of meat, he immediately went out of doors with it, and after having disappeared for some time, would return again, upon which after some time they watch’d him, when to their great surprise they found that the poor charitable creature carryed what he so got to an old decrip’d mastiff, which lay in a nest that he had made among the brakes a little way out of the town, and was blind; so that he could not help himself, and there this creature fed him; he adds, also, that on Sundays, or hollydays, when he found they made good chear in the house, where he liv’d, he would go out, and bring this old blind dog to the door, and feed him there till he had enough, and then go with him back to his habitation in the country again, and see him safe in; if this story is true, it is very remarkable indeed, and I thought it worth telling, because the author was a person, who they say might be credited.

This town has a kind of jurisdiction upon the river Tamar down to the mouth of the port, so that they claim anchorage of all small ships that enter the river, their coroner sits upon all dead bodies that are found drown’d in the river, and the like, but they make not much profit of them. There is a good market here, and that is the best thing to be said of the town, it is also very much encreased since the number of the inhabitants are encreased at the new town, as I mentioned, as near the dock at the mouth of Ham Oaze, for those people choose rather to go to Saltash to market by water, then to walk to Plymouth by land for their provisions; because, first, as they go in the town boat, the same boat brings home what they buy; so that it is much less trouble, (second,) because provisions are bought much cheaper at Saltash, than at Plymouth: This I say, is like to be a very great advantage to the town of Saltash, and may in time put a new face of wealth upon the place.

They talk of some merchants beginning to trade here, and they have some ships that use the Newfoundland fishery; but I could not hear of any thing considerable they do in it, there is no other considerable town up the Tamar, till we come to Lanceston, the county town, which I shall take in my return, so I turn’d west, keeping the south shore of the county, to the Lands End.

From Saltash I went to Liskard, about 7 miles. This is a considerable town, well built, has people of fashion in it, and a very great market; it also sends two members to Parliament, and is one of the five towns, call’d Stannary Towns, that is to say, where the blocks of TINN are brought to the coinage, of which by it self; this coinage of tinn is an article very much to the advantage of the towns where it is settled, tho’ the money paid goes another way.

This town of Liskard was once eminent, had a good castle, and a large house, where the antient Dukes of Cornwall kept their Court in those days; also it enjoy’d several privileges, especially by the favour of the Black Prince, who, as Prince of Wales, and Duke of Cornwall resided here; and in return, they say this town, and the country round it, rais’d a great body of stout young fellows, who entered into his service, and followed his fortunes in his wars in France, as also in Spain; But these buildings are so decay’d, that there are now scarce any of the ruins of the castle, or of the prince’s Court remaining.

The only publick edifices they have now to show, are the guild, or town-hall, on which there is a turret with a fine clock; a very good free-school, well provided; a very fine conduit in the market-place; an antient large church, and which is something rare, for the county of Cornwall, a large new built meeting-house for the Dissenters, which I name, because they assur’d me there was but three more, and those very inconsiderable in all the county of Cornwall; whereas in Devonshire, which is the next county, there are reckoned about seventy, some of which are exceeding large and fine.

This town is also remarkable for a very great trade in all manufactures of leather, such as boots, shoes, gloves, purses, breeches, &c. and some spinning of late years is set up here, encourag’d by the woollen manufacturers of Devonshire.

Between these two towns of Saltash and Liskard, is St. Germans, now a village, decay’d, and without any market, but the largest parish in the whole county; in the bounds of which is contained, as they report, 17 villages, and the town of Saltash among them, for Saltash has no parish church, it seems of it self but as a chappel of ease to St. Germans: In the neighbourhood of these towns are many pleasant seats of the Cornish gentry, who are indeed very numerous, tho’ their estates may not be so large, as is usual in England; yet neither are they despicable in that part, and in particular this may be said of them, that as they generally live cheap, and are more at home than in other counties, so they live more like gentlemen, and keep more within bounds of their estates than the English generally do, take them altogether.

Add to this, that they are the most sociable, generous, and to one another, the kindest neighbours that are to be found; and as they generally live, as we may say, together, for they are almost always at one anothers houses, so they generally inter-marry among themselves, the gentlemen seldom going out of the county for a wife, or the ladies for a husband, from whence they say, that proverb upon them was rais’d (viz.) That all the Cornish gentlemen are cousins.

On the hills north of Liskard, and in the way between Liskard and Lanceston, there are many tinn mines, and as they told us some of the richest veins of that metal are found there, that are in the whole county; the metal when cast at the blowing houses into blocks, being as above, carry’d to Liskard to be coin’d.

From Liskard, in our course west, we are necessarily carry’d to the sea coast, because of the river Fowey, or Fowath, which empties it self into the sea, at a very large mouth, and hereby this river rising in the middle of the breadth of the county, and running south, and the river Camel rising not far from it, and running north, with a like large channel, the land from Bodmyn to the western part of the county is almost made an island, and in a manner cut off from the eastern part, the peninsula, or neck of land between, being not above twelve miles over.

On this south side we come to Foy, or Fowey, an antient town, and formerly very large; nay, not large only, but powerful and potent, for the Foyens, as they were then call’d, were able to fit out large fleets, not only for merchant’s ships, but even of men of war; and with these not only fought with, but several times vanquished, and routed the squadron of the Cinque Port men, who in those days were thought very powerful.

Mr. Cambden observes, that the town of Foy quarters some part of the arms of every one of those Cinque Ports with their own; intimating, that they had at several times trampled over them all; certain it is, they did often beat them, and took their ships, and brought them as good prizes into their haven of Foy, and carry’d it so high, that they fitted out their fleets against the French, and took several of their men of war when they were at war with England, and enrich’d their town by the spoil of their enemies.

Edward IV. favoured them much, and because the French threatened them, to come up their river with a powerful navy to burn their town, he caus’d two forts to be built at the publick charge, for security of the town and river, which forts at least some show of them remain there still, but the same King Edward was some time after so disgusted at the townsmen for officiously falling upon the French after a truce was made, and proclaim’d, that he effectually disarmed them, took away their whole fleet, ships, tackle, apparel and furniture; and since that time we do not read of any of their naval exploits, nor that they ever recover’d, or attempted to recover their strength at sea: However, Foy, at this time, is a very fair town, it lyes extended on the east side of the river for above a mile, the buildings fair; and there are a great many flourishing merchants in it, who have a great share in the fishing trade, especially for pilchards, of which they take a great quantity here abouts. In this town, is also a coinage for the TINN, of which a great quantity is dug up in the country, north and west of the town.

The river Fowey, which is very broad and deep here, was formerly navigable by ships of good burthen as high as Lestwithiel an antient, and once a flourishing, but now a decay’d town, and as to trade and navigation quite destitute, which is occasioned by the river being fill’d up with sands, which some say, the tides drive up in stormy weather from the sea; others say ’tis by sands wash’d from the lead mines in the hills; the last of which, (by the way) I take to be a mistake, the sand from the hills being not of quantity sufficient to fill up the channel of a navigable river, and if it had, might easily have been stopped by the towns people from falling into the river; but that the sea has choak’d up the river with sand, is not only probable but true, and there are other rivers which suffer in the like manner in this same country.

This town of Lestwithiel, retains however several advantages, which support its figure, as first, that it is one of the Coinage Towns, as I call them, or Stannary Towns, as others call them. (2.) The common gaol for the whole Stannary is here, as are also the county courts for the whole county of Cornwall.

There is a mock cavalcade kept up at this town, which is very remarkable, the particulars, as they are related by Mr. Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, take as follows.

Upon little Easter Sunday, the free-holders of this town and mannoiir by themselves, or their deputies, did there assemble: Amongst whom, one (as it fell to his lot by turn) bravely apparall’d, gallantly mounted, with a crown on his head, a scepter in his hand, and a sword borne before him, and dutifully attended by all the rest also on horseback, rode thro’ the principal street to the church: The curate in his best beseen solemnly received him at the churchyard stile, and conducted him to hear divine service: After which, he repaired with the same pomp, to a house provided for that purpose, made a feast to his attendants, kept the tables-end himself, and was served with kneeling assay, and all other rights due to the estate of a prince: With which dinner, the ceremony ended, and every man returned home again. The pedigree of this usage is deriv’d from so many descents of ages that the cause and author out-reach the remembrance: Howbeit, these circumstances afford a conjecture, that it should betoken royalties appertaining to the honour of Cornwal.

Behind Foye, and nearer to the coast at the mouth of a small river, which some call Lowe, tho’ without any authority, there stand two towns opposite to one another, bearing the name of the river Loe, that is to say, distinguished by the addition of East Loe, and West Loe. These are both good trading towns, and especially fishing towns and which is very particular, are like Weymouth and Melcomb, in Dorsetshire, seperated only by the creek, or river; and yet each of them send members to Parliaments: These towns are joyn’d together by a very beautiful and stately stone bridge having fifteen arches.

East Loo, was the antienter corporation of the two, and for some ages ago the greater and more considerable town; but now they tell us West Loo is the richest, and has the most ships belonging to it: Were they put together, they would make a very handsome seaport town. They have a great fishing trade here, as well for supply of the country, as for merchandize, and the towns are not dispisable; but as to sending four members to the British Parliament, which is as many as the city of London chooses, that I confess seems a little scandalous, but to who, is none of my business to enquire.

Passing from hence, and ferrying over Foy river, or the river Foweth, call it as ye please, we come into a large country without many towns in it of note, but very well furnished with gentlemen’s seats, and a little higher up with tinn works.

The sea making several deep bays here, they who travel by land are obliged to go higher into the country to pass above the water, especially at Trewardreth Bay, which lyes very broad, above ten miles within the country, which passing at Trewardreth, a town of no great note, tho’ the bay takes its name from it, the next inlet of the sea, is the famous firth, or inlet, called Falmouth Haven. It is certainly next to Milford Haven in South Wales, the fairest and best road for shipping that is in the whole isle of Britain, when there be considered the depth of water for above twenty miles within land; the safety of riding, shelter’d from all kind of winds or storms, the good anchorage, and the many creeks, all navigable, where ships may run in and be safe, so that the like is no where to be found.

There are six or seven very considerable places upon this haven, and the rivers from it, (viz.) Grampound, Tregony, Truro, Penryn, Falmouth, St. Mawes, and Pendennis. The three first of these send members to Parliament, the town of Falmouth, as big as all the three, and richer than ten of them sends none, which imports no more than this, that Falmouth it self is not of so great antiquity, as to its rising, as those other towns are; and yet the whole haven takes its name from Falmouth too, unless as some think the town took its name from the haven, which however they give no authority to suggest.

St. Mawes and Pendennis are two fortifications placed at the points, or enterance of this haven, opposite to one another, tho’ not with a communication, or view; they are very strong; the first principally by sea, having a good plat form of guns, pointing thwart the channel, and planted on a level with the water; but Pendennis Castle is strong by land as well as by water, is regularly fortified, has good out works, and generally a strong garrison; St. Mawes, otherwise call’d St. Mary’s has a town annex’d to the castle, and is a borough, sending members to the Parliament. Pendennis is a meer fortress, tho’ there are some habitations in it too, and some at a small distance near the sea side, but not of any great consideration.

The town of Falmouth is by much the richest, and best trading town in this county, tho’ not so antient as its neighbour town of Truro; and indeed, is in some things oblig’d to acknowledge the seigniorty; Namely, that in the corporation of Truro, the person who they choose to be their mayor of Truro, is also mayor of Falmouth of course. How the jurisdiction is manag’d, is an account too long for this place; the Truro men also receive several duties collected in Falmouth, particularly wharfage for the merchandizes landed, or shipp’d off; but let these advantages be what they will, the town of Falmouth has gotten the trade, at least the best part of it from the other, which is chiefly owing to the situation, for that Falmouth lying upon the sea, but within the entrance, ships of the greatest burthen come up to the very keys, and the whole royal navy might ride safely in the road, whereas the town of Truro lying far within, and at the mouth of two fresh rivers, is not navigable for vessels of above 150 tons, or thereabouts.

Some have suggested that the original of Falmouth, was the having so large a key, and so good a depth of water at it. The merchants of Truro formerly us’d it for the place of lading and unlading their ships, as the merchants of Exceter did at Topsham, and this is the more probable in that, as above, the wharfage of those landing places is still the property of the corporation of Truro.

But let this be as it will, the trade is now in a manner wholly gone to Falmouth, the trade at Truro, being now chiefly if not only for shipping off of block TINN and copper oar, the latter being lately found in large quantities in some of the mountains between Truro, and St. Michaels, and which is much improv’d since the several mills are erected at Bristol, and other parts, for the manufactures of battery ware or, as ’tis call’d, brass, which is made out of English copper, most of it dug in these parts; the oar it self also being found very rich and good.

Falmouth is well built, has abundance of shipping belonging to it, is full of rich merchants, and has a flourishing and encreasing trade. I say encreasing, because by the late setting up the English packets between this port and Lisbon, there is a new commerce between Portugal and this town, carried on to a very great value.

It is true, part of this trade was founded in a clandestine commerce, carried on by the said packets at Lisbon, where being the king’s ships, and claiming the privilege of not being searched, or visited by the custom-house officers, they found means to carry off great quantities of British manufactures, which they sold on board to the Portuguese merchants, and they convey’d them on shoar, as ’tis supposed without paying custom.

But the government there, getting intelligence of it, and complaint being made in England also, where it was found to be very prejudicial to the fair merchant, that trade has been effectually stopp’d, but the Falmouth merchants having by this means gotten a taste of the Portuguese trade, have maintain’d it ever since in ships of their own: These packets bring over such vast quantities of gold in specie, either in moidores, which is the Portugal coin, or in bars of gold, that I am very credibly informed the carryer from Falmouth, brought by land from thence to London, at one time, in the month of January, 1722, or near it, eighty thousand moidores in gold, which came from Lisbon in the pacquet boats, for account of the merchants at London, and that it was attended with a guard of 12 horsemen well arm’d, for which the said carryer had half per cent for his hazard.

This is a specimen of the Portugal trade, and how considerable it is in it self, as well as how advantageous to England, but as that is not to the present case, I proceed; the custom-house for all the towns in this port, and the head collector is established at this town, where the duties, including the other ports is very considerable: Here is also a very great fishing for pilchards, and the merchants for Falmouth have the chief stroke in that gainful trade.

Truro is however a very considerable town too; it stands up the water north and by east from Falmouth in the utmost extended branch of the haven, in the middle, between the conflux of two rivers, which tho’ not of any long course, have a very good appearance for a port, and make a large wharf between them in the front of the town; and the water here makes a good port for small ships, tho’ it be at the influx, but not for ships of burthen. This is the particular town where the lord warden of the Stannaries always holds his famous Parliament of Miners, and for stamping of TINN. The town is well built, but shews that it has been much fuller, both of houses and Inhabitants, than it is now; nor will it probably ever rise, while the town of Falmouth stands where it does, and while the trade is settled in it, as it is. There are at least three churches in it, but no Dissenter’s meeting house, that I could hear of.

Tregony, is upon the same water north east from Falmouth, distance about sixteen miles from it, but is a town of very little trade, nor indeed have any of the towns so far within the shoar, notwithstanding the benefit of the water any considerable trade but what is carried on under the merchants of Falmouth, or Truro; the chief thing that is to be said of this town, is, that it sends members to Parliament, as does also Grandpound, a market-town, and burro’ about 4 miles farther up the water. This place indeed has a claim to antiquity, and is an appendix to the Dutchy of Cornwall, of which it holds at a fee farm rent, and pays to the Prince of Wales, as duke, 10l . 11s. 1d. per annum; it has no parish church, but only a chappel of ease to an adjacent parish.

Penryn, is up the same branch of the haven, as Falmouth, but stands four miles higher towards the west, yet ships come to it of as great a size, as can come to Truro it self; it is a very pleasant agreeable town, and for that reason has many merchants in it, who would perhaps otherwise live at Falmouth. The chief commerce of these towns, as to their sea affairs, is the pilchards, and Newfoundland fishing, which is very profitable to them all; it had formerly a conventual church, with a chantry, and a religious house, a cel to Kirton, but they are all demolish’d, and scarce the ruins of them distinguishable enough to know one part from another.

Quiting Falmouth Haven from Penryn west, we came to Helsten, about 7 miles, and stands upon the little river Cober, which however admits the sea so into its bosom as to make a tolerable good harbour for ships a little below the town. It is the fifth town, allowed for the coining TINN, and several of the ships call’d “tinn” ships are loaden here.

This town is large and populous, and has four spacious streets, a handsome church, and a good trade: This town also sends members to Parliament. Beyond this is a market town tho’ of no resort for trade, call’d Market Jew, it lyes indeed on the sea-side, but has no harbour or safe road for shipping.

At Helford is a small, but good harbour between Falmouth and this port, where many times the TINN ships go in to load for London; also here are a good number of fishing vessels for the pilchard trade, and abundance of skilful fishermen: It was from this town that in the great storm, which happened, Nov. 27, 1703, a ship loaden with tinn, was blown out to sea, and driven to the Isle of Weight, in seven hours, having on board only one man, and two boys; the story is as follows, (viz.)

The beginning of the storm, there lay a ship laden with tinn, in Helford Haven, about two leagues and a half west of Falmouth. The tinn was taken on board at a place call’d Guague Wharf, five or six miles up the river, and the vessel was come down to Helford, in order to pursue her voyage to London.

About 8 a-clock in the evening the commander, whose name was Anthony Jenkins, went on board with his mate to see that every thing was safe, and to give orders, but went both on shoar again, leaving only a man, and two boys on board, not apprehending any danger, they being in safe harbour; however, he ordered them, that if it should blow hard, they should carry out the small bower anchor, and so to moor the ship by two anchors, and then giving what other orders he thought to be needful, he went ashore, as above.

About 9 o’clock, the wind beginning to blow harder, they carryed out the anchor according to the master’s order; but the wind encreasing about 10, the ship began to drive, so they carry’d out their best bower, which having a good new cable, brought lie ship up. The storm still encreasing they let go the kedge anchor; so that they then rode by four anchors a head, which were all they had.

But between n and 12 o’clock, the wind came about west and by south, and blew in so violent and terrible a manner, that tho’ they rid under the lee of a high shore, yet the ship was driven from all her anchors, and about midnight drove quite out of the harbour (the opening of the harbour lying due east and west) into the open sea, the men having neither anchor or cable, or boat to help themselves.

In this dreadful condition, they driving, I say, out of the harbour: Their first and chief care was to go clear of the rocks, which lye on either side the harbour’s mouth, and which they perform’d pretty well; then, seeing no remedy, they consulted what to do next. They cou’d carry no sail at first, no not a knot, nor do any thing but run away afore it: The only thing they had to think on, was to keep her out at sea as far as they could, for fear of a point of land, call’d The Dead Man’s Head, which lyes to the eastward of Falmouth Haven, and then if they could escape the land, thought to run in for Plymouth, next morning, so if possible, to save their lives.

In this frighted condition they drove away at a prodigious rate, having sometimes the bonnet of their foresail a little out, but the yard lower’d almost to the deck; sometimes the ship almost under water, and sometimes above, keeping still in the offing, for fear of the land, till they might see daylight; but when the day brake they found they were to think no more of Plymouth, for they were far enough beyond it, and the first land they made was Peverel Point, being the southernmost land of the Isle of Purbeck, in Dorsetshire, and a little to the westward of the Isle of Weight; so that now they were in a terrible consternation, and driving still at a prodigious rate, by seven a clock they found themselves broad side of the Isle of Weight.

Here they consulted again what to do to save their lives; one of the boys was for running her into the Downs, but the man objected, that having no anchor or cable, nor boat to go on shore with, and the storm blowing off shore, in the Downs, they should be inevitably blown off, and lost upon the unfortunate Goodwin, which it seems the man had been on once before, and narrowly escaped.

Now came the last consultation for their lives; the other of the boys said, he had been in a certain creek in the Isle of Weight, where between the rocks he knew there was room to run the ship in, and at least to save their lives, and that he saw the place just that moment; so he desir’d the man to let him have the helm, and he would do his best, and venture it. The man gave him the helm, and he stood directly in among the rocks, the people standing on the shore, thinking they were mad, and that they would in a few minutes be dashed in a thousand pieces.

But when they came nearer, and the people found they steer’d as if they knew the place, they made signals to them to direct them, as well as they could, and the young bold fellow run her into a small cove, where she stuck fast, as it were, between the rocks on both sides, there being but just room enough for the breadth of the ship; the ship indeed giving two or three knocks stav’d, and sunk, but the man and the two youths jump’t a shore, and were safe, and the lading being tinn was afterwards secur’d. N.B. The merchants very well rewarded the three sailors, especially the lad that ran her into that place.

Pensance is the farthest town of any note west, being 254 miles from London, and within about ten miles of the promontory, call’d the Lands End; so that this promontory is from London 264 miles, or thereabouts: This town of Pensance is a place of good business, well built and populous, has a good trade, and a great many ships belonging to it, notwithstanding it is so remote. Here are also a great many good families of gentlemen, tho’ in this utmost angle of the nation; and, which is yet more strange, the veins of lead, tinn, and copper oar, are said to be seen, even to the utmost extent of land at low water mark, and in the very sea; so rich, so valuable a treasure is contained in these parts of Great Britain, tho’ they are supposed to be so poor, because so very remote from London, which is the center of our wealth.

Between this town and St. Burien, a town midway between it and the Land’s End, stands a circle of great stones, not unlike those at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, with one bigger than the rest in the middle; they stand about 12 foot asunder, but have no inscription, neither does tradition offer to leave any part of their history upon record; as whether it was a trophy, or a monument of burial, or an altar for worship, or what else; so that all that can be learn’d of them, is, That here they are: The parish where they stand is call’d Boscawone, from whence the ancient and honourable family of Boscawen derive their names.

Near Pensance, but open to the sea, is that gulph they call Mounts Bay, nam’d so from a high hill standing in the water, which they call St. Michael’s Mount; the seamen call it only, the Cornish Mount; It has been fortify’d, tho’ the situation of it makes it so difficult of access, that like the Bass in Scotland, there needs no fortification; like the Bass too, it was once made a prison for prisoners of State, but now it is wholly neglected; there is a very good road here for shipping, which makes the town of Pensance be a place of good resort.

A little up in the county towards the north west is Godolchan, which tho’ a hill, rather than a town, gives name to the noble and ancient family of Godolphin; and nearer on the northern coast is Royalton, which since the late Sydney Godolphin, Esq; a younger brother of the family, was created Earl of Godolphin, gave title of lord to his eldest son, who was call’d Lord Royalton during the life of his father. This place also is infinitely rich in tinn mines.

I am now at my journey’s end; As to the islands of Scilly, which lye beyond the Land’s End, I shall say something of them presently: I must now return sur mes pas, as the French call it; tho’ not literally so, for I shall not come back the same way I went; but as I have coasted the south shore to the Land’s End, I shall come back by the north coast, and my observations in my return will furnish very well materials for a fourth letter. I am, &c.

Appendix to Letter III

I HAVE ended this account at the utmost extent of the island of Great Britain west, without visiting those excressences of the island, as I think I may call them, (viz.) the rocks of Scilly, of which, what is most famous, is their infamy, or reproach; Namely, how many good ships are, almost continually dash’d in pieces there, and how many brave lives lost, in spight of the mariners best skill, or the light-houses, and other sea-marks best notice.

These islands lye so in the middle between the two vast openings of the north and south narrow seas, or as the sailors call them, the Bristol Channel, and The Channel, (so call’d by way of eminence) that it cannot, or perhaps never will be avoided, but that several ships in the dark of the night, and in stress of weather may by being out in their reckonings, or other unavoidable accidents mistake, and if they do, they are sure, as the sailors call it, to run bump a shore upon Scilly, where they find no quarter among the breakers, but are beat to pieces, without any possibility of escape.

One can hardly mention the Bishop and his Clerks, as they are call’d, or the rocks of Scilly, without letting fall a tear to the memory of Sir Cloudesly Shovel, and all the gallant spirits that were with him at one blow, and without a moments warning dash’d into a state of immortality; the admiral with three men of war, and all their men (running upon these rocks, right afore the wind, and in a dark night) being lost there, and not a man sav’d. But all our annals and histories are full of this, so I need say no more.

They tell us of eleven sail of merchant ships homeward-bound, and richly laden from the southward, who had the like fate, in the same place, a great many years ago; and that some of them coming from Spain, and having a great quantity of bullion, or pieces of eight on board, the money frequently drives on shore still, and that in good quantities, especially after stormy weather.

This may be the reason why, as we observed during our short stay here, several mornings after, it had blown something hard in the night, the sands were cover’d with country people running too and fro’ to see if the sea had cast up any thing of value. This the seamen call “going a shoring”; and it seems they do often find good purchase: Sometimes also dead bodies are cast up here, the consequence of shipwrecks among those fatal rocks and islands; as also broken pieces of ships, casks, chests, and almost every thing that will float, or roll on shore by the surges of the sea.

Nor is it seldom that the voracious country people scuffle and fight about the right to what they find, and that in a desperate manner, so that this part of Cornwall may truly be said to be inhabited by a fierce and ravenous people; for they are so greedy, and eager for the prey, that they are charg’d with strange, bloody, and cruel dealings, even sometimes with one another; but especially with poor distressed seamen when they come on shore by force of a tempest, and seek help for their lives, and where they find the rocks themselves not more merciless than the people who range about them for their prey.

Here also, as a farther testimony of the immense riches which have been lost at several times upon this coast, we found several engineers, and projectors; some with one sort of diving engine, and some with another; some claiming such a wreck, and some such and such others; where they alledg’d, they were assur’d there were great quantities of money; and strange unprecedented ways were us’d by them to come at it; Some, I say, with one kind of engine, and some another; and tho’ we thought several of them very strange impracticable methods, yet, I was assur’d by the country people, that they had done wonders with them under water, and that some of them had taken up things of great weight, and in a great depth of water; others had split open the wrecks they had found, in a manner one would have thought not possible to be done, so far under water, and had taken out things from the very holds of the ships; but we could not learn, that they had come at any pieces of eight, which was the thing they seem’d most to aim at, and depend upon; at least they had not found any great quantity, as they said they expected.

However, we left them as busy as we found them, and far from being discouraged; and if half the golden mountains, or silver mountains either, which they promise themselves, should appear, they will be very well paid for their labour.

From the tops of the hills, on this extremity of the land, you may see out into that they call the Chops of the Channel, which, as it is the greatest inlet of commerce, and the most frequented by merchant-ships of any place in the world; so one seldom looks out to seaward, but something new presents; that is to say, of ships passing, or repassing, either on the great or lesser channel.

Upon a former accidental journey into this part of the country, during the war with France, it was with a mixture of pleasure and horror that we saw from the hills at the Lizard, which is the southermost point of this land, an obstinate fight between three French-men of war, and two English, with a privateer, and three merchant-ships in their company; the English had the misfortune, not only to be fewer ships of war in number, but of less force; so that while the two biggest French ships engaged the English, the third in the mean time took the two merchant-ships, and went off with them; as to the piccaroon, or privateer, she was able to do little in the matter, not daring to come so near the men of war, as to take a broadside, which her thin sides would not have been able to bear, but would have sent her to the bottom at once; so that the English men of war had no assistance from her, nor could she prevent the taking the two merchant-ships; yet we observ’d that the English captains manag’d their fight so well, and their seamen behav’d so briskly, that in about three hours both the Frenchmen stood off, and being sufficiently bang’d, let us see that they had no more stomach to fight; after which the English, having damage enough too no doubt, stood away to the eastward, as we supposed, to refit.

This point of the Lizard, which runs out to the southward, and the other promontory mention’d above, make the two angles, or horns, as they are call’d, from whence ’tis supposed this county receiv’d its first name of Cornwall, or as Mr. Cambden says, Cornubia in the Latin, and in the British Kernaw, as running out in two vastly extended horns; and indeed it seems, as if nature had form’d this situation for the direction of mariners, as foreknowing of what importance it should be, and how in future ages these seas should be thus throng’d with merchant ships, the protection of whose wealth, and the safety of the people navigating them, was so much her early care, that she stretched out the land so very many ways, and extended the points and promontories so far, and in so many different places into the sea, that the land might be more easily discovered at a due distance, which way soever the ships should come.

Nor is the Lizard Point less useful (tho’ not so far west) than the other, which is more properly call’d the Land’s End; but if we may credit our mariners, it is more frequently, first discover’d from the sea; for as our mariners knowing by the soundings when they are in the mouth of the Channel, do then most naturally stand to the southward, to avoid mistaking the Channel, and to shun the Severn Sea, or Bristol Channel, but still more to avoid running upon Scilly, and the rocks about it, as is observ’d before: I say, as they carefully keep to the southward, till they think they are fair with the Channel, and then stand to the northward again, or north east, to make the land; this is the reason why the Lizard is generally speaking, the first land they make, and not the Land’s End.

Then having made the Lizard, they either (first) run in for Falmouth, which is the next port, if they are taken short with easterly winds, or are in want of provisions and refreshment, or have any thing out of order, so that they care not to keep the sea; or (2dly) stand away for the Ram Head, and Plymouth-Sound, or (3dly) keep an offing to run up the Channel.

So that the Lizard is the general guide, and of more use in these cases than the other point, and is therefore the land which the ships choose to make first, for then also they are sure that they are past Scilly, and all the dangers of that part of the island.

Nature has fortify’d this part of the island of Britain in a strange manner, and so as is worth a traveller’s observation, as if she knew the force and violence of the mighty ocean, which beats upon it, and which indeed, if the land was not made firm in proportion, could not withstand, but would have been wash’d away long ago.

First, there are the islands of Scilly, and the rocks about them, these are plac’d like outworks to resist the first assaults of this enemy, and so break the force of it; as the piles, or starlings (as they are call’d) are plac’d before the solid stonework of London-Bridge, to fence off the force, either of the water, or ice, or any thing else that might be dangerous to the work.

Then there are a vast number of sunk rocks, (so the seamen call them,) besides such as are visible, and above water; which gradually lessen the quantity of water, that would otherwise lye with an infinite weight and force upon the land; ’tis observ’d, that these rocks lye under water for a great way off into the sea on every side the said two horns or points of land; so breaking the force of the water, and as above lessening the weight of it.

But besides this, the whole terra firma, or body of the land, which makes this part of the isle of Britain, seems to be one solid rock, as if it was formed by Nature to resist the otherwise irresistible power of the ocean; and indeed if one was to observe with what fury the sea comes on sometimes against the shore here, especially at the Lizard Point, where there are but few, if any outworks, (as I call them) to resist it; How high the waves come rowling forward, storming on the neck of one another; particularly when the wind blows off sea, one would wonder, that even the strongest rocks themselves should be able to resist, and repel them. But, as I said, the country seems to be as it were one great body of stone, and prepared so on purpose.

And yet, as if all this was not enough, Nature has provided another strong fence, and that is, that these vast rocks are, as it were, cemented together by the solid and weighty oar of TINN and copper, especially the last, which is plentifully found upon the very outmost edge of the land, and with which the stones may be said to be soder’d together, lest the force of the sea should separate and disjoynt them, and so break in upon these fortifications of the island, to destroy its chief security.

This is certain, that there is a more than ordinary quantity of tinn, copper, and lead also, placed by the Great Director of nature in these very remote angles and, as I have said above, the oar is found upon the very surface of the rocks a good way into the sea, and that it does not only lye, as it were, upon, or between the stones among the earth, which in that case might be washed from it by the sea, but that it is even blended or mix’d in with the stones themselves, that the stones must be split into pieces to come at it; by this mixture the rocks are made infinitely weighty and solid, and thereby still the more qualified to repel the force of the sea.

Upon this remote part of the island we saw great numbers of that famous kind of crows, which is known by the name of the Cornish cough, or chough, so the country people call them: They are the same kind, which are found in Switzerland among the Alps, and which Pliny pretended, were peculiar to those mountains, and calls the Pyrrhocorax; the body is black, the legs, feet, and bill of a deep yellow, almost to a red; I could not find that it was affected for any good quality it had, nor is the flesh good to eat, for it feeds much on fish and carrion; it is counted little better than a kite, for it is of ravenous quality, and is very mischievous; it will steal and carry away any thing it finds about the house, that is not too heavy, tho’ not fit for its food; as knives, forks, spoons and linnen cloths, or whatever it can fly away with, sometimes they say it has stolen bits of firebrands, or lighted candles, and lodged them in the stacks of corn, and the thatch of barns and houses, and set them on fire; but this I only had by oral tradition.

I might take up many sheets in describing the valuable curiosities of this little Cherosonese, or neck land, call’d the Land’s End, in which there lyes an immense treasure, and many things worth notice, I mean besides those to be found upon the surface: But I am too near the end of this letter. If I have opportunity, I shall take notice of some part of what I omit here, in my return by the northern shore of the county.

Addenda to the first volume

Addenda to the First Volume

SINCE the closing this volume there are several great and magnificent buildings begun to be erected, within the circuit of these letters, which however, not being finished, cannot now be fully described, (viz.)

1. Sir Gregory Page’s house on Black-Heath, which they tell us, will be a more magnificent work than any private gentleman’s seat in this part of Great-Britain.

2. The Lord Onslow’s seat, re-edifying near Guildford.

3. Sir John Williams’s seat all new, at Stoke, near Nayland-Bridge, in Suffolk.

4. A new square, almost a new town, at the east-side of Greenwich, on the Heath, in the way to Charleton.

5. And, lastly, the famous addition, or square begun at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, of which the foundation is but even now lay’d.

The Author’s Preface To The Second Volume

THE reception which the first part of this work has met with, has not been so mean as to discourage the performance of the second volume, nor to slacken the diligence in our endeavours to perform it well: It is not an easy thing to travel over a whole kingdom, and in so critical a manner too, as will enable the traveller to give an account of things fit for the use of those that shall come after him.

To describe a country by other mens accounts of it, would soon expose the writer to a discovery of the fraud; and to describe it by survey, requires a preparation too great for any thing but a publick purse, and persons appointed by authority; This was the case in Mr. Cambden’s travelling, by which means he had access to every curiosity, publick and private. But to describe a country by way of journey, in a private capacity, as has been the case here, though it requires a particular application, to what may be learn’d from due enquiry and from conversation, yet it admits not the observer to dwell upon every nicety, to measure the distances, and determine exactly the scite, the dimensions, or the extent of places, or read the histories of them. But it is giving an account by way of essay, or, as the moderns call it, by memoirs of the present state of things, in a familiar manner.

This we have perform’d in the best manner we could, and have taken care to have it come fully up to our proposals. We are not to boast of the performance, but are content to have it compared with any that have gone before it; if it may be done with impartiality and a fair design of determining according to truth: Our manner is plain, and suited to the nature of familiar letters; our relations have no blusters, no rhodomontadoes of our own abilities; but we keep close to the first design of giving, as near as possible, such an account of things, as may entertain the reader, and give him a view of our country, such as may tempt him to travel over it himself, in which case it will be not a little assisting to him, or qualify him to discourse of it, as one that had a tolerable knowledge of it, tho’ he stay’d at home.

As we observed in the first volume, and frequently m this, there will always be something new, for those that come after; and if an account of Great Britain was to be written every year, there would be something found out, which was overlooked before, or something to describe, which had its birth since the former accounts: New foundations are always laying, new buildings always raising, highways repairing, churches and publick buildings erecting, fires and other calamities happening, fortunes of families taking different turns, new trades are every day erected, new projects enterpriz’d, new designs laid; so that as long as England is a trading, improving nation, no perfect description either of the place, the people, or the conditions and state of things can be given.

For example; since the finishing of the last volume, the South Sea Company have engaged in the Greenland Fishery, and have fitted out a fleet of twelve great ships, which they have built new from the stocks, and have made that great wet-dock between Deptford and Redriff, the center of all that commerce and the buildings, the works, and the management, of that they call their cookery; that is, the boyling their blubber into oyl. ’Tis well if they do not make stink enough, and gain too little, especially to the neighbouring places of Deptford and Redriff.

Another article has happened, even between the writing the Appendix to this work, and this Preface; namely, That an Act of Parliament is passing, and will soon, we suppose, be pass’d for making the river Nyne navigable fro Peterborough to Northampton, a work which will be of infinite advantage to the country, because the river pierces so far into the heart of the island, where there is no navigation for between twenty or thirty miles any way:?Tis true, this may be long in doing, it being above fifty miles in length by the river; and they had once before an Act granted for the same thing; yet, ’tis said, they intend now to go about it in good earnest, and that they will be content with performing it piece-meal, that is to say, some and some, that they may see how practicable it may be, and how well it will turn to account.

It is not design’d to make apologies here for the performance; there were so few mistakes in the former volume, that were of any importance, and those few so easily rectify’d, that tho’ this circuit is much greater, and perhaps the variety the greatest of all the three, yet ’tis hop’d there will be so few exceptions, as they may be easily accounted for hereafter.

The saying that Sudbury was not a corporation, when really it was so; that Chelmsford was the first and chief plantation of hops in Essex, when it seems Castle Henningham claims precedence: The debate whether Dunwich has now any trade left, or, whether it be quite devoured of the sea; or whether Woodbridge or Ipswich are the chief ports for exporting Suffolk butter; are all so easily to be rectify’d by any reader, tho’ they are among the chief mistakes of the last volume, that we cannot but hope the candor of the reader will make allowances for it, if such should unavoidably have slipt observation, in this part also, tho’ we hope not.

We have now finish’d the whole south of Trent, which being the most populous part of the country, and infinitely fuller of great towns, of people, and of trade, has also the greatest variety of incidents in its passing over.

But the northern part being also to include Scotland, and being the greatest in extent, will have its beauties, we can assure you; and tho’ the country may in some respects, be called barren, the history of it will not be so.

Scotland will have justice done it, without the flattery and ridiculous encomiums which have already so much exposed two Scotish writers upon that subject.

The great and once wasted countries of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Durham, shall be truly and not slightly describ’d, with their real improvements, without loading our work with fragments of antiquity, and dressing up the wilds of the borders as a paradise, which are indeed but a wilderness.

In the mean time we recommend our performance to the candor of the reader, and whatever may be objected, we doubt not to have obtained the just reputation of having written with impartiality and with truth.

Letter IV. Containing A Description Of The North Shore Of The Counties Of Cornwall, And Devon, And Some Parts Of Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire And Berkshire

North Cornwall and Devon

SIR — My last letter ended the account of my travels, where Nature ended her account, when she meeted out the island, and where she fix’d the utmost western bounds of Britain; and, being resolved to see the very extremity of it, I set my foot into the sea, as it were, beyond the farthest inch of dry land west, as I had done before near the town of Dover, at the foot of the rocks of the South-Foreland in Kent, which, I think, is the farthest point east in a line; And as I had done, also, at Leostoff in Suffolk, which is another promontory on the eastern coast, and is reckoned the farthest land eastward of the island in general: Likewise, I had used the same ceremony at Selsy near Chichester, which I take to be the farthest land south, except at Portland only, which, as it is not really an island, may be called, the farthest land south; so, in its place, I shall give you an account of the same curiosity at John a Grot’s House in Caithness, the farthest piece of ground in Great Britain, north.

I had once, indeed, resolved to have coasted the whole circuit of Britain by sea, as ’tis said, Agricola the Roman general, did; and in this voyage I would have gone about every promontory, and into the bottom of every bay, and had provided myself a good yacht, and an able commander for that purpose; but I found it would be too hazardous an undertaking for any man to justify himself in the doing it upon the meer foundation of curiosity, and having no other business at all; so I gave it over.

There was another difficulty also, upon which my navigator, or commander, as I called him, who was an old experienced seaman, dissuaded me from the undertaking; and that was, the necessity of getting pilots to every part of the coast, and to every port, river, and creek, and the danger of not getting them: The necessity was plain; For that, as I proposed to keep all the way near, or under the shore, to enter into all the bays, and mouths of rivers, and creeks, as above; I. It would be impracticable to find any single man that knew so perfectly the whole coast, as to venture in without pilots. 2. Pilots would not always be found, especially on the north and west coasts of Scotland; so I laid it aside, I say, as a hopeless, and too dangerous adventure, and satisfied myself, to make the circuit very near as perfect by land, which I have done with much less hazard, though with much more pains and expence; the fruit of which, you have, in part, communicated in these letters.

I now turned about to the east, and as, when I went west, I kept to the southern coast of this long county of Cornwall, and of Devonshire also, so in going east, I shall keep the north-shore on board. The first place, of any note, we came to, is St. Ives, a pretty good town, and grown rich by the fishing-trade; it is situated on the west side of a deep bay, called St. Ives Bay, from the name of the town. This bay is opposite, on the land side, to Mount’s Bay, which I spoke of in my last, in my account of Pensance.

It is a very pleasant view we have at Madern Hills, and the plain by them, in the way from the Land’s -End to St. Ives, where, at one sight, there is a prospect of the ocean at the Land’s -End west; of the British Channel at Mount’s Bay south; and the Bristol Channel, or Severn Sea, north; At St. Ives, the land between the two bays being not above four or five miles over, is so situated, that upon the hill, neither of the two seas are above three miles off, and very plain to be seen; and also, in a clear day, the islands of Scilly, though above thirty miles off.

From this town and port of St. Ives, we have no town of any note on the coast; no, not a market town, except Redruth, which is of no consideration, ‘till we come to Padstow-Haven, which is near thirty miles: The country is, indeed, both fruitful and pleasant, and several houses of gentlemen are seen as we pass; the sands, also, are very pleasant to the eye, and to travel upon; Among the gentlemens houses, is, Lanhidrock, the seat of the Earls of Radnor, who are Barons of Truro, and were so, long before they obtained the title of Radnor; also a good house belonging to the ancient family of Trefusis.

In viewing these things, we observ’d the hills fruitful of tin, copper, and lead, all the way on our right hand, the product of which, is carried all to the other shore; so that we shall have little to say of it here. The chief business on this shore, is in the herring fishing; the herrings, about October, come driving up the Severn Sea, and from the coast of Ireland, in prodigious shoals, and beat all upon this coast as high as Biddeford, and Barnstable, in Devonshire, and are caught in great quantities by the fishermen, chiefly on account of the merchants of Falmouth, Foy, and Plymouth, and other ports on the south.

Padstow is a large town, and stands on a very good harbour for such shipping as use that coast, that is to say, for the Irish trade: The harbour is the mouth of the river Camel, or Carnal, which rising at Camelford, runs down by Bodmyn to Wodbridge, or Wardbridge, a large stone bridge of eight arches, or thereabouts, built by the general good will of the country gentlemen; but at the motion of a religious man, named Lovibond, moved in mere charity; the passage over the river there, before, being very dangerous, and having been the loss of some lives, as well as goods. The passage from this town of Padstow to Ireland, is called, by writers, to be no more than twenty-four hours, but not justly: It is true, that Padstow being the first, and best, if not the only haven on this shore, the trade from Ireland settled here of course, and a great many ships in this harbour, are imploy’d in the commerce; but to say, they make the voyage in four-and-twenty hours, is to say, It has been so, or, on extraordinary gales of fair wind, it may be done; but not one in twenty-four ships makes its voyage in twenty-four hours; and, I believe, it may be said, they are oftener five or six days in the passage.

A little way within the land S.W. from Padstow, lies St. Columb, eminent for nothing but its being the antient estate of the famous Arundel of Trerice, of late years made noble by King Charles II., being still famous in the present Lord Arundel of Trerice; also between them, is a very antient seat of a family of the name of Prideaux who, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, built a very noble seat there, which remains to this day, tho’ time makes the architect of it look a little out of fashion.

Higher within the land, lies the town of Bodmyn, once one of the coining towns for tin, but lost it to Lestwithyel: However, this town enjoys several privileges, some of which are also tokens of its antiquity.

The coinage towns were, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, four; namely,

Leskard, Truro,
Lestwithyel, Helston.

Since that, in King James’s time, was added,

Pensance.

Tintagel Castle lies upon this coast a little farther, a mark of great antiquity, and every writer has mentioned it; but as antiquity is not my work, I leave the ruins of Tintagel to those that search into antiquity; little or nothing, that I could hear, is to be seen at it; and as for the story of King Arthur being both born and killed there, ’tis a piece of tradition, only on oral history, and not any authority to be produced for it.

We have nothing more of note in this county, that I could see, or hear of, but a set of monumental stones, found standing not far from Bodmyn, called The Hurlers, of which the country, nor all the writers of the country, can give us no good account; so I must leave them as I found them.

The game called the Hurlers, is a thing the Cornish men value themselves much upon; I confess, I see nothing in it, but that it is a rude violent play among the boors, or country people; brutish and furious, and a sort of an evidence, that they were, once, a kind of barbarians: It seems, to me, something to resemble the old way of play, as it was then called, with whirle-bats, with which Hercules slew the gyant, when he undertook to clean the Augean stable.

The wrestling in Cornwall, is, indeed, a much more manly and generous exercise, and that closure, which they call the Cornish Hug, has made them eminent in the wrestling rings all over England, as the Norfolk, and Suffolk men, are for their dexterity at the hand and foot, and throwing up the heels of their adversary, without taking hold of him.

I came out of Cornwall by passing the river Tamar at Launceston, the last, or rather, the first, town in the county, the town shewing little else, but marks of its antiquity; for great part of it is so old, as it may, in a manner, pass for an old, ragged, decay’d place, in general. It stands at a distance, almost two miles from the river, over which, there is a very good bridge; the town is eminent, however, for being, as we call it, the county town, where the assizes are always kept.

In the time when Richard, Earl of Cornwall, had the absolute government of this county, and was, we might say, king of the country, it was a frontier town, walled about, and well fortified, and had, also, a strong castle to defend it; but these are seen, now, only in their old cloaths, and lie all in ruins and heaps of rubbish.

It is a principal gain to the people of this town, that they let lodgings to the gentlemen, who attend here in the time of the assizes, and other publick meetings; as particularly, that of electing knights of the shire, and at the county sessions, which are held here; for which purposes, the town’s people have their rooms better furnished than in other places of this country, though their houses are but low; nor do they fail to make a good price to their lodgers, for the conveniences they afford them.

The town sends two members to Parliament, and so does Newport, a little village adjoining, and which, indeed, is but a part of Launceston itself; so that the town may be said, almost, to choose four Members of Parliament. There is a fine image, or figure of Mary Magdalen, upon the tower of the church, which the Catholicks fail not to pay their reverences to, as they pass by. There is no tin, or copper, or lead, found hereabouts, as I could find, nor any manufacture in the place; there are a pretty many attorneys here, who manage business for the rest of their fraternity at the assizes: As to trade, it has not much to boast of, and yet there are people enough in it to excuse those who call it a populous place: There is a long nook of the county, runs north from this place, which is called the Hundred of Stratton, and in which there is one market town, and no more, the name of which, is Stratton; but has nothing in, or about it, worth our making any remarks. Passing the river Tamar, as above, about two miles from Launceston, we enter the great county of Devon, and as we enter Devonshire, in the most wild and barren part of the county, and where, formerly, tin mines were found, though now they are either quite exhausted, or not to be found without more charge than the purchase, if found, would be worth; so we must expect it a little to resemble its neighbour country for a while.

The river Tamar, here, is so full of fresh salmon, and those so exceeding fat, and good, that they are esteemed, in both counties, above the fish, of the same kind, found in other places; and the quantity is so great, as supplies the country in abundance, which is occasioned by the mouth of the river being so very large, and the water so deep for two leagues before it opens into Plymouth Sound, so that the fish have a secure retreat in the salt water for their harbour and shelter, and from thence they shoot up into the fresh water, in such vast numbers to cast their spawn, that the country people cannot take too many.

It is observed of Cornwall, as of one or two counties more in England, that all the rivers that are in the county, rise within the bounds of the same county; and this must needs be because this river Tamar, which parts the two counties, rises in the upper edge, within a little more than two miles of the North, or Severn Sea, and runs into the South, or British Channel, cross the whole limits, so that no river out of Devonshire, can enter Cornwall, that little piece in the north excepted; unless we should suppose it to run cross the Tamar, which is not to be thought of.

As we are just entered Devonshire, as I said above, it seems, at first sight, a wild, barren, poor country; but we ride but a few miles, ‘till we find an alteration in several things: i. More people; 2. Larger towns; 3. The people all busy, and in full employ upon their manufactures.

At the uppermost, and extreme part of the county, N.W. there runs a huge promontory, a mountain like proboscis, into the sea, beyond all the land on either side, whether of Devonshire, or of Cornwall. This they would fain have called Hercules’s Promontory, and Mr. Cambden, in his writing, and his mapmaker also, calls it Herculis Promontorium; but the honest sailers, and after them, the plain country people, call it, in down-right modern English, Hartland Point, or, Hearty Point, from the town of Hartland, which stands just within the shore, and is on the very utmost edge of the county of Devon: It is a market town, though so remote, and of good resort too, the people coming to it out of Cornwall, as well as out of Devonshire; and particularly the fisher-boats of Barnstaple, Bidiford, and other towns on the coast, lying often under the lee, as they call it, of these rocks, for shelter from the S.W. or S.E. winds; the seamen go on shore here, and supply themselves with provisions; nor is the town unconcerned in that gainful fishing trade, which is carried on for the herrings on this coast, many seamen and fishing vessels belonging to the town.

From this point or promontory, the land, falling away for some miles, makes a gulph or bay, which, reaching to the head land, or point of Barnstable River or Haven, is called from thence, Barnstable Bay; into this bay, or at the W. end of this bay, the rivers Taw and Tower empty themselves at one mouth, that is to say, in one channel; and it is very particular, that as two rivers join in one channel, so here are two great trading towns in one port, a thing which as it is not usual, so I cannot say ’tis any advantage to either of them; for it naturally follows, that they rival one another, and lessen both; whereas, had they been join’d together in one town, or were it possible to join them, they would make the most considerable town, or city rather, in all this part of England.

These are the towns of Barnstable and Biddiford, or, as some write it, Bediford; the first of these is the most antient, the last the most flourishing; the harbour or river is in its entrance the same to both, and when they part, the Tower turning to the right, or south west, and the Taw to the S.E. yet they seem to be both so safe, so easy in the channel, so equally good with respect to shipping, so equi-distant from the sea, and so equally advantageous, that neither town complains of the bounty of the sea to them, or their situation by land; and yet, of late years, the town of Biddiford has flourished, and the town of Barnstable rather declin’d.

Biddiford is a pleasant, clean, well-built town; the more antient street which lies next the river, is very pleasant, where is the bridge, a very noble key, and the custom-house; this part also is very well built and populous, and fronts the river for above three quarters of a mile: But besides this, there is a new spacious street, which runs N. and S. or rather N.W. and S.E. a great length, broad as the High Street of Excester, well-built, and, which is more than all, well inhabited, with considerable and wealthy merchants, who trade to most parts of the trading world.

Here, as is to be seen in almost all the market towns of Devonshire, is a very large, well-built, and well-finish’d meeting-house, and, by the multitude of people which I saw come out of it, and the appearance of them, I thought all the town had gone thither, and began to enquire for the church: But when I came to the church, I found that also, large, spacious, and well filled too, and that with people of the best fashion. The person who officiates at the meeting-house in this town, I happened to have some conversation with, and found him to be not only a learned man, and master of good reading; but a most acceptable gentlemanly person, and one, who, contrary to our received opinion of those people, had not only good learning, and good sense, but abundance of good manners, and good humour; nothing soure, cynical, or morose in him, and, in a word, a very valuable man: And as such a character always recommends a man to men of sense and good breeding, so I found this gentleman was very well received in the place, even by those who he differ’d from in matters of religion, and those differences did not, as is usual, make any breach in their conversing with him: His name, as I remember, was Bartlet. But this is a digression: I wish I could say the like of all the rest of his brethren.

The trade of this town being very much in fish, as it is also of all the towns on this coast, I observed here, that several ships were employ’d to go to Leverpool, and up the river Mersey to Warrington, to fetch the rock salt, which is found in that county, (and of which I shall say more in my remarks on those parts) which rock salt they bring to Biddiford and Barnstable, and here they dissolve it into brine in the sea water, joyning the strength of two bodies into one, and then boil it up again into a new salt, as the Dutch do by the French and Portuguese salt: This is justly call’d salt upon salt, and with this they cure their herrings; and as this is a trade which can be but of a few years standing, because the rock itself has not been discovered in England much above twenty years; so the difference in curing the fish has been such, and it has so recommended their herrings in foreign markets, that the demand for them has considerably increased, and consequently the trade.

There is indeed, a very fine stone bridge over the river here, but the passage over it is so narrow, and they are so chary of it, that few carriages go over it; but as the water ebbs quite out of the river every low water, the carts and waggons go over the sand with great ease and safety; the arches of the bridge are beautiful and stately; but as for saying one of them is so big, that a ship of 60 tons may sail under it, &c. as a late author asserts, I leave that where I find it, for the people of Bidiford to laugh at: If it had been said the hull of such a ship might pass under the bridge, it might have been let go; But, as he says, It may SAIL under it, which must suppose some or one of its masts standing too; this puts it past all possibility of belief, at least to those who judge of such things by rules of mechanism, or by what is to be seen in other parts of the world, no such thing being practicable either at London Bridge, Rochester Bridge, or even at York, where the largest arch in England is supposed to be.

Bidiford was antiently the inheritance of the family of Granville, or Greenfield, as formerly call’d, and the Earl of Bath, who is the heir and chief of the family, is now Baron of Bidiford, Viscount Lansdown, and Earl of Bath.

As Biddiford has a fine bridge over the Tower or Towridge, so Barnstable has a very noble bridge over the Taw, and though not longer, is counted larger and stronger than the other. These two rival towns are really very considerable; both of them have a large share in the trade to Ireland, and in the herring fishery, and in a trade to the British colonies in America; if Biddiford cures more fish, Barnstable imports more wine, and other merchandizes; they are both established ports for landing wooll from Ireland; of which by itself.

If Biddiford has a greater number of merchants, Barnstable has a greater commerce within land, by its great market for Irish wooll and yarn, &c. with the serge-makers of Tiverton and Excester, who come up hither to buy. So that, in a word, Barnstable, though it has lost ground to Biddiford, yet, take it in all its trade compleatly, is full as considerable as Biddiford; only, that perhaps, it was formerly far superior to it, and the other has risen up to be a match to it.

Barnstable is a large, spacious, well built town, more populous than Biddiford, but not better built, and stands lower; insomuch, that at high water in spring tides, it is, as it were, surrounded with water; the bridge here, was built by the generous gift of one Stamford, a citizen and merchant of London, who, it seems, was not a native of this place, but by trading here to his gain, had kindness enough for the town, to offer such a benefaction to them as they enjoy the benefit of to this day.

The bridge at Biddiford as above, was likewise a gift; but was, as they say, done by collections among the clergy, by grant of indulgences and the like church management: But be it how it will, both the towns are infinitely obliged to the benefactors.

Behind Biddiford, that is as we come from Launceston, are several good towns, though I observed that the country was wild and barren; as Tavistock, belonging to the house of Bedford, and giving the title of marquis, to the eldest son of that illustrious ducal family; the town of Torrington, on the same river Towridge that Biddiford stands on; the title of Earl of Torrington, was first given to the late General Monk, Duke of Albemarle, in honour, and for a reward of his loyalty, in restoring King Charles II. and the line being extinct in his son, it was given by King William III. to Admiral Herbert, who came over with him, and was immediately made admiral of the British fleet, to defend the possession of the crown in the person of that prince; and since that to Sir George Bing, one of our present admirals, and one who asserted the authority and power of the British navy against the Spaniards, at the late sea fight near Cape Passaro in Sicily: So that the town of Torrington, seems to be appropriated to the honour of the defenders of the British sovereignty at sea.

Another town in this part of the country is Okehampton, vulgarly Okington, a good market town, which gave title of baron to the Lord Mohun, and sends two members to the Parliament; it is a manufacturing town, as all the towns this way now are, and pretty rich; and having said this, I have said all, unless it be, that in the records of antiquity, it appears to have been much more considerable than it is now, having 92 knights fees belonging to it. But as I studiously avoid medling with antiquity in these accounts, studying to give you the present state of the countries and towns through which I travel, rather than what they have been; so I say no more of those things than needs must.

A little above Barnstable, N.E. upon the coast, stands a good market and port town, call’d Ilfar-Comb, a town of good trade, populous and rich, all which is owing to its having a very good harbour and road for ships, and where ships from Ireland often put in, when, in bad weather, they cannot, without the extremest hazard, run into the mouth of the Taw, which they call Barnstable Water; and this is one reason, which causes the merchants at Barnstable, to do much of their business at this port of Ilfar-Comb.

Antiquity tells us long stories, of the Danes landing on this coast; of Hubba, the Danish king, being slain here, that is at Kennith Castle, between this place and the mouth of the Taw and Towridge, and that the place was call’d Hubbestow ever after, from the burying of this prince there; All this may be true, for ought we know, but I could neither find or hear of this castle of Kennith, or burial place, Hubbestow, or any thing of the ruins or remains of them in the country; so I shall trouble you no farther about them.

The sea coast in this county, runs a little farther east by north, but I found there was nothing of moment to be seen there, except fishing towns, and small creeks, on which are two small market towns, such as Combemerton, and Porlock, ‘till we came to Minehead.

Leaving the coast, we came, in our going southward, to the great river Ex, or Isca, which rises in the hills on this north side of the county, and that so far, as, like the Tamar, it begins within four or five miles of the Severn Sea; the country it rises in, is called Exmore, Cambden calls it a filthy, barren, ground, and, indeed, so it is; but as soon as the Ex comes off from the moors, and hilly country, and descends into the lower grounds, we found the alteration; for then we saw Devonshire in its other countenance, viz. cultivated, populous, and fruitful; and continuing so ‘till we came to Tiverton, a town which I mentioned before, but did not fully describe.

Next to Excester, this is the greatest manufacturing town in the county, and, of all the inland towns, is next to it in wealth, and in numbers of people; it stands on the river Ex, and has over it, a very fine bridge, with another over the little river Loman, which, immediately after, falls into the Ex just below the town: Antiquity says, before those bridges were built, there were two fords here, one through each river, and that the town was from thence called Twyford-ton, that is, the town upon the two fords, and so by abbreviating the sounds Twy-for-ton, then Tiverton; but that I leave to the learned searchers into antient things.

But the beauty of Tiverton is the Free-School, at the east entrance into the town, a noble building, but a much nobler foundation; it was erected by one Peter Blundel, a clothier, and a lover of learning, who used the saying of William of Wickham to the king when he founded the royal school at Winchester, viz. That if he was not himself a scholar, he would be the occasion of making more scholars, than any scholar in England; to which end he founded this school: He has endowed it with so liberal a maintenance, that, as I was informed, the school-master has, at least, sixty pounds per annum, besides a very good house to live in, and the advantage of scholars not on the foundation, and the usher in proportion; and to this he added two fellowships, and two scholarships, which he gave the maintenance for to Sydney-College in Cambridge, and one fellowship, and two scholarships, to Baliol-College in Oxford, all which are appointed for the scholars bred up in this school, and the present reverend master, was a scholar upon the foundation in the same school.

As this is a manufacturing country, as above, we found the people, here, all fully employed, and very few, if any, out of work, except such as need not be unemployed, but were so from mere sloth and idleness, of which, some will be found every where.

From this town, there is little belonging to Devonshire, but what has been spoken of, except what lies in the road to Taunton, which we took next, where we meet with the river Columb, a river rising also in the utmost limits of the shire towards Somersetshire, and giving name to so many towns on its banks, as leaves no room to doubt of its own name being right, such as Columb David’s, Ufcolumbe, Columstock, and Columbton; the last is a market town, and they are all full of manufacturers, depending much on the master manufacturers of Tiverton.

With this town, we leave the county of Devon, and entering Somersetshire, have really a taste of a different country from Devonshire; for entering Wellington, the first town we came at in Somersetshire, though partly employ’d in manufacturing too, we were immediately surrounded with beggars, to such a degree, that we had some difficulty to keep them from under our horse heels.

It was our misfortune at first, that we threw some farthings, and halfpence, such as we had, among them; for thinking by this to be rid of them, on the contrary, it brought out such a croud of them, as if the whole town was come out into the street, and they ran in this manner after us through the whole street, and a great way after we were quite out of the town; so that we were glad to ride as fast as we could through the town to get clear of them; I was, indeed, astonish’d at such a sight, in a country where the people were so generally full of work, as they were here; for in Cornwall, where there are hardly any manufacturers, and where there are, indeed, abundance of poor, yet we never found any thing like this.

Before I quite leave Devonshire, I must mention one thing, which I observed at my first setting out; namely, That I would take notice how every county in England furnish’d something of its produce towards the supply of the city of London: Now I must allow, that Cornwall is, in some respects, an exception to this rule, because, though it is fruitful enough for the supply of its own inhabitants, yet, in the first place, the waste grounds are so many, the inhabitants so numerous, and the county so narrow, that, except the herrings, a few of which may be brought to London for sale, they have not much overplus to furnish other parts with; but then they make us amends by sending up an immense wealth in their tin, lead, and copper, from the bowels of their barren mountains, and the export of the pilchards, and herrings, from both their shores to Spain and Italy, from whence much of the returns are again brought to London for their vent and consumption.

In like manner, the county of Devon has been rich in mines of tin and lead, though they seem at present, wrought out; and they had their stannary towns and coinage, as well as in Cornwall; nay, so numerous were the miners or tinners, as they are called in this county, that they were, on occasion of a national muster, or defence, regimented by themselves, arm’d, and officer’d by themselves, and were, in short, a separate militia from the train’d bands, or militia of the county; but now we see the tin works in Devonshire is quite laid aside, not one tin mine being at work in the whole county: There are, indeed, some copper-works undertaken on the north side, as we were told; but I do not find, that they are yet brought to any perfection, and about Ilfarcomb, Comb Mertin, also at Delverton, in the north part of the county, they have been at work to see if they can recover some silver mines, which, in the time of King Edward III. were so large, that they employed three hundred miners, besides other workmen, and brought that prince great sums of money for the carrying on his wars against France: What progress they are now like to make in it, I cannot yet learn.

But there is one article in the produce of Devonshire, which makes good what I have written before, That every county contributes something towards the supply of London; and this is, the cyder which I have mentioned already, and which takes up the south part of the county, between Topsham and Axminster, where they have so vast a quantity of fruit, and so much cyder made, that sometimes they have sent ten, or twenty thousand hogsheads of it in a year to London, and at a very reasonable rate too.

Somerset and Wiltshire

The county of Somerset joins to the N.E. part of Devonshire. I touched only upon one point of the county in my last, as I went west. The whole county is worth a more particular account, than can be given within the space of a letter.

I entered the county, as I observed above, by Wellington, where we had the entertainment of the beggars; from whence we came to Taunton, vulgarly called Taunton Dean upon the River Ton; this is a large, wealthy, and exceedingly populous, town: One of the chief manufacturers of the town told us, That there was at that time so good a trade in the town, that they had then eleven hundred looms going for the weaving of sagathies, du roys, and such kind of stuffs, which are made there; and that which added to the thing very much, was, that not one of those looms wanted work: He farther added, That there was not a child in the town, or in the villages round it, of above five years old, but, if it was not neglected by its parents, and untaught, could earn its own bread. This was what I never met with in any place in England, except at Colchester in Essex.

This town chooses two Members of Parliament, and their way of choosing is, by those who they call “pot-walloners,” that is to say, every inhabitant, whether house-keeper or lodger, that dresses their own victuals; to make out which, several inmates, or lodgers, will, sometime before the election, bring out their pots, and make fires in the street, and boil their victuals in the sight of their neighbours, that their votes may not be called in question.

There are two large parish churches in this town, and two or three meeting-houses, whereof one, is said to be the largest in the county. The inhabitants have been noted for the number of Dissenters; for among them it was always counted a seminary of such: They suffered deeply in the Duke of Monmouth’s Rebellion, but paid King James home for the cruelty exercised by Jeffries among them; for when the Prince of Orange arrived, the whole town ran in to him, with so universal a joy, that, ’twas thought, if he had wanted it, he might have raised a little army there, and in the adjacent part of the country.

There was, and, I suppose, is still, a private college, or academy, for the Dissenters in this town; the tutor, who then managed it, was named Warren, who told me, that there were threescore and twelve ministers then preaching, whereof six had conformed to the Church, the rest were among the Dissenters, who had been his scholars, whereupon, one of his own sort had, it seems, stiled him the Father of the Faithful: The academy, since his death, is continued, but not kept up to the degree it was, in the days of the said Mr. Warren.

From this town of Taunton, which is by far the greatest in all this part of the country, and has more people in it, than the city of York, we went north to take a view of the coast. Exmore, of which mention was made above, where the River Ex rises, lies in the way, part of it in this country, and extending to the sea side: It gives, indeed, but a melancholy view, being a vast tract of barren, and desolate lands; yet on the coast, there are some very good sea-ports. As,

1. Porlock, on the very utmost extent of the country; it has a small harbour, but of no importance, nor has it any thing of trade, so I need but name it. 2. Minhead, the best port, and safest harbour, in all these counties, at least, on this side: No ship is so big, but it may come in, and no weather so bad, but the ships are safe when they are in; and they told me, that in the great storm anno 1703, when in all the harbours and rivers in the county, the ships were blown on shore, wreck’d, and lost, they suffered little or no damage in this harbour.

The trade of this town lies chiefly with Ireland, and this was, for many years, the chief port in this part of England, where wool from Ireland was allowed to be imported; but that liberty is since inlarged to several other ports by Act of Parliament.

This corporation sends two members to the Parliament, which are chosen also, as at Taunton, by the pot-walloners; the town is well built, is full of rich merchants, and has some trade also to Virginia, and the West Indies: They correspond much with the merchants of Barnstable, and Bristol, in their foreign trade.

There are some very good families, and of very antient standing, in this part of the county, among which, the families of Seymour, of Portman, of Orchard, Wyndham, Popham of Wellington, Mallet, an antient family of Norman extraction, Mohun, Beauchamp, and some others, are most eminent; the Mohuns in particular were antiently lords of Dunstar] Castle, at a small distance from the sea, and very strong. Here formerly was the antient mansion, or inheritance, of the Lords Mohun, who, as above, long enjoy’d it: Who it will now descend to, that antient family being extinct in the person of the late unhappy Lord Mohun, who was kill’d in a duel with Duke Hamilton, I could not learn.

From hence the coast bears back west to Watchet, a small port also, but of no importance, that is to say, ’tis of no importance now; for if we may calculate things present, by things past, the town of Minhead is risen out of the decay of the towns of Porlock, and Watchet, which were once important places; and the reason is clear, since the increase of shipping and trade, and the improvement of the navigating skill, bigger ships being brought into use, than were formerly built; accordingly, larger ports, and deeper water, were requisite to harbour such vessels, than would serve for that purpose before; and the harbour at Minhead being fairer, and much deeper, than those at Watchet and Porlock, and therefore able to secure those greater ships, which the others were not, the merchants removed to it; and thus, in time, the town grew up, to what we now find it to be.

From hence the winding shore brings us to Bridgewater. This is an antient and very considerable town and port, it stands at the mouth of the river Parrat, or Perot, which comes from the south, after having received the river Tone from the west, which is made navigable up to Taunton, by a very fine new channel, cut at the expence of the people of Taunton, and which, by the navigation of it, is infinitely advantagious to that town, and well worth all their expence, first by bringing up coals, which are brought from Swanzy in Wales by sea to Bridgewater, and thence by barges up this river to Taunton; also for bringing all heavy goods and merchandizes from Bristol, such as iron, lead, oyl, wine, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, grocery, and dye stuffs, and the like; their tobacco they generally received from Barnstable by land, which is about sixteen miles west

This town of Bridgewater, is a populous, trading town, is well built, and as well inhabited, and has many families of good fashion dwelling in it, besides merchants. The famous Admiral Blake, was a native of this town. Here it was, that the Duke of Monmouth, finding himself defeated in his expectation of the city of Bristol, and repuls’d at the city of Bath, and press’d by the approach of the king’s troops, who endeavour’d to surround him, made his retreat; where, finding the king’s troops followed him, and seem’d resolved to attack him, he went up to the top of the steeple, with some of his officers, and viewing the situation of the king’s army, by the help of perspectives, resolved to make an attempt upon them the same night, by way of prevention, and accordingly march’d out of the town in the dead of the night to attack them, and had he not, either by the treachery, or mistake of his guides, been brought to an impassable ditch, where he could not get over, in the interval of which, the king’s troops took the alarm, by the firing a pistol among the duke’s men, whether, also, by accident, or treachery, was not known; I say, had not those accidents, and his own fate, conspired to his defeat, he had certainly cut the Lord Feversham’s army (for he commanded them) all to pieces; but by these circumstances, he was brought to a battle on unequal terms, and defeated: The rest I need not mention.

This town was regularly fortified in the late civil wars, and sustained two sieges, if not more; the situation of it renders it easy to be fortified, the river and haven taking one chief part of the circumference; over the river, they have a very good bridge of stone, and the tide rises here, at high water, near six fathoms, whereof, sometimes it comes in with such furious haste, as to come two fathoms deep at a time, and when it does so, by surprize, it often does great damage to ships, driving them foul of one another, and oftentimes oversetting them. This sudden rage of the tide, is called, the “boar,” and is frequent in all the rivers of this channel, especially in the Severn itself; ’tis also known in the north, particularly in the Trent, and the Ouse, at their entrance into Humber, and in several other places.

In this town of Bridgewater, besides a very large church, there is a fine new-built meeting-house, that is to say, built since the Toleration, in which ’tis remarkable, that they have an advanced seat for the mayor and aldermen, when any of the magistrates should be of their Communion, as sometimes has happened. Here, also, is a college, or private academy, for the Dissenters to breed up their preaching youth; the tutor was one Mr. Moor, a man who, it is own’d, was a master of good literature; what talent he had at erudition, I can give no account of, for it is not every master of learning, that makes a good instructor of others, as I shall observe on some other occasions.

From Bridgewater, there is a road to Bristol, which they call the Lower Way; the Upper Way, and which is the more frequented road, being over Mendip Hills. This Lower Way also is not always passable, being subject to floods, and dangerous inundations, I mean, dangerous to travel through, especially for strangers: All this part of the country, viz. between Bridgewater, and the sea, and on northward upon the coast, lies low, and is wholly imployed in breeding and feeding of cattle, as are also the moors, or marsh grounds, which extend themselves up the rivers Perrot, and Ivill, into the heart of the country; of which in its place.

This low part of the country, between Bridgewater and Bristol, suffered exceedingly in that terrible inundation of the sea, which was occasioned by the violence of the wind in the great storm, anno 1703, and the country people have set up marks upon their houses and trees, with this note upon them, “ Thus high the waters came in the great storm”: “Thus far the great tide flowed up in the last violent tempest”; and the like.

And in one place they shewed us, where a ship was, by the force of the water, and the rage of the tempest, driven up upon the shore, several hundred yards from the ordinary high water mark, and was left in that surprizing condition upon dry land.

As this country is all a grazing, rich, feeding soil, so a great number of large oxen are fed here, which are sent up to London; so that now we come into the reach of my former observation, viz. That every county furnishes something for the supply of London, and no county in England furnishes more effectual provisions, nor, in proportion, a greater value than this. These supplies are in three articles.

1. Fat oxen (as above) as large, and good, as any in England.

2. Large Cheddar cheese, the greatest, and best of the kind in England.

3. Colts bred in great numbers in the moors, and sold into the northern counties, where the horse copers, as they are called, in Staffordshire, and Leicestershire, buy them again, and sell them to London for cart horses, and coach horses, the breed being very large.

As the low part of this county is thus imployed in grazing and feeding cattle, so all the rest of this large extended country is imployed in the woollen manufactures, and in the best, and most profitable part of it.

I mention this at large, because this trade of fine Spanish medley cloth, being the mix’d colours and cloths, with which all the gentlemen and persons of any fashion in England, are cloth’d, and vast quantities of which are exported to all parts of Europe, is so very considerable, so vast an advantage to England, maintains and supports so many poor families, and makes so many rich ones, that no man can be just in the description of things, and in a survey of this part of England, and not enter into a particular description of it; the above you may take as an introduction to it, only I shall add but a little more, concerning this county of Somerset, and shall, upon my entering into the north-west and west parts of Wiltshire, where the center of this prodigy of a trade is, sum it all up together, and shew you the extent of land which it spreads itself upon, and give you room, at least, to make some guess at the numbers of poor people, who are sustain’d and inrich’d by it.

But I must first go back again a little while into Somersetshire: The northern part of the county, I did not visit in this journey, which, as I hinted before, is only a return from my long travel to the Land’s End. In omitting this part, I, of course, leave the two cities of Bristol and Bath, and that high part of the county called Mendip Hill, to my next western journey, which will include all the counties due west from London; for these now spoken of, though ordinarily called the west country, are rather S.W. than west.

But as I made a little trip from Bridgewater north, into the body of the county, I must take notice of what I observed in that part of it: The first place I came to was Glastenbury, where, indeed, the venerable marks of antiquity, however I have declined the observation of them, struck me with some unusual awe, and I resolved to hear all that could be told me upon that subject; and first they told me (for there are two pieces of antiquity, which were to be inquired of in this place) that King Arthur was buried here, and that his coffin had been found here.

Secondly, that Joseph of Arimathea was here, and that when he fix’d his staff in the ground, which was on Christmas Day, it immediately took root, budded, put forth white-thorn leaves, and the next day, was in full blossom, white as a sheet, and that the plant is preserved, and blows every Christmas Day, as at first, to this very day.

I took all this ad referendum, but took guides afterward, to see what demonstrations there could be given of all these things; they went over the ruins of the place with me, telling me, which part every particular piece of building had been; and as for the white-thorn, they carried me to a gentleman’s garden in the town, where it was preserved, and I brought a piece of it away in my hat, but took it upon their honour, that it really does blow in such manner, as above, on Christmas Day. However, it must be confessed, that it is universally attested.

Where I had the sight of the white-thorn tree, I obtained a sight of Mr. Cambden, and his continuator, and was, at first, a little concern’d, that a person of Mr. Cambden’s judgment, gave such an account of the legendary part of the history of this place, with a taste of his crediting the whole story; and from him I began to believe also, that Joseph of Arimathea, was really here, and that the Christian religion was preached in this island within thirty seven years after the death of our Saviour.

This, however, prompted me to farther inquiry, and the following account occurred, which is to be found, as they say, in the manuscript History of the Church of Glastenbury, now deposited in the Cottonian Library, and taken from it by Mr. Dugdale, in his Monasticon. Fol. 1, 2.

Glastonbury Monastery in Somersetshire,
of the Order of St. Benedict

In the year 31 after the Passion of our Lord, twelve of St. Philip the Apostle’s disciples (the chief of whom was Joseph of Arimathea) came into this country, and preached the Christian faith to Arviragus, who refused to embrace it, and yet granted them this place, with twelve hides of land; where they made walls of wattles, and erected the first church in this kingdom, which Christ personally dedicated to the honour of His Mother, and the place for burial of His servants, as is said in the manuscript History of the Monastery of Glastenbury in the Cotton Library. These twelve, and their successors, continuing long the same number, and leading an eremetical life, converted a great multitude of pagans to the faith of Christ. They being all, at length, dead and buried here, the most holy men Phaganus and Diruvianus, coming into these parts, and baptizing King Lucius and his people, had the aforesaid hides confirm’d to them and their successors, the same number of twelve being kept up ‘till the coming of St. Patrick, who, instructing them in the monastical life, became their abbot: After whom, the holy fathers Benignus, Kolumkil, and Gildas, led a most holy life there. Next came St. David Archbishop of Menevia, now called St. David’s, who added a new chapel to the church, dedicating it to the blessed Virgin, and erected a rich altar; and near the said chapel, Joseph of Arimathea, and other holy men, are said to have been buried. Tho’ the church was afterwards several times rebuilt, this place still remained under the former consecration, and was held in such veneration, that kings, bishops, and all the greatest persons, thought themselves happy in adding something to its possessions, or being buried with any small parcel of its earth. St. Dunstan, and other holy abbots, always preserving the number of twelve monks, added to them several clergymen that sung well.

This church, by reason of its antiquity, was by the English called Ealdchurch, that is, Old Church; and the people of the country about it, thought no oath more sacred, than to swear by the Old Church; as being the first, and oldest church in England, and held in such veneration, that it was called a second Rome, for sanctity; because, as Rome was honoured with a multitude of martyrs, so this place was renowned for many confessors.

This island, in which this church stands, was, by the Britons, first called Ynswyxtryn, that is, the Glass Island, by reason of the river, as it were of the colour of glass, incompassing the marsh. It was called an island, because inclosed about by a deep marsh. It was called Avallonia, either from the British word aval, signifying an apple, as being full of fruit-trees, or from Avallon, who was once lord of that territory. The Saxons gave it the name of Glastingebury, that is, the Town of Glass. There are several islands about this, all belonging to it, all which together were reduced to make up the twelve hides above-mentioned, the bounds whereof may be seen in Dugdale, p. 2. and 3. All the places within those bounds enjoy all sorts of immunities, from the first times of Christianity, granted and confirmed to the church of Glastonbury by the British, English, and Norman kings.

This church was the sacred repository of the ashes of a multitude of saints, insomuch that no corner of it, or of the church-yard,, is destitute of the same. There lie the twelve disciples (above-mentioned) of St. Philip the Apostle, with their chief, Joseph of Arimathea, and his son Josephus; also St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland; St. Benignus, disciple to St. Patrick; St. Pinius, disciple to Benignus; St. Gildas, the British historian; St. David, Bishop of Menevia; St. Dunstan; St. Indrastus, martyr, and his seven companions; St. Urban, martyr; St. Apollinaris, bishop and martyr, disciple to St. Peter the Apostle; St. Vincentius, archdeacon and martyr; three of the Holy Innocents; St. Besilius, martyr; part of St. Oswald, king and martyr; St. Valerius, and St. Salvius, bishops and martyrs; St. Canon, Anastatius, Renignius, Casanius, Abdon, and Sennen, martyrs; St. Paulinus, Bishop of the Northumbrians; St. Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarn; Coelfrid and Boisilus, abbots; Venerable Bede; St. Benedict, bishop; Hesterpine, Sigfride, and Herbert, abbots; St. Idamus, bishop; St. Teison, abbot, and his twelve companions; St. Iltwich; St. Lilianus, abbot; part of Guthlac, the anchorite; St. Poppa, Archbishop of Treves; St. Geminianus, confessor; the holy virgins Hilda, Hebbe, Begu, Crisante, Udilia, Mary, Martha, Lucy, Walburge, Gertrude, Cecily, Wenta, Mamilla, Edberga, Elfleda, Batildis, Ursula, Daria, Ealswitha; the last of these affirmed to be intire many years after she had been interred. Many more names of holy men and women were lost by the burning of the antient church, and time has worn out the memory of a still greater number.

Many holy relicks were also preserved in this church: Of those relating to the Old Testament, part of Rachel’s tomb; of the altar on which Moses pour’d out oyl; of his book; of the tomb of Isaiah; some manna: relicks of the prophet Daniel; of the three children delivered from the fiery furnace; six gilt stones of the pavement of the Temple, and some of the gate. Relating to our Lord Jesus Christ: Some of the linen He was wrapp’d in; two pieces of the manger; some of the gold offer’d by the Wise Men; five stones out of Jordan, where our Saviour was baptized; one of the vessels in which Christ turned water into wine; of the stones the Devil proposed to Christ to convert into bread; of the five loaves with which our Lord fed five thousand persons; of the place where He was transfigured; of the stone He stood on in the Temple; of His hair; of the hem of His garment; and many more, too tedious for this place: Also relicks of the Blessed Virgin; of St. John Baptist; of the Apostles; of many martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.

On this account, Glastonbury was every where held in the greatest veneration; and, as has been said, the greatest persons coveted to be buried there; most of whose names have been lost, and of some, mention has been made above.

A few feet from the Old Church stood two pyramids; that next to the church twenty-six feet high, on which were many antiquities worn out by age. On the uppermost story of it, was a pontifical image; on the second, the image of a king, with these letter, Heri, Sexi, and Blisier; on the third, were these words, Wemerest, Bantomp, Wineweng; on the fourth, Hate, Wulfred, and Eanfled; on the fifth, and lowest, an image, and this inscription, Logior, Weslicas, Bregden, Swelves, Hwingendes, Bera . The other pyramid was eighteen feet high, and had four stages, on which was to be read, Hedde Bishop Bregored, and Breorward. What these words signify is not known; but it is guess’d, they were the names of the persons deposited within the pyramid. So great was the respect paid by our ancestors to this place, that they durst not utter any idle words, nor so much as spit in the church, or church-yard, unless compell’d by the utmost necessity, and even then with the utmost reluctancy and remorse: Neither durst any man bring a hawk, horse, or dog into the church, because it had been often observed, that such as had been accidentally brought in, immediately died. Even from foreign countries the earth of this church-yard was sent for, to bury with the greatest persons; and it is reported, that even a Mahometan sultan, having taken an English gentleman in the Holy Land, gave him his liberty, upon promise, that he would bring him a gantlet full of that earth, which was accordingly perform’d, and the gentleman returning to Glastonbury, declared the same upon oath.

As to the burial of King Arthur, Mr. Cambden makes no doubt of it, and gives us from Giraldus Cambrensis, an account how King Henry II. caused search to be made for his tomb, and before they had dug seven foot, they came to a great stone, having a cross of lead on the inside of it, and the subsequent letters, or inscription upon it, and in the following rude character; which the said Giraldus Cambrensis, Mr. Cambden says, was an eye-witness of, as well as of a coffin of hollow’d oak, which they found by digging nine foot deeper than the inscription, wherein were deposited the bones of that great prince.

On the top of a high hill, near a mile from the town, stands an old tower, which the people vulgarly call the TORR; what it was, we are not certain; but it is made famous by one thing in particular; that here King Henry VIII. caused Richard Whitingus, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, to be hanged for refusing to surrender the monastery.

I must confess, that I cannot so much blame the Catholicks in those early days, for reverencing this place as they did, or, at least, ‘till they came to found idolatry upon their respect, if they really believed all these things; but my business is to relate, rather than make remarks.

Four miles from Glastonbury, lies the little city of Wells, where is one of the neatest, and, in some respects, the most beautiful, cathedrals in England, particularly the west front of it, is one complete draught of imagery, very fine, and yet very antient.

This is a neat, clean city, and the clergy, in particular, live very handsomly; the Closs, or part of the city, where the Bishop’s Palace is, is very properly called so; for it is walled in, and lock’d up like a little fortification, and has a ditch round it.

The dignified clergy live in the inside of it, and the prebendaries, and canons, which are very numerous, have very agreeable dwellings, and live very pleasantly. Here are no less than seven-and-twenty prebends, and nineteen canons, belonging to this church, besides a dean, a chancellor, a precentor, and three arch deacons; a number which very few cathedrals in England have, besides this.

Dugdale, in his Monasticon, tells us, that the church of Wells has given to the kingdom, one Cardinal, six High Chancellors, five High Treasurers, one Lord Privy Seal, one Lord President of Wales, one Secretary of State, all of them bishops of this diocess; the county is the diocess, and contains three hundred eighty-eight parishes, and the arch deaconries are of Wells, Bath, and Taunton.

The city lies just at the foot of the mountains called Mendip Hills, and is itself built on a stony foundation. Its manufacture is chiefly of stockings, as is mentioned already; ’tis well built, and populous, and has several good families in it; so that there is no want of good company there.

Near this city, and just under the hills, is the famous, and so much talk’d of Wokey Hole, which, to me, that had been in Pool’s Hole, in the Peak of Derby, has nothing of wonder or curiosity in it; the chief thing I observed in this, is, what is generally found in all such subterraneous caverns; namely, That the water dropping from the roof of the vault, petrifies, and hangs in long pieces like isicles, as if it would, in time, turn into a column to support the arch. As to the stories of a witch dwelling here, as of a gyant dwelling in the other (I mean in Pool’s Hole) I take them to be equally fabulous, and worth no notice.

In the low country, on the other side Mendip Hills, lies Chedder, a village pleasantly situated under the very ridge of the mountains; before the village is a large green, or common, a piece of ground, in which the whole herd of the cows, belonging to the town, do feed; the ground is exceeding rich, and as the whole village are cowkeepers, they take care to keep up the goodness of the soil, by agreeing to lay on large quantities of dung for manuring, and inriching the land.

The milk of all the town cows, is brought together every day into a common room, where the persons appointed, or trusted for the management, measure every man’s quantity, and set it down in a book; when the quantities are adjusted, the milk is all put together, and every meal’s milk makes one cheese, and no more; so that the cheese is bigger, or less, as the cows yield more, or less, milk. By this method, the goodness of the cheese is preserved, and, without all dispute, it is the best cheese that England affords, if not, that the whole world affords.

As the cheeses are, by this means, very large, for they often weigh a hundred weight, sometimes much more, so the poorer inhabitants, who have but few cows, are obliged to stay the longer for the return of their milk; for no man has any such return, ‘till his share comes to a whole cheese, and then he has it; and if the quantity of his milk deliver’d in, comes to above a cheese, the overplus rests in account to his credit, ‘till another cheese comes to his share; and thus every man has equal justice, and though he should have but one cow, he shall, in time, have one whole cheese. This cheese is often sold for six pence to eight pence per pound, when the Cheshire cheese is sold but for two pence to two pence halfpenny.

Here is a deep, frightful chasm in the mountain, in the hollow of which, the road goes, by which they travel towards Bristol; and out of the same hollow, springs a little river, which flows with such a full stream, that, it is said, it drives twelve mills within a quarter of a mile of the spring; but this is not to be understood, without supposing it to fetch some winding reaches in the way; there would not, otherwise, be room for twelve mills to stand, and have any head of water above the mill, within so small a space of ground. The water of this spring, grows quickly into a river, and runs down into the marshes, and joins another little river called Axe, about Axbridge, and thence into the Bristol Channel, or Severn Sea.

I must now turn east, and south-east, for I resolved not to go up the hills of Mendip at all, this journey, leaving that part to another tour, when I shall give an account of these mountains, as also of the cities of Bath and Bristol, to which they are very near, all in one letter.

I come now to that part of the country, which joins itself to Wiltshire, which I reserved, in particular, to this place, in order to give some account of the broad-cloth manufacture, which I several times mentioned in my first journey, and which is carried on here, and that to such a degree, as deserves a place in all the descriptions, or histories, which shall be given of this country.

As the east, and south parts of Wiltshire are, as I have already observed, all hilly, spreading themselves far and wide, in plains, and grassy downs, for breeding, and feeding, vast flocks of sheep, and a prodigious number of them: And as the west and north parts of Somersetshire are, on the contrary, low, and marshy, or moorish, for feeding, and breeding, of black cattle, and horses, or for lead-mines, &c. So all the south west part of Wiltshire, and the east part of Somersetshire, are low and flat, being a rich, inclosed country, full of rivers and towns, and infinitely populous, insomuch, that some of the market towns are equal to cities in bigness, and superior to them in numbers of people.

This low, flat country, contains part of the three counties of Somerset, Wilts, and Gloucester, and that the extent of it may be the easier understood by those who know any thing of the situation of the country, it reaches from Cirencester in the north, to Sherburn on the edge of Dorsetshire south, and from the Devizes east, to Bristol west, which may take in about fifty miles in length where longest, and twenty in breadth where narrowest.

In this extent of country, we have the following market towns, which are principally employed in the clothing trade, that is to say, in that part of it, which I am now speaking of; namely, fine medley, or mix’d cloths, such as are usually worn in England by the better sort of people; and, also, exported in great quantities to Holland, Hamburgh, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Italy, &c.

These towns, as they stand thin, and at considerable distance from one another; for, except the two towns of Bradford and Trubridge, the other stand at an unusual distance; I say, these towns are interspers’d with a very great number of villages, I had almost said, innumerable villages, hamlets, and scattered houses, in which, generally speaking, the spinning work of all this manufacture is performed by the poor people; the master clothiers, who generally live in the greater towns, sending out the wooll weekly to their houses, by their servants and horses, and, at the same time, bringing back the yarn that they have spun and finished, which then is fitted for the loom.

The increasing and flourishing circumstances of this trade, are happily visible by the great concourse of people to, and increase of buildings and inhabitants in these principal clothing towns where this trade is carried on, and the wealth of the clothiers. The town of Froom, or, as it is written in our maps, Frome Sellwood, is a specimen of this, which is so prodigiously increased within these last twenty or thirty years, that they have built a new church, and so many new streets of houses, and those houses are so full of inhabitants, that Frome is now reckoned to have more people in it, than the city of Bath, and some say, than even Salisbury itself, and if their trade continues to increase for a few years more, as it has done for those past, it is very likely to be one of the greatest and wealthiest inland towns in England.

I call it an inland town, because it is particularly distinguished as such, being, not only no sea-port, but not near any sea-port, having no manner of communication by water, no navigable river at it, or near it. Its trade is wholly clothing, and the cloths they make, are, generally speaking, all conveyed to London: Blackwell-Hall is their market, and thither they send up the gross of their clothing product; and, if we may believe common fame, there are above ten thousand people in Frome now, more than lived in it twenty years ago, and yet it was a considerable town then too.

Here are, also, several large meeting-houses, as well as churches, as there are, generally, in all the manufacturing, trading towns in England, especially in the western counties.

The Devizes is, next to this, a large and important town, and full of wealthy clothiers; but this town has, lately, run pretty much into the drugget-making trade; a business, which has made some invasion upon the broad-cloth trade, and great quantities of druggets are worn in England, as also, exported beyond the seas, even in the place of our broad-cloths, and where they usually were worn and exported; but this is much the same as to the trade still; for as it is all a woollen manufacture, and that the druggets may properly be called cloth, though narrow, and of a different make, so the makers are all called clothiers.

The River Avon, a noble and large fresh river, branching itself into many parts, and receiving almost all the rivers on that side the hills, waters this whole fruitful vale; and the water of this river seems particularly qualified for the use of the clothiers; that is to say, for dying the best colours, and for fulling and dressing the cloth, so that the clothiers generally plant themselves upon this river, but especially the dyers, as at Trubridge, and Bradford, which are the two most eminent cloathing towns in that part of the vale for the making fine Spanish cloths, and of the nicest mixtures.

From these towns south, to Westbury, and to Warminster, the same trade continues, and the finest medley Spanish cloths, not in England only, but in the whole world, are made in this part. They told me at Bradford, That it was no extraordinary thing to have clothiers in that country worth, from ten thousand, to forty thousand pounds a man, and many of the great families, who now pass for gentry in those counties, have been originally raised from, and built up by this truly noble manufacture.

If I may speak here from the authority of the antient inhabitants of the place, and who have been curious observers upon this subject, the country which I have now described, as principally imploy’d in, and maintained by this prodigy of a trade, contains two million, three hundred and thirty thousand acres of land, and has in it seven hundred eighty-eight parishes, and three hundred and seventy-four thousand people. It is true, that this is all guess-work; but I must confess myself very willing to believe, that the reckoning is far short of the account; for the county is exceeding large and populous.

It may be worth enquiry, by the curious, how the manufacturers, in so vast a consumption of the wooll, as such a trade must take up, can be supplied with wooll for their trade; and, indeed, it would be something strange, if the answer were not at hand.

We may reasonably conclude, that this manufacture was at first seated in this county, or, as we may say, planted itself here at first, because of the infinite numbers of sheep, which were fed at that time upon the downs and plains of Dorset, Wilts, and Hampshire, all adjoining, as a trading town is seated, or rises gradually upon some large river, because of the benefit of navigation; and as gentlemen place the mansion houses of their estates, and seats of their families, as near the pleasant rivers, woods, and fine prospects as possible, for the delight of their living; so the first planters of the clothing manufacture, doubtless, chose this delightful vale for its seat, because of the neighbourhood of those plains, which might be supposed to be a fund of wooll for the carrying it on. Thus the manufacture of white cloth was planted in Stroud Water in Gloucestershire, for the sake of the excellent water there for the dying scarlets, and all colours that are dyed in grain, which are better dyed there, than in any other place of England, some towns near London excepted. Hence, therefore, we first observe, they are supplied yearly with the fleeces of two or three millions of sheep.

But as the number of sheep fed on these downs is lessened, rather than increased, because of the many thousand acres of the carpet ground being, of late years, turned into arable land, and sowed with wheat; which, by the way, has made Warminster a market town, on the edge of Somersetshire, as it now is, without exception, the greatest market for wheat in England, with this exception only, viz. Where none of it is bought to send to London.

I say, The number of sheep, and consequently the quantity of wooll, decreasing, and at the same time the manufacture, as has been said, prodigiously increasing, the manufacturers applied themselves to other parts for a supply, and hence began the influx of north-country wooll to come in from the counties of Northampton, Leicester, and Lincoln, the center of which trade, is about Tetbury and Cirencester, where are the markets for the north-country wooll, and where, as they say, several hundred packs of wooll are sold every week, for the supply of this prodigious consumption.

From London, they have great quantities of wooll, which is generally called Kentish wooll, in the fleece, which is brought up from thence by the farmers, since the late severe Acts against their selling it within a certain number of miles of the sea, also fell-wooll for the combers, bought of the wooll-staplers in Barnabystreet, and sent back by the carriers, which bring up the cloths to market.

They have also, sometimes, large quantities of Irish wooll, by the way of Bristol, or of Mynhead, in Somersetshire; but this is uncertain, and only on extraordinary occasions. I omit the Spanish wooll, as being an article by itself.

Thus, in short, as those that see the numbers of sheep fed on the downs and plains, as above, and that see the quantity of wooll brought to the markets of Tetbury, and other towns, and the quantity sent from London, all into this one vale, would wonder how it was possible to be consumed, manufactured, and wrought up; so on the other hand, those that saw the numbers of people imploy’d, and the vast quantity of goods made in this part of England, would wonder where the whole nation should be able to supply them with wooll.

And yet, notwithstanding the whole country is thus imploy’d in the broad-cloth manufacture, as above, I must not omit to mention, that here is a very great application to another trade or two, which I am obliged, by my first scheme, not to forget to mention, viz. The supplying the city of London with provisions; though it is true, that the general imployment of the people in all this county, is in the woollen manufacture; yet, as the spinning is generally the work of the women and children, and that the land is here exceeding rich and fertile, so it cannot be supposed, but that here are farmers in great numbers, whose business it is to cultivate the land, and supply the rest of the inhabitants with provisions; and this they do so well, that notwithstanding the county is so exceeding populous, yet provisions of all sorts are very cheap, the quantity very great, and a great overplus sent every day to London for the supply of their demand, which, as I said before, is great enough to exhaust a whole nation.

All the lower part of this county, and also of Gloucestershire, adjoining, is full of large feeding farms, which we call dairies, and the cheese they make, as it is excellent good of its kind, so being a different kind from the Cheshire, being soft and thin, is eaten newer than that from Cheshire. Of this, a vast quantity is every week sent up to London, where, though it is called Gloucestershire cheese, yet a great part of it is made in Wiltshire, and the greatest part of that which comes to London, the Gloucestershire cheese being more generally carried to Bristol, and Bath, where a very great quantity is consumed, as well by the inhabitants of two populous cities, as also for the shipping off to our West-India colonies, and other places.

This Wiltshire cheese is carried to the river of Thames, which runs through part of the county, by land carriage, and so by barges to London.

Again, in the spring of the year, they make a vast quantity of that we call green cheese, which is a thin, and very soft cheese, resembling cream cheeses, only thicker, and very rich. These are brought to market new, and eaten so, and the quantity is so great, and this sort of cheese is so universally liked and accepted in London, that all the low, rich lands of this county, are little enough to supply the market; but then this holds only for the two first summer months of the year, May and June, or little more.

Besides this, the farmers in Wiltshire, and the part of Gloucestershire adjoining, send a very great quantity of bacon up to London, which is esteemed as the best bacon in England, Hampshire only excepted: This bacon is raised in such quantities here, by reason of the great dairies, as above, the hogs being fed with the vast quantity of whey, and skim’d milk, which so many farmers have to spare, and which must, otherwise, be thrown away.

But this is not all, for as the north part of Wiltshire, as well the downs, as the vales, border upon the river Thames, and, in some places, comes up even to the banks of it; so most of that part of the county being arable land, they sow a very great quantity of barley, which is carried to the markets at Abingdon, at Farrington, and such places, where it is made into malt, and carried to London. This imploys all the hill country from above Malmsbury to Marlbro, and on the side of the Vale of White Horse, as ’tis called, which is in Barkshire, and the hills adjoyning, a tract of ground, able to furnish, considering its fertility, a prodigious quantity of barley, and does so.

Thus Wiltshire itself helps to supply London with cheese, bacon, and malt, three very considerable articles, besides that vast manufacture of fine Spanish cloths, which I have said so much of, and I may, without being partial, say, that it is thereby rendered one of the most important counties in England, that is to say, important to the publick wealth of the kingdom. The bare product is in itself prodigious great; the downs are an inexhausted store-house of wooll, and of corn, and the valley, or low part of it, is the like for cheese and bacon.

One thing here is worth while to mention, for the observation of those counties in England, where they are not yet arrived to that perfection of husbandry, as in this county, and I have purposely reserved it to this place: The case is this, The downs or plains, which are generally called Salisbury Plain; but, particularly, extend themselves over the counties of Southampton, Wilts, and Dorset, were formerly all left open to be fed by the large flocks of sheep so often mentioned; but now, so much of these downs are plowed up, as has increased the quantity of corn produced in this county, in a prodigious manner, and lessened their quantity of wooll, as above; all which has been done by folding their sheep upon the plow’d lands, removing the fold every night to a fresh place, ‘till the whole piece of ground has been folded on; this, and this alone, has made these lands, which in themselves are poor, and where, in some places, the earth is not above six inches above the solid chalk rock, able to bear as good wheat, as any of the richer lands in the vales, though not quite so much: I say this alone; for many of these lands lie so remote from the farmers houses, and up such high hills, for the farmers live always in the valleys, and by the rivers, that it could not be worth their while to carry dung from those farm-houses, to those remote lands; besides, the draught up hill would be so heavy, and the ways so bad, that it would kill all their cattle.

If this way of folding sheep upon the fallows, and plowed lands, were practised, in some parts of England, and especially in Scotland, they would find it turn to such account, and so effectually improve the waste lands, which now are useless and uncultivated, that the sheep would be more valuable, and lands turn to a better account than was ever yet known among them. In Wiltshire it appears to be so very significant, that if a farmer has a thousand of sheep, and no fallows to fold them on, his neighbours will give him ten shillings a night for every thousand.

I am come now to Marlborough: On the downs, about two or three miles from the town, are abundance of loose stones, lying scattered about the plain; some whereof are very large, and appear to be of the same kind with those at Stonehenge, and some larger. They are called by the country people, not for want of ignorance, The Gray Weathers. I do not find any account given of them in history, or by the greatest of our antiquaries, so I must leave them as I find them.

At Marlborough, and in several villages near, as well as on the downs, there are several of those round rising mounts, which the country people call barrows, and which all our writers agree, were monuments of the dead, and particularly of soldiers slain in fight. This in Marlborough, stands in the Duke of Somerset’s garden, and is, by that means, kept up to its due height. There is a winding way cut out of the mount, that goes several times round it, ‘till insensibly it brings you to the top, where there is a seat, and a small pleasant green, from whence you look over great part of the town.

This is an antient town, and, at present, has a pretty good shop-keeping trade, but not much of the manufacturing part. The river Kennet, lately made navigable by Act of Parliament, rises just by this town, and running from hence to Hungerford, and Newbery, becomes a large stream, and passing by Reading, runs into the Thames near the town. This river is famous for craw-fish, which they help travellers to at Newbery; but they seldom want for price.

Between this town of Marlborough, and Abington, westward, is the Vale of White Horse: The inhabitants tell a great many fabulous stories of the original of its being so called; but there is nothing of foundation in them all, that I could see; the whole of the story is this; Looking south from the vale, we see a trench cut on the side of a high green hill, this trench is cut in the shape of a horse, and not ill-shap’d I assure you. The trench is about two yards wide on the top, about a yard deep, and filled almost up with chalk, so that at a distance, for it is seen many miles off, you see the exact shape of a White Horse; but so large, as to take up near an acre of ground, some say, almost two acres. From this figure the hill is called, in our maps, White Horse Hill, and the low, or flat country under it, the Vale of White Horse.

It is a very fertile and fruitful vale, and extends itself from Farrington almost to Abington, tho’ not exactly in a line: Some think ’twas done by the Saxons, whose device was a white horse, and is so still.

Having spoken of what is most remarkable, or at least, what most occurred to my observation from the Land’s End to Newbery in Barkshire, I must here take the liberty to look round upon some passages in later times, which have made this part of the country more famous than before, I. On the hills on this side the Devizes, is Roundway Down, where the Lord Wilmot, and the king’s forces, beat, and intirely routed, the famous Sir William Waller, in the late Rebellion, or Civil War; from whence the place is called, by some, Runaway Down to this day. A little nearer towards Marlborough, is St. Ann’s Hill, where, notwithstanding several high hills between, and the distance of twenty-two miles, or more, is a fair view of Salisbury-steeple, or spire, which is, without all dispute, the highest in England. The defeat of Sir William Waller, take in the few words of one of the most impartial historians of those times. —— The action was, in short, thus,

Waller had always the misfortune to be beaten when he pursued nis enemy to force a fight. This was his case now: He heard that the Lord Wilmot, with a body of the king’s forces, were marched into the west to joyn Colonel Greenville, Sir Arthur Slanning, and the loyal troops in Dorsetshire: Upon this, he makes long marches to overtake, and intercept them, pretending to fight them, joyn’d, or not joyn’d; but my Lord Wilmot advancing with 1500 horse of the king’s best troops, joyn’d the western forces at the Devizes, and facing about upon Waller, met him upon Roundway Down, not far from St. Ann’s Hill, mentioned above.

As I said, he who was seeking out his enemy, must himself be easy to be found, and therefore they soon came together; for though Waller seeing too late, that he was in an error, would have been glad to have got off without fighting, yet seeing the king’s troops advance in full march to attack him, boldly drew up in order of battle, and marched forward to meet them: Upon which ensued an obstinate, and very bloody, fight; for Waller was brave, and his men had been enur’d to victory, especially his infantry, and though they were gallantly attacked by Colonel Slanning, and Greenville, the latter of whom was slain, yet they stood their ground, and could not be broken, but rather gain’d upon the Royalists: But the Lord Wilmot charging with an irresistable fury at the head of the cavalry, the rebel horse were broken, and put into confusion, a body of Wilmot’s horse pushing them quite out of the field: Lord Wilmot then falling with the like fury upon the rear of the foot, while the king’s foot lay hard upon them in the front: They were, at last, broken also; and, in a word, quite overthrown: And there being no way to escape the horse, upon an open wild down, as that is, they were most of them cut in pieces, or taken prisoners. All their cannon and baggage were also taken, with their arms and ammunition; and Waller himself, with great difficulty, escaped. This was in the month of August, 1643.

From this action, as I said, this place was ever after called Runaway-Down, instead of Roundway-Down.

Berkshire and Buckinghamshire

At Newbery there was another, or rather a double scene of blood; for here were two obstinate, and hard fought, battles, at two several times, between the king’s army, and the Parliament’s, the king being present at them both, and both fought almost upon the same spot of ground. In these two battles, said an old experienced soldier, that served in the king’s army, there was more generalship shewn on both sides, than in any other battle through the whole course of the war; his meaning was, That the generals, on both sides, shewed the most exquisite skill in the managing, posting, bringing up, and drawing off their troops; and as the men fought with great bravery on both sides, so the generals, and officers, shewed both their bravery, and their judgment. In the first of these battles, the success was doubtful, and both sides pretended to the advantage: In the last, the king’s army had apparently the worst of it and yet the king, in a very few days, with a great body of horse, fetch’d off his cannon, which he had, in the close of the battle, thrust into Dunington Castle, and carried them away to Oxford the head quarter of his army, or his place of arms, as it would be called now; and this he did in the sight of the victorious army, facing them at the same time, with a body of six thousand horse, and they, on the other hand, did not think fit to draw out to attack him. That retreat, in point of honour, was equal to a victory, and gave new courage, as well as reputation, to the king’s troops. Indeed the Parliament’s army was out-general’d in that part; for as they had beaten the long s army out of the field, and obliged them to shelter their train of artillery and carriages in the castle, which was m itself a place of no great strength; they ought immediately, even the same night, to have invested the place, and posted their army so, as to cover the siege; in which case, the cannon, and all that was in the castle, had been their own; for though the king had indeed, a gallant body of horse, and superior to the Parliament cavalry by almost three thousand, yet his best regiments of foot had been roughly handled in the battle, and some of them quite cut in pieces; so that his majesty would not have been in condition to have attacked them in their posts, in order to have raised the siege.

But this is not my business: This town of Newbery is an antient cloathing town, though, now, little of that part remains to it; but it retains still a manufacturing genius, and the people are generally imployed in making shalloons, a kind of stuff, which, though it be used only for the lineing and insides of mens cloaths, for women use but little of it, nor the men for any thing but as above, yet it becomes so generally worn, both at home and abroad, that it is increased to a manufacture by itself, and is more considerable, than any single manufacture of stuffs in the nation. This imploys the town of Newbery, as also, Andover, another town on the side of Wiltshire, about twelve miles from it, and abundance of other towns, in other counties of England, of which I shall speak in their place.

And, having mentioned Andover, though out of the road that I was in, I must digress to tell you, that the town of Andover lies on the very edge of the downs which I have so often mentioned, and is in the road from Newbery to Salisbury, as it is from London to Taunton, and all the manufacturing part of Somersetshire; ’tis a handsom town, well built, populous, and much inrich’d by the manufacture, as above, and may be called a thriving town: It sends two members to Parliament, and is an antient corporation.

But the chief reason of my making this digression, is to mention, that within a mile, or thereabouts, of this town, at the place where the open down country begins, is Wey-Hill, where the greatest fair for sheep is kept, that this nation can shew. I confess, though I once saw the fair, yet I could make no estimate of the number brought thither for sale; but asking the opinion of a grasier, who had used to buy sheep there, he boldly answered, There were many hundred thousands. This being too general, I pressed him farther; at length he said, He believed there were five hundred thousand sheep sold there in one fair. Now, tho’ this might, I believe, be too many, yet ’tis sufficient to note, that there are a prodigious quantity of sheep sold here; nor can it be otherwise, if it be considered, that the sheep sold here, are not for immediate killing, but are generally ewes for store sheep for the farmers, and they send for them from all the following counties, Berks, Oxford, Bucks, Bedford, Hertford, Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex: The custom of these farmers, is, to send one farmer in behalf of (perhaps) twenty, and so the sheep come up together, and they part them when they come home. These ewes have also this property, that they generally bring two lambs at a time. What weathers are bought here, are carried off by the farmers, who have feeding grounds, in order to fat them for killing; but they are but few compared to the ewes.

But to go back to Newbery: Not to insist upon the famous Jack of Newbery, who was so great a clothier, that when King James met his waggons loaden with cloths going to London, and inquiring whose they were, was answered by them all, They were Jack of Newbery’s, the king returned, if the story be true, That this Jack of Newbery was richer than he: But not to insist upon this man’s story, which is almost grown fabulous, yet another story is fact, and to be proved, viz. That this is one of the two legatee towns (as they were called) in the will of the late famous Mr. Kenrick, who being the son of a clothier of Newbery, and afterwards a merchant in London, left four thousand pounds to Newbery, and seven thousand five hundred pounds to Reading, to incourage the cloathing trade, and set the poor at work, besides other gifts of extraordinary value to the poor, as such. This gentleman I shall have occasion to mention again, and therefore I say no more now, only, that his effigie, or picture, was to be seen, before the Fire, in S. Christopher’s Church in Thread Needle Street, London, where he is buried, and where the benefaction he left for prayers every morning at six a clock, winter and summer, in that church, is still injoyed, and the prayers performed there accordingly: As likewise, it is at Reading, and at Newbery.

This extraordinary will is to be seen at large in Stow’s Survey of London, to which I refer, and which it is well worth the reader’s while to look over, the like not being heard of in England, before. It seems he died a batchelor, or, at least, without children, and his legacies, all in ready money, cannot amount to less than forty thousand to fifty thousand pounds, besides what might be included in the general clause of leaving all the rest of his estate to him who he made his universal heir; which estate, as I have heard, amounted to a very great value. That forty or fifty thousand pounds also, being considered at the time it was left, might well be rated at four times the value, as the rate of things goes now, it being in the year 1624. What improvement the town of Newbery, or the town of Reading, has made of the great sums he left to their management, that I did not inquire into.

Near this town of Newbery, the late Earl of Craven built a very stately pile of buildings for his own dwelling, called Spine; but as it was never quite finished, so I do not understand, that his lordship ever came to live in it, and, within these few years, it was, by a sudden fire, which no-body can, or no-body will, tell how it began, burnt down to the ground. It was reported, the old lord built this magnificent palace, for such it really was, at a time when he (flatter’d himself, at least, with expectation, and) had hopes of marrying Madam Royal, as she was then called, the Queen of Bohemia, sister to King Charles I. who was then a widow, and lived under the shadow of the English Court; but being frustrated afterwards in that view, his lordship went no farther in his building.

Here it was that the vanguard, or first line of the Prince of Orange’s army, was posted, when the Irish dragoons, who were posted in Reading, finding they should be attacked in a few days, had put the town’s people into such a fright, by threatening to burn and plunder the town, and cut all the peoples throats, that they sent express messengers to the Dutch general officer Grave Van Nassau for help; who sent them a detachment of but two hundred and eighty dragoons, though the troops in the town were near seven hundred men. What success they met with, I shall mention presently.

The next town of note, I say, is Reading, a very large and wealthy town, handsomly built, the inhabitants rich, and driving a very great trade. The town lies on the River Kennet, but so near the Thames, that the largest barges which they use, may come up to the town bridge, and there they have wharfs to load, and unload them. Their chief trade is by this water-navigation to and from London, though they have necessarily a great trade into the country, for the consumption of the goods which they bring by their barges from London, and particularly coals, salt, grocery wares, tobacco, oyls, and all heavy goods.

They send from hence to London by these barges, very great quantities of malt, and meal, and these are the two principal articles of their loadings, of which, so large are those barges, that some of them, as I was told, bring a thousand, or twelve hundred quarters of malt at a time, which, according to the ordinary computation of tonnage in the freight of other vessels, is from a hundred, to an hundred and twenty ton, dead weight.

They also send very great quantities of timber from Reading; for Berkshire being a very-well wooded county, and the River Thames a convenient conveyance for the timber, they send most of it, and especially the largest and fairest of the timber, to London, which is generally bought by the shipwrights in the river, for the building merchant ships; as also, the like trade of timber is at Henley, another town on the Thames, and at Maidenhead, of which by itself.

Here was a large manufacture of sail-cloth set up in this town, by the late Sir Owen Buckingham, Lord Mayor of London, and many of the poor people were, profitably (to them) imployed in it; but Sir Owen himself dying, and his son being unhappily killed in a duel, a little while after, that manufacture died also.

There is, however, still a remnant of the woollen manufacture here; I say a remnant, because this was once a very considerable cloathing town, much greater than it is now; and this town, as well as Newbery, and principally before Newbery, has injoyed the munificent legacies of that generous merchant I mentioned before, I mean Mr. Kenrick, who left them 7500l . to set the poor at work, and encourage the cloathing trade. How they manage for the poor, that they can give the best account of.

Mr. Cambden’s continuator, Dr. Gibson, says, there was once a hundred and forty master-clothiers in this one town; but that now, they are almost all gone. During the civil wars in England, this town was strongly fortified, and the remains of the bastions, and other works are still to be seen; but the Royalists abandoning it afterwards, it was possess’d by the Parliament, soon after the battle at Newbery.

There are three churches, and two large meeting houses in this town, besides that of the Quakers; and the town, Cambden calls it a little city, is said to contain about eight thousand people, including a little hamlet at the bridge over the Thames.

Here was once a most famous monastery, founded by King Henry I. younger son of William the Conqueror, who lies buried in it with his queen, and his daughter Maud; of whom it was said, She was a king’s daughter, a king’s wife, and a king’s mother, but herself no queen; this is made out, in that she was daughter to Henry I. wife to the Emperor of Germany, and mother to King Henry II. so she was an empress, but not a queen. This abbey is now so demolished, that scarce any remains of it are found, or the place of it known.

As I have noted above, it was here that the Dutch with two hundred and eighty horse and dragoons, attacked the forces of the late King James, in aid of the distress’d town’s -men, who they threatened to murther and plunder that very day. It was on a Sunday morning, that the Irish dragoons had resolved on the design’d mischief, if they really intended it: In order to it, they posted a guard at the principal church in the piazza there, and might, indeed, easily have lock’d all the people in, and have cut their throats; also they placed a company of foot in the church-yard of another church, over-against the Bear Inn; so that if they really did not intend to massacre the people, as their officers said they did not, yet that way of posting their men, joyn’d to the loud oaths and protestations, that they would do it, made it look as like such a design, as any thing unexecuted, or unattempted, could do.

In this posture things stood when the Dutch entered the town: The Irish had placed a centinel on the top of the steeple of the great church, with orders, if he saw any troops advance, to fire his piece, and ring the bell; the fellow, being surprised with the sight, for he discovered the Dutch but a little before they reached the town, fired his musquet, but forgot to ring the bell, and came down. However, his firing gave the alarm sufficiently, and the troops in the town, who were all under arms before, whether for the designed execution, or not, I will not determine; but, I say, being under arms before, they had little more to do, but to post their troops, which they did with skill enough, being commanded by Sir John Lanier, an experienced officer, and colonel of a regiment of horse in King James’s army; and had the men done their duty, they might easily have repuls’d the few troops that attacked them; but the Dutch entering the town in two places, one by the ordinary road from Newbery, and the other by the Broad Street near where the horse-fair is kept, forc’d both the posts, and entered the market place, where the main body of the Irish troops were drawn up.

The first party of the Dutch found a company of foot drawn up in the church-yard over-against the Bear Inn, and a troop of dragoons in the Bear Inn yard; the dragoons hearing the Dutch were at hand, their officer bravely drew them out of the inn yard, and faced the Dutch in the open road, the churchyard wall being lined with musquetiers to flank the street; the Dutch, who came on full gallop, fell in upon the dragoons, sword in hand, and with such irresistable fury, that the Irish were immediately put into confusion, and after three or four minutes bearing the charge, they were driven clear out of the street. At the very same instant, another party of the Dutch dragoons, dismounting, entered the church-yard, and the whole body posted there, fled also, with little or no resistance, not sufficient, indeed, to be called resistance. After this, the dragoons, mounting again, forced their squadrons, and entered the market place.

Here, the troops being numerous, made two or three regular discharges; but finding themselves charged in the rear by the other Dutchmen, who had by this time entered the said Broad Street, they not knowing the strength, or weakness of their enemy, presently broke, and fled by all the ways possible. Sir John Lanier, having a calash and six horses, got away with the first, though he was twice headed by a Dutch trooper, who endeavoured to shoot one of the horses, but miss’d his shot, so the colonel got away.

The Dutch having cleared the town, pursued some of them as far as Twyford, and such was the terror that they were in, that a person, from whom I had this part of the relation, told me, he saw one Dutch trooper chase twelve of the Irish dragoons to the river near Twyford, and ride into the water a good way after them; nor durst Sir John Lanier’s regiment of horse, and Sir John Fenwick’s, and a third, whose colonel I do not remember, advance to relieve their friends, though they, having had the alarm, stood drawn up on the hill on Twyford side of the river, where they might see by what a contemptible number their numerous party was pursued; for there were not above five and forty, or fifty at most, of the Dutch, that pursued about three hundred of the Irish dragoons to Twyford.

Thus the town of Reading was delivered from the danger they were threatned with, and which they as really expected, as they expected the sun would rise. It is true, the Irish officers denied afterwards, that there was any such design, or that they intended to offer the people any violence; but it is true, that several of their soldiers confess’d it, and gave private intimations of it, to the people in the houses where they quartered, especially some that had been kindly treated in their quarters, and had a little more gratitude and humanity than the rest.

I cannot omit to observe one thing here, to which I was an eye-witness, and which will resolve a difficulty that to this day has puzzled the understandings of a great many people, if not of the whole nation; namely, That here began the universal alarm that spread over the whole kingdom (almost at the same time) of the Irish being coming to cut every bodies throats: The brief account of which, because it has something curious in it I believe will be agreeable to you. The state of it is thus:

As the terror which the threatnings of these Irishmen had brought upon the whole town of Reading, obliged the magistrates, and chief of the inhabitants, to apply to the Prince of Orange’s army for immediate help, so you cannot doubt, but that many of the inhabitants fled for their lives by all the ways that they could; and this was chiefly in the night; for in the day the soldiers, who had their eyes every where, stopped them, and would not permit them to stir, which still increased their terror.

Those that got away, you may be sure, were in the utmost fright and amazement, and they had nothing less in their mouths, but that the Irish would (and by that time had) burnt the town, and cut the throats of all the people, men, women, and children. I was then at Windsor, and in the very interval of all this fright, King James being gone, and the army retreated from Salisbury, the Lord Feversham calls the troops together, and causing them to lay down their arms, disbands them, and gives them leave, every man, to go whither they would.

The Irish dragoons, which had fled from Reading, rallied at Twyford, and having not lost many of their number (for there were not above twelve men killed) they marched on for Maidenhead, swearing, and cursing, after most soldierly a manner, that they would burn all the towns where-ever they came, and cut the throats of all the people. However, whether it was, that they thought themselves too near the Dutch at Maidenhead, or what else was the matter, they did not offer to take quarters at Maidenhead, the town also being full of King James’s troops, so they marched on for Colebrook, blustering in the same manner, of what they would do when they came there. The town of Colebrook had notice of their coming, and how they had publickly threatened to burn the town, and murther all the people; but, happily for them, they had quartered there a regiment of Scots foot, of those regiments which King James had caused to march from Scotland to his aid on this occasion; and they had with them, as was the usage of all the foot in those times, two pieces of cannon, that is to say, field-pieces, and they stood just in the market-place, pointing westward to the street where these gentlemen were to come.

The people of Colebrook applied immediately to the Scots colonel, whose name I am very sorry I cannot remember, because it is to his honour that I should mention it, and begged his protection. The colonel calling together a council of his officers, immediately resolved, they would make good their quarters, unless they received orders from their superior officers to quit them, and that they would defend the town from plunder; and upon this, immediately the drums beat to arms, and the regiment came together in a few moments: It was in the depth of winter, and, by consequence, was night, and being a wet day, the evening was exceeding dark, when some advanced centinels gave notice, that they heard the drums beat the dragoons march, at some distance upon the road.

Upon this the colonel ordered a lieutenant, with thirty musqueteers, to make an advanced guard at the extreme part of the town, and he was supported by another party of forty men, most pikes, at a small distance, who were to advance upon a signal; and if these last should ingage, the drums of the whole regiment were to beat a march, and half the battalion, to advance with the two pieces of cannon.

It was near ten a clock at night before the dragoons reached the town, when the two advanced dragoons, which, by the discipline at that time, always rode at a distance from the regiment, were challenged by the centinels placed by the lieutenant, as above; upon which they gave notice to the regiment, who immediately halted, and an officer, with some dragoons (they could not tell how many, because it was dark) came up, and demanded, Who they were that challenged? the centinel called his corporal, and he the serjeant, with three files of musqueteers, and they told the officer what regiment they belong’d to, and that they had orders to stop any troops from entering the town, ‘till their colonel should be acquainted with it and give farther orders.

The dragoons, as the ground would admit, drew up in front, and their officers began to huff and threaten, that they were the king’s troops, and within the line of the army; that they must have quarters in the town, and ought not to be refused by their own side.

By this time the lieutenant came up also: He gave the officer of dragoons very good words, and told him, He knew too well what belonged to the duty of a subaltern officer, to blame him for doing his duty; but that the regiment was under arms, and the colonel at the head of them in the market-house, and he would immediately send to him for orders, and doubted not, but that the colonel would give them quarters in the town. The dragoons, not satisfied with this civil usage, threatened, swore rag’d, and damning the colonel, and the regiment, though not present, said they would have quarters without asking leave of any man, and the officer turning about to a sergeant, bid him go back, and cause the regiment to advance.

The lieutenant told him calmly, He was sorry to see him act so; but if that was his resolution, he was ready for him, and immediately called out to his sergeant to give the signal to the next party to advance, and told the officer of dragoons, that if he stirred one foot forward, or any of his men, he would fire upon them immediately. The forty men advanced, and in two minutes after, they could hear the drums of the regiment beat the Scots march.

Upon this, the dragoons halted again, and the major of the dragoons advancing to the parlee, the lieutenant colonel of the foot was also come up to the lieutenant’s party, with the forty men, and with the colonel’s answer to the demand of quarters; namely, That if the dragoons had any orders in writing from the general for quartering in the town, or for marching that way, he was very ready to give them admittance; but if not they were his quarters, and he would defend them to the last man, and no-body should come in there, especially at that time of night.

The dragoons, however, insulted and menac’d the major also, and that at such a rate, that he gave orders immediately to acquaint the colonel of it, who instantly advanced, in full march, with the whole regiment, having about one hundred links lighted to let them see the way, the night being exceeding dark.

When the dragoons saw this, and having no stomach to engage, they desisted; but raged and stormed at such a rate, as I cannot express, and taking the road to Stanes, swore, they would go thither, and burn the town, and kill man, woman and child.

Those blusters were so loud, and the fellows, by nation, such as from whom it might be expected, as put the people of Colebrook, the fright they had been in for themselves being a little over, into a second concern for their neighbours at Stanes, and some of them shewed the concern to be so real, that they sent express upon express to Stanes, to acquaint the people there of their danger, knowing there was, at that time, only two companies of foot, of Colonel ———’s regiment, in the town. When these messengers came there, they found the people already alarmed by others, who had come from the same town of Colebrook, in the first fright, with the news, that the Irish were coming to burn the said town of Colebrook, and that, by that time, they did not question but they had done it, and they were surprized to hear now, that it was not done; but upon the arriving of these messengers, bringing word, that they had burnt Colebrook, but for the assistance of the Scots regiment; and that they were coming to Stanes, and swore, they would kill man, woman and child; it is impossible to express the consternation of the people: Away they run out of the town, dark, and rainy, and midnight as it was, some to Kingston, some over the heath to Hownslow, and Brentford, some to Egham, and some to Windsor, with the dreadful news; and by that tune they reached those places, their fears had turned their story from saying, they would burn and kill, to they had burned and killed, and were coming after you to do the like.

The same alarm was carried by others from Colebrook to Uxbridge; for thither the dragoons were for marching at first; and thus, some one way, and some another, it spread like the undulations of the water in a pond, when a flat stone is cast upon the surface: From Brentford and Kingston, and from Uxbridge, it came severally, and by different roads, to London, and so, as I may say, all over England; nor is it wonderful, that it seemed to be all over the nation in one day, which was the next after this beginning; Fear gave wings to the news, no post could carry it as it flew from town to town, and still every messenger had two articles with him. 1. Not that such and such towns were to be burnt and plundered by them; but that they were already burnt; and 2. That the Irish were at their heels to do the like.

This, I think, is a clear account of this alarm, and what can be more natural? Colebrook was not the case, for where-ever the Colebrook men came, they were asked, If their town was down? I rode the next morning to Maidenhead: At Slough they told me, Maidenhead was burnt, and Uxbridge, and Reading, and I know not how many more, were destroy’d; and when I came to Reading, they told me, Maidenhead and Okingham were burnt, and the like. From thence I went to Henley, where the Prince of Orange, with the second line of his army, entered that very afternoon, and there they had had the same account, with the news of King James’s flight; and thus it spread every way insensibly. The manner is too recent in memory, to need my giving any description of it.

My next stage from Reading, was to Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire, which, though not in the direct road, yet lying on the banks of the river of Thames, is, in my course, proper enough to be spoken of, and is particularly worth notice for several things.

It is a town of very great embarkation on the Thames, not so much for goods wrought here, (for the trade of the town is chiefly in bone-lace) but for goods from the neighbouring towns, and particularly, a very great quantity of malt, and meal, is brought hither from High-Wickham, a large market town, about ——— miles off, which is one of the greatest corn markets on this side of England, and lies on the road from London to Oxford.

Between High Wickham and Marlow, is a little river called the Loddon, on which are a great many mills, and particularly corn mills, and paper mills; the first of these, grind and dress the wheat, and then the meal is sent to Marlow, and loaded on board the barges for London: And the second makes great quantities of printing paper, and that, very good of its kind, and cheap, such as generally is made use of in printing our news papers, journals, &c. and smaller pamphlets; but not much fine, or large, for bound books, or writing.

On the river of Thames, just by the side of this town, though on the other bank, are three very remarkable mills, which are called the Temple-Mills, and are called also, the Brass-Mills, and are for making Bisham Abbey Battery Work, as they call it, viz. brass kettles, and pans, &c. of all sorts. They have first a foundary, where, by the help of lapis caliminaris, they convert copper into brass, and then, having cast the brass in large broad plates, they beat them out by force of great hammers, wrought by the water mills, into what shape they think fit for sale. Those mills went on by the strength of a good stock of money in a company or partnership, and with very good success, ‘till at last, they turned it into what they call a Bubble, brought it to Exchange-Alley, set it a stock-jobbing in the days of our South Sea madness, and brought it up to be sold at one hundred pounds per share, whose intrinsick worth was perhaps ten pounds, ‘till, with the fall of all those things together, it fell to nothing again. Their treasurer, a tradesman in London, failed, having misapply’d about thirty thousand pounds of their money, and then, as it is usual where want of success goes before, quarelling among themselves followed after, and so the whole affair sunk into a piece of mere confusion and loss, which otherwise was certainly a very beneficial undertaking.

Next to these are two mills, both extraordinary in themselves, one for making of thimbles, a work excellently well finished, and which performs to admiration, and another for pressing of oyl from rape-seed, and flax-seed, both which, as I was told, turn to very good account to the proprietors.

Here is also brought down a vast quantity of beech wood, which grows in the woods of Buckinghamshire more plentifully than in any other part of England. This is the most useful wood, for some uses, that grows, and without which, the city of London would be put to more difficulty, than for any thing of its kind in the nation.

For fellies for the great carrs, as they are called, which ply in London streets for carrying of merchandizes, and for cole-carts, dust-carts, and such like sorts of voiture, which are not, by the city laws, allowed to draw with shod wheels, or wheels tyr’d with iron.

For billet wood for the king’s palaces, and for the plate and flint glass houses, and other such nice purposes.

Beech quarters for divers uses, particularly chairmakers, and turnery wares. The quantity of this, brought from hence, is almost incredible, and yet so is the country overgrown with beech in those parts, that it is bought very reasonable, nor is there like to be any scarcity of it for time to come.

At Bisham, over against this town, was formerly an abbey, and the remains of it are still to be seen there: The estate belongs to the antient family of the name of Hobby. Some of the heads of this family, were very eminent in former days, particularly Sir William Hobby, and Sir Edward Hobby, the latter having been imployed by Queen Elizabeth in the most important foreign negotiations. Their monuments, with those of their ladies, and sons, are now to be seen, and well worth seeing they are, in the little church of Bisham. The seat of the family, is now in Dorsetshire, where Sir Thomas Hobby is still living; but they are generally all brought hither, when they die, to be buried with their ancestors.

A little higher, on the same side of the river, is Hurley, an antient seat of the Lord Lovelace, and that family being extinct, it came, by the daughter and heiress, to Sir Henry Johnson of Blackwall, near Ratcliff, who originally was only a shipwright, or master-builder, at the great yard and dock there, of which I shall speak in their place. This lady left only one daughter, married to the Earl of Strafford, and who now enjoys the Hurly estate, in the right of the above marriages of the daughters.

There are two other towns on the Thames, which I have already mentioned, viz. Henly and Maidenhead, which have little or nothing remarkable in them; but that they have great business also, by the trade for malt and meal and timber for London, which they ship, or load, on their great barges for London, as the other towns do.

And now I am, by just degrees, come to Windsor, where I must leave talking of trade, river, navigation, meal, and malt, and describe the most beautiful, and most pleasantly situated castle, and royal palace, in the whole isle of Britain.

Windsor Castle, founded, as some say, by William the Conqueror, if there was any thing in that part, was at least rebuilt, by Edward III. But the truth of the story is this, William the Conqueror did pitch upon it as a pleasant situation, in a delightful sporting country, and agreeable to him, who delighted much in hunting; and, as he says of it, a place fitted for the entertainment of kings, and therefore treated with the Abbot of Westminster for an exchange, and so took possession of it. He also had several little lodges, or hunting houses, in the forest adjoyning, and frequently lodg’d, for the conveniency of his game, in a house which the monks before injoy’d, near, or in the town of Windsor, for the town is much more antient than the castle, and was an eminent pass upon the Thames in the reign of the Saxon kings: But to pass over the antiquity or history of the town, this is certain, That King Edward III. took an extreme liking to the place, because of its beautiful situation, and pleasing prospect, which, indeed, is not to be out-done in any part of the kingdom: Here, at length, the king resolved to fix his summer residence, and himself laid out the plan of a most magnificent palace, the same, as to the outward form and building, as we now see it; for whatever has been done for beautifying, altering, or amending the inside and apartments, there has nothing been added to the building itself, except that noble terras, which runs under the north front, and leads to the green on the park, at the east side, or end of it, along which east end, the fine lodgings, and royal apartments, were at first built, all the north part being then taken up in rooms of state, and halls for publick balls, &c.

The house itself was, indeed, a palace, and without any appearance of a fortification; but when the building was brought on to the slope of the hill on the town side, the king added ditches, ramparts, the round tower, and several addenda of strength; and so it was immediately called a castle.

The pretence which some made to an old story, that William of Wickham built this castle, is a story so evidently fabulous, and so plainly detected, that the very relations which pretend to it, discover the contrary; owning, that the king was so incensed against him, but for a suggestion, that he had a project of assuming the honour of being the founder, that it had like to have cost William all his interest in the king’s favour, which, at that time, was very great; and the Duke of Lancaster, who was his irreconcilable enemy, took the advantage of prompting the king to make that suggestion; but he cleared himself by denying, that he ever made any pretence to being the founder, only put this construction upon the words, That the money, and the reputation he had gained by building that castle for the king, had been the making of him. The words were these,

THIS MADE WICKHAM.

These words, they say, he had caused to be cut on a stone in the inner wall of the little tower, which, from him, is to this day called Winchester Tower.

But to pass over this fiction, this is certain, King Edward was the founder of the whole work, and the plan of it was much of his own contrivance; but he committed the overseeing, and direction of the works, to William of Wickham, or, if you please, William of Wickham was the Sir Christopher Wren of that Court; for William was then a layman, not having had a liberal education, but had a good genius, a mighty lover of building, and had applied his head much that way; nor, indeed, does the building itself fail to do the head, or master-builder, a great deal of honour; for in all the decorations and ornaments, which have been made since by the princes who have liked Windsor best, they have found no occasion to alter any of the front, or to pull down, or build up, add, or diminish, except it be some small matter at the entrance to the great stair-case, the kitchen, and offices below stairs, and the like; but the great north, and east fronts, the square of the inner court, the great gates at the entering from the town, with the Round Tower, and the walls annexed, are all standing in the very form in which King Edward III. left them.

The only addition in the inside, is a fine equestrian statue of King Charles II. which stands over the great well, sunk, as may be supposed, in the first building, for the supply of the castle with water, and in which was an engine for raising the water, notwithstanding the great depth, by very little labour; the contrivance and performance done by the great Sir Samuel Morland, one of the best-natur’d mechanicks of his time, and as good a mathematician.

On the outside was added, the terrace walk, built by Queen Elizabeth, and where she usually walked for an hour every day before her dinner, if not hindered by windy weather, which she had a peculiar aversion to; for as to rainy weather, it would not always hinder her; but she rather loved to walk in a mild, calm rain, with an umbrella over her head.

This walk was really a magnificent work; for as it is raised on the side of a precipice, or steep declivity of the hill, so that hill was necessarily cut down a very great depth to bring the foundation to a flat equal to the breadth, which was to be formed above. From the foundation it was raised by solid stone work, of a vast thickness, with cross walls of stone, for banding the front, and preventing any thrust from the weight of earth within. Then this work was all to be filled up again within, after all was first taken out, was thrown down the front of the hill, to push out the precipices still farther, that it might be the same slope from the terrace, as it was before from the foot of the castle.

This noble walk is covered with fine gravel, and has cavities, with dreins, to carry off all the water; so that let it rain as it will, not a drop of it is seen to rest on the walk, but it is dry, hard, and fit to walk on immediately. The breadth of this walk is very spacious on the north side, on the east side it is narrower; but neither at Versailles, or at any of the royal palaces in France, or at Rome, or Naples, have I ever seen any thing like it. The grand seignior’s terrace in the outer court of the Seraglio, next the sea, is the nearest to it, that I have read of, and yet not equal to it, if I may believe the account of those who have seen it; for that, I acknowledge, I have not seen. At the north-east corner of this terrace, where it turns south, to run on by the east side of the castle, there are steps, by which you go off upon the plain of the park, which is kept smooth as a carpet, and on the edge of which, the prospect of the terrace is doubled by a vista, south over the park, and quite up to the great park, and towards the forest. Here also is a small seat, fit for one, or but two at the most, with a high back, and cover for the head, which turns so easily, the whole being fix’d on a pin of iron, or brass, of strength sufficient, that the persons who sit in it, may turn it from the wind, and which way soever the wind blows, or how hard soever, yet they may sit in a perfect tranquillity, and enjoy a compleat calm. This is said also, to be Queen Elizabeth’s own invention, who, though she delighted in being abroad in the air, yet hated to be ruffled with the wind. It is also an admirable contrivance for the person sitting in it, to shelter himself from the sun.

This lofty terrace makes the castle quite another thing, and gives an egress to the people within to the park, and to a most beautiful walk, which King Edward III. nor his successors for some hundreds of years, knew nothing of, all their prospect being from the windows of the castle.

On that side of the building which looks out upon the terrace, are all the royal apartments, King Edward Ill’s were on the east side. The east side is now allotted to great officers of state, who are obliged to attend whenever the Court removes to Windsor, such as the Lord Treasurers, Secretaries of State, Lord High Chancellor, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the like; and below they have proper offices for business, if they please to order any to be done there.

You mount into the royal apartments, by several back stairs; but the publick way is up a small ascent to a flat, or half pace (for I love to make my account speak English) where there are two entries of state, by two large stair-cases, one on the left hand to the royal apartments, and the other, on the right, to St. George’s -Hall, and the royal chapel.

Before the enterance to these, on either side, you pass through the guard chambers, where you see the walls furnished with arms, and the king’s Beef-eaters, as they call the yeomen of the guard, keep their station, or, as it may be called, their main guard. These rooms lead either way, towards the fine lodgings, or towards St. George’s Hall, which you please.

In the royal lodgings, there have been so many alterations of furniture, that there can be no entering upon the particular description. In one of those lodgings, the late Queen Mary set up a rich atlas, and chints bed, which, in those times, was invaluable, the chints being of Masslapatan, on the coast of Coromandel, the finest that was ever seen before that time in England; but the rate of those things have suffered much alteration since that time. Also here was, some time before that, the picture of the late Dutchess of Portsmouth at full length, a noble piece, and of which ’twas said, King Charles II. should say, ’Twas the finest painting, of the finest woman in Christendom; but our English ladies of Queen Mary’s court, were of another opinion, and the Gallery of Beauties, as it was called, which her majesty placed in the water gallery at Hampton Court, shews several as good faces, and as good painting.

In the chimney-piece of one of these apartments, is a piece of needle-work exquisitely fine, performed, as they say, by the Queen of Scots, during the time of her confinement in Fotheringay Castle. There are several family pieces in the chimney-pieces, and other parts of those lodgings, that are valuable, because of the persons they represent: But the finery of painting is to come.

These rooms look all out north towards the terrace, and over part of the finest, and richest, vale in the world; for the same vale attending the course of the River Thames, with very little interruption, reaches to, and includes the city of London east, and the city of Oxford west: The river, with a winding, and beautiful stream, gliding gently through the middle of it, and inriching by its navigation, both the land and the people on every side.

It must be confess’d, that, as William the Conqueror expresses it in his letter to the monks at Windsor, it was a place fit for the entertainment of kings, so it is; for it seems, by nature, to be formed for a palace; and for delight; all kinds of pleasure and convenience, that any country, at least in England, can afford, are to be found here.

It may be proper here to say something to the beauties and ornaments of St. George’s Hall, though nothing can be said equal to what the eye would be witness to; ’tis surprizing, at the first entrance, to see at the upper end, the picture of King William on horseback, under him, an ascent with marble steps, a balustrade, and a half pace, which, formerly, was actually there, with room for a throne, or chair of state, for the sovereign to sit on, when on publick days he thought fit to appear in ceremony.

No man that had seen the former steps or ascent, and had gone up to the balustrade and throne, as I had done, could avoid supposing, they were there still; and as on a casual view, having been absent some years out of the nation, I was going forward towards the end of the hall, intending to go up the steps, as I had done formerly, I was confounded, when I came nearer, to see that the ascent was taken down, the marble steps gone, the chair of state, or throne, quite away, and that all I saw, was only painted upon the wall below the king and his horse; indeed it was so lively, so bright, so exquisitely performed, that I was perfectly deceived, though I had some pretension to judgment in pictures too; nor was my eye alone deceived, others were under the same deception, who were then with me.

When I came to the farther end, and look’d from the throne, as I called it, down the hall. I was again surprized, though most agreeably, I confess, viz. The painting on the side of the hall, which was the representation of Prince Edward’s triumph, in imitation of Caesar’s glorious entry into Rome, and which was drawn marching from the lower end of the room, to the upper, that is to say, from the door, which is in the corner on the north side of the hall, was now wholly inverted, and the same triumph was performed again; but the march turned just the other way.

That this could be done no other way, but by wiping the whole work out, and painting it all over again, was easy to conclude, seeing it was not done upon cloth, but upon the mere plaister of the wall, as appeared by the salts of the lime in the wall, having work’d out, and spoiled a great piece of the paint; besides, the nature of the thing forbids; for if it had been a canvas, turning it would have been impracticable, for then all the imagery would have stood heels up, unless it had been carried on to the directly opposite part of the hall, and that could not be, because there were the windows, looking all into the inner court of the castle.

The first painting was done by Mr. Varrio, who, after finishing this work, was entertained for 12 years at Burley House, near Stamford, by that great lover of art, and particularly of fine painting, the Earl of Excester: After which King William entertained him again, and, as they told me, he performed this second painting of the hall, with greater mastership of hand, than he had done the first. The painting of the cielings generally remain, being finished by the same hand in a most exquisite manner at first.

At the west end of the hall, is the chapel royal, the neatest and finest of the kind in England; the carv’d work is beyond any that can be seen in England, the altar-piece is that of the institution, or, as we may call it, our Lord’s first supper. I remember, that going with some friends to shew them this magnificent palace, it chanced to be at the time when the Dissenters were a little uneasy at being obliged to kneel at the Sacrament; one of my friends, who, as I said, I carried to see Windsor Castle, was a Dissenter, and when he came into the chapel, he fix’d his eyes upon the altar-piece with such a fix’d, steady posture, and held it so long, that I could not but take notice of it, and asked him, Whether it was not a fine piece? Yes, says he, it is; but, whispering to me, he added, How can your people prosecute us for refusing to kneel at the Sacrament? Don’t you see there, that though our Saviour himself officiates, they are all sitting about the table?

I confess it surprized me, and, at first, I knew not what answer to make to him; but I told him, That was not a place for him and I to dispute it, we would talk of it afterwards, and so we did, but brought it to no conclusion, so ’tis needless to mention it any more here.

After we had spent some hours in viewing all that was curious on this side, we came down to the dungeon, or Round Tower, which goes up a long, but easy, ascent of steps, and is very high. Here we were obliged to deliver up our swords, but no where else.

There is nothing curious here: The governor, or constable’s lodgings, are very well, and neatly furnished, but nothing extraordinary, especially they will not look so, after seeing the fine lodgings, as above. From this tower, you see St. Paul’s Cathedral at London, very plainly: Coming down from hence, we came into the other court, where is the great Chapel of the Garter, and the house or college for the poor knights, as they are called.

The late Duke of Northumberland, who was constable of this castle, met with a very strange, and uncommon accident in coming hither from Stanes in his coach; for being benighted, as we call it in England, the night also very dark, and passing by a place where there are some houses, tho’ not a town, and where the road goes close to the river, whether his coachman did not see the water, or mistook it for the water in the road, I know not, but he plunged in the horses, coach and all, into the river, and at a place where the water was exceeding deep, and the bank steep; so that if help had not come immediately from a gentleman’s house, which was close to the road, the servants crying out loud enough to alarm them, his grace, and a gentleman who was in the coach with him, had unavoidably perished; and, as it was, he was a considerable time under water, so that he was in the extremity of danger.

I might go back here to the history of the Order of the Garter, the institution of which by King Edward III. not only had its original here, but seems to be seated here, as a native of the place; and that this is the place where the ceremonies of it, the instalments, feasts, &c. are always to be performed: But this is done so fully in other authors, and by so many, that it would be falling into that error, which I condemn in others, and making my accounts be, what I resolved, from the beginning, they should not be; namely, A copy of other men’s performances. I shall only give you out of Mr. Ashmole, a list of the first knights who had the honour of this Order, and who have been succeeded by so many kings, dukes, and sovereign princes abroad, as well as noble-men, and peers of this kingdom at home. The names of the first knights are as follow.

King Edward III.
Ralph, Earl of Stafford,
His Son Edward the Black Prince,
William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury,
Henry, Duke of Lancaster,
Roger Mortimer, Earl of March,
Thomas, Earl of Warwick,
John de Lysle,
Peers Capitow de la Bouch,
Bartholomew Burghersh,
John de Beauchamp,
Hugh Wrotesley,
John de Mohun,
Nele Loring,
Hugh Courtenay,
John Chandos,
Thomas Holland,
James de Audeley,
John de Grey,
Otho Holland,
Richard Fitz Simon,
Henry Eam,
Miles Stapleton,
Sanchet Daubricourt,
Thomas Wale,
Walter Paveley, alias Pevrell.

It is true, these were not all noble-men, that is to say, not all peers, neither does the institution confine the order to such; but ’tis certain, they were all men of great characters and stations, either in the army, or in the civil administration, and such as the sovereign did not think it below him to make his companions; for so they are called.

The lower court, as I mentioned, of the castle, though not so beautiful, for the stately lodgings, rooms of state, &c. is particularly glorious for this fine chapel of the Order, a most beautiful and magnificent work, and which shews the greatness, not only of the Court in those days, but the spirit and genius of the magnanimous founder. The chapel is not only fine within, but the workmanship without is extraordinary; nothing so antient is to be seen so very beautiful. The chapel of St. Stephen’s in Westminster-Abby, called Henry VIIth’s Chapel, and King’s College Chapel at Cambridge, built by Henry VI. are fine buildings; but they are modern, compared to this, which was begun, as by the inscribed dates upon the works appears, in the year 1337.

The coats of arms, and the various imagery &c. even inside and outside, not only of the king, but of several of the first Knights Companions, are most admirably finished, and the work has stood out the injury of time to admiration; the beauty of the building remains without any addition, and, indeed, requiring none.

’Tis observable, that King Edward owns this chapel was begun by his ancestors, and some think it was by King Edward I. and that he himself was baptized in it, and that there was a castle built by William the Conqueror also: As to the chapel, which was then called a church, or a convent, King Edward III. did not pull down the old building intirely, but he added all the choir to the first model, and several other proper parts for the purposes intended; as houses and handsome apartments for the canons, dignitaries, and other persons belonging to the church, which are generally situated on the north side of the square, out of sight, or rather skreen’d from the common view by the church itself, which dwellings are, notwithstanding, very good, and well accommodated for the persons who are possessors of them; then the king finished it in the manner we now see it: As for the old castle, the building of William the Conqueror, the king pulled it intirely down, even to the very foundation, forming a new building according to the present plan, and which stood, as above, to the time of King Charles II. without any alteration.

The establishment for this chapel was very considerable, by the donation of divers subjects, before it was set apart to be the chapel of the Order; the Duke of Suffolk in particular, as appears in Dugdale’s Monasticon, gave near three thousand acres of land, nineteen manors, one hundred seventy messuages and tofts, and several advowsons of churches to it, which, with other gifts afterwards, made the revenue above one thousand pounds a year in those days, which was a prodigious sum, as money went at that time.

In the choir are the stalls for the knights of the Order, with a throne for the sovereign; also stalls in the middle of it for the poor knights pensioners, who live in their house or hospital on the south side of the square or court which the church stands in.

Here are to be seen, the banners of the knights who now enjoy the honour of the Garter: When they die, those banners are taken down, and the coat of arms of the deceased knight set up in the place allotted for those arms over the same stall, so that those coats of arms are a living history, or rather a record of all the knights that ever have been since the first institution of the Order, and how they succeeded one another; by which it appears, that kings, emperors and sovereign princes, have not thought it below them to accept of the honour of being Knights Companions of this Order; while, at the same time, it must be noted to the honour of the English Crown, that our kings have never thought fit to accept of any of their Orders abroad, of what kind soever, whether Popish or Protestant; that of the Cordon Blue, or the Cordon Blanc, the Cordon Noir, or the Cordon Rouge, the Golden Fleece of Spain, the Holy Ghost of France, or the Black Eagle of Prussia, or any other; whereas of the Garter, there is an account by the register of the Order, that there are reckoned up of this most noble company.

Several kings, and persons of high rank have been buried also in this chapel; as Edward IV. and Charles I. Also here is the family repository, or burying ground of the Dukes of Beauford, who are a natural branch of the royal family, by the antient House of Lancaster; and in the chapel where the vault is there is a very noble monument of the last duke save one.

All the ceremonies observed here in the installment of the knights, are so perfectly and fully set down in Mr. Ashmole’s History of the Order of the Garter, that nothing can be said, but what must be a copy from him, which, as above, I studiously decline, and therefore refer you to him.

Besides the foreign princes, Companions of this famous Order as above; there is a little gallaxie of English nobility, the flower of so many Courts, and so many ages, to whose families the ensigns of the Order have been an honour, and who are not the least of the honour this Order has to boast of.

In the first institution, there was but one duke, namely, the great Duke of Lancaster; but as that order of nobility is since much increased in England, since the days of King Edward III. so in the present list of knights, we find no less than fifteen dukes, including the Prince of Wales, who is also Duke of Cornwall. The list of the present knights are as follow, viz.

King GEORGE,
George Prince of Wales,
Duke of York, the king’s brother,
Prince Frederick,
Duke of Cleveland and Southampton,
Duke of Somerset,
Duke of Richmond,
Duke of St. Albans,
Duke of Devonshire,
Duke of Argyle,
Duke of Newcastle,
Duke of Kent,
Duke of Kingstone,
Duke of Montague,
Duke of Grafton,
Duke of Dorset,
Duke of Rutland,
Earl of Lincoln,
Earl of Pembroke,
Earl of Berkley,
Earl Paulet,
Earl of Peterborough,
Earl of Strafford,
Earl of Scarborough,
Lord Visc. Townshend.

As the upper court and building are fronted with the fine terrace as above, so the lower court, where this fine chapel stands, is walled round with a very high wall, so that no buildings, if there was room for any, could overlook it, which wall goes round the west end of the court to the gate, which looking south, leads into the town, as the gate of the upper court looks likewise S.E. into the park, which they call the Little Park.

The parks about Windsor are very agreeable, and suitable to the rest; the little park, which is so, only compared to the great park, is above three miles round, the great one fourteen, and the forest above thirty: This park is particular to the Court, the other are open for riding, hunting, and taking the air for any gentlemen that please.

The lodges in those parks, are no more lodges, tho’ they retain the name, but palaces, and might pass for such in other countries; but as they are all eclipsed by the palace itself, so it need only be added, That those lodges are principally beautified by the grandeur of the persons to whom the post of rangers have been assigned, who, having been inriched by other advancements, honours and profitable employments, thought nothing too much to lay out to beautify their apartments, in a place, which it was so much to their honour, as well as conveniency, to reside; such is the lodge, which belongs to Admiral Churchill, the Dutchess of Marlborough and others.

I cannot leave Windsor, without taking notice, that we crossed the Thames upon a wooden bridge, for all the bridges on the river, between London and Oxford, are of timber, for the conveniency of the barges: Here we saw Eaton College, the finest school for what we call grammar learning, for it extends only to the humanity class, that is in Britain, or, perhaps, hi Europe.

The building, except the great school room, is antient, the chapel truly Gothick; but all has been repaired, at a very great expence, out of the college stock, within these few years.

The gardens are very fine, and extended from the college, down, almost, to the bank of the Thames; they are extremely well planted, and perfectly well kept.

This college was founded by King Henry VI. a prince munificent in his gifts, for the encouragement of learning, to profusion; Witness, besides this noble foundation, that of King’s College in Cambridge, to which the scholars of Eaton are annually removed

This college has a settled revenue of about five thousand pounds per annum, and maintains as follows.

A provost.
A vice provost, who is also a fellow.
Seven fellows, inclusive of the vice provost.
Seventy scholars on the foundation, besides a full choir for the chapel, with officers, and servants usual.

The school is divided into the upper and lower, and each into three classes.

Each school has one master, and each master four assistants, or ushers.

None are received into the upper school, ‘till they can make Latin verse, and have a tolerable knowledge of the Greek.

In the lower school, the children are received very young, and are initiated into all school-learning.

Besides the seventy scholars upon the foundation, there are always abundance of children, generally speaking, of the best families, and of persons of distinction, who are boarded in the houses of the masters, and within the college.

The number of scholars instructed here, is from 400 to 550; but has not been under 400 for many years past.

The elections of scholars for the university out of this school, is worth taking notice of: It being a time of jubilee to the school.

The election is once every year, and is made on the first Tuesday in August. In order to the election, there are deputed from King’s College in Cambridge, three persons, viz. The Provost of King’s College for the time being, with one senior, and one junior poser, fellows of the same college. To these are joyn’d, on the part of Eaton College, the provost, the vice provost, and the head master.

These calling the scholars of the upper class, called the sixth class, before them, and examining them in the several parts of their learning, choose out twelve such as they think best qualified, and these are entered in a roll, or list, for the university. The youths thus chosen, are not immediately removed from the school, but must wait till vacancies fall in the said King’s College, to make room to receive them; and as such vacancies happen, they are then called up, as they stand in seniority in the said list, or roll of election.

When a scholar from Eaton, comes to King’s College, he is received upon the foundation, and pursues his studies there for three years, after which, he claims a Fellowship, unless forfeited in the terms of the statutes; that is to say, by marriage, accepting of ecclesiastick preferments, &c. The present governors at Eaton, are,

The Provost, The Reverend and Honourable Dr. Godolphin, Dean of St. Paul’s .

Vice Provost, and Senior Fellow, The Right Reverend Dr. Wiston, Bishop of Excester.

Second Fellow, The Right Reverend Dr. Waddington, Bishop of Chichester.

Third Fellow, The Reverend Dr. Richardson, Master of Peter House in Cambridge.

Fourth Fellow, The Reverend Dr. Evans.

Fifth Fellow, The Reverend Dr. Carter.

Sixth Fellow, The Reverend and Honourable Mr. Hill, once one of the Lords of the Treasury.

Seventh Fellow, The Reverend Dr. Sleech.

The present masters are,

Dr. Henry Bland, Head Master.

Mr. Francis Goode, Second Master.

N.B. The Provost has a noble house and garden, besides the use of the college gardens, at his pleasure.

And now being come to the edge of Middlesex, which is a county too full of cities, towns, and palaces, to be brought in at the close of a letter, and with which I purpose to begin my next travels; I conclude this letter, and am,

SIR,
Your most humble servant.

Letter V. Containing A Description Of The City Of London, As Taking In The City Of Westminster, Borough Of Southwark, And The Buildings Circumjacent

Overview and Suburbs

SIR — As I am now near the center of this work, so I am to describe the great center of England, the city of LondonLondon, and parts adjacent. This great work is infinitely difficult in its particulars, though not in itself; not that the city is so difficult to be described, but to do it in the narrow compass of a letter, which we see so fully takes up two large volumes in folio, and which, yet, if I may venture to give an opinion of it, is done but by halves neither.

However, be the task difficult, as it is, yet it must be done; to be concise and short, is absolutely necessary; to be plain and significant, as necessary; I shall observe both, as near as I can.

London, as a city only, and as its walls and liberties line it out, might, indeed, be viewed in a small compass; but, when I speak of London, now in the modern acceptation, you expect I shall take in all that vast mass of buildings, reaching from Black-Wall in the east, to Tot-Hill Fields in the west; and extended in an unequal breadth, from the bridge, or river, in the south, to Islington north; and from Peterburgh House on the bank side in Westminster, to Cavendish Square, and all the new buildings by, and beyond, Hannover Square, by which the city of London, for so it is still to be called, is extended to Hide Park Corner in the Brentford Road, and almost to Maribone in the Acton Road, and how much farther it may spread, who knows? New squares, and new streets rising up every day to such a prodigy of buildings, that nothing in the world does, or ever did, equal it, except old Rome in Trajan’s time, when the walls were fifty miles in compass, and the number of inhabitants six million eight hundred thousand souls.

It is the disaster of London, as to the beauty of its figure, that it is thus stretched out in buildings, just at the pleasure of every builder, or undertaker of buildings, and as the convenience of the people directs, whether for trade, or otherwise; and this has spread the face of it in a most straggling, confus’d manner, out of all shape, uncompact, and unequal; neither long or broad, round or square; whereas the city of Rome, though a monster for its greatness, yet was, in a manner, round, with very few irregularities in its shape.

At London, including the buildings on both sides the water, one sees it, in some places, three miles broad, as from St. George’s in Southwark, to Shoreditch in Middlesex; or two miles, as from Peterburgh House to Montague House; and in some places, not half a mile, as in Wapping; and much less, as in Redrirf.

We see several villages, formerly standing, as it were, in the country, and at a great distance, now joyn’d to the streets by continued buildings, and more making haste to meet in the like manner; for example, 1. Deptford, This town was formerly reckoned, at least two miles off from Redriff, and that over the marshes too, a place unlikely ever to be inhabited; and yet now, by the encrease of buildings in that town itself, and the many streets erected at Redriff, and by the docks and building-yards on the river side, which stand between both, the town of Deptford, and the streets of Redriff, or Rotherhith (as they write it) are effectually joyn’d, and the buildings daily increasing; so that Deptford is no more a separated town, but is become a part of the great mass, and infinitely full of people also; Here they have, within the last two or three years, built a fine new church, and were the town of Deptford now separated, and rated by itself, I believe it contains more people, and stands upon more ground, than the city of Wells.

The town of Islington, on the north side of the city, is in like manner joyn’d to the streets of London, excepting one small field, and which is in itself so small, that there is no doubt, but in a very few years, they will be intirely joyn’d, and the same may be said of Mile-End, on the east end of the town.

Newington, called Newington-Butts, in Surrey, reaches out her hand north, and is so near joining to Southwark, that it cannot now be properly called a town by itself, but a suburb to the burrough, and if, as they now tell is us undertaken, St. George’s Fields should be built into squares and streets, a very little time will shew us Newington, Lambeth, and the Burrough, all making but one Southwark.

That Westminster is in a fair way to shake hands with Chelsea, as St. Gyles’s is with Marybone; and Great Russel Street by Montague House, with Tottenham-Court: all this is very evident, and yet all these put together, are still to be called London: Whither will this monstrous city then extend? and where must a circumvallation or communication line of it be placed?

I have, as near as I could, caused a measure to be taken of this mighty, I cannot say uniform, body; and for the satisfaction of the curious, I have here given as accurate a description of it, as I can do in so narrow a compass, as this of a letter, or as I could do without drawing a plan, or map of the places.

Were it possible to reduce all these buildings to a compact situation, ’tis generally thought, that the whole body so put together, allowing the necessary ground, which they now employ for the several trades in the out-parts, such as the building yards by the river, for shipwrights, tanners yards, dyers, whitsters, &c. I say, ’tis believed the whole would take up twenty eight miles in circumference, very compactly built.

The guesses that are made at the number of inhabitants, have been variously form’d; Sir William Petty, famous for his political arithmetick, supposed the city, at his last calculation, to contain a million of people, and this he judges from the number of births and burials; and by this rule, as well by what is well known of the increase of the said births and burials, as of the prodigious increase of buildings, it may be very reasonable to conclude, the present number of inhabitants within the circumference I have mentioned, to amount to, at least, fifteen hundred thousand, with this addition, that it is still prodigiously increasing.

Nor is it hard to account for this increase of people, as well as buildings in London; but the discourse seems too political to belong to this work, which, rather, relates to the fact than the reason of it, and is properly to describe the thing, not to shew why it is so, for which reason I omit entring into the enquiry.

The government of this great mass of building, and of such a vast collected body of people, though it consists of various parts, is, perhaps, the most regular and well-ordered government, that any city, of above half its magnitude, can boast of.

The government of the city of London in particular, and abstractedly considered, is, by the lord mayor, twenty four aldermen, two sheriffs, the recorder and common council; but the jurisdiction of these is confined to that part only, which they call the City and its Liberties, which are marked out, except the Borough, by the walls and the bars, as they are called, and which the particular maps of the city have exactly lin’d out, to which I refer.

Besides this, the lord mayor and aldermen of London have a right presidial, as above, in the borough of Southwark, as conservators of the bridge, and the bridge itself is their particular jurisdiction.

Also the lord mayor, &c. is conservator of the River Thames, from Stanes Bridge in Surrey and Middlesex, to the River Medway in Kent, and, as some insist, up the Medway to Rochester Bridge.

The government of the out parts, is by justices of the peace, and by the sheriffs of London, who are, likewise, sheriffs of Middlesex; and the government of Westminster is, by a high bailiff, constituted by the Dean and Chapter, to whom the civil administrations is so far committed.

The remaining part of Southwark side, when the city jurisdiction is considered, is governed, also by a Bench of Justices, and their proper substituted peace officers; excepting out of this the privileges of the Marshalseas, or of the Marshal’s Court, the privilege of the Marshal of the King’s Bench, the Mint, and the like.

To enter here, into a particular description of the city of London, its antiquities, monuments, &c. would be only to make an abridgment of Stow and his continuators, and would make a volume by itself; but while I write in manner of a letter, and in the person of an itinerant, and give a cursory view of its present state, and to the reader, who is supposed to be upon the spot, or near it, and who has the benefit of all the writers, who have already entered upon the description; it will, I believe, be allowed to be agreeable and sufficient to touch at those things principally, which no other authors have yet mentioned, concerning this great and monstrous thing, called London.

N.B. By this may be plainly understood, that I mean not the city only, for then I must discourse of it in several parts, and under several denominations and descriptions, as,

Of the city and liberties of London.
Of the city and liberties of Westminster.
Of the Tower and its hamlets.
Of the suburbs or buildings annex’d to these, and called Middlesex.
Of the borough of Southwark.
Of the Bishop of Winchester’s reserv’d privileged part in Southwark, called the Park and Marshalsea.
Of Lambeth.
Of Deptford, and the king’s and merchants yards for building.
Of the Bridge-house and its reserv’d limits, belonging to the city.
Of the buildings on Southwark side, not belonging to any of these.

But by London, as I shall discourse of it, I mean, all the buildings, places, hamlets, and villages contain’d in the line of circumvallation, if it be proper to call it so, by which I have computed the length of its circumference as above.

We ought, with respect to this great mass of buildings, to observe, in every proper place, what it is now, and what it was within the circumference of a few years past; and particularly, when other authors wrote, who have ventured upon the description of it.

It is, in the first place, to be observed, as a particular and remarkable crisis, singular to those who write in this age, and very much to our advantage in writing, that the great and more eminent increase of buildings, in, and about the city of London, and the vast extent of ground taken in, and now become streets and noble squares of houses, by which the mass, or body of the whole, is become so infinitely great, has been generally made in our time, not only within our memory, but even within a few years, and the description of these additions, cannot be improper to a description of the whole, as follows.

A Brief Description of the New Buildings Erected in and About the Cities of London and Westminster and Borough of Southwark, Since the Year 1666

This account of new buildings is to be understood,

1. Of houses re-built after the great fires hi London and Southwark, &c.

2. New foundations, on ground where never any buildings were erected before.

Take, then, the city and its adjacent buildings to stand, as described by Mr. Stow, or by any other author, who wrote before the Fire of London, and the difference between what it was then, and what it is now, may be observed thus:

It is true, that before the Fire of London, the streets were narrow, and publick edifices, as well as private, were more crowded, and built closer to one another; for soon after the Fire, the king, by his proclamation, forbid all persons whatsoever, to go about to re-build for a certain time, viz. till the Parliament (which was soon to sit) might regulate and direct the manner of building, and establish rules for the adjusting every man’s property, and yet might take order for a due inlarging of the streets, and appointing the manner of building, as well for the beauty as the conveniency of the city, and for safety, in case of any future accident; for though I shall not inquire, whether the city was burnt by accident, or by treachery, yet nothing was more certain, than that as the city stood before, it was strangely exposed to the disaster which happened, and the buildings look’d as if they had been form’d to make one general bonefire, whenever any wicked party of incendiaries should think fit.

The streets were not only narrow, and the houses all built of timber, lath and plaister, or, as they were very properly call’d paper work, and one of the finest range of buildings in the Temple, are, to this day, called the Paper Buildings, from that usual expression.

But the manner of the building in those days, one story projecting out beyond another, was such, that in some narrow streets, the houses almost touch’d one another at the top, and it has been known, that men, in case of fire, have escaped on the tops of the houses, by leaping from one side of a street to another; this made it often, and almost always happen, that if a house was on fire, the opposite house was in more danger to be fired by it, according as the wind stood, than the houses next adjoining on either side.

How this has been regulated, how it was before, and how much better it now is, I leave to be judged, by comparing the old unburnt part of the city with the new.

But tho’ by the new buildings after the fire, much ground was given up, and left unbuilt, to inlarge the streets, yet ’tis to be observed, that the old houses stood severally upon more ground, were much larger upon the flat, and in many places, gardens and large yards about them, all which, in the new buildings, are, at least, contracted, and the ground generally built up into other houses, so that notwithstanding all the ground given up for beautifying the streets, yet there are many more houses built than stood before upon the same ground; so that taking the whole city together, there are more inhabitants in the same compass, than there was before. To explain this more fully, I shall give some particular instances, to which I refer, which there are living witnesses able to confirm: For example,

1. Swithen’s Alleys by the Royal Exchange, were all, before the Fire, taken up with one single merchant’s house, and inhabited by one Mr. Swithin; whereas, upon the same ground where the house stood, stands now about twenty-two or twenty-four houses, which belong to his posterity to this day.

2. Copt-Hall-Court in Throckmorton-street, was, before the Fire, also a single house, inhabited by a Dutch merchant; also three more courts in the same streets, were single houses, two on the same side of the way, and one on the other.

The several alleys behind St. Christopher’s Church, which are now vulgarly, but erroneously, call’d St. Christopher’s -Churchyard, were, before the Fire, one great house, or, at least, a house and ware-houses belonging to it, in which the famous Mr. Kendrick lived, whose monument now stands in St, Christopher’s Church, and whose dwelling, also, took up almost all the ground, on which now a street of houses is erected, called Prince’s -street, going through into Lothbury, no such street being known before the Fire.

Kings-Arms-Yard in Coleman-street, now built into fine large houses, and inhabited by principal merchants, was, before the fire, a stable-yard for horses and an inn, at the sign of the Kings Arms.

I might fill up my account with many such instances, but ’tis enough to explain the thing, viz. That so many great houses were converted into streets and courts, alleys and buildings, that there are, by estimation, almost 4000 houses now standing on the ground which the Fire left desolate, more than stood on the same ground before.

Another increase of buildings in the city, is to be taken from the inhabitants in the unburnt parts following the same example, of pulling down great old buildings, which took up large tracks of ground in some of the well inhabited places, and building on the same ground, not only several houses, but even whole streets of houses, which are since fully inhabited; for example;

Crosby-Square within Bishopsgate, formerly the house of Sir James Langham merchant.

Devonshire-Square and Street, with several back streets and passages into Petticoat-Lane one way, and Hounsditch another way, all built on the ground where the old Earl of Devonshire had a house and garden, and are all fully inhabited.

Bridgwater-Square, and several streets adjoyning all fully inhabited, built on the ground where the Earl of Bridgwater had a large house and garden in Barbican.

Billeter-Square, and several passages adjoyning, built upon the grounds of one great house, in which, before that, one merchant only lived.

All those palaces of the nobility, formerly making a most beautiful range of buildings fronting the Strand, with their gardens reaching to the Thames, where they had their particular water-gates and stairs, one of which remains still, viz. Somerset House, have had the same fate, such as Essex, Norfolk, Salisbury, Worcester, Exceter, Hungerford, and York Houses; in the place of which, are now so many noble streets and beautiful houses, erected, as are, in themselves, equal to a large city, and extend from the Temple to Northumberland-House; Somerset House and the Savoy, only intervening; and the latter of these may be said to be, not a house, but a little town, being parted into innumerable tenements and apartments.

Many other great houses have, by the example of these, been also built into streets, as Hatton-House in Holborn, and the old Earl of Bedford’s great garden, called New Convent Garden; but those I omit, because built before the year 1666; but I may add the Lord Brook’s house in Holborn; the Duke of Bedford’s last remaining house and garden in the Strand, and many others.

These are prodigious enlargements to the city, even upon that which I call inhabited ground, and where infinite numbers of people now live, more than lived upon the same spot of ground before.

But all this is a small matter, compared to the new foundations raised within that time, in those which we justly call the out parts; and not to enter on a particular description of the buildings, I shall only take notice of the places where such enlargements are made; as, first, within the memory of the writer hereof, all those numberless ranges of building, called Spittle Fields, reaching from Spittle-yard, at Northern Fallgate, and from Artillery Lane in Bishopsgate-street, with all the new streets, beginning at Hoxton, and the back of Shoreditch Church, north, and reaching to Brick-Lane, and to the end of Hare-street, on the way to Bethnal Green, east; then sloping away quite to White Chapel Road, south east, containing, as some people say, who pretend to know, by good observation, above three hundred and twenty acres of ground, which are all now close built, and well inhabited with an infinite number of people, I say, all these have been built new from the ground, fince the year 1666.

The lanes were deep, dirty, and unfrequented, that part now called Spittlefields-Market, was a field of grass with cows feeding on it, since the year 1670. The Old Artillery Ground (where the Parliament listed their first soldiers against the King) took up all those long streets, leading out of Artillery Lane to Spittle-yard-back-Gate, and so on to the end of Wheeler-street.

Brick-Lane, which is now a long well-pav’d street, was a deep dirty road, frequented by carts fetching bricks that way into White-Chapel from Brick-Kilns in those fields, and had its name on that account; in a word, it is computed, that about two hundred thousand inhabitants dwell now in that part of London, where, within about fifty years past, there was not a house standing.

On the more eastern part, the same increase goes on in proportion, namely, all Goodman’s Fields, the name gives evidence for it, and the many streets between White-Chapel and Rosemary Lane, all built since the year 1678. Well Close, now called Marine Square, was so remote from houses, that it used to be a very dangerous place to go over after it was dark, and many people have been robbed and abused in passing it; a well standing in the middle, just where the Danish church is now built, there the mischief was generally done; beyond this, all the hither or west end of Ratcliff-high-way, from the corner of Gravel-Lane, to the east end of East Smithfield, was a road over the fields; likewise those buildings, now called Virginia-street, and all the streets on the side of Ratcliff-high-way to Gravel-Lane above named.

To come to the north side of the town, and beginning at Shoreditch, west, and Hoxton-Square, and Charles’s -Square adjoyning, and the streets intended for a market-place, those were all open fields, from Anniseed-clear to Hoxton Town, till the year 1689, or thereabouts; Pitfield-street was a bank, parting two pasture grounds, and Ask’s Hospital was another open field: Farther west, the like addition of buildings begins at the foot way, by the Pest-house, and includes the French hospital, Old street two squares, and several streets, extending from Brick-Lane to Mount-Mill, and the road to Islington, and from the road, still west, to Wood’s Close, and to St. John’s, and Clerkenwell, all which streets and squares are built since the year 1688 and 1689, and were before that, and some for a long time after, open fields or gardens, and never built on till after that time.

From hence we go on still west, and beginning at Gray’s -Inn, and going on to those formerly called Red Lyon Fields, and Lamb’s Conduit Fields, we see there a prodigious pile of buildings; it begins at Gray’s-Inn Wall towards Red-Lyon Street, from whence, in a strait line, ’tis built quite to Lamb’s Conduit Fields, north, including a great range of buildings yet unfinish’d, reaching to Bedford Row and the Cockpit, east, and including Red Lyon Square, Ormond Street, and the great new square at the west end of it, and all the streets between that square and King’s Gate in Holbourn, where it goes out; this pile of buildings is very great, the houses so magnificent and large, that abundance of persons of quality, and some of the nobility are found among them, particularly in Ormond Street, is the D——— of Powis’s house, built at the expence of France, on account of the former house being burnt, while the Duke D’Aumont, the French Ambassador Extraordinary lived in it; it is now a very noble structure, tho’ not large, built of free-stone, and in the most exact manner, according to the rules of architecture, and is said to be, next the Banquetting House, the most regular building in this part of England.

Here is also a very convenient church, built by the contribution of the gentry inhabitants of these buildings, tho’ not yet made parochial, being called St. George’s Chapel.

Farther west, in the same line, is Southampton great square, called Bloomsbury, with King-street on the east side of it, and all the numberless streets west of the square, to the market place, and through Great-Russel-street by Montague House, quite into the Hampstead road, all which buildings, except the old building of Southampton House and some of the square, has been form’d from the open fields, since the time above-mentioned, and must contain several thousands of houses; here is also a market, and a very handsome church new built.

From hence, let us view the two great parishes of St. Giles’s and St. Martin’s in the Fields, the last so increased, as to be above thirty years ago, formed into three parishes, and the other about now to be divided also.

The increase of the buildings here, is really a kind of prodigy; all the buildings north of Long Acre, up to the Seven Dials, all the streets, from Leicester-Fields and St. Martin’s -Lane, both north and west, to the Hay-Market and Soho, and from the Hay-Market to St. James’s -street inclusive, and to the park wall; then all the buildings on the north side of the street, called Picadilly, and the road to Knight’s -Bridge, and between that and the south side of Tyburn Road, including Soho-Square, Golden-Square, and now Hanover-Square, and that new city on the north side of Tyburn Road, called Cavendish-Square, and all the streets about it.

This last addition, is, by calculation, more in bulk than the cities of Bristol, Exeter and York, if they were all put together; all which places were, within the time mentioned, meer fields of grass, and employ’d only to feed cattle as other fields are.

The many little additions that might be named besides these, tho’ in themselves considerable, yet being too many to give room to here, I omit.

This is enough to give a view of the difference between the present and the past greatness of this mighty city, called London.

N.B. Three projects have been thought of, for the better regulating the form of this mighty building, which tho’ not yet brought to perfection, may, perhaps, in time, be brought forwards, and if it should, would greatly add to the beauty.

Making another bridge over the Thames.

Making an Act of Parliament, abrogating the names as well as the jurisdictions of all the petty privileged places, and joyning or uniting the whole body, Southwark and all, into one city, and calling it by one name, London.

Forbidding the extent of the buildings in some particular places, where they too much run it out of shape, and letting the more indented parts swell out on the north and south side a little, to balance the length, and bring the form of the whole more near to that of a circle, as particularly stopping the running out of the buildings at the east and west ends, as at Ratcliff and Deptford, east, and at Tyburn and Kensington roads, west, and encouraging the building out at Moor-fields, Bunhil-fields, the west side of Shoreditch, and such places, and the north part of Gray’s -Inn, and other adjacent parts, where the buildings are not equally filled out, as in other places, and the like in St. George’s Fields and behind Redriff on the other side of the water.

But these are speculations only, and must be left to the wisdom of future ages.

The City

I return now, to some short description of the parts; hitherto I have been upon the figure and extent of the city and its out-parts; I come now to speak of the inside, the buildings, the inhabitants, the commerce, and the manner of its government, &c.

It should be observed, that the city being now re-built, has occasioned the building of some publick edifices, even in the place which was inhabited, which yet were not before, and the re-building others in a new and more magnificent manner than ever was done before.

That beautiful column, called the Monument, erected at the charge of the city, to perpetuate the fatal burning of the whole, cannot be mentioned but with some due respect to the building itself, as well as to the city; it is two hundred and two feet high, and in its kind, out does all the obelisks and pillars of the ancients, at least that I have seen, having a most stupendous stair-case in the middle to mount up to the balcony, which is about thirty feet short of the top, and whence there are other steps made even to look out at the top of the whole building; the top is fashioned like an urn.

The canal or river, called Fleet-ditch, was a work of great magnificence and expence; but not answering the design, and being now very much neglected, and out of repair, is not much spoken of, yet it has three fine bridges over it, and a fourth, not so fine, yet useful as the rest, and the tide flowing up to the last; the canal is very useful for bringing of coals and timber, and other heavy goods; but the warehouses intended under the streets, on either side, to lay up such goods in, are not made use of, and the wharfs in many places are decay’d and fallen in, which make it all look ruinous.

The Royal Exchange, the greatest and finest of the kind in the world, is the next publick work of the citizens, the beauty of which answers for itself, and needs no description here; ’tis observable, that tho’ this Exchange cost the citizens an immense sum of money re-building, some authors say, eighty thousand pounds, being finished and embellished in so exquisite a manner, yet it was so appropriated to the grand affair of business, that the rent or income of it for many years, fully answered the interest of the money laid out in building it: Whether it does so still or not, I will not say, the trade for millenary goods, fine laces, &c. which was so great above stairs for many years, being since scattered and removed, and the shops, many of them, left empty; but those shops, of which there were eight double rows above, and the shops and offices round it below, with the vaults under the whole, did at first, yield a very great sum.

Among other publick edifices, that of the hospital of Bethlehem, or Bedlam, should not be forgot, which is at the very time of writing this, appointed to be inlarged with two new wings, and will then be the most magnificent thing of its kind in the world.

Likewise the Custom-House, an accidental fire having demolished part of it, and given the commissioners opportunity to take in more ground, will, when it is finished, out-shine all the custom-houses in Europe.

The churches in London are rather convenient than fine, not adorned with pomp and pageantry as in Popish countries; but, like the true Protestant plainness, they have made very little of ornament either within them or without, nor, excepting a few, are they famous for handsome steeples, a great many of them are very mean, and some that seem adorned, are rather deform’d than beautified by the heads that contrived, or by the hands that built them.

Some, however, hold up their heads with grandeur and magnificence, and are really ornaments to the whole, I mean by these, such as Bow, St. Brides, the new church in the Strand, Rood-Lane Church, or St. Margaret Fattens, St. Antholins, St. Clement Danes, and some others, and some of the fifty churches, now adding by the county and charity of the government, are like to be very well adorned.

Three or four Gothick towers have been rebuilt at the proper expences of the fund appointed, and are not the worst in all the city, namely St. Michael at Cornhill, St Dunstan in the East, St. Christophers, St. Mary Aldermary, and at St. Sepulchre’s .

But the beauty of all the churches in the city, and of all the Protestant churches in the world, is the cathedral of St. Paul’s; a building exceeding beautiful and magnificent; tho’ some authors are pleased to expose their ignorance, by pretending to find fault with it:?Tis easy to find fault with the works even of God Himself, when we view them in the gross, without regard to the particular beauties of every part separately considered, and without searching into the reason and nature of the particulars; but when these are maturely inquired into, viewed with a just reverence, and considered with judgment, then we fly out in due admirations of the wisdom of the Author from the excellency of His works.

The vast extent of the dome, that mighty arch, on which so great a weight is supported (meaning the upper towers or lanthorn of stone work seventy feet high) may well account for the strength of the pillars and butments below; yet those common observers of the superficial parts of the building, complain, that the columns are too gross, that the work looks heavy, and the lower figures near the eye are too large, as if the Dorick and the Attick were not each of them as beautiful in their place as the Corinthian.

The wise architect, like a compleat master of his business, had the satisfaction, in his lifetime, of hearing those ignorant reprovers of his work confuted, by the approbation of the best masters in Europe; and the church of St. Peter’s in Rome, which is owned to be the most finished piece in the world, only exceeds St. Paul’s in the magnificence of its inside work; the painting, the altars, the oratories, and the variety of its imagery; things, which, in a Protestant church, however ornamental, are not allowed of.

If all the square columns, the great pilasters, and the flat pannel work, as well within as without, which they now alledge are too heavy and look too gross, were filled with pictures, adorned with carved work and gilding, and crowded with adorable images of the saints and angels, the kneeling crowd would not complain of the grossness of the work; but ’tis the Protestant plainness, that divesting those columns, &c. of their ornaments, makes the work, which in itself is not so large and gross as that of St. Peter’s, be called gross and heavy; whereas neither by the rules of order, or by the necessity of the building, to be proportioned and sufficient to the height and weight of the work, could they have been less, or any otherwise than they are.

Nay, as it was, those gentlemen who in Parliament opposed Sir Christopher Wren’s request, of having the dome covered with copper, and who moved to have had the lanthorn on the top made shorter, and built of wood; I say, those gentlemen pretending skill in the art, and offering to reproach the judgment of the architect, alledged, That the copper and the stone lanthorn would be too heavy, and that the pillars below would not support it.

To which Sir Christopher answered, That he had sustained the building with such sufficient columns, and the buttment was every where so good, that he would answer for it with his head, that it should bear the copper covering and the stone lanthorn, and seven thousand ton weight laid upon it more than was proposed, and that nothing below should give way, no not one half quarter of an inch; but that, on the contrary, it should be all the firmer and stronger for the weight that should be laid on it; adding, That it was with this view that the work was brought up from its foundation, in such manner, as made common observers rather think the first range of the buildings too gross for its upper part; and that, if they pleased, he would undertake to raise a spire of stone upon the whole, a hundred foot higher than the cross now stands.

When all these things are considered complexly, no man that has the least judgment in building, that knows any thing of the rules of proportion, and will judge impartially, can find any fault in this church; on the contrary, those excellent lines of Mr. Dryden, which were too meanly applied in allegory to the praise of a paltry play, may be, with much more honour to the author, and justice to this work, applied here to St. Paul’s Church.

Strong Dorick pillars form the base,
Corinthian fills the upper space;
So all below is strength, and all above is grace.

Sir Christopher’s design was, indeed, very unhappily baulked in several things at the beginning, as well in the situation as in the conclusion of this work, which, because very few may have heard of, I shall mention in publick, from the mouth of its author.

1. In the situation: He would have had the situation of the church removed a little to the north, that it should have stood just on the spot of ground which is taken up by the street called Pater-noster-Row, and the buildings on either side; so that the north side of the church should have stood open to the street now called Newgate-street, and the south side, to the ground on which the church now stands.

By this situation, the east end of the church, which is very beautiful, would have looked directly down the main street of the city, Cheapside; and for the west end, Ludgate having been removed a little north, the main street called Ludgate-street and Ludgate-Hill, would only have sloped a little W.S.W. as they do now irregularly two ways, one within, and the other without the gate, and all the street beyond Fleet-Bridge would have received no alteration at all.

By this situation, the common thorough-fare of the city would have been removed at a little farther distance from the work, and we should not then have been obliged to walk just under the very wall as we do now, which makes the work appear quite out of all perspective, and is the chief reason of the objections I speak of; whereas, had it been viewed at a little distance, the building would have been seen infinitely to more advantage.

Had Sir Christopher been allowed this situation, he would then, also, have had more room for the ornament of the west end, which, tho’ it is a most beautiful work, as it now appears, would have been much more so then, and he would have added a circular piazza, to it, after the model of that at Rome, but much more magnificent, and an obelisk of marble in the center of the circle, exceeding any thing that the world can now shew of its kind, I mean of modern work.

But the circumstance of things hindered this noble design, and the city being almost rebuilt before he obtained an order and provision for laying the foundation; he was prescribed to the narrow spot where we see it now stands, in which the building, however magnificent in itself, stands with infinite disadvantage as to the prospect of it; the inconveniencies of which was so apparent when the church was finished, that leave was at length, tho’ not without difficulty, obtained, to pull down one whole row of houses on the north side of the body of the church, to make way for the ballister that surrounds the cimetry or church-yard, and, indeed, to admit the light into the church, as well as to preserve it from the danger of fire.

Another baulk which, as I said, Sir Christopher met with, was in the conclusion of the work, namely, the covering of the dome, which Sir Christopher would have had been of copper double gilded with gold; but he was over-ruled by Party, and the city thereby, deprived of the most glorious sight that the world ever saw, since the temple of Solomon.

Yet with all these disadvantages, the church is a most regular building, beautiful, magnificent, and beyond all the modern works of its kind in Europe, St. Peter’s at Rome, as above, only except ed.

It is true, St. Peter’s, besides its beauty in ornament and imagery, is beyond St. Paul’s in its dimensions, is every way larger; but it is the only church in the world that is so; and it was a merry hyperbole of Sir Christopher Wren’s, who, when some gentlemen in discourse compared the two churches, and in compliment to him, pretended to prefer St. Paul’s, and when they came to speak of the dimensions, suggested, that St. Paul’s was the biggest: I tell you, says Sir Christopher, you might set it in St. Peter’s, and look for it a good while, before you could find it.

Having thus spoken of the city and adjacent buildings of London, and of the particulars which I find chiefly omitted by other writers, I have not room here to enter into all the articles needful to a full description: However, I shall touch a little at the things most deserving a stranger’s observation.

Supposing now, the whole body of this vast building to be considered as one city, London, and not concerning myself or the reader with the distinction of its several jurisdictions; we shall then observe it only as divided into three, viz. the city, the Court, and the out-parts.

The city is the center of its commerce and wealth.

The Court of its gallantry and splendor.

The out-parts of its numbers and mechanicks; and in all these, no city in the world can equal it.

Between the Court and city, there is a constant communication of business to that degree, that nothing in the world can come up to it.

As the city is the center of business; there is the Custom-house, an article, which, as it brings in an immense revenue to the publick, so it cannot be removed from its place, all the vast import and export of goods being, of necessity, made there; nor can the merchants be removed, the river not admitting the ships to come any farther.

Here, also, is the Excise Office, the Navy Office, the Bank, and almost all the offices where those vast funds are fixed, in which so great a part of the nation are concerned, and on the security of which so many millions are advanced.

Here are the South Sea Company, the East India Company, the Bank, the African Company, &c. whose stocks support that prodigious paper commerce, called Stock-Jobbing; a trade, which once bewitched the nation almost to its ruin, and which, tho’ reduced very much, and recovered from that terrible infatuation which once overspread the whole body of the people, yet is still a negotiation, which is so vast in its extent, that almost all the men of substance in England are more or less concerned in it, and the property of which is so very often alienated, that even the tax upon the transfers of stock, tho’ but five shillings for each transfer, brings many thousand pounds a year to the government; and some have said, that there is not less than a hundred millions of stock transferred forward or backward from one hand to another every year, and this is one thing which makes such a constant daily intercourse between the Court part of the town, and the city; and this is given as one of the principal causes of the prodigious conflux of the nobility and gentry from all parts of England to London, more than ever was known in former years, viz. That many thousands of families are so deeply concerned in those stocks, and find it so absolutely necessary to be at hand to take the advantage of buying and selling, as the sudden rise or fall of the price directs, and the loss they often sustain by their ignorance of things when absent, and the knavery of brokers and others, whom, in their absence, they are bound to trust, that they find themselves obliged to come up and live constantly here, or at least, most part of the year.

This is the reason why, notwithstanding the encrease of new buildings, and the addition of new cities, as they may be called, every year to the old, yet a house is no sooner built, but ’tis tenanted and inhabited, and every part is crouded with people, and that not only in the town, but in all the towns and villages round, as shall be taken notice of in its place.

But let the citizens and inhabitants of London know, and it may be worth the reflection of some of the landlords, and builders especially, that if peace continues, and the publick affairs continue in honest and upright management, there is a time coming, at least the nation hopes for it, when the publick debts being reduced and paid off, the funds or taxes on which they are established, may cease, and so fifty or sixty millions of the stocks, which are now the solid bottom of the South-Sea Company, East-India Company, Bank, &c. will cease, and be no more; by which the reason of this conflux of people being removed, they will of course, and by the nature of the thing, return again to their country seats, to avoid the expensive living at London, as they did come up hither to share the extravagant gain of their former business here.

What will be the condition of this overgrown city in such a case, I must leave to time; but all those who know the temporary constitution of our funds, know this, 1. That even, if they are to spin out their own length, all those funds which were given for thirty-two years, have already run out one third, and some of them almost half the time, and that the rest will soon be gone: 2. That as in two years more, the Government which receives six per cent, and pays but five, and will then pay but four per cent, interest, will be able every year to be paying off and lessening the publick debt, ‘till, in time, ’tis to be hoped, all our taxes may cease, and the ordinary revenue may, as it always used to do, again supply the ordinary expence of the government.

Then, I say, will be a time to expect the vast concourse of people to London, will separate again and disperse as naturally, as they have now crouded hither: What will be the fate then of all the fine buildings in the out parts, in such a case, let any one judge.

There has formerly been a great emulation between the Court end of the town, and the city; and it was once seriously proposed in a certain reign, how the Court should humble the city; nor was it so impracticable a thing at that time, had the wicked scheme been carried on: Indeed, it was carried farther than consisted with the prudence of a good government, or of a wise people; for the Court envy’d the city’s greatness, and the citizens were ever jealous of the Court’s designs: The most fatal steps the Court took to humble the city, and which, as I say, did not consist with the prudence of a good government, were, 1. The shutting up the Exchequer, and, 2. The bringing a quo warranto against their Charter; but these things can but be touch’d at here; the city has outliv’d it all, and both the attempts turn’d to the discredit of the Court party, who pushed them on: But the city, I say, has gained the ascendant, and is now made so necessary to the Court (as before it was thought rather a grievance) that now we see the Court itself the daily instrument to encourage and increase the opulence of the city, and the city again, by its real grandeur, made not a glory only, but an assistance and support to the Court, on the greatest and most sudden emergencies.

Nor can a breach be now made on any terms, but the city will have the advantage; for while the stocks, and Bank, and trading companies remain in the city, the center of the money, as well as of the credit and trade of the kingdom, will be there.

Nor are these capital offices only necessarily kept in the city, but several offices belonging to the public oeconomy of the administration, such as the Post Office, the Navy, the Victualling, and the Pay Offices, including the Ordnance Office, which is kept in the Tower. In a word, the offices may, indeed, be said to be equally divided.

The city has all those above-mentioned, and the Court has the Admiralty, the Exchequer, and the Secretaries of State’s Offices, with those of the Pay-Masters of the Army, &c.

Besides these, the Council, the Parliament, and the Courts of Justice, are all kept at the same part of the town; but as all suits among the citizens are, by virtue of their privileges, to be try’d within the liberty of the city, so the term is obliged to be (as it were) adjourned from Westminster-Hall to Guild-Hall, to try causes there; also criminal cases are in like manner tried monthly at the Old Baily, where a special commission is granted for that purpose to the judges; but the Lord Mayor always presides, and has the chair.

The equality, however, being thus preserved, and a perfect good understanding between the Court and city having so long flourished, this union contributes greatly to the flourishing circumstances of both, and the publick credit is greatly raised by it; for it was never known, that the city, on any occasion, was so assistant to the government, as it has been since this general good agreement. No sum is so great, but the Bank has been able to raise. Here the Exchequer bills are at all times circulated, money advanced upon the funds as soon as laid, and that at moderate interest, not incroaching on the government, or extorting large interest to eat up the nation, and disappoint the sovereign, and defeat his best designs, as in King William’s time was too much the practice.

By this great article of publick credit, all the king’s business is done with chearfulness. provisions are now bought to victual the fleets without difficulty, and at reasonable rates. The several yards where the slips are built and fitted out, are currently paid: The magazines of millitary and naval stores kept full: In a word, by this very article of publick credit, of which the Parliament is the foundation (and the city, are the architectures or builders) all those great things are now done with ease, which, in the former reigns, went on heavily, and were brought about with the utmost difficulty.

But, to return to the city; Besides the companies and publick offices, which are kept in the city, there are several particular offices and places, some built or repaired on purpose, and others hired and beautified for the particular business they carry on respectively: As,

Here are several great offices for several societies of ensurers; for here almost all hazards may be ensured; the four principal are called, 1. Royal Exchange Ensurance: 2. The London Ensurers: 3. The Hand in Hand Fire Office: 4. The Sun Fire Office.

In the two first of those, all hazards by sea are ensured, that is to say, of ships or goods, not lives; as also houses and goods are ensured from fire.

In the last, only houses and goods.

In all which offices, the premio is so small, and the recovery, in case of loss, so easy and certain, where no fraud is suspected, that nothing can be shewn like it in the whole world; especially that of ensuring houses from fire, which has now attained such an universal approbation, that I am told, there, are above seventy thousand houses thus ensured in London, and the parts adjacent.

The East-India House is in Leadenhall-Street, an old, but spacious building; very convenient, though not beautiful, and I am told, it is under consultation to have it taken down, and rebuilt with additional buildings for warehouses and cellars for their goods, which at present are much wanted.

The African Company’s house is in the same street, a very handsome, well-built, and convenient house, and which fully serves for all the offices their business requires.

The Bank is kept in Grocer’s Hall, a very convenient place, and, considering its situation, so near the Exchange, a very spacious, commodious place.

Here business is dispatch’d with such exactness, and such expedition and so much of it too, that it is really prodigious; no confusion, nobody is either denied or delayed payment, the merchants who keep their cash there, are sure to have their bills always paid, and even advances made on easy terms, if they have occasion. No accounts in the world are more exactly kept, no place in the world has so much business done, with so much ease.

In the next street (the Old Jury) is the Excise Office, in a very large house, formerly the dwelling of Sir John Fredrick, and afterwards, of Sir Joseph Hern, very considerable merchants. In this one office is managed an immense weight of business, and they have in pay, as I am told, near four thousand officers: The whole kingdom is divided by them into proper districts, and to every district, a collector, a supervisor, and a certain number of gaugers, called, by the vulgar title excise men.

Nothing can be more regular, than the methods of this office, by which an account of the whole excise is transmitted from the remotest parts of the kingdom, once every six weeks, which is called a sitting, and the money received, or prosecutions commenced for it, in the next sitting.

Under the management of this office, are now brought, not only the excise upon beer, ale, and other liquors, as formerly, but also the duties on malt and candles, hops, soap, and leather, all which are managed in several and distinct classes, and the accounts kept in distinct books; but, in many places, are collected by the same officers, which makes the charge of the collection much easier to the government: Nor is the like duty collected in any part of the world, with so little charge, or so few officers.

The South-Sea House is situate in a large spot of ground, between Broad-Street and Threadneedle-Street, two large houses having been taken in, to form the whole office; but, as they were, notwithstanding, straighten’d for room, and were obliged to summon their general courts in another place, viz. at Merchant-Taylors Hall; so they have now resolved to erect a new and compleat building for the whole business, which is to be exceeding fine and large, and to this end, the company has purchased several adjacent buildings, so that the ground is inlarged towards Threadneedle-Street; but, it seems, they could not be accommodated to their minds on the side next Broad-Street, so we are told, they will not open a way that way, as before.

As the company are enlarging their trade to America, and have also engaged in a new trade, namely, that of the Greenland whale fishing, they are like to have an occasion to enlarge their offices. This building, they assure us, will cost the company from ten to twenty thousand pounds, that is to say, a very great sum.

The Post Office, a branch of the revenue formerly not much valued, but now, by the additional penny upon the letters, and by the visible increase of business in the nation, is grown very considerable. This office maintains now, pacquet boats to Spain and Portugal, which never was done before: So the merchants letters for Cadiz or Lisbonne, which were before two and twenty days in going over France and Spain to Lisbonne, oftentimes arrive there now, in nine or ten days from Falmouth.

Likewise, they have a pacquet from Marseilles to Port Mahone, in the Mediterranean, for the constant communication of letters with his majesty’s garrison and people in the island of Minorca.

They have also a pacquet from England to the West-Indies; but I am not of opinion, that they will keep it up for much time longer, if it be not already let fall.

This office is kept in Lombard-Street, in a large house, formerly Sir Robert Viner’s, once a rich goldsmith; but ruined at the shutting up of the Exchequer, as above.

The penny post, a modern contrivance of a private person, one Mr. William Dockraw, is now made a branch of the general revenue by the Post Office; and though, for a time, it was subject to miscarriages and mistakes, yet now it is come also into so exquisite a management, that nothing can be more exact, and ’tis with the utmost safety and dispatch, that letters are delivered at the remotest corners of the town, almost as soon as they could be sent by a messenger, and that from four, five, six, to eight times a day, according as the distance of the place makes it practicable; and you may send a letter from Ratcliff or Limehouse in the East, to the farthest part of Westminster for a penny, and that several times in the same day.

Nor are you tied up to a single piece of paper, as in the General Post-Office, but any packet under a pound weight, goes at the same price.

I mention this the more particularly, because it is so manifest a testimony to the greatness of this city, and to the great extent of business and commerce in it, that this penny conveyance should raise so many thousand pounds in a year, and employ so many poor people in the diligence of it, as this office employs.

We see nothing of this at Paris, at Amsterdam, at Hamburgh, or any other city, that ever I have seen, or heard of.

The Custom House I have just mentioned before, but must take up a few lines to mention it again. The stateliness of the building, shewed the greatness of the business that is transacted there: The Long Room is like an Exchange every morning, and the croud of people who appear there, and the business they do, is not to be explained by words, nothing of that kind in Europe is like it.

Yet it has been found, that the business of export and import in this port of London, is so prodigiously increased, and the several new offices, which they are bound to erect for the managing the additional parts of the customs, are such, that the old building, though very spacious, is too little, and as the late Fire burnt or demolished some part of the west end of the Custom House, they have had the opportunity in rebuilding, to enlarge it very much, buying in the ground of some of the demolished houses, to add to the Custom House, which will be now a most glorious building.

The keys, or wharfs, next the river, fronting not the Custom House only, but the whole space from the Tower stairs, or dock, to the bridge, ought to be taken notice of as a publick building; nor are they less an ornament to the city, as they are a testimony of the vast trade carried on in it, than the Royal Exchange itself.

The revenue, or income, brought in by these wharfs, inclusive of the warehouses belonging to them, and the lighters they employ, is said to amount to a prodigious sum; and, as I am told, seldom so little as forty thousand pounds per annum: And abundance of porters, watchmen, wharfingers, and other officers, are maintained here by the business of the wharfs; in which, one thing is very remarkable, That here are porters, and poor working men, who, though themselves not worth, perhaps, twenty pounds in the world, are trusted with great quantities of valuable goods, sometimes to the value of several thousand pounds, and yet ’tis very rarely to be heard, that any loss or embezzlement is made. The number of these keys extending, as above, from the bridge to the Tower Dock, is seventeen.

From these publick places, I come next to the markets, which, in such a mass of building, and such a collection of people, and where such business is done, must be great, and very many. To take a view of them in particular;

First, Smithfield Market for living cattle, which is, without question, the greatest in the world; no description can be given of it, no calculation of the numbers of creatures sold there, can be made. This market is every Monday and Friday.

There is, indeed, a liberty taken by the butchers, to go up to Islington, and to Whitechapel, and buy of the country drovers, who bring cattle to town; but this is called forestalling the market, and is not allowed by law.

There is also a great market, or rather fair for horses, in Smithfield every Friday in the afternoon, where very great numbers of horses, and those of the highest price, are to be sold weekly.

The flesh markets are as follow.

Leaden-Hall, Honey-Lane, Newgate, Clare, Shadwell, Southwark, Westminster, Spittle Fields, Hoxton (forsaken) Brook, Bloomsbury, Newport, St. James’s, Hungerford.

N.B. At all these markets, there is a part set by for a fish market, and a part for an herb market; so that when I say afterwards, there are fish markets, and herb markets, I am to be understood, such as are wholly for fish, or for herbs and fruit.

N.B. The last three are, without doubt, the greatest in the world of those kinds.

These markets are so considerable in themselves, that they will merit a longer and more particular description, than I have room for in this place. I shall, however, briefly mention them again in their order.

Of the fourteen flesh markets, or markets for provisions, seven of them are of antient standing, time out of mind: But the other seven are erected since the enlargement of buildings mentioned above. The old ones are, Leaden-Hall, Honey-Lane, Newgate Market, Southwark, Clare, St. James’s, and Westminster; and these are so considerable, such numbers-of buyers, and such an infinite quantity of provisions of all sorts, flesh, fish, and fowl, that, especially the first, no city in the world can equal them. ’Tis of the first of these markets, that a certain Spanish ambassador said, There was as much meat sold in it in one month, as would suffice all Spain for a year.

This great market, called, Leaden-Hall, though standing in the middle of the city, contains three large squares, every square having several outlets into divers streets, and all into one another. The first, and chief, is called, the Beef Market, which has two large gates, one into Leaden Hall Street, one into Gracechurch Street, and two smaller, viz. One by a long pav’d passage leading into Limestreet, and one under a gateway from the second square. In this square, every Wednesday is kept a market for raw hides, tann’d leather, and shoemakers tools; and in the warehouses, up stairs on the east and south sides of the square, is the great market for Colechester bayes.

The second square is divided into two oblongs, in the first is the fish market, and in the other, a market for country higlers, who bring small things, such as pork, butter, eggs, pigs, country dress’d, with some fouls, and such like country fare.

The north part of the fish market, the place being too large for the fishmongers use, are the stalls of the town butchers for mutton and veal, the best and largest of which, that England can produce, is to be bought there, and the east part is a flesh market for country butchers.

The third, and last square, which is also very large, is divided into three parts: Round the circumference, is the butter market, with all sorts of higglary goods, as before: The south part is the poultry market, and the bacon market, and the center is an herb market.

All the other markets follow the same method in proportion to the room they have for it; and there is an herb market in every one; but the chief markets in the whole city for herbs and garden-stuff, are the Stocks and Covent Garden.

There are but two corn markets in the whole city and out parts; but they are monsters for magnitude, and not to be matched in the world. These are Bear Key, and Queen Hith: To the first comes all the vast quantity of corn that is brought into the city by sea, and here corn may be said, not to be sold by cart loads, or horse loads, but by ship loads, and, except the corn chambers and magazines in Holland, when the fleets come in from Dantzick and England, the whole world cannot equal the quantity bought and sold here.

This is the place whither all the corn is brought, which, as I have observed, is provided in all the counties of England, near the sea coast, and shipp’d for London, and no quantity can be wanted, either for home consumption, or for foreign exportation, but the corn factors, who are the managers of this market, are ready to supply it.

The other, which I call a corn market too, is at Queen Hith; but this market is chiefly, if not wholly, for malt; as to the whole corn, as the quantity of malt brought to this market is prodigious great, so I must observe too, that this place is the receiver of all the malt, the barley of which, takes up the ground of so many hundred thousand acres of land in the counties of Surrey, Bucks, Berks, Oxford, Southampton, and Wilts, and is called west country malt.

It is true, there is a very great quantity of malt, and of other corn too, brought to some other places on the river, and sold there, viz. To Milford Lane, above the bridge, and the Hermitage, below the bridge; but this is but, in general, a branch of the trade of the other places.

It must not be omitted, that Queen Hith is also a very great market for meal, as well as malt, and, perhaps, the greatest in England.

The vessels which bring this malt and meal to Queen Hith, are worth the observation of any stranger that understands such things. They are remarkable for the length of the vessel, and the burthen they carry, and yet the little water they draw; in a word, some of those barges carry above a thousand quarter of malt at a time, and yet do not draw two foot of water. N.B. A thousand quarter of malt must be granted to be, at least, a hundred tun burthen. Note also, Some of these large barges come as far as from Abbington, which is above one hundred and fifty miles from London, if we measure by the river.

The next market, which is more than ordinary remarkable, is the coal market at Billingsgate. This is kept every morning on the broad place just at the head of Billingsgate Dock, and the place is called Room Land; from what old forgotten original it has that name, history is silent. I need not, except for the sake of strangers, take notice, that the city of London, and parts adjacent, as also all the south of England, is supplied with coals, called therefore sea-coal, from Newcastle upon Tyne, and from the coast of Durham, and Northumberland. This trade is so considerable, that it is esteemed the great nursery of our best seamen, and of which I shall have occasion to say more in my account of the northern parts of England. The quantity of coals, which it is supposed are, communibus annis, burnt and consumed in and about this city, is supposed to be about five hundred thousand chalder, every chalder containing thirty-six bushels, and generally weighing about thirty hundred weight.

All these coals are bought and sold on this little spot of Room Land, and, though sometimes, especially in case of a war, or of contrary winds, a fleet of five hundred to seven hundred sail of ships, comes up the river at a time, yet they never want a market: The brokers, or buyers of these coals, are called crimps, for what reason, or original, is likewise a mystery peculiar to this trade; for these people are noted for giving such dark names to the several parts of their trade; so the vessels they load their ships with at New Castle, are called keels, and the ships that bring them, are called cats, and hags, or hag boats, and fly boats, and the like. But of that hereafter.

The increase of this consumption of coals, is another evidence of the great increase of the city of London; for, within a few years past, the import of coals was not, in the river of Thames, so great by very near half.

It must be observed, that as the city of London occasions the consumption of so great a quantity of corn and coals, so the measurement of them is under the inspection of the lord mayor and court of aldermen, and for the direction of which, there are allowed a certain number of corn meeters, and coal meeters, whose places are for life, and bring them in a very considerable income. These places are in the gift of the lord mayor for the time being, and are generally sold for three or four thousand pounds a piece, when they fall.

They have abundance of poor men employ’d under them, who are called, also, meeters, and are, or ought to be, freemen of the city.

This is, indeed, a rent-charge upon the buyer, and is a kind of gabel, as well upon the coals as the corn; but the buyer is abundantly recompensed, by being ascertained in his measure without any fraud; so that having bought his coals or corn, he is perfectly unconcerned about the measure, for the sworn meeters are so placed between the buyer and seller, that no injury can be offered, nor have I heard that any complaint of injustice is ever made against the meeters, who are generally men of good character, are sworn to do right, and cannot easily do wrong without being detected; so many eyes being about them, and so many several persons concerned in the work, who have no dependance one upon another.

There is one great work yet behind, which, however, seems necessary to a full description of the city of London, and that is the shipping and the Pool; but in what manner can any writer go about it, to bring it into any reasonable compass? The thing is a kind of infinite, and the parts to be separated from one another in such a description, are so many, that it is hard to know where to begin.

The whole river, in a word, from London-Bridge to Black Wall, is one great arsenal, nothing in the world can be like it: The great building-yards at Schedam near Amsterdam, are said to out-do them in the number of ships which are built there, and they tell us, that there are more ships generally seen at Amsterdam, than in the Thames.

As to the building part, I will not say, but that there may be more vessels built at Schedam, and the parts adjacent, than in the River Thames; but then it must be said;

That the English build for themselves only, the Dutch for all the world.

That almost all the ships the Dutch have, are built there, whereas, not one fifth part of our shipping is built in the Thames; but abundance of ships are built at all the sea-ports in England, such as at New-Castle, Sunderland, Stockton, Whitby, Hull, Gainsborough, Grimsby, Lynn, Yarmouth, Alborough, Walderswick, Ipswich and Harwich, upon the east coast; and at Shoram, Arundel, Brighthelmston, Portsmouth, Southampton, Pool, Weymouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, besides other places, on the south coast.

That we see more vessels in less room at Amsterdam; but the setting aside their hoys, bilanders and schoots, which are in great numbers always there, being vessels particular to their inland and coasting navigation; you do not see more ships, nor near so many ships of force, at Amsterdam as at London.

That you see more ships there in less room, but, perhaps, not so many ships in the whole.

That part of the river of Thames which is properly the harbour, and where the ships usually deliver or unload their cargoes, is called the Pool, and begins at the turning of the river out of Lime-house Reach, and extends to the Custom-house-Keys: In this compass I have had the curiosity to count the ships as well as I could, en passant, and have found above two thousand sail of all sorts, not reckoning barges, lighters or pleasure-boats, and yatchs; but of vessels that really go to sea.

It is true, the river or Pool, seem’d, at that time, to be pretty full of ships; it is true also, that I included the ships which lay in Deptford and Black-Wall reaches, and in the wet docks, whereof, there are no less than three; but ’tis as true, that we did not include the men of war at the king’s yard and in the wet dock there at Deptford, which were not a very few.

To enter into any description of the great magazines of all manner of naval stores, for the furnishing those builders, would be endless, and I shall not attempt it; ’tis sufficient to add, That England, as I have said elsewhere, is an inexhaustible store-house of timber, and all the oak timber, and generally the plank also, used in the building these ships, is found in England only, nay, and which is more, it is not fetched from the remoter parts of England, but these southern counties near us are the places where ’tis generally found; as particularly the counties of Berks and Bucks, Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Essex and Suffolk, and very little is brought farther, nor can all the ship-building the whole kingdom are able to build, ever exhaust those counties, tho’ they were to build much more than they do.

But I must land, lest this part of the account seems to smell of the tarr, and I should tire the gentlemen with leading them out of their knowledge.

I should mention, for the information of strangers, &c. that the buildings of this great city are chiefly of brick, as many ways found to be the safest, the cheapest, and the most commodious of all other materials; by safe, I mean from fire, and as by Act of Parliament, every builder is bound to have a partition wall of brick also, one brick and half thick between every house, it is found to be, indeed, very helpful in case of fire.

And as I am speaking of fire and burning of houses, it cannot be omitted, That no where in the world is so good care taken to quench fires as in London; I will not say the like care is taken to prevent them; for I must say, That I think the servants, nay, and masters too in London, are the most careless people in the world about fire, and this, no doubt, is the reason why there are frequently more fires in London and in the out-parts, than there are in all the cities of Europe put them together; nor are they the more careful, as I can learn, either from observation or report, I say, they are not made more cautious, by the innumerable fires which continually happen among them.

And this leads me back to what I just now said, That no city in the world is so well furnished for the extinguishing fires when they happen.

By the great convenience of water which being every where laid in the streets in large timber pipes, as well from the Thames as the New-River, those pipes are furnished with a fire plug, which the parish officers have the key of, and when opened, let out not a pipe, but a river of water into the streets, so that making but a dam in the kennel, the whole street is immediately under water to supply the engines.

By the great number of admirable engines, of which, almost, every parish has one, and some halls also, and some private citizens have them of their own, so that no sooner does a fire break out, but the house is surrounded with engines, and a flood of water poured upon it, ‘till the fire is, as it were, not extinguished only, but drowned.

The several ensurance offices, of which I have spoken above, have each of them a certain sett of men, who they keep in constant pay, and who they furnish with tools proper for the work, and to whom they give jack-caps of leather, able to keep them from hurt, if brick or timber, or any thing not of too great a bulk, should fall upon them; these men make it their business to be ready at call, all hours, and night or day, to assist in case of fire; and it must be acknowledged, they are very dextrous, bold, diligent, and successful. These they call fire-men, but with an odd kind of contradiction in the title, for they are really most of them water-men.

Having mentioned, that the city is so well furnished with water, it cannot be omitted, that there are two great engines for the raising the Thames water, one at the bridge, and the other near Broken Wharf; these raise so great a quantity of water, that, as they tell us, they are able to supply the whole city in its utmost extent, and to supply every house also3 with a running pipe of water up to the uppermost story.

However, the New-River, which is brought by an aqueduct or artificial stream from Ware, continues to supply the greater part of the city with water, only with this addition by the way, that they have been obliged to dig a new head or basin at Islington on a higher ground than that which the natural stream of the river supplies, and this higher basin they fill from the lower, by a great engine worked formerly with six sails, now by many horses constantly working; so from that new elevation of the water, they supply the higher part of the town with the same advantage, and more ease than the Thames engines do it.

There was a very likely proposal set on foot by some gentlemen, whose genius seem’d equal to the work, for drawing another river, rather larger than that now running, and bringing it to a head on some rising grounds beyond Mary le Bonne.

This water was proposed to be brought from the little Coin or Cole near St. Albans, and the river, called Two Waters, near Rickmansworth, and as I have seen the course of the water, and the several supplies it was to have, and how the water-level was drawn for containing the current, I must acknowledge it was a very practical undertaking, and merited encouragement; but it was opposed in Parliament, and dropt for the present: This design was particularly calculated for supplying those prodigious additions of buildings, which I have already described at the west end of the town.

However, tho’ this be laid aside, as also several water-houses in other parts, particularly one at Wapping, one near Battle-Bridge in Southwark, and the famous one at York-Buildings, yet it cannot be denied, that the city of London is the best supplied with water of any great city in the world, and upon as easy terms to its inhabitants.

There were formerly several beautiful conduits of running-water in London, which water was very sweet and good, and was brought at an infinite expence, from several distant springs, in large leaden pipes to those conduits, and this was so lately, that several of those conduits were re-built since the Fire, as one on Snow-Hill and one at Stocks-Market, which serves as a pedestal for the great equestrian statue of King Charles II. erected there at the charge of Sir Robert Viner, then Lord Mayor, and who was then an eminent banker in Lombard-street; but his loyalty could not preserve him from being ruined by the common calamity, when the king shut up the Exchequer.

They tell us a merry story of this statue, how true it may be, let those testify who saw it, if any such witnesses remain, viz. That a certain famous Court lady, I do not say it was the D——— ss of Portsmouth, being brought to bed of a son late in the night, the next morning this glorious equestrian statue had a pillion handsomely placed on it behind the body of the k ——— with a paper pinned to the trapping of the pillion, with words at length, Gone for a midwife.

It is scarce worth while to give an account of the statues in this city, they are neither many, or are those which are, very valuable.

The statue of King Charles II. in marble, standing in the middle of the Royal Exchange, is the best beyond comparison; one of the same prince, and his father, standing in two large niches on the south front of the same building, and being bigger than the life, are coarse pieces compared to it.

The statues of the kings and queens, seventeen of which are already put up in the inside of the Royal Exchange, are tolerable, but all infinitely inferior to that in the middle.

There is a statue of Sir Thomas Gresham, the founder of the Royal Exchange, which outdoes many of those kings, only that it stands in a dark corner, and is little noticed; ’tis placed in a nitch under the piazza, in the north west angle of the Exchange, just regarding the Turky walk, and he has a bale of silk lying by him.

There is another equestrian statue, and but one, as I remember, within the city, and that is of King James the First on the north front of one of the gates of the city called Aldersgate: This was erected on the occasion of that king’s entring the city at that gate when he arrived here from Scotland, to take the crown after the death of Queen Elizabeth; when that statue was finely painted and gilded, which is not usual, nor is the gilding yet worn off; there are some emblematick figures remaining, which were then suited to the occasion of his triumphal entry, and there was another arch form’d for the day at the bars, where the liberties of the city end, that way which is now called Goswell-street, but that was taken down soon after.

The gates of the city are seven, besides posterns, and the posterns that remain are four, besides others that are demolished. The gates are all remaining, two of them which were demolished at the fire, being beautifully re-built: These are Ludgate and Newgate; the first a prison for debt for freemen of the city only, the other a prison for criminals, both for London and Middlesex, and for debtors also for Middlesex, being the county gaol.

Moregate is also re-built, and is a very beautiful gateway, the arch being near twenty foot high, which was done to give room for the city Train’d Bands to go through to the Artillery Ground, where they muster, and that they might march with their pikes advanc’d, for then they had pikemen in every regiment, as well in the army as in the militia, which since that, is quite left off; this makes the gate look a little out of shape, the occasion of it not being known. Cripplegate and Bishopsgate are very old, and make but a mean figure; Aldersgate is about one hundred and twenty years old, and yet being beautified, as I have said, on the occasion of King James’s entry, looks very handsome.

Aldgate was very ancient and decay’d, so that As old as Aldgate, was a city proverb for many years; but this gate was re-built also, upon the triumphant entry of K. James I. and looks still very well; on the east side of this gate are two statues in stone, representing two men, from the waste upward, and in armour, throwing down two great stones, supposing it to be on an enemy assaulting the gate, which I mention, because some time ago, one of these men in armour, whether tired with holding it so long, or dreaming of enemies assaulting the gate, our authors do not inform us; but he threw down the stone, or rather let it fall, after having held it upwards of an hundred years; but, as it happened, it did no harm.

Most of these gates are given by the city to the chief of the officers of the city to live in, and the houses are very convenient dwellings.

Temple-Bar is the only gate which is erected at the extent of the city liberties, and this was occasioned by some needful ceremonies at the proclaiming any King or Queen of England, at which time the gates are shut; the Herald at Arms knocks hard at the door, the sheriffs of the city call back, asking who is there? Then the herald answers, “I come to proclaim,” &, according to the name of the prince who is to succeed to the crown, and repeating the titles of Great Britain, France and Ireland, &c. at which the sheriffs open, and bid them welcome, and so they go on to the Exchange, where they make the last proclamation.

This gate is adorned with the figures of kings below, and traytors above, the heads of several criminals executed for treason being set up there; the statues below are of Queen Elizabeth and King James I. King Charles I. and II. and this is the fourth statue of King Charles II. which is to be seen in the city of London, besides his picture nobly done at full length, which was set up formerly in the Guild-Hall.

There are in London, and the far extended bounds, which I now call so, notwithstanding we are a nation of liberty, more publick and private prisons, and houses of confinement, than any city in Europe, perhaps as many as in all the capital cities of Europe put together; for example:

Public GAOLS.

The Tower.
Newgate.
Ludgate.
King’s Bench.
The Fleet.
Bridewell.
Marshalseas.
The Gatehouse.
Two Counters in the city.
One Counter in the Burrough.
St. Martin’s le Grand.
The Clink, formerly the prison to the Stews.
Whitechapel.
Finsbury.
The Dutchy.
St. Katherines.
Bale-Dock.
Little-Ease.
New Prison.
New-Bridewell.
Tottil-Fields Bridewell
Five night prisons, called Round-houses, &c.

Tolerated PRISONS.

Bethlem or Bedlam.
One hundred and nineteen Spunging Houses.
Fifteen Private Mad-Houses.
The King’s Messengers Houses.
The Sergeant at Arms’s Officers Houses.
The Black Rod Officers-Houses.
Cum aliis.
Three Pest-houses.
The Admiralty Officers Houses.
Tip-staffs Houses.
Chancery Officers Houses.

N.B. All these private houses of confinement, are pretended to be little purgatories, between prison and liberty, places of advantage for the keeping prisoners at their own request, till they can get friends to deliver them, and so avoid going into publick prisons; tho’ in some of them, the extortion is such, and the accommodation so bad, that men choose to be carried away directly.

This has often been complained of, and hopes had of redress; but the rudeness and avarice of the officers prevails, and the oppression is sometimes very great; but that by the way.

In a word; To sum up my description of London, take the following heads; There are in this great mass of buildings thus called London,

Two cathedrals.
Four choirs for musick-worship.
One hundred and thirty five parish churches.
Nine new churches unfinished, being part of fifty appointed to be built.
Sixty nine chapels where the Church of England service is perform’d.
Two churches at Deptford, taken into the limits now describ’d.
Twenty eight foreign churches
Besides Dissenters meetings of all persuasions;
Popish chapels; and
One Jews synagogue.
There are also, thirteen hospitals, besides lesser charities, call’d Alms-houses, of which they reckon above a hundred, many of which have chapels for divine service.
Three colleges.
Twenty-seven publick prisons.
Eight publick schools, called Free Schools.
Eighty three Charity Schools.
Fourteen markets for flesh.
Two for live cattle, besides two herb-markets.
Twenty three other markets, as describ’d.
Fifteen Inns of Court.
Four fairs.
Twenty seven squares, besides those within any single building, as the Temple, Somerset House, &c.
Five publick bridges.
One town-house, or Guild-Hall.
One Royal Exchange.
Two other Exchanges only for shops.
One Custom-house.
Three Artillery Grounds.
Four Pest-houses.
Two bishops palaces;
and
Three royal palaces.

The Court and Westminster

Having dwelt thus long in the city, I mean properly called so, I must be the shorter in my account of other things.

The Court end of the town, now so prodigiously increased, as is said before, would take up a volume by itself, and, indeed, whole volumes are written on the subject.

The king’s palace, tho’ the receptacle of all the pomp and glory of Great Britain, is really mean, in comparison of the rich furniture within, I mean the living furniture, the glorious Court of the King of Great Britain: The splendor of the nobility, the wealth and greatness of the attendants, the oeconomy of the house, and the real grandeur of the whole royal family, out-does all the Courts of Europe, even that of France itself, as it is now managed since the death of Lewis the Great.

But the palace of St. James’s is, I say, too mean, and only seems to be honoured with the Court, while a more magnificent fabrick may be erected, where the King of England usually resided, I mean at White-Hall.

The ruins of that old palace, seem to predict, that the time will come, when that Phoenix shall revive, and when a building shall be erected there, suiting the majesty and magnificence of the British princes, and the riches of the British nation.

Many projects have been set on foot for the re-building the antient palace of White-hall; but most of them have related rather to a fund for raising the money, than a model for the building: But as I once saw a model for the palace itself, know its author, and when it was proposed, and that I still believe that scheme will, at last, be the ground-plot of the work itself, I believe it will not be disagreeable to give a brief account of the design.

A Scheme for a Royal Palace in the place of White-Hall

First, it was proposed, That the whole building should be of Portland stone, and all the front be exactly after the model of the Banquetting House, with such alterations only, as the length and height of the building made necessary.

That the first floor of the building should be raised from the present surface, at least eight feet, as the present building of the Banquetting House now is.

That the whole building should make four fronts, one to the water-side and one to the canal in the park, a third to the north facing Charing-Cross, and the fourth to the south facing King-street in Westminster.

That every front should contain 400 yards, or 1200 feet, in length; that there should be four areas or squares in the inside of the building, the first from the north entrance to be oblong, taking up the whole length of the building from east to west, and that then a long building should cross the whole work, eighty feet broad, and from the east range one thousand feet broad to the west; and in the middle of which, should be a great arch or gate looking to the south gate of the palace: That the other side of the palace be divided into three squares, having two ranges of buildings to run cross them from south to north, and each range to joyn the great range of building which runs from east to west.

That the whole building be withdrawn from the river so far, at least, as where the statue of King James II. now stands, and a spacious terras to be carried on into the Thames twelve feet beyond low-water-mark, and over the river a handsome foot-bridge of twelve great arches only, with a causeway at the end over St. George’s Fields; That the terras and space between the palace and the water, be made into a fine garden, with an orangery on the north side, reaching to the edge of the terras so effectually, as it may cover the garden from the view of any of the buildings on the Strand side, and a royal bagnio at the other end likewise, to cover the necessary buildings for the kitchins which are behind it.

For the extent north, ’tis proposed, That all the buildings be taken down to the wall of Northumberland House, on that side; and to the north side of the Spring Garden, opposite to Suffolk-street and the Hay-Market on the other side; so the front of the building that way, will extend from the hither part of Scotland-yard-Gate, to Prince Rupert’s Garden, and the gate of the palace being in the center of the building, will open in that which is now called the Spring Garden.

One gate of the palace opening thus north, a ballustrade of iron, like that which surrounds St. Paul’s Church, should take in a large parade, reaching to the Meuse-Gate, a space for the street only excepted, and in proportion the other way towards Pail-Mall; and here on the east side, and on the west side, two large guard-houses should be erected, fitted, the one for the horse guards, and the other for the foot, both within the ballustrade, but without the palace, and two smaller guard-houses for detachments of both, be likewise placed on the south side, all at a proper distance from the main building, and all low built.

The canal in the park would be necessarily filled up for about a hundred yards, for the extent of the building that way; the street that now is, must, at the same time, be turned, and a large street for communication with Westminster, be allowed to cross the park from the Pail-Mall south, towards Westminster, to come out at the new iron gate, now leading to Queen’s -Square and Tottil-street; but no houses to be built in it, and four gates in the said street, to lead over the street, from the first floor of the palace, by galleries into the park; All buildings adjoining to the park to be taken down, nor any private doors or keys to be allowed; a stone wall of twenty feet high and eight feet thick, to be built round the park, and the park to be extended west, by taking in Buckingham House, with its gardens.

In this building, the proposer’s scheme was, To have all the offices of the King’s Exchequer, the Revenue, the Council, the Secretaries of State, the Admiralty, the Courts of Justice, and both Houses of Parliament, contain’d within the palace, as was the usage in former times.

To this purpose, the cross range of buildings, going from east to west, through the center of the palace, and looking into the great oblong court, which would contain a thousand feet, exclusive of the east and west fronts, and of the great arch or gate in the center, should be divided thus; That part on the east side of the gate to contain two spacious rooms, one for the House of Peers, the other for the House of Commons, with sufficient offices, galleries of communication, rooms of conference for committees, a court of requests, &c. for the use of the members, and rooms for all other occasions of Parliament business.

The west part of this great range of building to contain a hall, as Westminster-Hall now is, with proper separated courts for the King’s Bench, Chancery, Common-Pleas, and Exchequer-Bars, and a distinct court fix’d, and suitably prepared, for tryals of peers or others, by the House of Lords, notwithstanding which, this court would be sufficiently large to celebrate the Coronation feast, with all its ceremonies, the building being from the middle arch to the west range of buildings, five hundred feet long at least, and one hundred feet broad.

Thus the king’s Court of Justice, his High Court of Parliament, and all the affairs of the Administration, would be managed within his own house, as it anciently was; and as the two cross ranges of buildings, which form’d the three courts on the south side of the Parliament House and Hall of Justice, would be very large, they would afford room for the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, the Admiralty, the War Office, the Green-Cloth, the Wardrobe Office, and all the other family offices, too many to name here.

Then the main range of building on the north side of the palace, should contain (because nearest the city) the Treasury Office, the Secretary’s Offices, the Council Chambers, and the Exchequer Offices.

The apartments of the other three ranges to be wholly taken up with the king’s houshold: for example;

For the royal apartments, being the king’s lodgings, rooms of state and audience, the closet, the oratory, and all the rooms belonging to the apartment of a king; this to take up the east range, fronting the terras garden and the Thames, and looking directly towards the city.

The queen s lodgings to be in the east end of the south range, fronting the City of Westminster; but between the said city and the lodgings, the queen’s garden to be extended from the terras garden mentioned before, to a wall joining a passage from Westminster to the south gate, which wall begins at the iron ballustrade and gate of the great parade before the south entrance of the palace, and ends at the outer stone wall, which surrounds the garden and park. The family for the royal children, to take up the west end of the said south range of buildings, with the like garden also, and a gate joyning the two walls in the middle of the passage, leading to the south gate of the palace, by which, with an easy ascent of steps, a communication should be made between the said two gardens.

The west rouge of buildings fronting the park, should be divided also into two parts, the first being the north end, to consist of royal apartments for the entertainment of foreign princes and foreign ambassadors, at the pleasure of the king, and the other half, or south end to be called the Prince’s Lodgings, and to be for the Prince of Wales for the time being, and his family.

The great arch in the center of the whole, and in the middle of the long range of buildings, to support a large church or chapel royal, for the service of all the houshold, and for preaching before the Houses of Parliament on publick days, as is now at St. Margaret’s and at the Abbey: over this church a large dome or cupola of stone, covered with copper and double gilded.

At the two angles of the building, fronting the river, two private chapels, the one for the queen and her houshold, and the other for the king and his houshold, and either of these to support a dome covered with copper and gilded, as before, tho’ smaller than the other, with a large lanthorn on the top, and a small spire, all of stone.

The fronts to have pavilions and pediments in their proper places; the whole work to be built with the utmost regularity, in the Corinthian order of building, and with all possible beauty and ornament.

The galleries of the royal chapel to be supported with pillars of marble, of the finest and most beautiful workmanship also, the E. end of the building, the altar and balustrade of the same, also niches, with their columns, and pediments of the same, and two pillars of the finest marble, eighteen feet high, standing single, one on each side the steps to the communion table, and on them two statues of the apostles St. Paul and St. Peter, or as the king shall direct, the statues to be large as the life, the capitals of the columns gilded.

All the carv’d work in the walls, and round the cornish, and architrave within and without, double gilded; the ceiling of the chapel to contain one great oval, the rim of it of stone, carved as at St. Paul’s, and gilded, and the middle painted by the best masters, with either a figure of the ascention or the resurrection, the device to be new.

All the carved work in wood, and mouldings, and cornish in the quire and over the stalls, to be double gilded, as likewise of the organ and organ loft.

All the gates and door cases in the out-sides of the work, with all the columns and carv’d work belonging to them, especially the north and south gates, and the two fronts of the great arch in the middle, to be of the finest marble.

All the chimneys and foot paces before them, to be of marble of divers colours, as well English as foreign: The steps, also, of the king and queen’s great stair-cases to be of marble, all the other stair-cases to be of the finest free-stone, fetch’d from Stamford in Lincolnshire, where is the whitest stone in England, and to be built as the stair-case in that called the Queen’s House at Greenwich; no wood to be allowed in any of the stair-cases, except for wainscotting up the side.

All the great stair-cases to be painted in the most curious manner possible, as also the ceilings of all the royal apartments, as well the queen’s as the king’s.

An equestrian statue of the king in the center of one half of the first great court, and the like of the late King William, in the other half.

Large fountains to be kept constantly playing in the smaller courts, and in the terras garden.

Buckingham-House to be bought, and taken in, to be made a royal lodge for the park, with an observatory, and a chamber of rarities: And Marlborough House to be bought, and be made a green-house for exotick plants, and all botannick rarities, and the old royal garden to be again restored, laid open to the park, and be a planted orangery; all the orange and lemon trees to be planted in the earth, so as not to be removed in the winter, but covered and secured separately, as at Beddington in Surrey.

A large building to be added under the wall in the park, next to Tottil-street, Westminster, with separate wards for keeping the lyons and other the strange and foreign bred brutes, which are now kept in the Tower, and care to be taken to furnish it with all the rarities of that kind that the world can procure, with fowls, also, of the like foreign kinds.

A royal bagnio annexed to the green-house in the terras garden, like that for the ladies in the queen’s garden; but both distant from the palace.

A large alottment from the lodgings at the two ends of the N. and E. ranges, for the king’s kitchens, which should have also an additional range of low buildings, separate from the palace, and running down to the water-side; this building would stand just between the terras garden wall, which should hide it, and the wall of Northumberland House: And here (a dock being made for that purpose) all heavy things, needful for the kitchens, and for the whole palace, should be brought in by water; as coals, and wood, and beer, and wine, &c. at the east end, and the prince’s at the west end; the kitchens for the queen and the younger princes or childrens apartments, to be at the other extremes of their respective appartments.

Every range of building to have double rows of rooms on the same floor; but the royal apartments to have also a long gallery behind them, reaching the whole length, the one end to joyn to the Treasury Office and Council Chamber in the north range, and the other end to reach the queen’s royal lodgings at the south range; on the east side of this gallery and in the peers, between the windows on the west side, should be placed, all the fine paintings that the Court are possess’d of, or that can be procur’d.

In the north west angle of the building, a large room or rooms for the royal library, with apartments for the library keeper; galleries in the great room to come at the books, and a cupola upon the top.

In the south west angle, a like repository for the records, as well of the Exchequer as of Parliament, with apartments for the record-keeper, or register, and a dome over it as at the other angle.

The north and south gates of the palace to be embellished in the most exquisite manner possible, and the statues of the king and prince over the arch wrought in marble, in the finest manner possible; the gates to rise twenty five feet above the building, with an attick, and such other work as shall be contrived for the utmost beauty and ornament.

The great stair-cases to be in the angles of the building, built projecting into the squares, that of the king’s apartment, to open into the first court, and into the garden also, and in the like manner the queen’s stair-case, at the other side, to open into the little square and into the privy gardens.

The stair-cases to land upon the galleries, before they enter the apartments, and for that reason, to be in the inside of the building, and to be distinct from it, to prevent taking up any of the apartments of the angles, which are appointed for other purposes; in the middle of the long’s great gallery, doors should be made, leading into the great middle range of buildings; by one of which, his majesty may enter a gallery leading to the House of Lords, and by the other, enter thro’ another gallery to the chapel royal: In the great gallery and in the hall, sixteen large bouffetts or cupboards of gold and gilt plate of all kinds, to be set open on publick days.

Likewise by these doors, the king will hare ready access to all the offices, to all the lodgings, and through the gates formerly mention’d, crossing the great New Street, which have steps to pass over their arches, and descend into the park.

This, indeed, is but an embryo; but it must be confessed, it would be a magnificent building, and would very well suit the grandeur of the British Court: Here a King of Great Britain would live like himself, and half the world would run over to see and wonder at it.

This whole building, the person projecting it, offered to finish, that is to say, all the out-side work, masonry and bricklayers work, with plaisterers, glasiers, plumbers, carpenters and joyners work, carvers, stone-cutters, copper work, iron work, and lead, including ballustrade and fine gates, and, in a word, the whole palace, except painting, gilding, gardening and waterworks, for two million three hundred thousand pounds, the king giving timber, but the undertaker to cut it down, and bring it to the place, the king giving the Portland stone also, and bringing it by water to the place.

Also the king to lay in four thousand blocks of Italian marble of the usual dimensions, the builder to make all the imagery that are to be made of stone; but the king to be at the charge of the equestrian statues in brass; the builder to form all the fountains and basins for the water-works; but all the pipes, vasa, busts, and statues in the gardens, to be at the king’s expence.

But I return to the description of things which really exist, and are not imaginary: As the court is now stated, all the offices and places for business are scattered about.

The Parliament meets, as they ever did, while the Court was at Westminster, in the king’s old palace, and there are the courts of justice also, and the officers of the Exchequer, nor can it be said, however convenient the place is made for them; but that it has a little an air of venerable, tho’ ruin’d antiquity: What is the Court of Requests, the Court of Wards, and the Painted Chamber, tho’ lately repair’d, but the corps of the old English Grandeur laid in state?

The whole, it is true, was anciently the king’s palace or royal house, and it takes up full as much ground as the new palace, which I have given a scheme of, would do, except only the gardens and parks, the space before it, which is still called Palace-yard, is much greater than that which would be at the north gate of the palace of White-hall, as proposed. The gardens, indeed, were not large, but not despicable neither, being the same where my Lord Halifax’s house and gardens now are, and took up all the ground which we see now built upon between the river and the old palace, where the tellers of the Exchequer, as well as the auditor, have handsome dwellings and gardens also.

But, alas! as I say, tho’ they seem now even in their ruins, great; yet compared to the beauty and elegancy of modern living, and of royal buildings in this age, what are they!

The royal apartments, the prince’s lodgings, the great officers apartments, what are they now, but little offices for clerks, rooms for coffee-houses, auctions of pictures, pamphlet and toy-shops?

Even St. Stephen’s Chapel, formerly the royal chapel of the palace, but till lately beautify’d for the convenience of the House of Commons, was a very indifferent place, old and decay’d: The House of Lords is a venerable old place, indeed; but how mean, how incoherent, and how straitned are the several avenues to it, and rooms about it? the matted gallery, the lobby, the back ways the king goes to it, how short are they all of the dignity of the place, and the glory of a King of Great Britain, with the Lords and Commons, that so often meet there?

Some attempts were made lately, to have restored the decrepid circumstances of this part of the building, and orders were given to Mr. Benson, then surveyor of the king’s buildings, to do his part towards it; but it was directed so ill, or understood so little, that some thought he was more likely to throw the old fabrick down, than to set it to rights, for which ignorance and vanity, ’tis said, some have not fared as they deserv’d.

It is true, the sitting of the Parliament is by the order of the Houses themselves, accommodated as well as the place will admit; but how much more beautiful it would be in such a building, as is above contrived, I leave to the contriver to describe and to other people to judge.

Come we next to Westminster-Hall; ’tis true, it is a very noble Gothick building, ancient, vastly large, and the finest roof of its kind in England, being one hundred feet wide; but what a wretched figure does it make without doors; the front, a vast pinacle or pedement, after the most ancient and almost forgotten part of the Gothick way of working; the building itself, resembles nothing so much as a great barn of three hundred feet long, and really looks like a barn at a distance.

Nay, if we view the whole building from without doors, ’tis like a great pile of something, but a stranger would be much at a loss to know what; and whether it was a house, or a church, or, indeed, a heap of churches; being huddled all together, with differing and distant roofs, some higher, some lower, some standing east and west, some north and south, and some one way, and some another.

The Abbey, or Collegiate Church of Westminster, stands next to this; a venerable old pile of building, it is indeed, but so old and weak, that had it not been taken in hand some years ago, and great cost bestowed in upholding and repairing it, we might, by this time, have called it a heap, not a pile, and not a church, but the ruins of a church.

But it begins to stand upon new legs now, and as they continue to work upon the repairs of it, the face of the whole building will, in a short while, be intirely new.

This is the repository of the British kings and nobility, and very fine monuments are here seen over the graves of our ancient monarchs; the particulars are too long to enter into here, and are so many times described by several authors, that it would be a vain repetition to enter upon it here; besides, we have by no means any room for it.

The monarchs of Great Britain are always crown’d here, even King James II. submitted to it, and to have it perform’d by a Protestant bishop. It is observable, that our kings and queens make always two solemn visits to this church, and very rarely, if ever, come here any more, viz. to be crown’d and to be buried.

Two things I must observe here, and with that I close the account of it. 1. ’Tis very remarkable, that the royal vault, in which the English royal family was laid, was filled up with Queen Ann; so that just as the family was extinct above, there was no room to have buried any more below. 2. It is become such a piece of honour to be buried in Westminster-Abbey, that the body of the church begins to be crowded with the bodies of citizens, poets, seamen, and parsons, nay, even with very mean persons, if they have but any way made themselves known in the world; so that in time, the royal ashes will be thus mingled with common dust, that it will leave no room either for king or common people, or at least not for their monuments, some of which also are rather pompously foolish, than solid and to the purpose.

Near to this church is the Royal Free-School, the best of its kind in England, not out-done either by Winchester or Eaton, for a number of eminent scholars.

The antiquities of this church, for it is very ancient, are published by two or three several authors; but are particularly to be seen in Dugdale’s Monasticon. The revenues of it were very great, and the abbot sat as a spiritual peer in the House of Lords. The revenues are still very large, and the dean is generally Bishop of Rochester; the fate of the late bishop I desire to bury with him, who is gone to oblivion. The Dean and Chapter have still great privileges as well as revenues, and particularly the civil government, or temporal jurisdiction of the city of Westminster, is so far in them, that the High-Steward and the High-Bailiff are named by them absolutely, without any reserve either to king or people. Their present High-Steward is the Earl of Arran, brother to the late Duke of Ormond, and their High-Bailiff, is William Norris, Esq.

Being got into this part of Westminster, I shall finish it as I go, that I may not return; ’Tis remarkable, that the whole city, called properly, Westminster, and standing on the S. side of the park, is but one parish, and is the only city of one parish in England. There is now another great church erected, or rather erecting, by the commissioners for building fifty new churches; but they have been strangely mistaken in the situation, which is a fenny marshy ground, and it is not found so able to support the weight as, perhaps, they were told it would; I say no more. The building was very curious, especially the roof; but the towers are not so beautiful as it is thought was intended, the foundation not being to be trusted.

The Earl of Peterborough’s house stands at the extremity of the buildings, and is the point of measurement for the length of London, which from that house to Lime-house, is reckoned seven miles and a quarter, and some rods: This house might have been a monitor for the builders of the new church, for they tell us it has sunk several yards, since it was first built, tho’ this I do not affirm.

There are” three chapels of ease to St. Margaret’s in this part of Westminster, besides that, great numbers of people go to the Abbey, so that there is no want of churches. There is but one meeting-house in this whole part, which is called Calamy’s Meeting, and was formerly supplied by Mr. Stephen Lobb, who, tho’ a Dissenter, lived and died a Jacobite.

The Cottonian Library is kept here in an ancient building, near Westminster-Hall gate; we were told it would be removed to the royal library, and then, that it would be removed to a house to be built on purpose; but we see neither yet in hand. This is one of the most valuable collections in Britain, and, the Bodleian Library excepted, is, perhaps, the best: It has in it some books and manuscripts invaluable for their antiquity; but I have not room so much as to enter upon giving an account of the particulars.

This part of Westminster has but one street, which gives it a communication with London, and this is called King-street, a long, dark, dirty and very inconvenient passage; but there seems to be no remedy for it, for most passengers get out of it through the Privy Garden, and some by private passages into the park, as at Locket’s, at the Cock-Pit, and the new gate from Queen’s -Square; but these are all upon sufferance.

From hence we come through two very handsome, tho’ ancient gates, into the open palace before White-Hall and the Banqueting-house.

Having mentioned White-Hall already, I have nothing more to say of it, but that it was, and is not, but may revive. There is, doubtless, a noble situation, fit to contain a royal palace, equal to Versailles; but I have given you my thoughts on that subject at large.

Nor can I dwell here upon a description of his majesty’s Court, or an account of the politicks managed there; it does not relate to this work; let it suffice to say, his majesty resides, especially all the winter, at St. James’s; but the business of the government, is chiefly carried on at the Cock-pit: This is a royal building, was once part of White-hall, first the Duke of Monmouth lived in it, then Prince George of Denmark and his princess, afterwards Queen Ann, and since the fire at White-Hall, the Treasury, the Secretary’s office, the Council Chamber, the Board of Trade, and the Lord Chamberlain, hold all their particular offices here; and here there is also, a by-way out of Duke-street into the park.

From thence we come to the Horse Guards, a building commodious enough, built on purpose, as a barrack for a large detachment of the Horse-Guards, who keep their post here, while attending on duty; over it are offices for payment of the troops, and a large court of judicature, for holding councils of war, for tryal of deserters and others, according to the articles of war.

In the same range of buildings, stood the Admiralty Office, built by the late King William; but tho’ in itself a spacious building, is found so much too narrow now the business is so much increased, and as there is a sufficient piece of spare ground behind it, to inlarge the building, we find a new and spacious office is now building in the same place, which shall be sufficient to all the uses required.

This office is, perhaps, of the most importance of any of the publick parts of the administration, the royal navy being the sinews of our strength, and the whole direction of it being in the hands of the commissioners for executing this office. The Navy and the Victualling Offices, are but branches of this administration, and receive their orders from hence, as likewise the docks and yards receive their orders from the navy: the whole being carried on with the most exquisite order and dispatch. The Admiralty has been in commission ever since the death of Prince George; the present commissioners are,

Right Honourable James Earl of Berkeley.
Sir John Jennings.
John Cockburn, Esq;
William Chetwynd, Esq;
Sir John Norris.
Sir Charles Wager.
Daniel Pultney, Esq;

From this part of the town, we come into the publick streets, where nothing is more remarkable than the hurries of the people; Charing-Cross is a mixture of Court and city; Man’s Coffee-house is the Exchange Alley of this part of the town, and ’tis perpetually throng’d with men of business, as the others are with men of play and pleasure.

From hence advancing a little, we see the great equestrian statue of King Charles the First in brass, a costly, but a curious piece; however, it serves sufficiently, to let us know who it is, and why erected there. The circumstances are two, he faces the place where his enemies [7] triumph’d over him, and triumphs, that is, tramples in the place where his murtherers were hang’d.[8]

From this place due north, are the king’s stables, called the Meuse, where the king’s horses, especially his coach-horses, are kept, and the coaches of state are set up; it is a very large place, and takes up a great deal of ground, more than is made use of: It contains two large squares, besides an out-let east, where is the managerie for teaching young gentlemen to ride the great saddle; in the middle of the first court is a smith or farryer’s house and shop, a pump and horse-pond, and I see little else remarkable, but old scatter’d buildings; and, indeed, this place standing where a noble square of good buildings might be erected, I do not wonder that they talk of pulling it down, contracting the stables into less room, and building a square of good houses there, which would, indeed, be a very great improvement, and I doubt not will be done.

On the right side of the street, coming from White-Hall, is Northumberland-House, so called, because belonging to the Northumberland family for some ages; but descending to the Duke of Somerset in right of marriage, from the late dutchess, heiress of the house of Piercy.

’Tis an ancient, but a very good house, the only misfortune of its situation is, its standing too near the street; the back part of the house is more modern and beautiful than the front, and when you enter the first gate, you come into a noble square fronting the fine lodgings: Tis a large and very well design’d building, and fit to receive a retinue of one hundred in family; nor does the duke’s family come so far short of the number, as not very handsomely to fill the house.

The present duke having married the greatest heiress in Britain, and enjoy’d her and the estate for above forty years, and besides, having been master of the horse many years also, he is immensely rich, and very well merits the good fortune he has met with.

Advancing thence to the Hay-Market, we see, first, the great new theatre, a very magnificent building, and perfectly accom-

modated for the end for which it was built, tho’ the entertainment there of late, has been chiefly operas and balls.

These meetings are called BALLS, the word masquerade not being so well relished by the English, who, tho’ at first fond of the novelty, began to be sick of the thing on many accounts; However, as I cannot in justice say any thing to recommend them, and am by no means, to make this work be a satyr upon any thing; I choose to say no more; but go on.

From hence westward and northward, lie those vastly extended buildings, which add so exceedingly to the magnitude of the whole body, and of which I have already said so much: It would be a task too great for this work, to enter into a description of all the fine houses, or rather palaces of the nobility in these parts: To touch them superficially, and by halves, is too much to imitate what I complain of in others, and as I design a particular account of all the houses of the nobility and men of quality in London, and the country fifteen miles round, in a work by itself; I bespeak my readers patience, and go on.

The hospitals in and about the city of London, deserve a little further observation, especially those more remarkable for their magnitude, as,

I. Bethlem or Bedlam: This and Bridewell, indeed, go together, for though they are two several houses, yet they are incorporated together, and have the same governors; also the president, treasurer, clerk, physician and apothecary are the same; but the stewards and the revenue are different, and so are the benefactions; but to both very great.

The orders for the government of the hospital of Bethlem are exceeding good, and a remarkable instance of the good disposition of the gentlemen concerned in it, especially these that follow;

That no person, except the proper officers who tend them, be allowed to see the lunaticks of a Sunday.

That no person be allowed to give the lunaticks strong drink, wine, tobacco or spirits, or to sell any such thing in the hospital.

That no servant of the house shall take any money given to any of the lunaticks to their own use; but that it shall be carefully kept for them till they are recovered, or laid out for them in such things as the committee approves.

That no officer or servant shall beat or abuse, or offer any force to any lunatick; but on absolute necessity. The rest of the orders are for the good government of the house.

This hospital was formerly in the street now called Old Bedlam, and was very ancient and ruinous: The new building was erected at the charge of the city in 1676, and is the most beautiful structure for such a use that is in the world, and was finished from its foundation in fifteen months; it was said to be taken ill at the Court of France, that it was built after the fashion of one of the King of France’s palaces.

The number of people who are generally under cure in this hospital, is from 130 to 150 at a time.

There are great additions now making to this hospital, particularly for the relief and subsistence of incurables, of which no full account can be given, because they are not yet finished, or the full revenue ascertained: The first benefactor and author of this design itself, was Sir William Withers late alderman, and who had been lord mayor, who left 500l . to begin it with.

II. The hospital of Bridewell, as it is an hospital, so it is also a house of correction. The house was formerly the king’s city palace; but granted to the city to be in the nature of what is now called a work-house, and has been so employed, ever since the year 1555.

As idle persons, vagrants, &c. are committed to this house for correction, so there are every year, several poor lads brought up to handicraft trades, as apprentices, and of these the care is in the governors, who maintain them out of the standing revenues of the house.

There are two other Bridewells, properly so called, that is to say, houses of correction; one at Clarkenwell, called New Prison, being the particular Bridewell for the county of Middlesex, and another in Tuttle-fields, for the city of Westminster.

The other city hospitals, are the Blue-coat Hospital for poor freemens orphan children, and the two hospitals for sick and maimed people, as St. Bartholomew’s and St. Thomas’s: These three are so well known by all people that have seen the city of London, and so universally mention’d by all who have written of it, that little can be needful to add; however I shall say something as an abridgment.

III. Christ’s Hospital was originally constituted by King Edward VI. who has the honour of being the founder of it, as also of Bridewell; but the original design was, and is owing to the lord mayor and aldermen of London, and the Christian endeavours of that glorious martyr, Dr. Ridley then Bishop of London, who never ceased moving his charitable master, the king, till he brought him to join in the foundation. The design is for entertaining, educating, nourishing and bringing up the poor children of the citizens, such as, their parents being dead, or fathers, at least, have no way to be supported, but are reduced to poverty.

Of these, the hospital is now so far increased in substance, by the benefactions of worthy gentlemen contributors, they now maintain near a thousand, who have food, cloathing and instruction, useful and sufficient learning, and exceeding good discipline; and at the proper times they are put out to trades, suitable to their several genius’s and capacities, and near five thousand pounds a year are expended on this charity.

IV. St. Bartholomew’s Hospital adjoyns to Christ Church, and St. Thomas’s is in Southwark, both which, however, being the same in kind, their description may come under one head, tho’ they are, indeed, two foundations, and differently incorporated: The first founder is esteem’d to be King Henry VIII. whose statue in stone and very well done, is, for that very reason, lately erected in the new front, over the entrance to the Cloyster in West-Smithfield: The king gave 500 marks a year, towards the support of the house, which was then founded for an hundred poor sick, and the city was obliged to add 500 marks a year more to it.

V. St. Thomas’s Hospital in Southwark, has a different foundation, but to the same purpose; it is under the same government, viz. the lord mayor, aldermen and commonalty of the city of London, and had a revenue of about 2000l . per annum, about 100 years ago.

This hospital has received greater benefactions than St. Bartholomew’s; but then ’tis also said to have suffered greater losses, especially by several great fires in Southwark and elsewhere, as by the necessity of expensive buildings, which, notwithstanding the charitable gifts of divers great benefactors, has cost the hospital great sums.

Adjoining to this of St. Thomas’s, is lately laid a noble foundation of a new hospital, by the charitable gift and single endowment of one person, and, perhaps, the greatest of its kind, next to that of Button’s Hospital, that ever was founded in this nation by one person, whether private or publick, not excepting the kings themselves.

This will, I suppose, be called Guy’s Hospital, being to be built and endowed at the sole charge of one Mr. Thomas Guy, formerly a bookseller in Lombard Street, who lived to see the said hospital not only design’d, the ground purchased and cleared, but the building begun, and a considerable progress made in it, and died while these sheets were in the press. It was not till this gentleman died, that the world were told it was to be a separate hospital; but it was generally understood to have been intended for a ward, or an addition to the old hospital of St. Thomas’s, for the reception of such as were accounted incurable.

But when Mr. Guy died, his will being made publick, it appeared, that it was really a separate, independent and distinct hospital, under distinct governors, and for a separate purpose, to wit, for receiving such poor persons as have been dismissed from other hospitals as incurable.

Nor are these restrained to the patients of the adjoining hospital of St. Thomas only; but they are allowed to receive such from St. Bartholomew’s also, and also from Bethlehem, only with this restriction as to the latter, That the number of incurable lunaticks shall never exceed twenty at a time. This hospital is, by Mr. Guy’s will, to consist of two great squares of buildings, in which, besides the offices and accommodation for necessary servants and overseers, who must be lodg’d in the house, such as stewards, treasurer, masters, matrons, nurses, &c. are to be beds and appartments furnished for four hundred patients, who are all to be supplied with lodging and attendance, food and physick.

What the revenue, when settled, will be; what the building will amount to when finished; what the purchase of the land, and what the expence of finishing and furnishing it, cannot be estimated, ‘till it be further look’d into; but we are told without doors, that besides all the expence of purchase, building, furnishing and finishing as above; there will be left more than two hundred thousand pounds for endowing the hospital with a settled revenue, for maintaining the said poor, and yet the charitable founder was so immensely rich, that besides leaving four hundred pounds a year to the Blue-coat Hospital of London, and besides building an hospital for fourteen poor people at Tamworth in Staffordshire, where he was chosen representative; and besides several considerable charities which he had given in his life-time; He also gave away, in legacies, to his relations and others, above a hundred thousand pound more, among which ’tis observable, That there is a thousand pounds a piece given to near eighty several persons, most of them of his own relations; so that he cannot, as has been said by some, be said to give a great charity to the poor, and forget his own family. How Mr. Guy amass’d all this wealth, having been himself in no publick employment or office of trust, or profit, and only carrying on the trade of a bookseller, till within a few years of his death, that is not the business of this book; ’tis enough to say, he was a thriving, frugal man, who God was pleased exceedingly to bless, in whatever he set his hand to, knowing to what good purposes he laid up his gains: He was never married, and lived to be above eighty years old; so that the natural improvements of this money, by common interest, after it was first grown to a considerable bulk, greatly increased the sum.

This hospital is left to the immediate direction of his executors, and the governors, named in his will, who are at present most of them, if not all, governors of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and he has appointed them to apply to his majesty and the Parliament to have them incorporated.

Next to these hospitals, whose foundations are so great and magnificent, is the work-house, or city work-house, properly so called, which being a late foundation, and founded upon meer charity, without any settled endowment, is the more remarkable, for here are a very great number of poor children taken in, and supported and maintained, fed, cloath’d, taught, and put out to trades, and that at an exceeding expence, and all this without one penny revenue.

But the supplies and charities to this commendable work, have not of late come in so readily as they used to do, which has put the governors to some difficulties; upon which, anno 1614, the Common Council, by virtue of the powers above-mentioned, agreed to raise five thousand pounds upon the whole city, for the support of the house; but we do not find that any new demand has been made since that.

There are three considerable charities given by private persons in the city of Westminster, viz.

The Gray-coat Hospital, founded by a generous subscription or contribution; but chiefly by the charity of one ——— Sands, Esq; It maintains 70 boys and 40 girls, cloathed, fed, and taught, and in some measure provided for, by being put out to trades.

The Green-coat Hospital, in the same Fields, founded by King Charles I. for poor fatherless children of St. Margaret’s parish; and next to this hospital is the house of correction, or the Westminster Bridewell.

The Emanuel Hospital, founded by the Lady Ann Dacres, for ten poor men, and ten poor women, in the forty-third year of Queen Elizabeth. Near this, are seven several setts of alms-houses; but not of any magnitude to be called hospitals. There has been, also, a very noble hospital erected by contribution of the French refugees, for the maintenance of their poor: It stands near the Pest-house, in the foot-way to Islington in the parish of Cripplegate, and two ranges of new alms-houses in Kingsland Road beyond Shoreditch Church.

The hospital calPd the Charter House, or Sutton’s Hospital, is not by this supposed to be forgot, or the honour of it lessened. On the other hand, it must be recorded for ever, to be the greatest and noblest gift that ever was given for charity, by any one man, publick or private, in this nation, since history gives us any account of things; even not the great Bishop of Norwich excepted, who built the great church of Yarmouth, the cathedral at Norwich, and the church of St. Mary’s at Lynn; The revenue of Mr. Sutton’s hospital being, besides the purchase of the place, and the building of the house, and other expences, little less than 6000/. per annum revenue.

The Royal Hospitals at Greenwich and Chelsea, are also not mentioned in this account, as not being within the reach of the most extended bounds of the city of London.

These are the principal hospitals, the rest of smaller note are touch’d before; but it will not be a useless observation, nor altogether improper to take notice of it here, That this age has produced some of the most eminent acts of publick charity, and of the greatest value, I mean from private persons, that can be found in any age within the reach of our English history, excepting only that of Sutton’s Hospital; and yet they tell us, that even that of Mr. Sutton’s is exceeded in this of Mr. Guy’s, considering that this gentleman gave a very noble gift to this same hospital before; besides that as before, he had left an hundred thousand pounds in private gifts among his own relations; as to children he had none, for he never was married.

The other benefactions, I speak of which this age had produced, are already touch’d at in this work, and may be referred to in the reading, such as Dr. Ratcliffs Gift, amounting to above forty thousand pounds to the university of Oxford: The gift of ten thousand pounds to Magdalen College in the same university, by their late representative; the several charities of Sir Robert Clayton, Alderman Ask, Sir Stephen Fox, Dr. Busby, Sir John Morden and others.

These, added to the innumerable number of alms-houses which are to be seen in almost every part of the city, make it certain, that there is no city in the world can shew the like number of charities from private hands, there being, as I am told, not less than twenty thousand people maintained of charity, besides the charities of schooling for children, and besides the collections yearly at the annual feasts of several kinds, where money is given for putting out children apprentices, &c. so that the Papists have no reason to boast, that there were greater benefactions and acts of charity to the poor given in their times, than in our Protestant times; and this is indeed, one of the principal reasons for my making mention of it in this place; for let any particular age be singled out, and let the charities of this age, that is to say, for about fifteen or twenty years past, and the sums of money bestowed by protestants in this nation on meer acts of charity to the poor, not reckoning gifts to the church, be cast up, it will appear they are greater by far, than would be found in England in any the like number of years, take the time when we will.

Nor do I conclude in this, the money collected by briefs all over England, upon casualties by fire, though that is an eminent act of charity as any can be; nor the money given either in publick or private, for re-building St. Paul’s and other churches demolished by the Fire of London, or the augmentation of poor benefices by the bounty of Queen Ann, and many other such gifts. I come now to an account of new edifices and publick buildings, erected or erecting in and about London, since the writing the foregoing account; and with this I conclude.

The fine new church of St. Martin’s in the Fields, with a very fine steeple, which they tell us is 215 feet high, all wholly built by the contribution of that great parish, and finished with the utmost expedition.

The new Admiralty Office near White-hall, being on the same ground where the old office stood; but much larger, being both longer in front and deeper backward, not yet finished.

Mr. Guy’s new hospital for incurables, mentioned above, situated on ground purchased for that purpose, adjoyning to St. Thomas’s Hospital in Southwark, being a most magnificent building not yet quite finished.

Two large wings to the hospital of Bedlam, appointed also for incurables; proposed first by the charitable disposition of Sir William Withers deceased; this also not yet finished.

A large new meeting-house in Spittle-fields, for the sect of Dissenters, call’d Baptists, or Antepsedo Baptists.

The South-Sea House in Threadneedle-street, the old house being intirely pulled down, and several other houses acijoyning being purchased, the whole building will be new from the foundation; this not finished.

Several very fine new churches, being part of the fifty churches appointed by Act of Parliament, viz. One in Spittlefields, one in Radcliff-High-way, one in Old-street, one at Limehouse, with a very beautiful tower, and one in Bloomsbury, and five more not finished.

The parish church of St. Botolph without Bishopsgate, pulled down and re-building, by the contribution of the inhabitants, not as one of the fifty churches.

N.B. In removing the corpses buried in this church, they found the body of Sir Paul Pindar, buried there about eighty years before, which was taken up and deposited again; and we are told, a new monument will be set up for him by the parish, to which he was a good benefactor.

The Custom-house, which since the late fire in Thames-street, is ordered to be inlarged; but is not yet finished. All these buildings are yet in building, and will all, in their several places, be very great ornaments to the city.

A new street or range of houses taken out of the south side of the Artillery Ground near Morefields, also an enlargement to the new burying ground as it was formerly called, on the north side of the same ground.

The iron ballustrade, or as others call it, balcony, on the lanthorn upon the cupola of St. Paul’s Church, gilded. It was done at the cost and as the gift of an Irish nobleman, who scarce lived to see it finished.

A new bear-garden, called Figg’s Theater, being a stage for the gladiators or prize-fighters, and is built on the Tyburn Road.

N.B. The gentlemen of the science, taking offence at its being called Tyburn Road, though it really is so, will have it called the Oxford Road; this publick edifice is fully finished, and in use.

I conclude this account of London, with mentioning something of the Account of Mortality, that is to say, the births and burials, from whence Sir William Petty thought he might make some calculations of the numbers of the inhabitants, and I shall only take notice, that whereas, the general number of the burials in the year 1666, and farther back, were from 17000 to 19000 in a year, the last yearly bill for the year 1723, amounted as follows,

Christenings: 19203.
Burials: 29197.

Here is to be observed, that the number of burials exceeding so much the number of births, is, because as it is not the number born, but the number christened that are set down, which is taken from the parish register; so all the children of Dissenters of every sort, Protestant, Popish and Jewish are omitted, also all the children of foreigners, French, Dutch, &c. which are baptized in their own churches, and all the children of those who are so poor, that they cannot get them registred: So that if a due estimate be made, the births may be very well supposed to exceed the burials one year with another by many thousands. It is not that I have no more to say of London, that I break off here; but that I have no room to say it, and tho’ some things may be taken notice of by others, which I have pass’d over; yet I have also taken notice of so many things which others have omitted, that I claim the ballance in my favour.

I Am, SIR,

Yours, &C.

Letter VI. Containing A Description Of Part Of The Counties Of Middlesex, Hertford, Bucks, Oxford, Wilts, Somerset, Gloucester, Warwick, Worcester, Hereford, Monmouth, And The Several Counties Of South And North-Wales

Middlesex, Hertford and Buckinghamshire

I HAVE spent so much time, and taken up so much room in my description of London, and the adjacent parts, that I must be the more cautious, at least, as to needless excursions in the country near it.

The villages round London partake of the influence of London, so much, that it is observ’d as London is encreased, so they are all encreased also, and from the same causes.

I have taken notice of this in my first setting out, and particularly in the counties of Essex, Kent, and Surrey; and as the same appears to an extreme in Middlesex: I shall only give some discriptions, and say the less of the reason of it.

Hackney and Bromley are the first villages which begin the county of Middlesex, east; for Bow as reckon’d to Stepney, is a part of the great mass. This town of Hackney is of a great extent, containing no less than 12 hamlets or separate villages, tho’ some of them now join, viz.

Church-street,
Hummerton,
Wyck-House,
Grove-street,
Clapton,
Mare-street,
Well-street,
Cambridge-Heath,
Shacklewell,
Dalstone,
Kingsland,
Newington.

All these, tho’ some of them are very large villages, make up but one parish (viz.) of Hackney.

All these, except the Wyck-house, are within a few years so encreas’d in buildings, and so fully inhabited, that there is no comparison to be made between their present and past state: Every separate hamlet is encreas’d, and some of them more than treble as big as formerly; Indeed as this whole town is included in the bills of mortality, tho’ no where joining to London, it is in some respects to be call’d a part of it.

This town is so remarkable for the retreat of wealthy citizens, that there is at this time near a hundred coaches kept in it; tho’ I will not join with a certain satyrical author, who said of Hackney, that there were more coaches than Christians in it.

Newington, Tottenham, Edmonton, and Enfield stand all in a line N. from the city; the encrease of buildings is so great in them all, that they seem to a traveller to be one continu’d street; especially Tottenham and Edmonton, and in them all, the new buildings so far exceed the old, especially in the value of them, and figure of the inhabitants, that the fashion of the towns are quite altered.

At Tottenham we see the remains of an antient building called the Cross, from which the town takes the name of High-Cross. There is a long account of the antiquities of this place lately published, to which I refer, antiquities as I have observed, not being my province in this work, but a description of things in their present state.

Here is at this town a small but pleasant seat of the Earl of Colerain, in Ireland; his lordship is now on his travels, but has a very good estate here extending from this town to Muzzle-hill, and almost to High-gate.

The first thing we see in Tottenham is a small but beautiful house, built by one Mr. Wanly, formerly a goldsmith, near Temple Bar; it is a small house, but for the beauty of the building and the gardens, it is not outdone by any of the houses on this side the country.

There is not any thing more fine in their degree, than most of the buildings this way; only with this observation, that they are generally belonging to the middle sort of mankind, grown wealthy by trade, and who still taste of London; some of them live both in the city, and in the country at the same time: yet many of these are immensely rich.

High-gate and Hamstead are next on the north-side; At the first is a very beautiful house built by the late Sir William Ashurst, on the very summit of the hill, and with a view from the very lowest windows over the whole vale, to the city: And that so eminently, that they see the very ships passing up and down the river for 12 or 15 miles below London. The Jews have particularly fixt upon this town for their country retreats, and some of them are very wealthy; they live there in good figure, and have several trades particularly depending upon them, and especially, butchers of their own to supply them with provisions kill’d their own way; also, I am told, they have a private synagogue here.

As the county does not extend far this way, I take no notice of smaller towns; nor is there any thing of note but citizens houses for several miles; except that in the chase, at Enfield is a fine lodge formerly possest by the Earl of Denbigh: Now we are told that General Pepper is fixt ranger of the chase, and resides there.

This chase was once a very beautiful place, and when King James I. resided at Theobalds, which he loved for the pleasure of his hunting; it was then very full of deer, and all sorts of game; but it has suffered several depredations since that, and particularly in the late Protector’s usurpation, when it was utterly stript, both of game, and timber, and let out in farms to tenants, for the use of the publick.

After the Restoration, it was reassumed, and laid open again; Woods and groves were every where planted, and the whole chase stored with deer: But the young timber which indeed began to thrive, was so continually plundered, and the deer-stealers have so harass’d the deer, and both perhaps by those who should have preserved it, as well as by others, that the place was almost ruined for a forrest, and little but hares and bushwood was to be found in it. But now we hear, that by the vigilance of General Pepper, the chase is much recovered, and likely to be a place fit for the diversion of a prince, as it has been before.

At a village a little farther north, called Totteridge, Mr. Charleton of the Ordnance Office, has a very delicious seat, the house new built, and the gardens extremely fine: In the same town the old Earl of Anglesey had also a house, but not extraordinary for any thing more than a rural situation, very retired, but yet very agreeable.

The Mineral Waters, or Barnet Wells, are a little beyond this house, on the declivity of a hill; they were formerly in great request, being very much approved by physicians; but of late, they began to decline, and are now almost forgotten: Other waters at Islington, and at Hamstead having grown popular in their stead.

Hampstead indeed is risen from a little country village, to a city, not upon the credit only of the waters, tho’ ’tis apparent, its growing greatness began there; but company increasing gradually, and the people liking both the place and the diversions together; it grew suddenly populous, and the concourse of people was incredible. This consequently raised the rate of lodgings, and that encreased buildings, till the town grew up from a little village, to a magnitude equal to some cities; nor could the uneven surface, inconvenient for building, uncompact, and unpleasant, check the humour of the town, for even on the very steep of the hill, where there’s no walking twenty yards together, without tugging up a hill, or stradling down a hill, yet ’tis all one, the buildings encreased to that degree, that the town almost spreads the whole side of the hill.

On the top of the hill indeed, there is a very pleasant plain, called the Heath, which on the very summit, is a plain of about a mile every way; and in good weather ’tis pleasant airing upon it, and some of the streets are extended so far, as that they begin to build, even on the highest part of the hill. But it must be confest, ’tis so near heaven, that I dare not say it can be a proper situation, for any but a race of mountaineers, whose lungs have been used to a rarity’d air, nearer the second region, than any ground for 30 miles round it.

It is true, this place may be said to be prepared for a summer dwelling, for in winter nothing that I know can recommend it: ’Tis true, a warm house, and good company, both which are to be had here, go a great way to make amends for storms, and severity of cold.

Here is a most beautiful prospect indeed, for we see here Hanslop Steeple one way, which is within eight miles of Northampton, N.W. to Landown-Hill in Essex another way, east, at least 66 miles from one another; the prospect to London, and beyond it to Bansted Downs, south; Shooters-Hill, S.E. Red-Hill, S.W. and Windsor-Castle, W. is also uninterrupted: Indeed due north, we see no farther than to Barnet, which is not above six miles; but the rest is sufficient.

At the foot of this hill is an old seat of the Earls of Chesterfields, called Bellsize; which for many years had been neglected, and as it were forgotten: But being taken lately by a certain projector to get a penny, and who knew by what handle to take the gay part of the world, he has made it a true house of pleasure; Here, in the gardens he entertained the company with all kind of sport, and in the house with all kinds of game, to say no more of it: This brought a wonderful concourse of people to the place, for they were so effectually gratified in all sorts of diversion, that the wicked part at length broke in, till it alarm’d the magistrates, and I am told it has been now in a manner suppress’d by the hand of justice.

Here was a great room fitted up with abundance of dexterity for their balls, and had it gone on to a degree of masquerading as I hear was actually begun, it would have bid fair to have had half the town run to it: One saw pictures and furniture there beyond what was to have been expected in a meer publick house; and ’tis hardly credible how it drew company to it; But it could not be, no British government could be supposed to bear long with the liberties taken on such publick occasions: So as I have said, they are reduc’d, at least restrain’d from liberties which they could not preserve by their prudence.

Yet Hampstead is not much the less frequented for this. But as there is (especially at the Wells) a conflux of all sorts of company, even Hampstead itself has suffered in its good name; and you see sometimes more gallantry than modesty: So that the ladies who value their reputation, have of late more avoided the wells and walks at Hampstead, than they had formerly done.

I could not be at Hampstead, and not make an excursion to Edgworth, a little market town, on the road to St. Albans; I say to St. Albans, because ’tis certain, that this was formerly the only or the main road from London to St. Albans; being the famous high road, call’d Watling-street, which in former times reached from London to Shrewsbury, and on towards Wales.

The remains of this road are still to be seen here, and particularly in this, (viz.) That from Hide-Park Corner, just where Tyburn stands, the road makes one straight line without any turning, even to the very town of St. Albans. In this road lyes the town of Edgworth, some will have it that it was built by King Edgar the Saxon monarch, and called by his name, and so will have the town called Edgar, and that it was built as a garrison on the said Watling-street, to preserve the high-way from thieves: But all this I take to be fabulous, and without authority.

Near this town, and which is the reason for naming it, the present Duke of Chandos has built a most magnificent palace or mansion house, I might say, the most magnificent in England: It is erected where formerly stood an old seat belonging to Sir Lancelot Lake, whose son and successor struggled hard to be chosen representative for the county, but lost it, and had a great interest and estate hereabouts.

This palace is so beautiful in its situation, so lofty, so majestick the appearance of it, that a pen can but ill describe it, the pencil not much better; ’tis only fit to be talk’d of upon the very spot, when the building is under view, to be consider’d in all its parts. The fronts are all of freestone, the columns and pilasters are lofty and beautiful, the windows very high, with all possible ornaments: The pilasters running flush up to the cornish and architrave, their capitals seems as so many supporters to the fine statues which stand on the top, and crown the whole; in a word, the whole structure is built with such a profusion of expence, and all finish’d with such a brightness of fancy, goodness of judgment; that I can assure you, we see many palaces of sovereign princes abroad, which do not equal it, which yet pass for very fine too either within or without. And as it is a noble and well contriv’d building; so it is as well set out, and no ornament is wanting to make it the finest house in England. The plaistering and guilding is done by the famous Pargotti an Italian, said to be the finest artist in those particular works now in England. The great salon or hall is painted by Paolucci, for the duke spared no cost to have every thing as rich as possible. The pillars supporting the building are all of marble: The great staircass is the finest by far of any in England; and the steps are all of marble, every step being of one whole piece, about 22 foot in length.

Nor is the splendor which the present duke lives in at this place, at all beneath what such a building calls for, and yet, so far is the duke from having exhausted himself by this prodigy of a building; that we see him since that laying out a scheme, and storing up materials for building another house for his city convenience, on the north side of the new square, call’d Oxford or Cavendish Square, near Maribone; and if that is discontinued it seems to be so, only because the duke found an opportunity to purchase another much more to his advantage; namely, the Duke of Ormond’s house in St. James’s Square.

It is in vain to attempt to describe the beauties of this building at Cannons; the whole is a beauty, and as the firmament is a glorious mantle filled with, or as it were made up of a concurrence of lesser glories the stars; so every part of this building adds to the beauty of the whole. The avenue is spacious and majestick, and as it gives you the view of two fronts, join’d as it were in one, the distance not admitting you to see the angle, which is in the centre; so you are agreeably drawn in, to think the front of the house almost twice as large as it really is. And yet when you come nearer you are again surprized, by seeing the winding passage opening as it were a new front to the eye, of near 120 feet wide, which you had not seen before, so that you are lost a while in looking near hand for what you so evidently saw a great way off. Tho’ many of the palaces in Italy are very large fine buildings, yet I venture to say, not Italy it self can show such a building rais’d from the common surface, by one private hand, and in so little a time as this; For Cannons as I was inform’d, was not three years a building and bringing the gardens and all, to the most finish’d beauty we now see it in.

The great palaces in Italy, are either the work of sovereign princes, or have been ages in their building; one family laying the design, and ten succeeding ages and families being taken up, in carrying on the building: But Cannons had not been three years in the duke’s possession, before we saw this prodigy rise out of the ground, as if he had been resolv’d to merit that motto which the French king assum’d, He saw, and it was made. The building is very lofty, and magnificent, and the gardens are so well designed, and have so vast a variety, and the canals are so large, that they are not to be out done in England; possibly the Lord Castlemains at Wanstead, may be said to equal but can not exceed them.

The inside of this house is as glorious, as the outside is fine; the lodgings are indeed most exquisitely finish’d, and if I may call it so, royally furnish’d; the chapel is a singularity, not only in its building, and the beauty of its workmanship, but in this also, that the duke maintains there a full choir, and has the worship perform’d there with the best musick, after the manner of the chappel royal, which is not done in any other noble man’s chappel in Britain; no not the Prince of Wales’s, though heir apparent to the crown.

Nor is the chapel only furnish’d with such excellent musick, but the duke has a set of them to entertain him every day at dinner. The avenues and vista’s to this house are extreamly magnificent, the great walk or chief avenue is near a mile in length, planted with two double rows of trees, and the middle walk broad enough for a troop of horse to march in front; in the middle way there is a large basin or fountain of water, and the coaches drive round it on either side; there are three other avenues exceeding fine, but not so very large; the beauty of them all will double, with time, when the trees may be grown, like those of New-Hall, in Essex.

Two things extreamly add to the beauty of this house, namely, the chapel, and the library; but I cannot enlarge, having taken up so much room in the view of this house, as must oblige me to abate in others, to whom I am willing to do what justice I can. In his gardens and out-houses the duke keeps a constant night-guard, who take care of the whole place, duly walk the rounds, and constantly give the hour to the family at set appointed places and times; so that the house has some waking eyes about it, to keep out thieves and spoilers night and day. In a word, no nobleman in England, and very few in Europe, lives in greater splendour, or maintains a grandeur and magnificence, equal to the Duke of Chandos.

Here are continually maintained, and that in the dearest part of England, as to house expences, not less than one hundred and twenty in family, and yet a face of plenty appears in every part of it; nothing needful is with-held, nothing pleasant is restrained; every servant in the house is made easy, and his life comfortable; and they have the felicity that it is their lord’s desire and delight that it should be so.

But I am not writing panegyrick. I left Cannons with regret, the family all gay, and in raptures on the marriage of the Marquiss of Caernarvon, the dukes eldest son, just then celebrated with the Lady Katharine Talmash daughter of the Earl of Dysert which marriage adds to the honour and estate also, of the family of Chandos.

Two mile from hence, we go up a small ascent by the great road, which for what reason I know not, is there call’d Crab Tree Orchard, when leaving the Street Way on the right, we enter a spacious heath or common call’d Bushy-Heath, where, again, we have a very agreeable prospect.

I cannot but remember, with some satisfaction, that having two foreign gentlemen in my company, in our passing over this heath, I say I could not but then observe, and now remember it with satisfaction, how they were surprized at the beauty of this prospect, and how they look’d at one another, and then again turning their eyes every way in a kind of wonder, one of them said to the other, That England was not like other country’s, but it was all a planted garden.

They had there on the right hand, the town of St. Albans in their view; and all the spaces between, and further beyond it, look’d indeed like a garden. The inclos’d corn-fields made one grand parterre, the thick planted hedge rows, like a wilderness or labyrinth, divided in espaliers; the villages interspers’d, look’d like so many several noble seats of gentlemen at a distance. In a word, it was all nature, and yet look’d all like art; on the left hand we see the west-end of London, Westminster-Abbey, and the Parliament-House, but the body of the city was cut off by the hill, at which Hampstead intercepted the sight on that side.

More to the south we had Hampton Court, and S.W. Windsor, and between both, all those most beautiful parts of Middlesex and Surrey, on the bank of the Thames, of which I have already said so much, and which are indeed the most agreeable in the world.

At the farther end of this heath, is the town of Bushy, and at the end of the town, the Earl of Essex has a very good old seat, situate in a pleasant park, at Cashiobery; a little farther, is the town of Hemstead, noted for an extraordinary cornmarket, and at Ashridge, near Hemstead, is an antient mansion house of the Duke of Bridge-water, both these are old built houses, but both shew the greatness of the antient nobility, in the grandeur and majesty of the building, and in the well-planted parks, and high grown woods, with which they are surrounded, than which, there are few finer in England. St. Albans is the capital town, tho’ not the county town of Hertfordshire, it has a great corn market, and is famous for its antient church, built on the ruins, or part of the ruins of the most famous abbey of Verulam; the greatness of which, is to be judg’d by the old walls, which one sees for a mile before we come to town.

In this church as some workmen were digging for the repairs of the church, they found some steps which led to a door in a very thick stone wall, which being opened, there was discover’d an arched stone vault, and in the middle of it a large coffin near 7 foot long, which being open’d, there was in it the corps of a man, the flesh not consum’d, but discolour’d; by the arms and other paintings on the wall, it appear’d that this must be the body of Humphry Duke of Gloucester, commonly call’d, the good Duke of Gloucester, one of the sons of Henry IV. and brother to King Henry V. and by the most indisputable authority,’ must have lain buried there 277 years. Viz. It being in the 26th of Hen. VI. 1477.

But I must travel no farther this way, till I have taken a journey west from London, and seen what the country affords that way; the next towns adjacent to London, are, Kensington, Chelsea, Hammersmith, Fulham, Twickenham, &c. all of them near, or adjoyning to the river of Thames, and which, by the beauty of their buildings, make good the north shore of the river, answerable, to what I have already describ’d. Kensington cannot be nam’d without mentioning the king’s palace there; a building which may now be call’d entirely new, tho’ it was originally an old house of the Earl of Nottingham’s of whom the late King William bought it, and then enlarg’d it as we see; some of the old building still remaining in the center of the house.

The house it self fronts to the garden three ways, the gardens being now made exceeding fine, and enlarged to such a degree, as to reach quite from the great road to Kensington town, to the Acton road north, more than a mile. The first laying out of these gardens was the design of the late Queen Mary, who finding the air agreed with, and was necessary to the health of the king, resolved to make it agreeable to her self too, and gave the first orders for enlarging the gardens: the author of this account, having had the honour to attend her majesty, when she first viewed the ground, and directed the doing it, speaks this with the more satisfaction.

The late Queen Anne compleated what Queen Mary began, and delighted very much in the place; and often was pleased to make the green house which is very beautiful, her summer supper house.

But this house has lost much of its pleasantness on one account, namely, that all the princes that ever might be said to single it out for their delight, had the fate to dye in it; namely, King William, Prince George of Denmark, and lastly, Queen Anne her self; since which it has not been so much in request, King George having generally kept his summer, when in England, at Hampton Court.

As this palace opens to the west, there are two great wings built, for lodgings for such as necessarily attend the court, and a large port cocher at the entrance, with a postern and a stone gallery on the south side of the court which leads to the great stair-case.

This south wing was burnt down by accident, the king and queen being both there, the queen was a little surprized at first, apprehending some treason, but King William a stranger to fears smil’d at the suggestion, chear’d her majesty up, and being soon dress’d, they both walked out into the garden, and stood there some hours till they perceived the fire by the help that came in, and by the diligence of the foot guards, was gotten under foot.

It is no wonder if the Court being so much at Kensington, that town has encreased in buildings, so I do not place that to the same account as of the rest; On the south side of the street over against the palace, is a fair new large street, and a little way down a noble square full of very good houses, but since the Court has so much declin’d the palace, the buildings have not much encreased.

South of this town stands Chelsea, a town of palaces, and which by its new extended buildings seems to promise itself to be made one time or other a part of London, I mean London in its new extended capacity, which if it should once happen, what a monster must London be, extending (to take it in a line) from the farther end of Chelsea, west, to Deptford-Bridge east, which I venture to say, is at least eleven miles.

Here is the noblest building, and the best foundation of its kind in the world, viz. for the entertainment of maimed and old soldiers. If we must except the hospital call’d Des Invalids at Paris, it must be only that the number is greater there, but I pretend to say that the oeconomy of the invalids there, is not to compare with this at Chelsea; and as for the provisions, the lodging and attendance given, Chelsea infinitely exceeds that at Paris. Here the poor men are lodg’d, well cloathed, well furnish’d, and well fed, and I may say there are thousands of poor families in England who are said to live well too, and do not feed as the soldiers there are fed; and as for France, I may add, they know nothing there what it is to live so. The like may be said of the invalid sea men at the hospital of Greenwich.

Near this hospital or college, is a little palace, I had almost call’d it a paradise, of the late earl of Ranelagh. It is true that his lordship was envied for the work, but had it been only for the beauties of the building, and such things as these, I should have been hardly able to censure it, the temptation wou’d have been so much; In a word, the situation, the house, the gardens, the pictures, the prospect, and the lady, all is such a charm; who could refrain from coveting his neighbours . . . . &c.

It is impossible to give an account of all the rest of England in this one volume, while London and its adjacent parts, take up one half of it: I must be allowed therefore to abate the description of private houses and gardens, in which (this part especially) so abounds, that it would take up two or three volumes equal to this, to describe the county of Middlesex only.

Let it suffice to tell you that there’s an incredible number of fine houses built m all these towns, within these few years, and that England never had such a glorious show to make in the world before; In a word, being curious in this part of my enquiry, I find two thousand houses which in other places wou’d pass for palaces, and most, if not all the possessors whereof, keep coaches in the little towns or villages of the county of Middlesex, west of London only; and not reckoning any of the towns within three miles of London; so that I exclude Chelsea, Kensington, Knights-Bridge, Marybon, and Paddington; as for Hampstead, that lying north of London, is not concerned in the reckoning, for I reckon’d near a thousand more such in the towns north of London, within the county of Middlesex, and exclusive of Hackney, for Hackney I esteem as part of London itself as before: among all these three thousand houses I reckon none but such, as are built since the year 1666, and most of them since the Revolution.

Among these, that is to say, among the first two thousand new foundations, there are very many houses belonging to the nobility, and to persons of quality, (some of whom) have been in the ministry; which excel all the rest. Such as the Lord Peterborough’s at Parsons Green; Lord Hallifax at Bushy Park, near Hampton Court; the late Earl of Marr, Earl of Bradford, Earl of Strafford, Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Burlington, Earl of Falconberg, Lady Falkland, Lord Brook, Lord Dunbarr, Moses Hart, Mr. Barker, Sir Stephen Fox, Sir Thomas Frankland, General Wettham, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Secretary Johnson’s, and others. This last is a seat so exquisitely finish’d, that his majesty was pleased to dine there, to view the delightful place, and honour it with his presence, that very day, that I was writing this account of it. The king was pleased to dine in the green house, or rather in a pleasant room which Mr. Johnson built, joyning to the green house; from whence is a prospect every way into the most delicious gardens; which indeed for the bigness of them are not out-done in any part of the world. Here is a compleat vineyard, and Mr. Johnson who is a master of gardening, perhaps the greatest master now in England, has given a testimony that England notwithstanding the changeable air and uncertain climate, will produce most excellent if due care be taken in the gardening or cultivating, as also in the curing and managing part; and without due care in these, not France it self will do it.

Sir Stephen Fox’s house at Chiswick is the flower of all the private gentlemens palaces in England. Here when the late King William, who was an allowed judge of fine buildings, and of gardening also, had seen the house and garden, he stood still on the terras for near half a quarter of an hour without speaking one word, when turning at last to the Earl of Portland, the king said, This place is perfectly fine, I could live here five days.¹ In the village of Hammersmith, which was formerly a long scattering place, full of gardeners grounds, with here and there an old house of some bulk: I say, in this village we see now not only a wood of great houses and palaces, but a noble square built as it were in the middle of several handsome streets, as if the village seem’d enclin’d to grow up into a city.

Here we are told they design to obtain the grant of a market, tho’ it be so near to London, and some talk also of building a fine stone bridge over the Thames; but these things are yet but in embryo, tho’ it is not unlikely but they may be both accomplished in time, and also Hammersmith and Chiswick joyning thus, would in time be a city indeed.

I have now ranged the best part of Middlesex, a county made rich, pleasant, and populous by the neighbourhood of London: The borders of the county indeed have three market towns; which I shall but just mention, Stanes, Colebrook, and Uxbridge: This last, a pleasant large market town, famous in particular, for having abundance of noble seats of gentlemen and persons of quality in the neighbourhood: But I can not describe all the fine houses, it would be endless. This town is also famous in story, for being the town where an attempt was in vain made in the late war, to settle the peace of these nations, by a treaty; Some say both sides were sincerely inclin’d to peace; some say neither side; all I can say of it is, in the words of blessed St. Paul, Sathan hindred. There are but three more market towns in the county, viz. Brentford, Edgworth and Enfield.

On the right hand as we ride from London to Uxbridge, or to Colebrook, we see Harrow, a little town on a very high hill, and is therefore call’d Harrow on the Hill: The church of this town standing upon the summit of the hill, and having a very handsome and high spire, they tell us, King Charles II. ridiculing the warm disputes among some critical scripturallists of those times, concerning the visible church of Christ upon earth; us’d to say of it, that if there was e’er a visible church upon earth, he believ’d this was one.

About Uxbridge, and all the way from London, as we do every where this way, we saw a great many very beautiful seats of the nobility and gentry, too many I say to enter upon the description of here.

From hence, we proceeded on the road towards Oxford; but first turned to the right to visit Aylesbury. This is the principal market town in the county of Bucks; tho’ Buckingham a much inferior place, is call’d the county town: Here also is held the election for Members of Parliament, or Knights of the Shire for the county, and county goal, and the assizes. It is a large town, has a very noble market for corn, and is famous for a large tract of the richest land in England, extended for many miles round it, almost from Tame, on the edge of Oxfordshire, to Leighton in Bedfordshire, and is called from this very town, the Vale of Aylesbury. Here it was that conversing with some gentlemen, who understood country affairs, for all the gentlemen hereabouts are graziers, tho’ all the graziers are not gentlemen; they shew’d me one remarkable pasture-field, no way parted off or separated, one piece of it from another; I say, ’tis one enclosed field of pasture ground, which was let for 1400l . per ann. to a grazier, and I knew the tenant very well, whose name was Houghton, and who confirm’d the truth of it.

It was my hap formerly, to be at Aylesbury, when there was a mighty confluence of noblemen and gentlemen, at a famous horse race at Quainton-Meadow, not far off, where was then the late Duke of Monmouth, and a great many persons of the first rank, and a prodigious concourse of people.

I had the occasion to be there again in the late queen’s reign; when the same horse race which is continu’d yearly, happen’d again, and then there was the late Duke of Marlborough, and a like concourse of persons of quality; but the reception of the two dukes was mightily differing, the last duke finding some reasons to withdraw from a publick meeting, where he saw he was not like to be used as he thought he had deserved. The late Lord Wharton, afterwards made duke, has a very good dwelling at Winchenden, and another much finer nearer Windsor, call’d Ubourn. But I do not hear that the present duke has made any additions, either to the house or gardens; they were indeed admirably fine before, and if they are but kept in the same condition, I shall think the dukes care cannot be reproach’d.

Were there not in every part of England at this time so many fine palaces, and so many curious gardens, that it would but be a repetition of the same thing to describe them; I should enter upon that task with great chearfulness here, as also at Clifden, the Earl of Orkney’s fine seat built by the late D. of Buckingham, near Windsor, and at several other places, but I proceed: We went on from Aylesbury to Thame or Tame, a large market town on the River Thames: This brings me to mention again The Vale of Aylesbury; which as I noted before, is eminent for the richest land, and perhaps the richest graziers in England: But it is more particularly famous for the head of the River Thame or Thames, which rises in this vale near a market town call’d Tring, and waters the whole vale either by itself or the several streams which run into it, and when it comes to the town of Tame, is a good large river.

At Tring abovenam’d is a most delicious house, built ? la moderne, as the French call it, by the late Mr. Guy, who was for many years Secretary of the Treasury, and continued it till near his death; when he was succeeded by the late Mr. Lowndes. The late King William did Mr. Guy the honour to dine at this house, when he set out on his expedition to Ireland, in the year 1690, the same year that he fought the battle of the Boyn; and tho’ his Majesty came from London that morning, and was resolved to lye that night at Northampton, yet he would not go away without taking a look at the fine gardens, which are perhaps the best finish’d in the worst situation of any in England. This house was afterwards bought by Sir William Gore, a merchant of London; and left by him to his eldest son, who now enjoys it.

There was an eminent contest here between Mr. Guy, and the poor of the parish, about his enclosing part of the common to make him a park; Mr. Guy presuming upon his power, set up his pales, and took in a large parcel of open land, call’d Wiggington-Common; the cottagers and farmers oppos’d it, by their complaints a great while; but finding he went on with his work, and resolv’d to do it, they rose upon him, pull’d down his banks, and forced up his pales, and carried away the wood, or set it on a heap and burnt it; and this they did several times, till he was oblig’d to desist; after some time he began again, offering to treat with the people, and to give them any equivalent for it: But that not being satisfactory, they mobb’d him again. How they accommodated it at last, I know not; but I see that Mr. Gore has a park, and a very good one but not large: I mention this as an instance of the popular claim in England; which we call right of commonage, which the poor take to be as much their property, as a rich man’s land is his own.

But to return to the Vale of Aylesbury. Here the great and antient family of Hampden flourish’d for many ages, and had very great estates: But the present heir may (I doubt) be said, not to have had equal success with some of his ancestors.

From Thame, a great corn market, the Thame joins the other branch call’d also the Thames, at a little town call’d Dorchester. I observe that most of our historians reject the notion that Mr. Cambden makes so many flourishes about, of the marriage of Thame and Isis; that this little river was call’d the Thame, and the other, the Isis; and that being join’d, they obtain’d the united name of Thamisis: I say they reject it, and so do I. At this little town of Dorchester was once the seat of the bishoprick of Lincoln.

Oxford, Bristol and Gloucester

From hence I came to Oxford, a name known throughout the learned world; a city famous in our English history for several things, besides its being an university.

So eminent for the goodness of its air, and healthy situation; that our Courts have no less than three times, if my information is right, retir’d hither, when London has been visited with the pestilence; and here they have been always safe.

It has also several times been the retreat of our princes, when the rest of the kingdom has been embroil’d in war and rebellion; and here they have found both safety and support; at least, as long as the loyal inhabitants were able to protect them.

It was famous for the noble defence of religion, which our first reformers and martyrs made here, in their learned and bold disputations against the Papists, in behalf of the Protestant religion; and their triumphant closing the debates, by laying down their lives for the truths which they asserted.

It was likewise famous for resisting the attacks of arbitrary power, in the affair of Magdalen College, in King James’s time; and the Fellows laying down their fortunes, tho’ not their lives, in defence of liberty and property.

This, to use a scripture elegance, is that city of Oxford; the greatest (if not the most antient) university in this island of Great-Britain; and perhaps the most flourishing at this time, in men of polite learning, and in the most accomplish’d masters, in all sciences, and in all the parts of acquir’d knowledge in the world.

I know there is a long contest, and yet undetermin’d between the two English universities, about the antiquity of their foundation; and as they have not decided it themselves, who am I? and what is this work? that I should pretend to enter upon that important question, in so small a tract?

It is out of question, that in the largeness of the place, the beauty of situation, the number of inhabitants, and of schollars, Oxford has the advantage. But fame tells us, that as great and applauded men, as much recommended, and as much recommending themselves to the world, and as many of them have been produced from Cambridge, as from Oxford.

Oxford has several things as a university, which Cambridge has not; and Cambridge ought not to be so meanly thought of, but that it has several things in it, which cannot be found in Oxford. For example, the theater, the museum, or chamber of rarities, the Bodleian Library, the number of colleges, and the magnificence of their buildings are on the side of Oxford, yet Kings College Chappel, and College, is in favour of Cambridge; for as it is now edifying, it is likely to be the most admir’d in a few years of all the colleges of the world.

I have said something of Cambridge; I’ll be as brief about Oxford as I can: It is a noble flourishing city, so possess’d of all that can contribute to make the residence of the scholars easy and comfortable, that no spot of ground in England goes beyond it. The situation is in a delightful plain, on the bank of a fine navigable river, in a plentiful country, and at an easy distance from the capital city, the port of the country. The city itself is large, strong, populous, and rich; and as it is adorn’d by the most beautiful buildings of the colleges, and halls, it makes the most noble figure of any city of its bigness in Europe.

To enter into the detail or description of all the colleges, halls, &c. would be to write a history of Oxford, which in so little a compass as this work can afford, must be so imperfect, so superficial, and so far from giving a stranger a true idea of the place; that it seems ridiculous, even to think it can be to any ones satisfaction. However, a list of the names and establishments of the colleges may be useful, so take them as follows, according to the seniority of their foundation.

A List of the Colleges and Halls in the City of Oxford, plac’d according to the respective dates of their foundations

University College

This college was properly the university it self for about 345 years; being as they tell us, founded by King Alfred in the year 872; the old building on which the college now stands was erected by that king; after which viz. anno 1217. William Bishop of Durham, form’d it into a regular house and built the college, which however was for a long time call’d sometimes the college, sometimes the university, and by some the college of the university, there being at that time no other; till at length other colleges rising up in the same city; this was call’d University College, that is, the college which was the old university. It maintained at the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

Baliol College

Founded by John Baliol, father to John Baliol King of Scotland, and by Dame Der Verguilla his wife, who enlarged the foundation after her husbands decease

Merton College

Founded by William de Merton, Lord Chancellour to King Henry III. afterwards Bishop of Rochester. N.B. This college was first erected at Maldon in Surrey, near Kingston, anno 1260. and translated to Oxford ten years after, by the same founder.

Excester College

Founded by Walter Stapleton Bishop of Excester, and Lord High Treasurer to King Edward II. afterwards beheaded by Queen Isabella mother to King Edward III. It was first call’d Stapleton-Hall, but afterwards on the benefaction of other inhabitants of Excester and of the county of Devon, it was ade a college.

Oriel College

Founded by King Edward II. anno 1327. but some say Adam Brown the king’s almoner and who was the first provost, was also the founder, only that being afraid to be call’d to an account for so great wealth, he put the fame of it upon the king after his death. It had only a provost, 10 fellows, with some servants, at its first institution, but encreasing by subsequent benefactions.

Queen’s College

Founded anno 1340. by Robert Eglesfield a private clergyman, only domestick chaplain to Queen Phillippa, Edward the 3d’s queen; ’tis said the land it stood on was his own inheritance, and he built the house at his own charge; but begging her majesty to be the patroness of his charity, he call’d it Queens Hall, recommending the scholars at his death, to her majesty and the Queens of England her successors: He dyed before it was finish’d, having settled only 12 fellows, whereas he intended 70 schollarships besides, representing all together Christ his 12 apostles, and his 70 disciples; but this pious design of the good founder was so well approved on all hands, that it was presently encreased by several royal benefactors, and is now one of the best colleges in the university; also it is lately rebuilt, the old building being wholly taken down and the new being all of free stone, containing two noble squares with piazza’s, supported by fine pillars; the great hall, the library, and a fine chappel, all contained in the same building, so that it is without comparison the most beautiful college in the university.

New College

Founded anno 1379. by William of Wickham Bishop of Winchester, the same who is said to have built Windsor Castle, for King Edward III; rebuilt the cathedral church at Winchester, and the fine school there, the scholars of which are the nursery to this fine college

N.B. This college is very rich.

Lincoln College

Founded anno 1420. by Richard Hemming Arch-Bishop of York, but left it imperfect; the foundation was finish’d by Thomas Rotherham Bishop of Lincoln, 59 years after.

All-Souls College

Founded anno 1437. by Henry Chichley Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, also Cardinal Pool was a great benefactor to it afterwards

Magdalen College

Founded 1459, by William Wainfleet Bishop of Winton, who built it in the stately figure we now see it in, very little having been added; and what has been rebuilt, has kept much to the founders first design; except a new appartment added by one Mr. Clarke a private gentleman, who serv’d many years in Parliament for the university; this new building is exceeding fine; as is now also, the library, towards which, another private gentleman, namely, Colonel Codrington, gave ten thousand pounds, and a good collection of books.

Brason-Nose College

First founded by William Smith Bishop of Lincoln, anno. 1512. but finish’d by Richard Sutton, Esq; a Cheshire gentleman, who perfected the buildings of the house; and both together gave considerably large revenues.

Corpus-Christi College

Founded anno 1516. by Richard Fox Bishop of Winchester, who also endow’d it very liberally; and Hugh Oldham Bishop of Excester, advanc’d the best part of the building.

Christ-Church College

Founded anno 1524. by Cardinal Woolsey. “Tis said he suppres’d 40 monasteries to build this magnificent college, but the king having demolish’d the cardinal, he could not finish it; so the king carried on the work, and establish’d the church to be the cathedral of the diocess of Oxford, ann. 1519. The revenues of this college are exceeding great, it is the largest college in the university, and the buildings are very noble and well finish’d, all of free-stone.

The royal school at Winchester, is the nursery of this college, sending as some say, 25 scholars hither every 3 months.

Trinity College

Founded anno 1518. by Tho. Hatfield Bishop of Durham, and it was then call’d Durham College; but the bishop not living, Sir Thomas Pope carried on his design; and having seen the first foundation suppress’d, because it was a provision for monks, &c. he restor’d it and endow’d it, dedicating it to the undivided Trinity, anno 1556. as it is to this day.

St. John’s College

First founded by Arch-Bishop Chichley, anno 1437. and call’d Bernards College; but being suppress’d as a house of religion in the reign of King Henry VIII. it was again founded as a college by Sir Thomas White a wealthy citizen and merchant of London, who new built the house, and richly endow’d it.

Jesus College

The foundation of this college is corruptly assign’d to Hugh Paice, Esq; a Welch gentleman, who was indeed a benefactor to the foundation, and particularly gave 6ool . towards erecting the fabrick of the college; as did afterwards Sir Eubule Thitwall, who was principal; and this last in particular gave 8 fellowships, and 8 scholarships: But Queen Elizabeth was the foundress of this college, and endow’d it for a principal, adding 8 fellowships, and 8 scholarships. This Mr. Speed confirms, as also Mr. Dugdale, and it appears by the present endowment.

Wadham College

Founded anno 1613. by Nicolas Wadham, Esq; and Dorothy his wife, and sister to the Lord Petre of Essex; they endow’d it with its whole maintenance.

As therefore I did in the speaking of Cambridge, I shall now give a summary of what a traveller may be suppos’d to observe in Oxford, en passant, and leave the curious inquirer to examine the histories of the place, where they may meet with a compleat account of every part in the most particular manner, and to their full satisfaction.

There are in Oxford 17 colleges, and seven halls, some of these colleges as particularly, Christ Church, Magdalen, New College, Corpus Christi, Trinity, and St. John’s will be found to be equal, if not superior to some universities abroad; whether we consider the number of the scholars, the greatness of their revenues, or the magnificence of their buildings.

I thought my self oblig’d to give a more particular account of the colleges here, than I have done of those at Cambridge; because some false and assuming accounts of them have been publish’d by others, who demand to be credited, and have impos’d their accounts upon the world, without sufficient authority.

Besides the colleges, some of which are extremely fine and magnificent; there are some publick buildings which make a most glorious appearance: The first and greatest of all is the theatre, a building not to be equall’d by any thing of its kind in the world; no, not in Italy itself: Not that the building of the theatre here is as large as Vespasian’s or that of Trajan at Rome; neither would any thing of that kind be an ornament at this time, because not at all suited to the occasion, the uses of them being quite different.

We see by the remains that those amphitheatres, as they were for the the exercise of their publick shews, and to entertain a vast concourse of people, to see the fighting of the gladiators, the throwing criminals to the wild beasts, and the like, were rather great magnificent bear-gardens, than theatres, for the actors of such representations, as entertain’d the polite part of the world; consequently, those were vast piles of building proper for the uses for which they were built.

What buildings were then made use of in Rome for the fine performances of ——— who acted that of Terence, or who wrote that, we can not be certain of; but I think I have a great deal of reason to say, they have no remains of them, or of any one of them at Rome; or if they are, they come not near to this building.

The theatre at Oxford prepared for the publick exercises of the schools, and for the operations of the learned part of the English world only, is in its grandeur and magnificence, infinitely superiour to any thing in the world of its kind; it is a finish’d piece, as to its building, the front is exquisitely fine, the columns and pilasters regular, and very beautiful; ’tis all built of freestone: The model was approv’d by the best masters of architecture at that time, in the presence of K. Charles II. who was himself a very curious observer, and a good judge; Sir Christopher Wren was the director of the work, as he was the person that drew the model: Archbishop Sheldon, they tell us, paid for it, and gave it to the university: There is a world of decoration in the front of it, and more beautiful additions, by way of ornament, besides the antient inscription, than is to be seen any where in Europe; at least, where I have been.

The Bodleian Library is an ornament in it self worthy of Oxford, where its station is fix’d, and where it had its birth. The history of it at large is found in Mr. Speed, and several authors of good credit; containing in brief, that of the old library, the first publick one in Oxford, erected in Durham now Trinity College, by Richard Bishop of Durham, and Lord Treasurer to Ed. III. it was afterward joined to another, founded by Cobham Bishop of Worcester, and both enlarg’d by the bounty of Humphry Duke of Gloucester, founder of the divinity schools: I say, these libraries being lost, and the books embezzled by the many changes and hurries of the suppressions in the reign of Hen. VIII. the commissioner appointed by King Edw. VI. to visit the universities, and establish the Reformation; found very few valuable books or manuscripts left in them. In this state of things, one Sir Thomas Bodley, a wealthy and learned knight, zealous for the encouragement both of learning and religion, resolv’d to apply, both his time, and estate, to the erecting and furnishing a new library for the publick use of the university.

In this good and charitable undertaking, he went on so successfully, for so many years, and with such a profusion of expence, and obtain’d such assistances from all the encouragers of learning in his time, that having collected books and manuscripts from all parts of the learned world; he got leave of the university, (and well they might grant it) to place them in the old library room, built as is said, by the good Duke Humphry. To this great work, great additions have been since made in books, as well as contributions in money, and more are adding every day; and thus the work was brought to a head, the 8th of Nov. 1602, and has continued encreasing by the benefactions of great and learned men to this day: To remove the books once more and place them in beauty and splendor suitable to so glorious a collection, the late Dr. Radcliff has left a legacy of 40000l . say some, others say not quite so much, to the building a new repository or library for the use of the university: This work is not yet built, but I am told ’tis likely to be such a building as will be greater ornament to the place than any yet standing in it.

I shall say nothing here of the benefactions to this library. Unless I had room to mention them all, it would be both partial and imperfect. And as there is a compleat catalogue of the books preparing, and that a list of the benefactors and what books they gave, will be speedily publish’d; it would be needless to say any thing of it here.

Other curious things in Oxford are, the museum, the chamber of rarities, the collection of coins, medals, pictures and antient inscriptions, the physick-garden, &c.

The buildings for all these are most beautiful and magnificent, suitable for the majesty of the university, as well as to the glory of the benefactors.

It is no part of my work to enter into the dispute between the two universities about the antiquity of their foundation: But this I shall observe for the use of those who insist, that it was the piety of the Popish times to which we owe the first, institution of the university it self, the foundation and endowment of the particular colleges, and the encouragement arising to learning from thence, all which I readily grant; but would have them remember too, that tho’ those foundations stood as they tell us eight hundred years, and that the Reformation as they say, is not yet of 200 years standing, yet learning has more encreas’d and the universities flourish’d more; more great scholars been produc’d, greater libraries been raised, and more fine buildings been erected in these 200 years than in the 800 years of Popery; and I might add, as many great benefactions have been given, notwithstanding this very momentous difference; that the Protestant’s gifts are meerly acts of charity to the world, and acts of bounty, in reverence to learning and learned men, without the grand excitement of the health of their souls, and of the souls of their fathers, to be pray’d out of purgatory and get a ready admission into heaven, and the like.

Oxford, had for many ages the neighbourhood of the Court, while their kings kept up the royal palace at Woodstock; which tho’ perhaps it was much discontinu’d, for the fate of the fair Rosamond, mistress to Henry Fitz Empress, or Henry II. of which history tells us something, and fable much more; yet we after find that several of the kings of England made the house and park at Woodstock, which was always fam’d for its pleasant situation, the place of their summer retreat for many years. Also for its being a royal palace before, even beyond the certainty of history, there is abundant reason to believe it; nay some will have it to have been a royal house before Oxford was an university. Dr. Plott allows it to have been so ever since King Alfred; and a manuscript in the Cotton Library confirms it; and that King Henry I. was not the founder of it, but only rebuilt it: And as for Henry II. he built only some additions; namely, that they call’d the Bower, which was a building in the garden (or labyrinth,) for the entertainment and security of his fair mistress, of whose safety he was it seems very careful. Notwithstanding which the queen found means to come at her, and as fables report, sent her out of the way by poison. The old buildings are now no more, nor so much as the name, but the place is the same and the natural beauty of it indeed, is as great as ever.

It is still a most charming situation, and ’tis still disputable after all that has been laid out, whether the country round gives more lustre to the building, or the building to the country. It has now chang’d masters, ’tis no more a royal house or palace for the king; but a mark of royal bounty to a great, and at that time powerful subject, the late Duke of Marlborough. The magnificence of the building does not here as at Canons, at Chatsworth, and at other palaces of the nobility, express the genius and the opulence of the possessor, but it represents the bounty, the gratitude, or what else posterity pleases to call it, of the English Nation, to the man whom they delighted to honour: Posterity when they view in this house the trophies of the Duke of Marlborough’s fame, and the glories of his great atchievements will not celebrate his name only; but will look on Blenheim House, as a monument of the generous temper of the English Nation; who in so glorious a manner rewarded the services of those who acted for them as he did: Nor can any nation in Europe shew the like munificence to any general, no nor the greatest in the world; and not to go back to antient times, not the French nation to the great Luxemberg, or the yet greater Turenne: Nor the emperor to the great Eugene, or to the yet greater Duke of Lorrain; whose inimitable conduct saved the imperial city of Vienna, and rescued the whole house of Austria; retook the whole kingdom of Hungary, and was victorious in seaventeen pitch’d battles. I say none of these ever receiv’d so glorious a mark of their country’s favour. Again, It is to be consider’d, that not this house only, built at the nation’s expence, was thus given; but lands and pensions to the value of above one hundred thousand pounds sterl. and honours the greatest England can bestow: These are all honours indeed to the duke, but infinitely more to the honour of the nation.

The magnificent work then is a national building, and must for ever be call’d so. Nay, the dimensions of it will perhaps call upon us hereafter, to own it as such in order to vindicate the discretion of the builder, for making a palace too big for any British subject to fill, if he lives at his own expence. Nothing else can justify the vast design, a bridge or ryalto rather, of one arch costing 20000l . and this, like the bridge at the Escurial in Spain, without a river. Gardens of near 100 acres of ground. Offices fit for 300 in family. Out-houses fit for the lodgings of a regiment of guards, rather than of livery servants. Also the extent of the fabrick, the avenues, the salons, galleries, and royal apartments; nothing below royalty and a prince, can support an equipage suitable to the living in such a house: And one may without a spirit of prophecy, say, it seems to intimate, that some time or other Blenheim may and will return to be as the old Woodstock once was, the palace of a king.

I shall enter no farther into the description, because ’tis yet a house unfurnish’d, and it can only be properly said what it is to be, not what it is: The stair-case of the house is indeed very great, the preparations of statues and paintings, and the ornament both of the building and finishing and furnishing are also great, but as the duke is dead, the duchess old, and the heir abroad, when and how it shall be all perform’d, requires more of the gift of prophecy than I am master of.

From Woodstock I could not refrain taking a turn a little northward as high as Banbury to the banks of the Charwell, to see the famous spot of ground where a vigorous rencounter happen’d between the Royalists in the grand Rebellion, and the Parliament’s forces, under Sir William Waller; I mean at Croprady Bridge, near Banbury. It was a vigorous action, and in which the king’s forces may be said fairly to out-general their enemies, which really was not always their fate: I had the plan of that action before me, which I have had some years, and found out every step of the ground as it was disputed on both sides by inches, where the horse engaged and where the foot; where Waller lost his cannon, and where he retired; and it was evident to me the best thing Waller cou’d do, (tho’ superiour in number) was to retreat as he did, having lost half his army.

From thence, being within eight miles of Edge-Hill, where the first battle in that war happen’d, I had the like pleasure of viewing the ground about Keinton, where that bloody battle was fought; it was evident, and one could hardly think of it without regret, the king with his army had an infinite advantage by being posted on the top of the hill, that he knew that the Parliament’s army were under express orders to fight, and must attack him lest his majesty who had got two days march of them, should advance to London, where they were out of their wits for fear of him.

The king I say knowing this, ’tis plain he had no business but to have intrench’d, to fight upon the eminence where he was posted, or have detach’d 15000 men for London, while he had fortify’d himself with a strong body upon the hill: But on the contrary, his majesty scorning to be pursued by his subjects, his army excellently appointed, and full of courage, not only halted, but descended from his advantages and offer’d them battle in the plain field, which they accepted.

Here I cannot but remark that this action is perhaps the only example in the world, of a battle so furious, so obstinate, manag’d with such skill, every regiment behaving well, and doing their duty to the utmost, often rallying when disorder’d, and indeed fighting with the courage and order of veterans; and yet not one regiment of troops that had ever seen the face of an enemy, or so much as been in arms before. It’s true, the king had rather the better of the day; and yet the rebel army though their left wing of horse was entirely defeated, behav’d so well, that at best it might be call’d a drawn battle; and the loss on both sides was so equal, that it was hard to know who lost most men.

But to leave the war, ’tis the place only I am taking notice of. From hence I turn’d south, for I was here on the edge both of Warwickshire, and Gloucestershire: But I turned south, and coming down by and upon the west side of Oxfordshire, to Chipping-Norton, we were shew’d Roll-Richt-Stones, a second Stone-Henge; being a ring of great stones standing upright, some of them from 5 to 7 foot high.

I leave the debate about the reason and antiquity of this antient work to the dispute of the learned, who yet cannot agree about them any more than about Stone-Henge in Wiltshire. Cambden will have them be a monument of victory, and the learned Dr. Charleton is of the same mind. Mr. Cambden also is willing to think that they were erected by Rollo the Dane, because of the town of Rollwright, from which they are call’d Rolle Right or Rolle Richt Stones. Aiston wou’d have them to be a monument of the dead, perhaps kill’d in battle; and that a great stone 9 foot high, at a distance, was over a king; and 5 other great ones likewise at a distance, were great commanders and the like.

The ingenious and learned Dr. Plot wou’d have us think it was a cirque or ring for their field elections of a king, something like the Dyetts on horseback in Poland; that they met in the open field to choose a king, and that the persons in competition were severally placed in such a cirque, surrounded by the suffrages or voters; and that when they were chosen, the person chosen was inaugurated here.

Thus I leave it as I find it: for antiquity as I have often said is not my business in this work; let the occasion of those stones be what it will, they are well worth notice; especially to those who are curious in the search of antiquity.

We were very merry at passing thro’ a village call’d Bloxham, on the occasion of a meeting of servants for hire, which the people there call a Mop; ’tis generally in other places vulgarly call’d a Statute, because founded upon a statute law in Q. Elizabeth’s time for regulating of servants. This I christn’d by the name of a Jade-Fair, at which some of the poor girls began to be angry, but we appeas’d them with better words. I have observ’d at some of these fairs, that the poor servants distinguish themselves by holding something in their hands, to intimate what labour they are particularly qualify’d to undertake; as the carters a whip, the labourers a shovel, the wood men a bill, the manufacturers a wool comb, and the like. But since the ways and manners of servants are advanc’d as we now find them to be, those Jade Fairs are not so much frequented as formerly, tho’ we have them at several towns near London; as at Enfield, Waltham, Epping, &c.

Here we saw also the famous parish of Brightwell, of which it was observed, that there had not been an alehouse nor a dissenter from the church, nor any quarrel among the inhabitants that rise so high as to a suit of law within the memory of man. But they could not say it was so still, especially as to the alehouse part; tho’ very much is still preserved, as to the unity and good neighbourhood of the parishioners, and their conformity to the church.

Being now on the side of Warwickshire, as is said before, I still went south, and passing by the four Shire Stones, we saw where the counties of Oxford, Warwick, and Gloucester joyn all in a point; one stone standing in each county, and the fourth touching all three.

Hence we came to the famous Cotswold-Downs, so eminent for the best of sheep, and finest wool in England: It was of the breed of these sheep. And fame tells us that some were sent by King Rich. I. into Spain, and that from thence the breed of their sheep was raised, which now produce so fine a wool, that we are oblig’d to fetch it from thence, for the making our finest broad cloaths; and which we buy at so great a price.

In viewing this part of England, and such things as these, and considering how little notice other writers had taken of them, it occur’d to my thoughts that it wou’d be a very useful and good work, if any curious observer would but write an account of England, and oblige himself to speak of such things only, as all modern writers had said nothing of, or nothing but what was false and imperfect. And there are doubtless so many things, so insignificant, and yet so omitted, that I am persuaded such a writer would not have wanted materials; nay, I will not promise that even this work, tho’ I am as careful as room for writing will allow, shall not leave enough behind, for such a gleaning to make it self richer than the reapings that have gone before; and this not altogether from the meer negligence and omissions of the writers, as from the abundance of matter, the growing buildings, and the new discoveries made in every part of the country.

Upon these downs we had a clear view of the famous old Roman high-way, call’d the Fosse, which evidently crosses all the middle part of England, and is to be seen and known (tho’ in no place plainer than here,) quite from the Bath to Warwick, and thence to Leicester, to Newark, to Lincoln, and on to Barton, upon the bank of Humber.

Here it is still the common road, and we follow’d it over the downs to Cirencester. We observ’d also how several cross roads as antient as it self, and perhaps more antient, joyn’d it, or branch’d out of it; some of which the people have by antient usage tho’ corruptly call’d also Fosses, making the word Fosse as it were a common name for all roads. For example, The Ackemanstreet which is an antient Saxon road leading from Buckinghamshire through Oxfordshire to the Fosse, and so to the Bath; this joyns the Fosse between Burford and Cirencester. It is worth observing how this is said to be call’d Ackeman’s Street; namely, by the Saxon way of joyning their monosyllables into significant words, as thus,ackman or achman a man of aching limbs, in English a cripple travelling to the Bath for cure: So Achmanstreet was the road or street for diseased people going to the Bath; and the city of Bath was on the same account call’d Achmanchester, or the city of diseased people; or, Urbs Ægrotorum hominum. Thus much for antiquity. There are other roads or fosses which joyn this grand highway, viz. Grinnes Dike, from Oxfordshire, Wattle Bank, or Aves Ditch from ditto. and the Would Way, call’d also the Fosse crossing from Gloucester to Cirencester.

In passing this way we very remarkably cross’d four rivers within the length of about 10 miles, and enquiring their names, the country people call’d them every one the Thames, which mov’d me a little to enquire the reason, which is no more than this; namely, that these rivers, which are, the Lech, the Coln, the Churn, and the Isis; all rising in the Cotswould Hills and joyning together and making a full stream at Lechlade near this place, they become one river there, and are all call’d Thames, or vulgarly Temms; also beginning there to be navigable, you see very large barges at the key, taking in goods for London, which makes the town of Lechlade a very populous large place.

On the Churne one of those rivers stands Cirencester, or Ciciter for brevity, a very good town, populous and rich, full of clothiers, and driving a great trade in wool; which as likewise at Tetbury, is brought from the midland counties of Leicester, Northampton, and Lincoln, where the largest sheep in England are found, and where are few manufactures; it is sold here in quantities, so great, that it almost exceeds belief: It is generally bought here by the clothiers of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, for the supply of that great clothing trade; of which I have spoken already: They talk of 5000 packs in a year.

As we go on upon the Fosse, we see in the vale on the left hand, the antient town of Malmsbury, famous for a monastary, and a great church, built out of the ruins of it; and which I name in meer veneration to that excellent, and even best of our old historians Gulielmus Malmsburiensis, to whom the world is so much oblig’d, for preserving the history and antiquities of this kingdom.

We next arriv’d at Marshfield, a Wiltshire clothing town, very flourishing and where we cross’d the great road from London to Bristol, as at Cirencester, we did that from London, to Gloucester; and in the evening keeping still the Fosse-Way, we arriv’d at Bath.

My description of this city would be very short, and indeed it would have been a very small city, (if at all a city) were it not for the hot baths here, which give both name and fame to the place. The antiquity of this place, and of the baths here, is doubtless very great, tho’ I cannot come in to the inscription under the figure, said to be of a British king, placed in that call’d the King’s Bath, which says that this King Bladud, (Mr. Cambden calls him Blayden, or Blaydon Cloyth; that is, the south-sayer) found out the use of these baths, 300 years before our Saviour’s time. I say, I cannot come into this, because even the discovery is ascribed to the magick of the day, not their judgment in the physical virtue of minerals, and mineral-waters. The antiquities of this place are farther treated of by Mr. Cambden, as the virtues of the waters, are, by several of the learned members of that faculty, who have wrote largely on that subject; as particularly, Dr. ——— Dr. Baynard, Dr. ——— and others.

There remains little to add, but what relates to the modern customs, the gallantry and diversions of that place, in which I shall be very short; the best part being but a barren subject, and the worst part meriting rather a satyr, than a description. It has been observ’d before, that in former times this was a resort hither for cripples, and the place was truly Urbs Ægrotorum Hominum: And we see the crutches hang up at the several baths, as the thank-offerings of those who have come hither lame, and gone away cur’d. But now we may say it is the resort of the sound, rather than the sick; the bathing is made more a sport and diversion, than a physical prescription for health; and the town is taken up in raffling, gameing, visiting, and in a word, all sorts of gallantry and levity.

The whole time indeed is a round of the utmost diversion. In the morning you (supposing you to be a young lady) are fetch’d in a close chair, dress’d in your bathing cloths, that is, stript to the smock, to the Cross-Bath. There the musick plays you into the bath, and the women that tend you, present you with a little floating wooden dish, like a bason; in which the lady puts a handkerchief, and a nosegay, of late the snuff-box is added, and some patches; tho’ the bath occasioning a little perspiration, the patches do not stick so kindly as they should.

Here the ladies and the gentlemen pretend to keep some distance, and each to their proper side, but frequently mingle here too, as in the King and Queens Bath, tho’ not so often; and the place being but narrow, they converse freely, and talk, rally, make vows, and sometimes love; and having thus amus’d themselves an hour, or two, they call their chairs and return to their lodgings.

The rest of the diversion here, is the walks in the great church, and at the raffling shops, which are kept (like the cloyster at Bartholomew Fair,) in the churchyard, and ground adjoyning. In the afternoon there is generally a play, tho’ the decorations are mean, and the performances accordingly; but it answers, for the company here (not the actors) make the play, to say no more. In the evening there is a ball, and dancing at least twice a week, which is commonly in the great town hall, over the market-house; where there never fails in the season to be a great deal of very good company.

There is one thing very observable here, which tho’ it brings abundance of company to the Bath, more than ever us’d to be there before; yet it seems to have quite inverted the use and virtue of the waters, (viz.) that whereas for seventeen hundred or two thousand years, if you believe King Bladud, the medicinal virtue of these waters had been useful to the diseased people by bathing in them, now they are found to be useful also, taken into the body; and there are many more come to drink the waters, than to bathe in them; nor are the cures they perform this way, less valuable than the outward application; especially in colicks, ill digestion, and scorbutick distempers. This discovery they say, is not yet above fifty years old, and is said to be owing to the famous Dr. Radcliff, but I think it must be older, for I have my self drank the waters of the Bath above fifty years ago: But be it so, ’tis certain, ’tis a modern discovery, compar’d to the former use of these waters.

As to the usefulness of these waters to procure conception, and the known story of the late King James’s queen here, the famous monument in the Cross-Bath gives an account of it. Those that are enclin’d to give faith to such things, may know as much of it at the Santa Casa of Loretto, as here; and in Italy I believe it is much more credited.

There is nothing in the neighbourhood of this city worth notice, except it be Chipping-Norton-Lane, where was a fight between the forces of King James II. and the Duke of Monmouth, in which the latter had plainly the better; and had they push’d their advantage, might have made it an entire victory. On the N.W. of this city up a very steep hill, is the King’s Down, where sometimes persons of quality who have coaches go up for the air: But very few people care to have coaches here, it being a place where they have but little room to keep them, and less to make use of them. And the hill up to the Downs is so steep, that the late Queen Anne was extremely frighted in going up, her coachman stopping to give the horses breath, and the coach wanting a dragstaff, run back in spight of all the coachman’s skill; the horses not being brought to strain the harness again, or pull together for a good while, and the coach putting the guards behind it into the utmost confusion, till some of the servants setting their heads and shoulders to the wheels, stopt them by plain force.

When one is upon King-Down, and has pass’d all the steeps and difficulties of the ascent, there is a plain and pleasant country for many miles, into Gloucestershire, and two very noble palaces, the one built by Mr. Blathwait, late Secretary of War; and the other is call’d Badminton, the mansion of the most noble family of the Dukes of Beaufort, the present duke being under age. The lustre and magnificence of this palace is magnify’d by the surprise one is at, to see such a house in such a retreat, so difficult of access, at least this way, so near to so much company, and yet, so much alone.

Following the course of the river Avon, which runs thro’ Bath, we come in ten miles to the city of Bristol, the greatest, the richest, and the best port of trade in Great Britain, London only excepted.

The merchants of this city not only have the greatest trade, but they trade with a more entire independency upon London, than any other town in Britain. And ’tis evident in this particular, (viz.) That whatsoever exportations they make to any part of the world, they are able to bring the full returns back to their own port, and can dispose of it there.

This is not the case in any other port in England. But they are often oblig’d to ship part of the effects in the ports abroad, on the ships bound to London; or to consign their own ships to London, in order both to get freight, as also to dispose of their own cargoes.

But the Bristol merchants as they have a very great trade abroad, so they have always buyers at home, for their returns, and that such buyers that no cargo is too big for them. To this purpose, the shopkeepers in Bristol who in general are all wholesale men, have so great an inland trade among all the western counties, that they maintain carriers just as the London tradesmen do, to all the principal countries and towns from Southampton in the south, even to the banks of the Trent north; and tho’ they have no navigable river that way, yet they drive a very great trade through all those counties.

Add to this, That, as well by sea, as by the navigation of two great rivers, the Wye, and the Severn, they have the whole trade of South-Wales, as it were, to themselves, and the greatest part of North-Wales; and as to their trade to Ireland, it is not only great in it self, but is prodigiously encreas’d in these last thirty years, since the Revolution, notwithstanding the great encrease and encroachment of the merchants at Liverpool, in the Irish trade, and the great devastations of the war; the kingdom of Ireland it self being wonderfully encreas’d since that time.

The greatest inconveniences of Bristol, are, its situation, and the tenacious folly of its inhabitants; who by the general infatuation, the pretence of freedoms and priviledges, that corporation-tyranny, which prevents the flourishing and encrease of many a good town in England, continue obstinately to forbid any, who are not subjects of their city soveraignty, (that is to say, freemen,) to trade within the chain of their own liberties; were it not for this, the city of Bristol, would before now, have swell’d and encreas’d in buildings and inhabitants, perhaps to double the magnitude it was formerly of.

This is evident by this one particular; There is one remarkable part of the city where the liberties extend not at all, or but very little without the city gate. Here and no where else, they have an accession of new inhabitants; and abundance of new houses, nay, some streets are built, and the like ’tis probable wou’d have been at all the rest of the gates, if liberty had been given. As for the city itself, there is hardly room to set another house in it, ’tis so close built, except in the great square, the ground about which is a little too subject to the hazard of inundations: So that people do not so freely enlarge that way. The Tolsey of this city, (so they call their Exchange where their merchants meet,) has been a place too of great business, yet so straighten’d, so crowded, and so many ways inconvenient, that the merchants have been obliged to do less business there, than indeed the nature of their great trade requires; They have therefore long solicited, a sufficient authority of Parliament, empowering them to build a Royal Exchange; by which, I mean a place suitable and spatious, fit for the accommodation of the merchants, and for the dispatch of business; and to be impowered to pull down the adjacent buildings for that purpose: But there is not much progress yet made in this work, tho’ if finish’d, it would add much to the beauty of the city of Bristol. The Hot Well, or, the water of St. Vincents Rock, is not in the city, but at the confluence of the two little rivers, and on the north side of the stream. It is but a few years since this spring lay open at the foot of the rock, and was covered by the salt water at every tide, and yet it preserved both its warmth and its mineral virtue entire.

The rock tho’ hard to admiration, has since that been work’d down, partly by strength of art, and partly blown in pieces by gunpowder, and a plain foundation made for building a large house upon it, where they have good apartments for entertaining diseased persons. The well is secur’d, and a good pump fix’d in it, so that they have the water pure and unmix’d from the spring it self.

The water of this well possess’d its medicinal quality no doubt from its original, which may be as antient as the Deluge. But what is strangest of all is, that it was never known before; it is now famous for being a specifick in that otherwise incurable disease the diabetes; and yet was never known to be so, ‘till within these few years; namely, thirty years, or thereabout. There are in Bristol 21 parish churches, many meeting-houses, especially Quakers, one (very mean) cathedral, the reason of which, may be, that it is but a very modern bishoprick. It is supposed they have an hundred thousand inhabitants in the city, and within three miles of its circumference; and they say above three thousand sail of ships belong to that port, but of the last I am not certain.

’Tis every remarkable, That this city is so plentifully supply’d with coals, tho’ they are all brought by land carriage, that yet they are generally bought by the inhabitants, laid down at their doors, after the rate of from seven to nine shillings per chaldron.

The situation of the city is low, but on the side of a rising hill. The ground plat of it is said very much to resemble that of old Rome, being circular, with something greater diameter one way than another, but not enough to make it oval: And the river cutting off one small part, as it were, a sixth, or less from the rest.

The bridge over the Avon is exceeding strong, the arches very high, because of the depth of water, and the buildings so close upon it, that in passing the bridge, you see nothing but an entire well built street. The tide of flood rises here near 6 fathom, and runs very sharp.

They draw all their heavy goods here on sleds, or sledges without wheels, which kills a multitude of horses; and the pavement is worn so smooth by them, that in wet-weather the streets are very slippery, and in frosty-weather ’tis dangerous walking.

From this city I resolv’d to coast the marshes or border of Wales, especially South-Wales, by tracing the rivers Wye, and Lug, into Monmouth and Herefordshire. But I chang’d this resolution on the following occasion; namely, the badness and danger of the ferries over the Severn, besides, having formerly travers’d these counties, I can without a re-visit, speak to every thing that is considerable in them, and shall do it in a letter by itself. But in the mean time, I resolv’d to follow the course of the famous river Severn, by which I should necessarily see the richest, most fertile, and most agreeable part of England; the bank of the Thames only excepted.

From Bristol West, you enter the county of Gloucester, and keeping the Avon in view, you see King Road, where the ships generally take their departure, as ours at London do from Graves-End; and Hung Road, where they notify their arrival, as ours for London do in the Downs: The one lyes within the Avon, the other, in the open sea or the Severn; which is there call’d the Severn Sea. Indeed great part of Bristol is in the bounds of Gloucestershire, tho’ it be a county of itself. From hence going away a little north west, we come to the Pill, a convenient road for shipping, and where therefore they generally run back for Ireland or for Wales. There is also a little farther, an ugly, dangerous, and very inconvenient ferry over the Severn, to the mouth of Wye; namely, at Aust; the badness of the weather, and the sorry boats, at which, deterr’d us from crossing there.

As we turn north towards Gloucester, we lose the sight of the Avon, and in about two miles exchange it for an open view of the Severn Sea, which you see on the west side, and which is as broad as the ocean there; except, that you see two small islands in it, and that looking N.W. you see plainly the coast of South Wales; and particularly a little nearer hand, the shore of Monmouthshire. Then as you go on, the shores begin to draw towards one another, and the coasts to lye parallel; so that the Severn appears to be a plain river, or an æstuarium, somewhat like the Humber, or as the Thames is at the Nore, being 4 to 5 and 6 miles over; and to give it no more than its just due, a most raging, turbulent, furious place. This is occasion’d by those violent tides call’d the Bore, which flow here sometimes six or seven foot at once, rolling forward like a mighty wave: So that the stern of a vessel shall on a sudden be lifted up six or seven foot upon the water, when the head of it is fast a ground. After coasting the shore about 4 miles farther, the road being by the low salt marshes, kept at a distance from the river: We came to the ferry call’d Ast Ferry, or more properly Aust Ferry, or Aust Passage, from a little dirty village call’d Aust; near which you come to take boat.

This ferry lands you at Beachly in Monmouthshire, so that on the out-side ’tis call’d Aust Passage, and on the other side, ’tis call’d Beachly-Passage. From whence you go by land two little miles to Chepstow, a large port town on the river Wye. But of that part I shall say more in its place.

When we came to Aust, the hither side of the Passage, the sea was so broad, the fame of the Bore of the tide so formidable, the wind also made the water so rough, and which was worse, the boats to carry over both man and horse appear’d (as I have said above) so very mean, that in short none of us car’d to venture: So we came back, and resolv’d to keep on the road to Gloucester. By the way we visited some friends at a market-town, a little out of the road, call’d Chipping-Sodbury, a place of note for nothing that I saw, but the greatest cheese market in all that part of England; or, perhaps, any other, except Atherstone, in Warwickshire.

Hence we kept on north, passing by Dursley to Berkley-Castle; the antient seat of the Earls of Berkley, a noble tho’ antient building, and a very fine park about it. The castle gives title to the earl, and the town of Dursly to the heir apparent; who during the life of his father, is call’d the Lord Dursley. I say nothing of the dark story of King Edward II. of England; who, all our learned writers agree, was murther’d in this castle: As Richard II. was in that of Pontefract, in Yorkshire; I say I take no more notice of it here, for history is not my present business: ’Tis true, they show the apartments where they say that king was kept a prisoner: But they do not admit that he was kill’d there. The place is rather antient, than pleasant or healthful, lying low, and near the water; but ’tis honour’d by its present owner, known to the world for his many services to his country, and for a fame, which our posterity will read of, in all the histories of our times.

From hence to Gloucester, we see nothing considerable, but a most fertile, rich country, and a fine river, but narrower as you go northward, ‘till a little before we come to Gloucester it ceases to be navigable by ships of burthen, but continues to be so, by large barges, above an hundred miles farther; not reckoning the turnings and windings of the river: Besides that, it receives several large and navigable rivers into it.

Gloucester is an antient middling city, tolerably built, but not fine; was fortify’d and stood out obstinately against its lord King Charles the Ist, who befieged it to his great loss in the late Rebellion, for which it had all its walls and works demolish’d; for it was then very strong: Here is a large stone bridge over the Severn, the first next the sea; and this, and the cathedral is all I see worth recording of this place. Except that the late eminent and justly famous Sir Thomas Powel, commonly call’d Judge Powel, one of the judges of the King’s Bench Court; and contemporary with Sir John Holt lived and dyed in this city, being one of the greatest lawyers of the age.

The cathedral is an old venerable pile, with very little ornament within or without, yet ’tis well built; and tho’ plain, it makes together, especially the tower, a very handsome appearance. The inhabitants boast much of its antiquity, and tell us, that a bishop and preachers were plac’d here, in the very infancy of the Christian religion; namely, in the year 189. But this I take ad referendum. The cathedral they tell us, has been three times burnt to the ground.

The first Protestant bishop of this church, was, that truly reverend and religious Dr. John Hooper, set up by King Edward VI. and afterwards martyr’d for his religion in the Marian tyranny: Being burnt to death in the cimitary of his own cathedral.

The whispering place in this cathedral, has for many years pass’d for a kind of wonder; but since, experience has taught us the easily comprehended reason of the thing: And since there is now the like in the church of St. Paul, the wonder is much abated. However, the verses written over this whispering place, intimate, that it has really past for something miraculous; and as the application rather shows religion, than philosophy in the author, the reader may not like them the worse.

Doubt not, that God who sits on high,
Thy secret prayers can hear;
When a dead wall thus cunningly,
Conveys soft whispers to thine ear.

From Gloucester we kept the east shore of the Severn, and in twelve miles came to Tewksbury, a large and very populous town situate upon the river Avon, this is call’d the Warwickshire Avon, to distinguish it from the Avon at Bristol and others, for there are several rivers in England of this name; and some tell us that avona was an old word in the British tongue signifying a river.

This town is famous for a great manufacture of stockings, as are also, the towns of Pershore, and Evesham, or Esham; on the same river.

The great old church at Tewksbury may indeed be call’d the largest private parish church in England; I mean, that is not a collegiate or cathedral church. This town is famous for the great, and as may be said, the last battle, fought between the two houses of Lancaster and York, in which Edward IV. was conqueror; and in, or rather after which, Prince Edward the only surviving son of the House of Lancaster, was kill’d by the cruel hands of Richard the king’s brother; the same afterwards Richard III. or Crookback Richard. In this place begins that fruitful and plentiful country which was call’d the Vale of Esham, which runs all along the banks of the Avon, from Tewksbury to Pershore, and to Stratford upon Avon, and in the south part of Warwickshire; and so far, (viz. to Stratford,) the river Avon is navigable.

At this last town, going into the parish church, we saw the monument of old Shakespear, the famous poet, and whose dramatick performances so justly maintain his character among the British poets; and perhaps will do so to the end of time. The busto of his head is in the wall on the north side of the church, and a flat grave-stone covers the body, in the isle just under him. On which grave-stone these lines are written.

Good friend, for Jesus’s sake, forbear
To move the dust that resteth here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he, that moves my bones.

The navigation of this river Avon is an exceeding advantage to all this part of the country, and also to the commerce of the city of Bristol. For by this river they drive a very great trade for sugar, oil, wine, tobacco, iron, lead, and in a word, all heavy goods which are carried by water almost as far as Warwick; and in return the corn, and especially the cheese, is brought back from Gloucestershire and Warwickshire, to Bristol.

This same vale continuing to extend it self in Warwickshire, and under the ridge of little mountains call’d Edge-Hill, is there call’d the vale of Red-Horse. All the grounds put together, make a most pleasant corn country, especially remarkable for the goodness of the air, and fertility of the soil.

Gloucestershire must not be pass’d over, without some account of a most pleasant and fruitful vale which crosses part of the country, from east to west on that side of the Cotswold, and which is call’d Stroud-Water; famous not for the finest cloths only, but for dying those cloths of the finest scarlets, and other grain colours that are any where in England; perhaps in any part of the world: Here I saw two pieces of broad cloth made, one scarlet, the other crimson in grain, on purpose to be presented, the one to His Majesty King George, and the other to the prince; when the former was Elector of Hanover, and the latter, electoral prince: And it was sent to Hanover, presented accordingly, and very graciously accepted. The cloth was valued including the colour, at 45s . per yard: Indeed it was hardly to be valued, nothing so rich being ever made in England before, at least as I was informed.

The clothiers lye all along the banks of this river for near 20 miles, and in the town of Stroud, which lyes in the middle of it, as also at Paynswick, which is a market-town at a small distance north. The river makes its way to the Severn about 5 miles below Gloucester.

Worcester, Hereford and Wales

From Tewkesbury we went north 12 miles, to Worcester, all the way still on the bank of the Severn; and here we had the pleasing sight of the hedge-rows, being fill’d with apple trees and pear trees, and the fruit so common, that any passenger as they travel the road may gather and eat what they please; and here, as well as in Gloucestershire, you meet with cyder in the publick-houses sold as beer and ale is in other parts of England, and as cheap.

Here we saw at a distance, in a most agreeable situation, the mansion or seat of Sir John Packington, a barronet of a very antient family; and for so long from father to son knight of the shire for the county, that it seems as if it were hereditary to that house.

On the other side of the Severn at —— and near the town of Bewdly the Lord Foley has a very noble seat suitable to the grandeur of that rising family.

Worcester is a large, populous, old, tho’ not a very well built city; I say not well built because the town is close and old, the houses standing too thick. The north part of the town is more extended and also better built. There is a good old stone bridge over the Severn, which stands exceeding high from the surface of the water. But as the stream of the Severn is contracted here by the buildings on either side, there is evident occasion sometimes for the height of the bridge, the waters rising to an incredible height in the winter-time.

It narrowly escap’d burning, but did not escape plundering at the time when the Scots army commanded by King Ch. II. in person, was attack’d here by Cromwel’s forces; ’twas said some of the Royalist’s officers themselves, propos’d setting the city on fire, when they saw it was impossible to avoid a defeat, that they might the better make a retreat; which they propos’d to do over the Severn, and so to march into Wales: But that the king, a prince from his youth, of a generous and merciful disposition would by no means consent to it.

I went to see the town-house, which afforded nothing worth taking notice of, unless it be how much it wants to be mended with a new one; which the city, they say, is not so much enclin’d, as they are able and rich to perform. I saw nothing of publick notice there, but the three figures, (for they can hardly be call’d statues) of King Charles I. King Charles II. and Queen Anne.

The cathedral of this city is an antient, and indeed, a decay’d building; the body of the church is very mean in its aspect, nor did I see the least ornament about it, I mean in the outside. The tower is low, without any spire, only four very small pinnacles on the corners; and yet the tower has some little beauty in it more than the church itself, too; and the upper part has some images in it, but decay’d by time.

The inside of the church has several very antient monuments in it, particularly some royal ones; as that of King John, who lyes interr’d between two sainted bishops, namely, St. Oswald, and St. Woolstan. Whether he ordered his interment in that manner, believing that they should help him up at the last call, and be serviceable to him for his salvation I know not; it is true they say so, but I can hardly think the king himself so ignorant, whatever the people might be in those days of superstition; nor will I say but that it may be probable, they may all three go together at last (as it is) and yet, without being assistant to, or acquainted with one another at all.

Here is also a monument for that famous Countess of Salisbury, who dancing before, or with K. Edward III. in his great hall at Windsor, dropt her garter, which the king taking up, honoured it so much as to make it the denominating ensign of his new order of knighthood, which is grown so famous, and is call’d the most Noble Order of the Garter: What honour, or that any honour redounds to that most noble order, from its being so deriv’d from the garter of a —— For ’tis generally agreed, she was the king’s mistress, I will not enquire.

Certainly the Order receives a just claim to the title of most noble, from the honour done it, by its royal institution; and its being compos’d of such a noble list of the kings and princes as have been entred into it: I say, certainly this order has a just title to that of noble, and most noble too; yet I cannot but think that the king might have found out a better trophy to have fix’d it upon, than that lady’s garter. But this by the way: here lyes the lady that’s certain, and a very fine monument she has, in which one thing is more ridiculous than all that went before, (viz.) That about the monument, there are several angels cut in stone, strewing garters over the tomb, as if that passage, which at best had something a little obscene in it, I mean of the kings taking up the lady’s garter, and giving such honours to it, was also a thing to be celebrated by angels, in perpetuam re? memoriam.

Besides this, here is the monument or the body of Prince Arthur, eldest son to King Henry VII. who was married, but died soon after; and his wife Katharine Infanta of Spain, was afterwards married to, and after 20 years wedlock divorced from King Henry VIII.

Upon the prince’s tomb stone is this inscription. HERE lyes the body of Prince Arthur, the eldest son of King Henry VII. who dyed at Ludlow, in the year 1502. and in the seventeenth year of his father’s reign.

There are several other antient monuments in this church, too many to be set down here: They reckon up 99 Bishops of this diocess, beginning at the year 980, out of which catalogue they tell us have been furnish’d to the world, 1 Pope, 4 Saints, 7 High-Chancellors of England, 11 Arch-Bishops, 2 Lord Treasurers of England, 1Chancellor to the Queen, 1 Lord President of Wales, and 1 Vice President.

This city is very full of people, and the people generally esteem’d very rich, being full of business, occasion’d chiefly by the cloathing trade, of which the city and the country round carries on a great share, as well for the Turkey trade as for the home trade.

The salt springs in this county which were formerly esteem’d as next to miraculous, have since the discovery of the mines of rock salt in Lancashire, Cheshire, &c. lost all of wonder that belong’d to them, and much of the use also; the salt made there being found to be much less valuable than what is now made of the other. So I need say little to them.

Near this city are the famous Maulvern Hills, or Mauvern Hills, seen so far every way. In particular, we saw them very plainly on the Downs, between Marlborough and Malmsbury; and they say they are seen from the top of Salisbury steeple, which is above 50 miles.

There was a famous monastery at the foot of these hills, on the S.W. side, and the ruins are seen to this day; the old legend of wonders perform’d by the witches of Mauvern, I suppose they mean the religieuse of both kinds, are too merry, as well as too antient for this work.

They talk much of mines of gold and silver, which are certainly to be found here, if they were but look’d for, and that Mauvern wou’d out do Potosi for wealth; but ’tis probable if there is such wealth, it lies too deep for this idle generation to find out, and perhaps to search for.

There are three or four especial manufactures carried on in this country, which are peculiar to it self, or at least to this county with the two next adjoyning; namely, Chester, and Warwick.

Monmouth cups sold chiefly to the Dutch seamen, and made only at Beawdly.

Fine stone potts for the glass-makers melting their metal, of which they make their fine flint glass, glass plates, &c. not to be found any where but at Stourbridge in this county, the same clay makes crucibles and other melting pots.

The Birmingham iron works: The north indeed claims a share or part of this trade, but it is only a part.

Kidderminster stuffs call’d Lindsey Woolseys, they are very rarely made any where else.

At Stourbridge also they have a very great manufacture for glass of all sorts.

From Worcester I took a tour into Wales, which tho’ I mentioned above, it was not at the same time with the rest of my journey; my account I hope will be as effectual.

In passing from this part of the country to make a tour through Wales, we necessarily see the two counties of Hereford and Monmouth, and for that reason I reserv’d them to this place, as I shall the counties of Chester and Salop to my return. A little below Worcester the Severn receives a river of a long course and deep chanel, call’d the Teme, and going from Worcester we past this river at a village call’d Broadways; from whence keeping a little to the north, we come to Ludlow-Castle, on the bank of the same river. On another journey I came from Stourbridge, famous for the clay for melting pots as above; thence to Kidderminster, and passing the Severn at Bewdley we came to Ludlow, on the side of Shropshire.

In this course we see two fine seats not very far from the Severn, (viz.) the Lord Foley’s, and the Earl of Bradford’s, as we had before a most delicious house, belonging to the Lord Conway, now in the family of the late famous Sir Edward Seymour. Indeed this part of the county, and all the county of Salop is fill’d with fine seats of the nobility and gentry, too many so much as to give a list of, and much less to describe.

The castle of Ludlow shows in its decay, what it was in its flourishing estate: It is the palace of the Princes of Wales, that is, to speak more properly, it is annex’d to the principality of Wales; which is the appanage of the heir apparent, and this is his palace in right of his being made Prince of Wales.

The situation of this castle is most beautiful indeed; there is a most spacious plain or lawn in its front, which formerly continu’d near two miles; but much of it is now enclosed. The country round it is exceeding pleasant, fertile, populous, and the soil rich; nothing can be added by nature to make it a place fit for a royal palace: It only wants the residence of its princes, but that is not now to be expected.

The castle itself is in the very perfection of decay, all the fine courts, the royal apartments, halls, and rooms of state, lye open, abandoned and some of them falling down; for since the Courts of the President and Marches are taken away, here is nothing to do that requires the attendance of any publick people; so that time, the great devourer of the works of men, begins to eat into the very stone walls, and to spread the face of royal ruins upon the whole fabrick.

The town of Ludlow is a tolerable place, but it decays to be sure with the rest: It stands on the edge of the two counties, Shropshire, and Worcestershire, but is itself in the first; ’tis on the bank of the Teme, over which it has a good bridge, and it was formerly a town of good trade; the Welch call this town Lye Twysoe, which is in English, the Prince’s Court. Mr. Cambden calls the river Teme the Tem’d, and another river which joyns it just at this town, the Corve, whence the rich flat country below the town is call’d Corvesdale.

King Henry VIII. established the Court of the President here, and the Council of the Marches and all causes of nisi prius, or of civil right were try’d here, before the Lord President and Council; but this Court was entirely taken away by Act of Parliament in our days, and this, as above, tends to the sensible decay of the town as well as of the castle.

From Ludlow we took our course due south to Lemster, or Leominster, a large and good trading town on the River Lug. This river is lately made navigable by Act of Parliament, to the very great profit of the trading part of this country, who have now a very great trade for their corn, wool, and other products of this place, into the river Wye, and from the Wye, into the Severn, and so to Bristol.

Leominster has nothing very remarkable in it, but that it is a well built, well inhabited town: The church which is very large, has been in a manner rebuilt, and is now, especially in the inside, a very beautiful church. This town, besides the fine wool, is noted for the best wheat, and consequently the finest bread; whence Lemster Bread, and Weobly Ale, is become a proverbial saying.

The country on our right as we came from Ludlow is very fruitful and pleasant, and is call’d the Hundred of Wigmore, from which the late Earl of Oxford at his creation, took the title of Baron of Wigmore: And here we saw two antient castles, (viz.) Brampton-Brian, and Wigmore-Castle, both belonging to the earl’s father, Sir Edward Harley; Brampton is a stately pile, but not kept in full repair, the fate of that antient family not permitting the rebuilding it as we were told was in tended. Yet it is not so far decay’d as Ludlow, nor is it abandoned, or like to be so, and the parks are still very fine, and full of large timber.

We were now on the borders of Wales, properly so call’d; for from the windows of Brampton-Castle, you have a fair prospect into the county of Radnor, which is, as it were, under its walls; nay, even this whole county of Hereford, was, if we may believe antiquity, a part of Wales, and was so esteem’d for many ages. The people of this county too, boast that they were a part of the antient Silures, who for so many ages withstood the Roman arms, and who could never be entirely conquer’d. But that’s an affair quite beyond my enquiry. I observ’d they are a diligent and laborious people, chiefly addicted to husbandry, and they boast, perhaps, not without reason, that they have the finest wool, and best hops, and the richest cyder in all Britain.

Indeed the wool about Leominster, and in the Hundred of Wigmore observ’d above, and the Golden Vale as ’tis call’d, for its richness on the banks of the river Dove, (all in this county) is the finest without exception, of any in England, the South Down wool not excepted: As for hops, they plant abundance indeed all over this county, and they are very good. And as for cyder, here it was, that several times for 20 miles together, we could get no beer or ale in their publick houses, only cyder; and that so very good, so fine, and so cheap, that we never found fault with the exchange; great quantities of this cyder are sent to London, even by land carriage tho’ so very remote, which is an evidence for the goodness of it, beyond contradiction.

One would hardly expect so pleasant, and fruitful a country as this, so near the barren mountains of Wales; but ’tis certain, that not any of our southern counties, the neighbourhood of London excepted, comes up to the fertility of this county, as Gloucester furnishes London with great quantities of cheese, so this county furnishes the same city with bacon in great quantities, and also with cyder as above.

From Lemster it is ten miles to Hereford, the chief city, not of this county only, but of all the counties west of Severn: ’Tis a large and a populous city, and in the time of the late Rebellion, was very strong, and being well fortify’d, and as well defended, supported a tedious and very severe siege; for besides the Parliament’s Forces, who could never reduce it, the Scots army was call’d to the work, who lay before it, ‘till they laid above 4000 of their bones there, and at last, it was rather taken by the fate of the war, than by the attack of the besiegers.

Coming to Hereford, we could not but enquire into the truth of the story so famous, that the Reverend Dr. Gibson had mentioned it in his continuation of Cambden; of the removing the two great stones near Sutton, which the people confirm’d to us. The story is thus,

Between Sutton and Hereford, is a common meadow call’d the Wergins, where were plac’d two large stones for a watermark; one erected upright, and the other laid a-thwart. In the late Civil Wars, about the Year 1652, they were remov’d to about twelve score paces distance, and no body knew how; which gave occasion to a common opinion, That they were carried thither by the Devil. When they were set in their places again, one of them requir’d nine yoke of oxen to draw it.

Not far from Lidbury, is Colwal; near which, upon the waste, as a countryman was digging a ditch about his cottage, he found a crown or a .coronet of gold, with gems set deep in it. It was of a size large enough to be drawn over the arm, with the sleeve. The stones of it are said to have been so valuable, as to be sold by a jeweller for fifteen hundred pounds.

It is truly an old, mean built, and very dirty city, lying low, and on the bank of Wye, which sometimes incommodes them very much, by the violent freshes that come down from the mountains of Wales; for all the rivers of this county, except the Driffin-Doe, come out of Wales.

The chief thing remarkable next to the cathedral, is the college, which still retains its Foundation Laws, and where the residentiaries are still oblig’d to celibacy, but otherwise, live a very happy, easy, and plentiful life; being furnish’d upon the foot of the foundation, besides their ecclesiastical stipends.

The great church is a magnificent building, however ancient, the spire is not high, but handsome, and there is a fine tower at the west end, over the great door or entrance. The choir is very fine, tho’ plain, and there is a very good organ: The revenues of this bishoprick are very considerable, but lye under. some abatement at present, on account of necessary repairs.

There are several monuments in it of antient bishops, but no other of note. Between Leominster and this city, is another Hampton Court, the seat of the Lord Conningsby, who has also a considerable interest in the north part of this county; a person distinguishing himself in the process or impeachment against the late Earl of Oxford, his neighbour; who, to his no small disappointment, escap’d him. There is nothing remarkable here that I could observe: But the name putting me in mind of another Hampton Court, so much beyond it, that the house seems to be a foil to the name; the house was built by Rowland Lenthall, Esq; who was Guard de Robe to Henry IV. so that it is old enough, if that may recommend it, and so is its master.

From Hereford keeping the bank of Wye as near as we could, we came to Ross, a good old town, famous for good cyder, a great manufacture of iron ware, and a good trade on the River Wye, and nothing else as I remember, except it was a monstrous fat woman, who they would have had me gone to see. But I had enough of the relation, and so I suppose will the reader, for they told me she was more than three yards about her wast; that when she sat down, she was oblig’d to have a small stool plac’d before her, to rest her belly on, and the like.

From hence we came at about 8 miles more into Monmouthshire, and to the town of Monmouth. It is an old town situate at the conflux of the Wye and of Munnow, whence the town has its name; it stands in the angle where the rivers joyn, and has a bridge over each river, and a third over the River Trothy, which comes in just below the other.

This town shews by its reverend face, that it is a place of great antiquity, and by the remains of walls, lines, curtains, and bastions, that it has been very strong, and by its situation that it may be made so again: This place is made famous, by being the native place of one of our most antient historians Jeoffry of Monmouth. At present ’tis rather a decay’d than a flourishing town, yet, it drives a considerable trade with the city of Bristol, by the navigation of the Wye.

This river having as I said, just received two large streams, the Mynevly or Munno, and the Trother, is grown a very noble river, and with a deep chanel, and a full current hurries away towards the sea, carrying also vessels of a considerable burthen hereabouts.

Near Monmouth the Duke of Beaufort has a fine old seat, call’d Troy; but since the family has had a much finer palace at Badminton, near the Bath; this tho’ a most charming situation seems to be much neglected.

Lower down upon the Wye stands Chepstow, the sea port for all the towns seated on the Wye and Lug, and where their commerce seems to center. Here is a noble bridge over the Wye: To this town ships of good burthen may come up, and the tide runs here with the same impetuous current as at Bristol; the flood rising from six fathom, to six and a half at Chepstow Bridge. This is a place of very good trade, as is also Newport, a town of the like import upon the River Uske, a great river, tho’ not so big as Wye, which runs thro’ the center of the county, and falls also into the Severn Sea.

This county furnishes great quantities of corn for exportation, and the Bristol merchants frequently load ships here, to go to Portugal, and other foreign countries with wheat; considering the mountainous part of the west of this county, ’tis much they should have such good corn, and so much of it to spare; but the eastern side of the county, and the neighbourhood of Herefordshire, supplies them.

I am now at the utmost extent of England west, and here I must mount the Alps, traverse the mountains of Wales, (and indeed, they are well compar’d to the Alps in the inmost provinces;) But with this exception, that in abundance of places you have the most pleasant and beautiful valleys imaginable, and some of them, of very great extent, far exceeding the valleys so fam’d among the mountains of Savoy, and Piedmont.

The two first counties which border west upon Monmouthshire, are Brecknock, and Glamorgan, and as they are very mountainous, so that part of Monmouthshire which joyns them, begins the rising of the hills. Kyrton-Beacon, Tumberlow, Blorench, Penvail, and Skirridan, are some of the names of these horrid mountains, and are all in this shire; and I could not but fansy my self in view of Mount Brennus, Little Barnard, and Great Barnard, among the Alps. When I saw Plinlimmon Hill, and the sources of the Severn on one side of it, and the Wye and Rydall on the other: it put me in mind of the famous hill, call’d ———in the cantons of Switzerland, out of which the Rhine rises on one side, and the Rhosne, and the Aa on the other. But I shall give you more of them presently.

We now entered South Wales: The provinces which bear the name of South Wales, are these, Glamorgan, Brecknock, Radnor, Caermarthen, Pembroke, and Cardigan. We began with Brecknock, being willing to see the highest of the mountains, which are said to be hereabouts; and indeed, except I had still an idea of the height of the Alps, and of those mighty mountains of America, the Andes, which we see very often in the South-Seas, 20 leagues from the shore: I say except that I had still an idea of those countries on my mind, I should have been surprized at the sight of these hills; nay, (as it was) the Andes and the Alps, tho’ immensly high, yet they stand together, and they are as mountains, pil’d upon mountains, and hills upon hills; whereas sometimes we see these mountains rising up at once, from the lowest valleys, to the highest summits which makes the height look horrid and frightful, even worse than those mountains abroad; which tho’ much higher, rise as it were, one behind another: So that the ascent seems gradual, and consequently less surprising.

Brecknockshire is a meer inland county, as Radnor is; the English jestingly (and I think not very improperly) call it Breakneckshire: ’Tis mountainous to an extremity, except on the side of Radnor, where it is something more low and level. It is well watered by the Wye, and the Uske, two rivers mentioned before; upon the latter stands the town of Brecknock, the capital of the county: The most to be said of this town, is what indeed I have said of many places in Wales, (viz.) that it is very antient, and indeed to mention it here for all the rest, there are more tokens of antiquity to be seen every where in Wales, than in any particular part of England, except the counties of Cumberland, and Northumberland. Here we saw Brecknock-Mere, a large or long lake of water, two or three miles over; of which, they have a great many Welch fables, not worth relating: The best of them is, that a certain river call’d the Lheweni runs thro’ it, and keeps its colour in mid-chanel distinguish’d from the water of the lake, and as they say, never mingles with it. They take abundance of good fish in this lake, so that as is said of the river Thysse in Hungary; they say this lake is two thirds water, and one third fish. The country people affirm, there stood a city once here, but, that by the judgment of Heaven, for the sin of its inhabitants, it sunk into the earth, and the water rose up in the place of it. I observe the same story is mentioned by Mr. Cambden with some difference in the particulars: I believe my share of it, but ’tis remarkable, that Mr. Cambden having lost the old city Loventium, mentioned by Ptolemy to be hereabouts, is willing to account for it, by this old story.

It was among the mountains of this county that the famous Glendower shelter’d himself, and taking arms on the deposing Richard II. proclaimed himself Prince of Wales; and they shew us several little refuges of his in the mountains, whither he retreated, and from whence, again, he made such bold excursions into England.

Tho’ this county be so mountainous, provisions are exceeding plentiful, and also very good all over the county; nor are these mountains useless, even to the city of London, as I have noted of other counties; for from hence they send yearly, great herds of black cattle to England, and which are known to fill our fairs and markets, even that of Smithfield it self.

The yellow mountains of Radnorshire are the same, and their product of cattle is the same; nor did I meet with any thing new, and worth noticing, except monuments of antiquity, which are not the subject of my enquiry: The stories of Vortigern, and Roger of Mortimer, are in every old woman’s mouth here. There is here a great cataract or water fall of the River Wye, at a place call’d Rhayadr Gwy in Welch, which signifies the Cataract or Water Fall of the Wye, but we did not go to see it, by reason of a great flood at that time, which made the way dangerous: There is a kind of desart too, on that side, which is scarce habitable or passable, so we made it our north boundary for this part of our journey, and turn’d away to Glamorganshire.

Entring this shire, from Radnor and Brecknock, we were saluted with Monuchdenny-Hill on our left, and the Black-Mountain on the right, and all a ridge of horrid rocks and precipices between, over which, if we had not had trusty guides, we should never have found our way; and indeed, we began to repent our curiosity, as not having met with any thing worth the trouble; and a country looking so full of horror, that we thought to have given over the enterprise, and have left Wales out of our circuit: But after a day and a night conversing thus with rocks and mountains, our guide brought us down into a most agreeable vale, opening to the south, and a pleasant river running through it, call’d the Taaffe; and following the course of this river, we came in the evening to the antient city of Landaff, and Caerdiff, standing almost together.

Landaff is the seat of the episcopal see, and a city; but Cardiff which is lower on the river, is the port and town of trade; and has a very good harbour opening into the Severn Sea, about 4 miles below the town. The cathedral is a neat building, but very antient; they boast that this church was a house of religious worship many years before any church was founded in England, and that the Christian religion flourish’d here in its primitive purity, from the year 186, till the Pelagian heresy overspread this country; which being afterwards rooted out by the care of the orthodox bishop, they plac’d St. Dobricius as the first bishop in this town of Landaff, then call’d Launton: Tis observable, that though the Bishop of Landaff was call’d an arch-bishop, yet the cathedral church was but 28 foot long, and 10 foot broad, and without any steeple or bells; notwithstanding which the 3 first bishops were afterwards sainted, for their eminent holiness of life, and the miracles they wrought; nor had they any other cathedral from the year 386, to the year 1107, when Bishop Urban built the present church, with some houses for the clergy adjoyning, in the nature of a cloyster. Tho’ the church is antient, yet the building is good, and the choir neat, and pretty well kept; but there are no monuments of note in it, except some so antient, that no inscription can be read, to give any account of.

The south part of this country is a pleasant and agreeable place, and is very populous; ’tis also a very good, fertile, and rich soil, and the low grounds are so well cover’d with grass, and stock’d with cattle, that they supply the city of Bristol with butter in very great quantities salted and barrell’d up, just as Suffolk does the city of London.

The chief sea port is Swanzey, a very considerable town for trade, and has a very good harbour: Here is also a very great trade for coals, and culmn, which they export to all the ports of Sommerset, Devon, and Cornwal, and also to Ireland itself; so that one sometimes sees a hundred sail of ships at a time loading coals here; which greatly enriches the country, and particularly this town of Swanzey, which is really a very thriving place; it stands on the River Tawye, or Taw: ’Tis very remarkable, that most of the rivers in this county chime upon the letters T, and Y, as Taaf, Tawy, Tuy, Towy, Tyevy.

Neath is another port, where the coal trade is also considerable, tho’ it stands farther within the land. Kynfig Castle, is now the seat and estate of the Lord Mansel, who has here also a very royal income from the collieries; I say royal, because equal to the revenues of some sovereign princes, and which formerly denominated Sir Edward Mansel, one of the richest commoners in Wales; the family was enobled by Her late Majesty Queen Anne.

In this neighbourhood, near Margan Mynydd, we saw the famous monument mentioned by Mr. Cambden, on a hill, with the inscription, which the people are so terrify’d at, that no body will care to read it; for they have a tradition from father to son, that whoever ventures to read it, will dye within a month. We did not scruple the adventure at all, but when we came to try, the letters were so defac’d by time, that we were effectually secur’d from the danger; the inscription not being any thing near so legible, as it seems it was in Cambdens time.

The stone pillar is about 4 or 5 foot high, and 1 foot thick, standing on the top of this hill; there are several other such monuments in Radnorshire, and other counties in Wales, as likewise in Scotland we saw the like: But as I have always said, I carefully avoid entering into any discourses of antiquity, as what the narrow compass of these letters will not allow.

Having thus touch’d at what is most curious on this coast, we pass’d thro’ the land of Gowre, and going still west, we came to Caermarthen, or Kaer-Vyrdhin, as the Welsh call it, the capital of the county of Kaermardhinshire.

This is an antient but not a decay’d town, pleasantly situated on the River Towy, or Tovy, which is navigable up to the town, for vessels of a moderate burthen. The town indeed is well built, and populous, and the country round it, is the most fruitful, of any part of all Wales, considering that it continues to be so for a great way; namely, thro’ all the middle of the county, and a great way into the next; nor is this county so mountainous and wild, as the rest of this part of Wales: but it abounds in corn, and in fine flourishing meadows, as good as most are in Britain, and in which are fed, a very great number of good cattle.

The chancery, and exchequer of the principality, was usually kept at this town, till the jurisdiction of the Court and Marches of Wales was taken away. This town was also famous for the birth of the old Brittish prophet Merlin, of whom so many things are fabled, that indeed nothing of its kind ever prevail’d so far, in the delusion of mankind, and who flourish’d in the year 480: And here also the old Britains often kept their parliament or assemblies of their wise men, and made their laws. The town was fortify’d in former times, but the walls are scarcely to be seen now, only the ruins of them.

Here we saw near Kily-Maen Ibwyd, on a great mountain, a circle of mighty stones, very much like Stone-henge in Wiltshire, or rather like the Rollrych Stones in Oxfordshire; and tho’ the people call it Bruarth Arthur, or King Arthur’s Throne, we see no reason to believe that King Arthur knew any thing of it, or that it had any relation to him.

We found the people of this county more civiliz’d and more curteous, than in the more mountainous parts, where the disposition of the inhabitants seems to be rough, like the country: But here as they seem to converse with the rest of the world, by their commerce, so they are more conversible than their neighbours.

The next county west, is Pembrokeshire, which is the most extreme part of Wales on this side, in a rich, fertile, and plentiful country, lying on the sea coast, where it has the benefit of Milford Haven, one of the greatest and best inlets of water in Britain. Mr. Cambden says it contains 16 creeks, 5 great bays, and 13 good roads for shipping, all distinguish’d as such by their names; and some say, a thousand sail of ships may ride in it, and not the topmast of one be seen from another; but this last, I think, merits confirmation.

Before we quitted the coast, we saw Tenbigh, the most agreeable town on all the sea coast of South Wales, except Pembroke, being a very good road for shipping, and well frequented: Here is a great fishery for herring in its season, a great colliery, or rather export of coals, and they also drive a very considerable trade to Ireland.

From hence, the land bearing far into the sea, makes a promontory, call’d St. Govens Head or Point. But as we found nothing of moment was to be seen there, we cross’d over the isthmus to Pembroke, which stands on the E. shore of the great haven of Milford Haven.

This is the largest and richest, and at this time, the most flourishing town of all S. Wales: Here are a great many English merchants, and some of them men of good business; and they told us, there were near 200 sail of ships belong’d to the town, small and great; in a word, all this part of Wales is a rich and flourishing country, but especially this part is so very pleasant, and fertile, and is so well cultivated, that ’tis call’d by distinction, Little England, beyond Wales.

This is the place also made particularly famous for the landing of King Henry VII, then Duke of Richmond: From hence, being resolv’d to see the utmost extent of the county west, we ferry’d over the haven as ———and went to Haverford, or by some call’d Haverford-West; and from thence to St. Davids, or St. Taffys, as the Welch call it. Haverford is a better town than we expected to find, in this remote angle of Britain; ’tis strong, well built, clean, and populous.

From hence to St. Davids, the country begins to look like Wales again, dry, barren, and mountainous; St. Davids is not a bishop’s see only, but was formerly an arch-bishop’s, which they tell us, was by the Pope transferr’d to Dole in Britany, where it still remains.

The venerable aspect of this cathedral church, shews that it has been a beautiful building, but that it is much decay’d. The west end or body of the church is tolerably well; the choir is kept neat, and in tollerable repair, the S. isle without the choir, and the Virgin Mary’s Chappel, which makes the E. end of the church, are in a manner demolish’d, and the roofs of both fallen in.

There are a great many eminent persons bury’d here, besides such, whose monuments are defac’d by time: There is St. Davids monument, to whom the church is dedicated, the monument of the Earl of Richmond, as also of the famous Owen Tudor; there are also four antient monuments of Knights Templara, known by their figures lying cross legg’d; but their names are not known, and there are six several monuments of bishops, who ruled this church, besides St. David.

This St. David they tell us was uncle to King Arthur, that he lived to 146 years of age, that he was bishop of this church 65 years, being born in the year 496, and dyed ann. 642; that he built 12 monasteries, and did abundance of miracles.

There was a very handsome house for the bishop, with a college, all built in a close by themselves, but they are now turn’d to ruins.

Here the weather being very clear, we had a full view of Ireland, tho’ at a very great distance: The land here is call’d St. Davids Head, and from hence, there has some time ago, gone a passage boat constantly between England and Ireland, but that voiture is at present discontinued. They reckon up 112 bishops of this see, since it begun, to the year 1712.

The last bishop but two, was Dr. Thomas Watson, of whom the world has heard so much, being depriv’d after a long debate, on a charge of simony; whether justly, or not, I shall not enquire, but he bestow’d great sums on charitable designs, and is still (living) enclined as I am told, to do much more.

From hence we turn’d N. keeping the sea in our W. prospect. and a rugged mountainous country on the E. where the hills even darken’d the air with their heighth; as we went on, we past by Newport, on the River Nevern, a town having a good harbour, and consequently a good trade with Ireland.

Here we left Pembrokeshire, and after about 22 miles, came to the town of Cardigan, an old and well inhabited town, on the River Tivy: ’Tis a very noble river indeed, and famous for its plenty of the best and largest salmon in Britain.

The country people told us, that they had beavers here, which bred in the lakes among the mountains, and came down the stream of Tivy to feed; that they destroy’d the young frye of salmon, and therefore the country people destroy’d them; but they could shew us none of them, or any of their skins, neither could the countrymen describe them, or tell us that they had ever seen them; so that we concluded they only meant the otter, till I found after our return, that Mr. Cambden mentions also, that there were beavers seen here formerly.

This town of Cardigan was once possess’d by the great Robert Fitz-Stephen, who was the first Britain that ever attempted the conquest of Ireland; and had such success with a handful of men, as afterwards gave the English a footing there, which they never quitted afterwards, till they quite reduc’d the country, and made it, as it were, a province of England.

The town is not large, has been well fortify’d, but that part is now wholly neglected. It has a good trade with Ireland, and is enrich’d very much, as is all this part of the country, by the famous lead mines, formerly discover’d by Sir Carbery Price, which are the greatest, and perhaps the richest in England; and particularly as they require so little labour and charge to come at the oar, which in many places lyes within a fathom or two of the surface, and in some, even bare to the very top.

Going N. from the Tyvy about 25 miles, we came to Abrystwyth, that is to say, the town at the mouth of the River Ystwyth. This town is enrich’d by the coals and lead which is found in its neighbourhood, and is a populous, but a very dirty, black, smoaky place, and we fancy’d the people look’d as if they liv’d continually in the coal or lead mines. However, they are rich, and the place is very populous.

The whole county of Cardigan is so full of cattle, that ’tis said to be the nursery, or breeding-place for the whole kingdom of England, S. by Trent; but this is not a proof of its fertility, for tho’ the feeding of cattle indeed requires a rich soil, the breeding them does not, the mountains and moors being as proper for that purpose as richer land.

Now we enter’d N. Wales, only I should add, that as we pass’d, we had a sight of the famous Plymlymon-Hill, out of the east side of which as I mentioned before, rises the Severn, and the Wye; and out of the west side of it, rises the Rydall and the Ystwyth. This mountain is exceeding high, and tho’ it is hard to say which is the highest hill in Wales, yet I think this bids fair for it; nor is the county for 20 miles round it, any thing but a continued ridge of mountains: So that for almost a whole week’s travel, we seem’d to be conversing with the upper regions; for we were often above the clouds, I’m sure, a very great way, and the names of some of these hills seem’d as barbarous to us, who spoke no Welch, as the hills themselves.

Passing these mountains, I say, we enter’d N. Wales, which contains the counties of Montgomery, Merionith, Caernarvon, Denbeigh, and Flint shires, and the Isle of Anglesea.

In passing Montgomery-shire, we were so tired with rocks and mountains, that we wish’d heartily we had kept close to the sea shore, but it not much mended the matter if we had, as I understood afterwards: The River Severn is the only beauty of this county, which rising I say, out of the Plymlymon Mountain, receives instantly so many other rivers into its bosom, that it becomes navigable before it gets out of the county; namely, at Welch Pool, on the edge of Shropshire. This is a good fashionable place, and has many English dwelling in it, and some very good families; but we saw nothing farther worth remarking.

The vales and meadows upon the bank of the Severn, are the best of this county, I had almost said, the only good part of it; some are of opinion, that, the very water of the Severn, like that of Nile, impregnates the valleys, and when it overflows, leaves a vertue behind it, particularly to itself; and this they say is confirm’d, because all the country is so fruitful, wherever this river does overflow, and its waters reach. The town, or rather as the natives call it, the city of Montgomery, lyes not far from this river, on the outer edge of the country next to Herefordshire. This was, it seems, a great frontier town in the wars between the English and the Welch, and was beautify’d and fortify’d by King Henry III; the town is now much decay’d: It gives title to the eldest son of the ducal house of Powis, who is call’d Lord Montgomery, and Marquis of Powis; they have a noble seat at Troy, hard by this town on the other side the river: But the house of Pembroke also claims the title of Montgomery.

This county is noted for an excellent breed of Welch horses, which, though not very large, are exceeding valuable, and much esteem’d all over England; all the North and West part of the county is mountainous and stony. We saw a great many old monuments in this country, and Roman camps wherever we came, and especially if we met any person curious in such things, we found they had many Roman coins; but this was none of my enquiry, as I have said already.

Merionithshire, or Merionydshire, lyes west from Montgomeryshire; it lyes on the Irish Sea, or rather the ocean; for St. George’s Chanel does not begin till further north, and it is extended on the coast, for near 35 miles in length, all still mountainous and craggy. The principal river is the Tovy, which rises among the unpassable mountains, which range along the center of this part of Wales, and which we call unpassable, for that even the people themselves call’d them so; we look’d at them indeed with astonishment, for their rugged tops, and the immense height of them: Some particular hills have particular names, but otherwise we called them all the Black Mountains, and they well deserv’d the name; some think ’tis from the unpassable mountains of this county, that we have an old saying, that the devil lives in the middle of Wales, tho’ I know there is another meaning given to it; in a word, Mr. Cambden calls these parts the Alps of Wales.

There is but few large towns in all this part, nor is it very populous; indeed much of it is scarce habitable, but ’tis said, there are more sheep in it, than in all the rest of Wales. On the sea shore however, we see Harleigh-Castle, which is still a garrison, and kept for the guard of the coast, but ’tis of no great strength, but by its situation.

In the middle of these vast mountains (and forming a very large lake (viz.) near its first sources) rises the River Dee, of which I shall speak again in its proper place.

Here among innumerable summits, and rising peaks of nameless hills, we saw the famous Kader-Idricks, which some are of opinion, is the highest mountain in Britain, another call’d Rarauvaur, another call’d Mowylwynda, and still every hill we saw, we thought was higher than all that ever we saw before.

We enquired here after that strange phænomenon which was not only seen, but fatally experienced by the country round this place, namely, of a livid fire, coming off from the sea; and setting on fire, houses, barns, stacks of hay and corn, and poisoning the herbage in the fields; of which there is a full account given in the philosophical transactions: And as we had it confirm’d by the general voice of the people, I content my self with giving an account of it as follows:

It is observable, that the eclipses of the sun in Aries, have been very fatal to this place; for in the years 1542, and 1567, when the sun was eclipsed in that sign, it suffer’d very much by fire; and after the latter eclipse of the two, the fire spread so far, that about 200 houses in the town and suburbs of Caernarvon, were consum’d.

But to return to the face of things, as they appear’d to us, the mountainous country spoken of runs away N. through this county and almost the next, I mean Caernarvonshire, where Snowden Hill is a monstrous height, and according to its name, had snow on the top in the beginning of June; and perhaps had so till the next June, that is to say, all the year.

These unpassable heights were doubtless the refuges of the Britains, when they made continual war with the Saxons and Romans, and retreated on occasion of their being over power’d, into these parts; where, in short, no enemy could pursue them.

That side of the country of Carnarvon, which borders on the sea, is not so mountainous, and is both more fertile and more populous. The principal town in this part, is Carnarvon, a good town, with a castle built by Edward I. to curb and reduce the wild people of the mountains, and secure the passage into Anglesea. As this city was built by Edward I. so he kept his Court often here, and honour’d it with his presence very much; and here his eldest son and successor, tho’ unhappy, (Ed. II.) was born, who was therefore call’d Edward of Caernarvon. This Edward was the first Prince of Wales; that is to say, the first of the Kings of Englands sons, who was vested with the title of Prince of Wales: And here was kept the chancery and exchequer of the Prince’s of Wales, for the N. part of the principality, as it was at —— for the S. part. It is a small, but strong town, clean and well built, and considering the place, the people are very courteous and obliging to strangers. It is seated on the firth or inlet call’d Menai, parting the isle of Anglesea, or Mona, from the main land; and here is a ferry over to the island called Abermenai Ferry: And from thence a direct road to Holly Head, where we went for no purpose, but to have another view of Ireland, tho’ we were disappointed, the weather being bad and stormy.

Whoever travels critically over these mountains, I mean of S. Wales, and Merionithshire, will think Stone-henge in Wiltshire, and Roll-Rich Stones in Oxfordshire no more a wonder, seeing there are so many such, and such like, in these provinces; that they are not thought strange of at all, nor is it doubted, but they were generally monuments of the dead, as also are the single stones of immense bulk any other, of which we saw so many, that we gave over remarking them; some we saw from 7, 8, to 10, and one 16 foot high, being a whole stone, but so great, that the most of the wonder is, where they were found, and how dragg’d to the place; since, besides the steep ascents to some of the hills on which they stand, it would be impossible to move some of them, now, with 50 yoke of oxen. And yet a great many of these stones are found confusedly lying one upon another on the utmost summit or top of the Glyder, or other Hills, in Merionith and Carnarvonshire; to which it is next to impossible, that all the power of art, and strength of man and beast could carry them, and the people make no difficulty of saying the devil set them up there.

One of these monumental stones is to be seen a little way from Harleigh-Castle: It is a large stone lying flat, supported by three other stones at 3 of the 4 angles, tho’ the stone is rather oval than square, it is almost n foot long, the breadth unequal, but in some places its from 7 to 8 foot broad, and it may be suppos’d has been both longer and broader; ’tis in some places above 2 foot thick, but in others ’tis worn almost to an edge by time: The three stones that support it, are about 20 inches square, ’tis suppos’d there has been four, two of which that support the thickest end, are near 8 foot high, the other not above 3 foot, being suppos’d to be settled in the ground, so that the stone lyes sloping, like the roof of a barn. There is another of these to be seen in the isle of Anglesea, the flat stone is much larger and thicker than this; but we did not go to see it: There are also two circles of stones in that island, such as Stone-henge, but the stones much larger.

This is a particular kind of monument, and therefore I took notice of it, but the other are generally single stones of vast magnitude, set up on one end, column wise, which being so very large, are likely to remain to the end of time; but are generally without any inscription, or regular shape or any mark, to intimate for who, or for what they were so placed.

These mountains are indeed so like the Alps, that except the language of the people, one could hardly avoid thinking he is passing from Grenoble to Susa, or rather passing the country of the Grisons. The lakes also, which are so numerous here, make the similitude the greater, nor are the fables which the country people tell of these lakes, much unlike the stories which we meet with among the Switzers, of the famous lakes in their country; Dr. Gibson, (Mr. Cambdens continuator) tells us of 50 or 60 lakes in Carnarvonshire only, we did not count them indeed, but I believe if we had, we should have found them to be many more.

Here we met with the char fish, the same kind which we see in Lancashire, and also in the lakes of Switzerland, and no where else, that I have heard of in Europe; the Welch call it the torgoch.

There is nothing of note to be seen in the Isle of Anglesea but the town, and the castle of Baumaris, which was also built by King Edward I. and call’d Beau-Marsh, or the Fine Plain; for here the country is very level and plain, and the land is fruitful and pleasant. The castle was very large, as may be seen by its remains, and that it was strong; the situation will tell also, but ’tis now of no use.

As we went to Holly Head, by the S. part of the island from Newborough, and came back thro’ the middle to Beaumaris, we saw the whole extent of it, and indeed, it is a much pleasanter country, than any part of N. Wales, that we had yet seen; and particularly is very fruitful for corn and cattle.

Here we cross’d the Fretum, or strait of Meneu again, and came to Bangor, at the place where King Edward I. intended to have built a great stone bridge, it wou’d indeed have been a work fit for so great and powerful a king, as K. Edward was: But the bottom being doubtful, and the sea in that place sometimes very raging and strong, the workmen thought it impracticable, and tho’ as we were told, that the king was very positive in his design for a great while, yet he was prevail’d with at last to decline it.

From hence, I say, we cross’d to Bangor, a town noted for its antiquity, its being a bishops see, and an old, mean looking, and almost despicable cathedral church.

This church claims to be one of the most antient in Britain, the people say, ’tis the most antient; that St. Daniel (to whom this church was dedicated) was first bishop here, in the year 512. They allow that the pagans, perhaps of Anglesea, ruined the church, and possess’d the bishoprick after it was first built, for above 100 years; nor is there any account of it from the year 512, to 1009: After this, the bishoprick was ruined again by dilapidation, by one of its own bishops, whose name was Bulkeley, who, as the Monasticon says, not only sold the revenues, but even the very bells, for which sacrilege he was struck blind; but this last is a tradition only.

It is certainly at present a poor bishoprick, and has but a poor cathedral; yet the bishops are generally allow’d to hold some other good benefice in commendam, and the preferment seems to be a grateful introduction to the clergy, as the bishops are generally translated from hence, to a more profitable bishoprick.

From Bangor we went north, (keeping the sea on our left hand) to Conway. This is the poorest but pleasantest town in all this county for the bigness of it; it is seated on the bank of a fine river, which is not only pleasant and beautiful, but is a noble harbour for ships, had they any occasion for them there; the stream is deep and safe, and the river broad, as the Thames at Deptford: It only wants a trade suitable to so good a port, for it infinitely out does Chester or Leverpool itself.

In this passage, we went over the famous precipice call’d Penmen-muir, which indeed fame has made abundance more frightful, than it really is; for tho’ the rock is indeed very high, and if any one should fall from it, it wou’d dash them in pieces, yet, on the other hand, there is no danger of their falling; and besides, there is now a wall built all the way, on the edge of the precipice, to secure them: Those who have been at the hill or pass of Enterkin in Scotland, know very well, the danger there is much greater, than what can be thought of here; as the frequent loss of lives, both of man and horse will testify.

We have but little remarkable in the road from Conway to Hollywell, but craggs and rocks all along the N. shore of Denbeigh, till we came to Denbeigh town. This is the county town, and is a large populous place, which carries something in its countenance of its neighbourhood to England, but that which was most surprizing, after such a tiresom and fatiguing journey, over the unhospitable mountains of Merioneth, and Carnarvonshire, was, that descending now from the hills, we came into a most pleasant, fruitful, populous, and delicious vale, full of villages and towns, the fields shining with corn, just ready for the reapers, the meadows green and flowery, and a fine river, with a mild and gentle stream running thro’ it: Nor is it a small or casual intermission, but we had a prospect of the country open before us, for above 20 miles, in length, and from 5 to 7 miles in breadth, all smiling with the same kind of complexion; which made us think our selves in England again, all on a sudden.

In this pleasant vale, turning N. from Denbeigh, and following the stream of the river, we came to S. Asaph, a small city, with a cathedral, being a bishoprick of tolerable good value, though the church is old: It is but a poor town, and ill built, tho’ the country is so pleasant and rich round it. There are some old monuments in this church, but none of any note, nor could we read the Welch inscriptions.

From hence we come to Holly-well: The stories of this Well of S. Winifrid are, that the pious virgin, being ravished and murthered, this healing water sprung out of her body when buried; but this smells too much of the legend, to take up any of my time; the Romanists indeed believe it, as ’tis evident, from their thronging hither to receive the healing sanative virtue of the water, which they do not hope for as it is a medicinal water, but as it is a miraculous water, and heals them by virtue of the intercession and influence of this famous virgin, St. Winifrid; of which I believe as much as comes to my share.

Here is a fine chapel cut out of a solid rock, and was dedicated to this holy virgin; and numbers of pilgrims resort to it, with no less devotion than ignorance; under this chapel the water gushes out in a great stream, and the place where it breaks out, is form’d like a basin or cistern, in which they bathe: The water is intensely cold, and indeed there is no great miracle in that point, considering the rocks it flows from, where it is impregnated by divers minerals, the virtue of which, and not of the saint, I suppose, work the greatest part of the cures.

There is a little town near the well, which may, indeed, be said to have risen from the confluence of the people hither, for almost all the houses are either publick houses, or let into lodgings; and the priests that attend here, and are very numerous, appear in disguise: Sometimes they are physicians, sometimes surgeons, sometimes gentlemen, and sometimes patients, or any thing as occasion presents. No body takes notice of them, as to their profession, tho’ they know them well enough, no not the Roman Catholicks themselves; but in private, they have their proper oratory’s in certain places, whither the votaries resort; and good manners has prevail’d so far, that however the Protestants know who and who’s together; no body takes notice of it, or enquires where one another goes, or has been gone.

From hence we past by Flint-Castle, a known place, but of no significance; and then in a few hours we cross’d the River Dee, and arriv’d at the city of West Chester, from whence, I shall give a farther account of my journey in my next.

I am,
SIR, Yours, &c.

¹ N.B. This was an expression the king used on no occasion, but such, as where the places were exquisitely fine, and particularly pleased him: and it was not observ’d that ever his majesty said it of any place in England, but of this, and of Burleigh-House by Stamford in Lincolnshire, the seat of the Earl of Exeter.

Letter VII. Containing A Description Of Part Of Cheshire, Shropshire, Wales, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Rutlandshire, And Bedfordshire

Cheshire and North-West Midlands

SIR, — My last from West Chester, gave you a full account of my progress thro’ Wales, and my coming to Chester, at the end of that really fatiguing journey: I must confess, I that have seen the Alps, on so many occasions, have gone under so many of the most frightful passes in the country of the Grisons, and in the mountains of Tirol, never believ’d there was any thing in this island of Britain that came near, much less that exceeded those hills, in the terror of their aspect, or in the difficulty of access to them; But certainly, if they are out done any where in the world, it is here: Even Hannibal himself wou’d have found it impossible to have march’d his army over Snowden, or over the rocks of Merioneth and Montgomery Shires; no, not with all the help that fire and vinegar could have yielded, to make way for him.

The only support we had in this heavy journey, was, (1.) That we generally found their provisions very good and cheap, and very good accommodations in the inns. And (2.) That the Welsh gentlemen are very civil, hospitable, and kind; the people very obliging and conversible, and especially to strangers; but when we let them know, we travell’d merely in curiosity to view the country, and be able to speak well of them to strangers, their civility was heightened to such a degree, that nothing could be more friendly, willing to tell us every thing that belong’d to their country, and to show us every thing that we desired to see.

They value themselves much upon their antiquity: The antient race of their houses, and families, and the like; and above all, upon their antient heroes: their King Caractacus, Owen ap Tudor, Prince Lewellin, and the like noblemen and princes of British extraction; and as they believe their country to be the pleasantest and most agreeable in the world, so you cannot oblige them more, than to make them think you believe so too.

The gentlemen of Wales, indeed, justly claim a very antient descent, and have preserv’d their families entire, for many ages: They receive you well into their houses, treat you very handsomely, are very generous; and indeed, nothing is wanting within doors; and which is more than all, they have generally very good estates.

I continued at Chester for some time, except that I made two or three excursions into the neighbouring country, and particularly into that part of Shropshire, which I had not view’d as I went; as also into the north, and north west part of Cheshire.

The first trip I made, was into the Cestria Chersonesus, as I think we may properly call it, (viz.) a piece of the county, which runs out a great way into the Irish Sea, and is bounded by the two great firths, or arms of the sea, the one call’d the mouth of the Dee, and the other of two rivers, the Mersey, and the Wever; this isthmus or neck of land, is about 16 miles long, and about 6 or 7 miles over, and has not one market town in it, tho’ ’tis exceeding rich and fertile; the last occasioned possibly by the neighbourhood of two such great towns, or cities rather: I mean Chester and Leverpool.

Going down from Chester, by the Rhoodee, as they call it, that is, the marshes of the River Dee, and coasting the river after it is grown broader than the marshes; the first place of any note which we come to, is Nesson, a long nase or ness of land, which running out into the sea, makes a kind of a key. This is the place where in the late war in Ireland, most of the troops embark’d, when that grand expedition begun; after which, the vessels go away to Highlake, in which as the winds may happen they ride safe in their way, as the ships from London lye in the Downs, till the wind presents for their respective voyages.

From Nesson we cross’d over that fruitful level I mentioned before, and coming to the other water, we ferry’d over to Leverpool. This town is now become so great, so populous, and so rich, that it may be call’d the Bristol of this part of England: It had formerly but one church, but upon the encrease of inhabitants, and of new buildings in so extraordinary a manner, they have built another very fine church in the north part of the town; and they talk of erecting two more.

The first thing we observ’d in this church, was a fine marble font, all of one entire stone, given to the town, or church rather, by the late Robert Heysham Esq; a citizen and very considerable merchant of London; who was many years representative for the town of Lancaster. Here is a very fine new built tower also, and in it a curious ring of eight, very good bells. This part of the town may indeed be call’d New Leverpool, for that, they have built more than another Leverpool that way, in new streets, and fine large houses for their merchants: Besides this, they have made a great wet dock, for laying up their ships, and which they greatly wanted; for tho’ the Mersey is a noble harbour, and is able to ride a thousand sail of ships at once, yet those ships that are to be laid up, or lye by the walls all the winter, or longer, as sometimes may be the case; must ride there, as in an open road, or (as the seamen call it,) be haled a shore; neither of which wou’d be practicable in a town of so much trade: And in the time of the late great storm, they suffer’d very much on that account.

This is the only work of its kind in England, except what is in the river of Thames, I mean for the merchants; nor is it many years since there was not one wet dock in England for private use, except Sir Henry Johnson’s at Black Wall.

This is still an encreasing flourishing town, and if they go on in trade, as they have done for some time, ’tis probable it will in a little time be as big as the city of Dublin. The houses here are exceedingly well built, the streets strait, clean, and spacious, and they are now well supplied with water. The merchants here have a very pretty Exchange, standing upon 12 free-stone columns, but it begins to be so much too little, that ’tis thought they must remove or enlarge it. They talk already as I have said above, of building two churches more at Leverpool, and surrounding them with new streets, to the N.E. of the old town, which if they should, Leverpool will soon out do Bristol: In short, ’tis already the next town to Bristol, and in a little time may probably exceed it, both in commerce, and in numbers of people.

We went no farther this way at that time, but came back to Chester, by the same ferry as we went over.

As I am now at Chester, ’tis proper to say something of it, being a city well worth describing: Chester has four things very remarkable in it. 1. It’s walls, which are very firm, beautiful, and in good repair. 2. The castle, which is also kept up, and has a garrison always in it. 3. The cathedral. 4. The River Dee, and 5. the bridge over it.

It is a very antient city, and to this day, the buildings are very old; nor do the Rows as they call them, add any thing, in my opinion, to the beauty of the city; but just the contrary, they serve to make the city look both old and ugly: These Rows are certain long galleries, up one pair of stairs, which run along the side of the streets, before all the houses, tho’ joined to them, and as is pretended, they are to keep the people dry in walking along. This they do indeed effectually, but then they take away all the view of the houses from the street, nor can a stranger, that was to ride thro’ Chester, see any shops in the city; besides, they make the shops themselves dark, and the way in them is dark, dirty, and uneven.

The best ornament of the city, is, that the streets are very broad and fair, and run through the whole city in strait lines, crossing in the middle of the city, as at Chichester: the walls as i have said, are in very good repair, and it is a very pleasant walk round the city, upon the walls, and within the battlements, from whence you may see the country round; and particularly on the side of the Roodee, which i mentioned before, which is a fine large low green, on the bank of the Dee. In the winter this green is often under water by the inundations of the river, and a little before I came there, they had such a terrible land flood, which flow’d 8 foot higher than usual so that it not only overflowed the said green, call’d the Roodee, but destroy’d a fine new wharf and landing-place for goods, a little below the town, bore down all the warehouses, and other buildings, which the merchants had erected for securing their goods, and carried all away goods and buildings together, to the irreparable loss of the persons concern’d: also beyond the Roodee, one sees from the walls of Chester the county of Flint, and the mountains of Wales, a prospect best indeed, at a distance.

The castle of Chester is a good firm building, and strong, tho’ not fortify’d, with many out works: There is always a good garrison kept, and here the prisoners taken at Presten, in the late time of Rebellion, were kept a great while, till compassion to their misery, mov’d the clemency of the conqueror to deliver them. They say this castle was built or at least repair’d by Hugh Lupus, the famous Earl of Chester, and brother to William the Conqueror as also was the church.

The great church here is a very magnificent building, but ’tis built of a red, sandy, ill looking stone, which takes much from the beauty of it, and which yielding to the weather, seems to crumble, and suffer by time, which much defaces the building: Here they shew’d us the monument of Henry IV. Emperor of Germany; who they say, resign’d his empire, and liv’d a recluse here, but ’tis all to be taken upon trust, for we find nothing of it in history. We saw no monument of any note, which is partly occasion’d by its remote situation, and partly by its being but a modern bishoprick; for it was formerly a part of the diocess of Litchfield, and was not made a bishop’s see till the year 1541; when King Henry VIII. divided it from Litchfield; nor has there ever been above 19 bishops of this see from its foundation. The short account of it is thus. Hugh Lupus gave the old monastery dedicated to St. Werburge, to a society of monks, after which, they say, King Edgar who conquer’d all this part of Britain, and was rowed up the Dee, in his royal barge, by four kings, founded the great church; and Hugh Lupus the great, Earl of Chester, finish’d and endow’d it.

Here is a noble stone bridge over the Dee, very high and strong built, and ’tis needful it should be so, indeed; for the Dee is a most furious stream at some seasons, and brings a vast weight of water with it from the mountains of Wales. Here it was that the first army of King William, design’d for the war in Ireland, and commanded by the great Duke Schomberg, encamp’d, for a considerable time before they embark’d. ann. 1689.

Here according to the Monasticon, the said Hugh Lupus held his parliament for the county palatine of Chester, given him by William the Conqueror, and where he sat in as great state as the king himself. The draught of which, as it is given us from antiquity, take as follows.

There are 11 parishes in this city, and very good churches to them, and it is the largest city in all this side of England that is so remote from London. When I was formerly at this city, about the year 1690, they had no water to supply their ordinary occasions, but what was carried from the River Dee upon horses, in great leather vessels, like a pair of bakers panyers; just the very same for shape and use, as they have to this day in the streets of Constantinople, and at Belgrade, in Hungary; to carry water about the streets to sell, for the people to drink. But at my coming there this time, I found a very good water-house in the river, and the city plentifully supply’d by pipes, just as London is from the Thames; tho’ some parts of Chester stands very high from the river.

Tho’ this is not an antient bishoprick, ’tis an antient city, and was certainly a frontier of the Roman Empire this way; and its being so afterwards to the English Empire also, has doubtless been the reason of its being so well kept, and the castle continued in repair, when most of the other castles on the frontiers were slighted and demolished.

This county, however remote from London, is one of those which contributes most to its support, as well as to several other parts of England, and that is by its excellent cheese, which they make here in such quantities, and so exceeding good, that as I am told from very good authority, the city of London only take off 14000 ton every year; besides 8000 ton which they say goes every year down the Rivers Severn and Trent, the former to Bristol, and the latter to York; including all the towns on both these large rivers: And besides the quantity ship’d both here, and at Leverpool, to go to Ireland, and Scotland. So that the quantity of cheese made in this country, must be prodigious great. Indeed, the whole county is employ’d in it, and part of its neighbourhood too; for tho’ ’tis call’d by the name of Cheshire Cheese, yet great quantities of it are made in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Lancashire, that is to say, in such parts of them as border upon Cheshire.

The soil is extraordinary good, and the grass they say, has a peculiar richness in it, which disposes the creatures to give a great quantity of milk, and that very sweet and good; and this cheese manufacture, for such it is, encreases every day, and greatly enriches all the county; raises the value of the lands, and encourages the farmers to the keeping vast stocks of cows; the very number of the cattle improving and enriching the land.

The east part of the county abounds in salt springs, from which they draw the brine, and boyl it into fine salt; and once it was a very considerable trade, which they carried on with this salt; but since the discovery of the rock salt, which they dig in great quantities, towards Warrington, the other salt is not in so much request.

I now resolv’d to direct my course east, and making the Wever and the Trent, my northern boundary in this circuit; I came forward to view the midland counties of England, I mean such as rnay be said to lye between the Thames and the Trent.

I had taken a little trip into the N.E. parts of Cheshire before, seen a fine old seat of the Lord Delamere’s, and which is beyond it all, the fine forest, which bears the name of that noble family; intending to see the salt pits at Northwich, which are odd indeed, but not so very strange as we were made to believe; the thing is, they say, the salt spring is found to be just perpendicularly under the stream or chanel of a fresh water river, namely, the Wever, and it is so, for the spring is very deep indeed in the ground, but that very thing takes off the wonder; for as the earth under the river, is but as a gutter to carry the water, there is no difficulty that it should not penetrate through it, the soil being a strong clay. So we came away not extremely gratify’d in our curiosity.

All the way as we cross’d this part of the county, we see Beeston Castle, an antient castle, giving name to a very antient family in this county. It stands upon a very high hill, over looking the county, like as Beavoir Castle over looks the vale of that name in Leicestershire; or as Harrow on the Hill over looks Middlesex. It was formerly a very strong place, and was re-fortify’d in the late wars, Sir William Beeston being in arms at that unhappy time; but the works are now demolish’d again.

From Northwich we turn’d S. and following the stream of the river by Middle Wich, we cross’d the great London road at Nantwich, or as some write it Namptwych; these are the three salt making towns of this county; there is a fourth which is call’d Droitwych, in Worcestershire; the nature of the thing is this, they boil the brine into fine salt, which is much priz’d for the beauty of its colour, and fineness of the grain, but the salt is not so strong, as what we now make from the rock salt mentioned above, and therefore loses of its value.

Hence we turn’d a little W. to Whitchurch, in Shropshire. But before I leave Cheshire, I must note two things of it. (1.) That there is no part of England, where there are such a great number of families of gentry, and of such antient and noble extraction; Mr. Cambden is very particular in their names, and descents, but that’s a work too long for this place, nor does it belong to my present design. (2.) That it is a County Palatine, and has been for so many ages, that its government is distinct from any other and very particular; it is administred by a chamberlain, a judge special, two barons of the exchequer, three sergeants at law, a sheriff, and attorney, and escheator, and all proper and useful subordinate officers; and the jurisdiction of all these offices are kept up, and preserv’d very strictly, only we are to note, that the judge special as he is call’d, tries only civil causes, not criminal, which are left to the ordinary judges of England, who go the circuits here, as in other places.

Whitchurch is a pleasant and populous town, and has a very good church, in which is the famous monument of the great Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury, who, perhaps, and not unworthily, was call’d in his time, the English ACHILLES. This is the Talbot so renowned in the antient wars in France, whom no man in France dare to encounter single handed, and who had engraven on his sword, on one side, these words, Sum Talboti, and on the reverse, Pro vincere inimicos meos. His epitaph is as follows:

ORATE PRO ANIMA PRÆNOBILIS DOMINI, DOMINI IOANNIS TALBOTT QUONDAM COMITIS SALOPIÆ, DOMINI TALBOTT, DOMINI FVRNIVALL, DOMINI VERDON, DOMINI STRANGE DE BLACKMERE, ET MARESCHALLI FRANCIÆ, QUI OBIIT IN BELLO APVD BVRDEWS VII. IVLII MCCCCLIII

That is,

Pray for the soul of the right honourable Lord, Lord John Talbott, sometime Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Talbott, Lord Furnivall, Lord Verdon, Lord Strange of Blackmere, and Marshall of France, who dyed in battel, at Burdeaux, VII. of July, MCCCCLIII.

But the most to be said of this town now, is, that they have a good market, and a great many gentry near it, whereof some are Roman Catholicks. They tell us that this town when King Charles I. remov’d his standard from Nottingham to Shrewsbury, raised a whole regiment for the king: Nor has this town lost its old loyal principle, to this time; tho’ now it may run a little another way.

From hence we went towards Wales again, and cross’d the Dee, at Bangor Bridge; I could not satisfy myself to omit seeing this famous town, which was once so remarkable, but was surpriz’d when I came there, to see there was a stone-bridge over the Dee, and indeed, a very fine one: But as for the town or monastery, scarce any of the ruins were to be seen, and as all the people spoke Welch, we could find no body that could give us any intelligence. So effectually had time in so few years, ras’d the very foundations of the place. I will not say, as some do, that this is miraculous, and that it is the particular judgment of God upon the place, for being the birth-place of that arch heretick Pelagius, who from hence also began to broach his heretical opinions, which afterwards so terribly overspread the Church: I say I will not insist upon this: That Pelagius was a monk of Bungor, or Banchor, is not doubted; but for the rest I leave it where I find it.

The place is now (I say) a poor contemptible village, and has nothing to show but a fine stone bridge over Dee, by which we enter Denbighshire in Wales. From thence we visited Wrexham, having heard much of a fine church there, but we were greatly disappointed: There is indeed a very large tower steeple, if a tower may be call’d a steeple, and ’tis finely adorn’d with imagery; but far from fine: the work is mean, the statues seem all mean and in dejected postures, without any fancy or spirit in the workmanship, and as the stone is of a reddish crumbling kind, like the cathedral at Chester, Time has made it look gross and rough.

There are a great many antient monuments in this church, and in the church-yard also; but none of note, and almost all the inscriptions are in Welch. The church is large; but they must be much mistaken, who tell us ’tis the finest in England, no not among those which are as old as itself.

This town is large, well built and populous, and besides the church there are two large meeting-houses, in one of which we were told they preach in Welch one part of the day, and in English the other. Here is a great market for Welch flannel which the factors buy up of the poor Welch people, who manufacture it; and thence it is sent to London; and it is a very considerable manufacture indeed thro’ all this part of the country, by which the poor are very profitably employ’d.

From hence we turn’d south, and passing by Wem, the title given by King James II. to the late Lord Chancellor Jefferies, we saw the house where his father, then but a private gentleman liv’d, and in but middling circumstances. Thence we came to Ellsmere, famous for a great lake or mere, which gives the town its name, and which the people pretend has in some places no bottom. This place is remarkable for good fish. From hence we came the same night to Shrewsbury.

This is indeed a beautiful, large, pleasant, populous, and rich? town; full of gentry and yet full of trade too; for here too, is a great manufacture, as well of flannel, as also of white broadcloth, which enriches all the country round it.

The Severn surrounds this town, just as the Thames does the Isle of Dogs; so that it makes the form of an horse-shoe, over which there are two fine stone bridges, upon one of which is built a very noble gate, and over the arch of the gate the statue of the great Lewellin, the idol of the Welch, and their last Prince of Wales.

This is really a town of mirth and gallantry, something like Bury in Suffolk, or Durham in the north, but much bigger than either of them, or indeed than both together.

Over the market-house is kept a kind of hall for the manufactures, which are sold here weekly in very great quantities; they speak all English in the town, but on a market-day you would think you were in Wales.

Here is the greatest market, the greatest plenty of good provisions, and the cheapest that is to be met with in all the western part of England; the Severn supplies them here with excellent salmon, but ’tis also brought in great plenty from the River Dee, which is not far off, and which abounds with a very good kind, and is generally larger than that in the Severn; As an example of the cheapness of provisions, we paid here, in a publick inn, but a groat a night for hay, and six-pence a peck for oats for our horses, which is cheaper than we found it in the cheapest part of the north of England; all our other provisions were in proportion; and there is no doubt but the cheapness of provisions joined to the pleasantness and healthiness of the place, draws a great many families thither, who love to live within the compass of their estates.

Mr. Cambden calls it a city: Tis at this day, says he, a fine city well-inhabited: But we do not now call it a city, yet ’tis equal to many good cities in England, and superior to some. Near this place was fought the bloody battle between Henry Hotspur and Henry IV. King of England, in which the former was kill’d, and all his army overthrown, and the place is call’d Battlefield to this day.

Here are four very fine churches, whereof two St. Chad’s and St. Mary’s, are said to be anciently collegiate: There are abundance of ancient monuments in them all, but too many to mention here, my journey being too long, and my bounds too short to enter upon the particulars.

This town will for ever be famous for the reception it gave to King Charles the I. who, after setting up his standard at Nottingham, and finding no encouragement there, remov’d to Shrewsbury, being invited by the gentry of the town and country round, where he was receiv’d with such a general affection, and hearty zeal by all the people, that his majesty recover’d the discouragement of his first step at Nottingham, and raised and compleated a strong army in less time than could be imagin’d; insomuch that to the surprize of the Parliament, and indeed of all the world, he was in the field before them, and advanced upon them so fast, that he met them two thirds onward of his way to London, and gave them battle at Edge-hill near Banbury.

But the fate of the war turning afterward against the king, the weight of it fell heavy upon this town also, and almost ruin’d them.

But they are now fully recover’d, and it is at this time one of the most flourishing towns in England: The walls and gates are yet standing, but useless, and the old castle is gone to ruin, as is the case of almost all the old castles in England.

It should not be forgotten here, that notwithstanding the healthyness of the place, one blot lies upon the town of Shrewsbury, and which, tho’ nothing can be charg’d on the inhabitants, yet it seems they are the most obliged when ’tis least spoken of; namely, that here broke out first that unaccountable plague, call’d the sweating sickness; which at first baffled all the sons of art, and spread itself through the whole kingdom of England: This happen’d in the year 1551. It afterwards spread itself into Germany, and several countries abroad; But I do not remember that it was ever in Spain or in Italy.

Here is an ancient free-school, the most considerable in this part of England; built and endow’d by Queen Elizabeth, with a very sufficient maintainance for a chief or head-master, and three under-masters or ushers. The buildings are very spacious, and particularly the library is a fine building, and has a great many books in it; but I saw nothing curious or rare among them, and no manuscripts. The school-masters have also very handsome houses to dwell in.

There was a fine school here before, erected by the townspeople, and maintain’d several years by their contribution, and some endowments also it had. But the queen being sensible of the good design of the inhabitants, took the matter into her own hands, and built the whole fabrick new from the ground, endowing it liberally out of her own royal bounty.

Here I was shew’d a very visible and remarkable appearance of the great antient road or way call’d Watling-Street, which comes from London to this town, and goes on from hence to the utmost coast of Wales; where it cross’d the Severn, there are remains of a stone bridge to be seen in the bottom of the river, when the water is low. On this road we set out now for Litchfield in our way towards London; and I would gladly have kept to this old road, if it had been possible, because I knew several remarkable places stood directly upon it. But we were oblig’d to make many excursions, and sometimes quit the street for a great way together: And first we left it to go away south to the edge of Stafford-shire, to see the old house call’d White Ladies, and the royal oak, the famous retreat of King Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester. The tree is surrounded with a palisadoe, to preserve it from the fate which threatned it from curiosity; for almost every body that came to see it

for several years, carry’d away a piece of it, so that the tree was litterally in danger not to dye of age, but to be pull’d limb from limb; but the veneration of that kind is much abated, and as the palisadoes are more decay’d than the tree, the latter seems likely to stand safe without them; as for the house, there is nothing remarkable in it; but it being a house always inhabited by Roman Catholicks, it had and perhaps has still some rooms so private in it, that in those times could not have been discover’d without pulling down the whole buildings.

Entring Stafford-shire we quitted the said Street-way, a little to the left, to see Stafford the county town, and the most considerable except Litchfield in the county. In the way we were surpriz’d in a most agreeable manner, passing thro’ a small but ancient town call’d Penkrige, vulgarly Pankrage, where happen’d to be a fair. We expected nothing extraordinary; but was I say surpriz’d to see the prodigious number of horses brought hither, and those not ordinary and common draught-horses, and such kinds as we generally see at country-fairs remote from London: But here were really incredible numbers of the finest and most beautiful horses that can any where be seen; being brought hither from Yorkshire, the bishoprick of Durham, and all the horse-breeding countries: We were told that there were not less than an hundred jockies and horse-kopers, as they call them there, from London, to buy horses for sale. Also an incredible number of gentlemen attended with their grooms to buy gallopers, or race-horses, for their Newmarket sport. In a word, I believe I may mark it for the greatest horse-fair in the world, for horses of value, and especially those we call saddle-horses. There are indeed greater fairs for coach-horses, and draught horses; though here were great numbers of fine large stone horses for coaches, &c. too. But for saddle-horses, for the light saddle, hunters, pads, and racers, I believe the world cannot match this fair.

We staid 3 days here to satisfy our curiosity, and indeed the sight was very agreeable, to see what vast stables of horses there were, which never were brought out or shewn in the fair. How dextrous the northern grooms and breeders are in their looking after them, and ordering them: Those fellows take such indefatigable pains with them, that they bring them out like pictures of horses, not a hair amiss in them; they lye constantly in the stables with them, and feed them by weight and measure; keep them so clean, and so fine, I mean in their bodies, as well as their outsides, that, in short, nothing can be more nice. Here were several horses sold for 150 guineas a horse; but then they were such as were famous for the breed, and known by their race, almost as well as the Arabians know the genealogy of their horses.

From hence we came in two hours easy riding to Stafford, on the River Sow; ’tis an old and indeed antient town, and gives name to the county; but we thought to have found something more worth going so much out of the way in it. The town is however neat and well built, and is lately much encreas’d; nay, as some say, grown rich by the cloathing trade, which they have fallen into but within the reach of the present age, and which has not enrich’d this town only, but Tamworth also, and all the country round.

The people of this county have been particularly famous, and more than any other county in England, for good footman-ship, and there have been, and still are among them, some of the fleetest runners in England; which I do not grant to be occasion’d by any particular temperature of the air or soil, so much as to the hardy breed of the inhabitants, especially in the moorlands or northern part of the county, and to their exercising themselves to it from their child-hood; for running foot-races seems to be the general sport or diversion of the country.

Near Stafford we saw Ingestre, where the late Walter Chetwynd, Esq; built or rather rebuilt a very fine church at his own charge, and where the late Lord Chetwynd has with a profusion of expence laid out the finest park and gardens that are in all this part of England, and which, if nothing else was to be seen this way, are very well worth a traveller’s curiosity.

I am now at the utmost extent of my limits for this circuit; for Ingestre Parks reach to the very banks of the Trent, which I am not to pass; so I turn’d to the right, and intending for Litchfield, in the way we saw Beaudesert, a famous old seat, said to be built by Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester: The name indeed intimates it to be of Norman or French original; at present it is in the honourable family of the Pagets, and the Lord Paget is also Baron of Beaudesert. The park is very fine, and its situation exceeding pleasant, but the house is antient; in the park is a famous piece of antiquity, viz. a large entrench’d camp or fortification, surrounded with a double trench, very large and deep; but the inhabitants can give no account of it, that is worth notice.

From hence ’tis about four or five miles to Litchfield, a city, and the principal, next to Chester, of all the N.W. part of England; neither indeed is there any other, but this and Coventry, in the whole road from London to Carlisle on the edge of Scotland.

Here we came into the great Lancashire and Cheshire road, or the N.W. road from London, which passing thro’ this city from Warrington Bridge in Cheshire, falls into the Watling-street road, mention’d before, about three miles S.E. from the town, and crosses another antient causway or road, call’d Ickneild-street, about a mile out of the city; so that Litchfield lies as it were at the joining of all those great roads.

Litchfield is a fine, neat, well-built, and indifferent large city; there is a little lake or lough of water in the middle of it, out of which runs a small stream of water, which soon becomes a little rivulet, and save that it has but 4 or 5 miles to the Trent, would soon become a river; This lake parts Litchfield, as it were, into two cities, one is call’d the town, and the other the close; in the first is the market-place, a fine school, and a very handsome hospital well-endow’d. This part is much the largest and most populous: But the other is the fairest, has the best buildings in it, and, among the rest, the cathedral-church, one of the finest and most beautiful in England, especially for the outside, the form and figure of the building, the carv’d work’d, imagery, and the three beautiful spires; the like of which are not to be seen in one church, no not in Europe.

There are two fine causways which join the city and the close, with sluices to let the water pass, but those were cut thro’ in the time of the late intestine wars in England; and the closs, which is wall’d about, and was then fortify’d for the king, was very strong, and stood out several vigorous attacks against Cromwell’s men, and was not at last taken without great loss of blood on- both sides, being gallantly defended to the last drop, and taken by storm.

There are in the close, besides the houses of the clergy residentiaries, a great many very well-built houses, and well inhabited too; which makes Litchfield a place of good conversation and good company, above all the towns in this county or the next, I mean Warwickshire or Darbyshire.

The description of this church would take up much time, and requires a very nice observer. The see is very antient, and was once archiepiscopal, and Eadulp the archbishop was metropolitan of all the kingdom of the Mercians and East Angles, but it did not hold it; then it suffer’d another diminution. by having the see of Chester taken away, which was once part of this of Litchfield.

They told us here a long story of St. Chad, formerly bishop of this church, and how he liv’d in a little hovel or cell in the church-yard, instead of a bishop’s palace: But the bishops, since that time, have, I suppose, thought better of it, and make shift with a very fine palace in the closs, and the residentiaries live in proportion to it.

They have another legendary story also at Litchfield; namely, that a thousand poor people being instructed in the Christian faith by the care of Offa King of the Mercians, were all martyr’d here in one field by the Pagans, and that in the field where they were so murder’d, King Oswy of Northumberland caused a great church to be built; and from thence the city bears for its device, a landskip, or open field, with mangled carcasses lying dispers’d about in it, as if murder’d and left unburied: But this I take as I find it.

The church I say is indeed a most beautiful building; the west prospect of it is charming, the two spires on the corner towers being in themselves perfect beauties of architect, in the old Gothic way of building, but made still more shining and glorious by a third spire, which rising from the main tower in the body of the church, surmounts the other two, and shews itself exactly between them.

It is not easy to describe the beauty of the west end; you enter by three large doors in the porch or portico, which is as broad as the whole front; the spaces between the doors are fill’d with carv’d work and imagery, no place being void, where (by the rules of architect) any ornament could be plac’d.

Over the first cornish is a row of statues or images of all the kings which reign’d in Jerusalem from King David to the captivity; but I cannot say that they are all sufficiently distinguish’d one from another: Above there are other images, without number, whose names no account (I could meet with there) could explain.

The great window over the middle door is very large, and the pediment over it finely adorn’d, a large cross finishing the top of it; on either corner of the west front are two very fine towers, not unlike the two towers on the west end of St. Peter’s Church at Westminster, only infinitely finer: Even with the battlement of the porch, and adjoining to the towers, are large pinnacles at the outer angles, and on the top of the towers are to each tower eight more, very beautiful and fine; between these pinnacles, on the top of each tower, rises a spire equal in height, in thickness, and in workmanship, but so beautiful no pen can describe them.

The imagery and carv’d work on the front, as above, has suffer’d much in the late unhappy times; and they told us the cross over the west window was frequently shot at by the rude soldiers; but that they could not shoot it down, which however they do not say was miraculous.

The inside of the church also suffer’d very much, but it has been very well repaired since the Restoration, as well by the famous Bishop Hacket, as by the bounty of several noble and generous benefactors.

The Monasticon makes mention of a shrine given here for the holy St. Chad, or St. Cedda, which cost 200000l . but I conceive that to smell as much of the legend, as the miracles of St. Chad himself; since such a gift at that time must be equal to two millions of our money.

They tell us the main spire of this church is, from the ground, 385 foot, and the two spires at the angles of the west end each 260.

From Litchfield we came to Tamworth, a fine pleasant trading town, eminent for good ale and good company, of the middling sort; from whence we came into the great road again at Coleshill in Warwickshire.

This is a small but very handsome market-town; it chiefly, if not wholly belongs to the Lord Digby, who is lord of the mannor, if not real owner of almost all the houses in the town, and as that noble person is at present a little on the wrong side as to the government, not having taken the oaths to King George, so the whole town are so eminently that way too, that they told me there was but one family of Whiggs, as they call’d them, in the whole town, and they hoped to drive them out of the place too very quickly.

The late incumbent of this parish quitted his living, which is very considerable, because he would not take the oaths, and his successor was the famous ——— who, when I was there, was newly proscrib’d by proclamation, and the reward of l000l . order’d to whoever should apprehend him; so their instructors being such, ’tis no wonder the people have follow’d their leader.

From Coles-hill we came to Coventry, the sister city to Litchfield, and join’d in the title of the see, which was for some little time seated here, but afterwards return’d to Litchfield.

It was a very unhappy time when I first came to this city; for their heats and animosities for election of members to serve in Parliament, were carry’d to such a hight, that all manner of method being laid aside, the inhabitants (in short) enraged at one another, met, and fought a pitch’d battle in the middle of the street, where they did not take up the breadth of the street, as two rabbles of people would generally do; in which case no more could engage, but so many as the breadth of the street would admit in the front; but, on the contrary, the two parties meeting in the street, one party kept to one side of the way, and one side to the other, the kennel in the middle only parting them, and so marching as if they intended to pass by one another, ‘till the front of one party was come opposite to the reer of the other, and then suddenly facing to one another, and making a long front, where their flanks were before, upon a shout given, as the signal on both sides, they fell on with such fury with clubs and staves, that in an instant the kennel was cover’d with them, not with slain, but with such as were knock’d down on both sides, and, in a word, they fought with such obstinacy that ’tis scarce credible.

Nor were these the scum and rabble of the town, but in short the burgesses and chief inhabitants, nay even magistrates, aldermen, and the like.

Nor was this one skirmish a decision of the quarrel, but it held for several weeks, and they had many such fights; nor is the matter much better among them to this day, only that the occasion does not happen so often.

Coventry is a large and populous city, and drives a very great trade; the manufacture of tammies is their chief employ, and next to that weaving of ribbons of the meanest kind, chiefly black. The buildings are very old, and in some places much decay’d; the city may be taken for the very picture of the city of London, on the south side of Cheapside before the Great Fire; the timber-built houses, projecting forwards and towards one another, till in the narrow streets they were ready to touch one another at the top.

The tale of the Lady Godiva, who rode naked thro’ the High Street of the city to purchase her beloved city of Coventry exemption from taxes, is held for so certain a truth, that they will not have it question’d upon any account whatever; and the picture of the poor fellow that peep’d out of window to see her, is still kept up, looking out of a garret in the High Street of the city: But Mr. Cambden says positively no body look’d at her at all

There are eleven churches in this city; but three of them are particular ornaments to it, having fine high spires, after the manner of those at Litchfield, but nothing like them for the beauty of the building. Here is no cathedral, as some have falsly said, neither is the great church, so call’d, either collegiate or conventual.

It was indeed a monastry or priory, and, as has been said, the bishop’s see was remov’d from Chester hither, but no cathedral was built, for the change was not continued, and the see was soon remov’d to Litchfield, where it continues to this day. Yet this city contended a great while for it indeed, but could not carry it. In King Henry 8th’s time, the priory being dissolv’d, the church which they would have call’d a cathedral, was reduc’d to a private parish-church, and continues so to this day; ’tis an archdeaconry indeed, and the bishop is stiled Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry.

From Coventry we could by no means pass the town of Warwick, the distance too being but about six miles, and a very pleasant way on the banks of the River Avon: Tis famous for being the residence of the great Guy Earl of Warwick, known now only by fame, which also has said so much more than the truth of him, that even what was true is become a kind of romance, and the real history of his actions is quite lost to the world.

That there was such a man, no body (I find) makes a question, any more than they do that half of what is said of him is fable and fiction; but be that as it will, they show us here his castle, his helmet, his sword, and tell abundance of things of him, which have some appearance of history, tho’ not much authority to support them; so I leave that part to the curious searchers into antiquity, who may consult Mr. Cambden, Rous, Dugdale, and other antiquaries on that subject, who tell us the castle was built before our Saviour’s time, and has been a place of great consideration ever since.

As to the town of Warwick, it is really a fine town, pleasantly situated on the bank of the Avon, over which there is a large and stately bridge, the Avon being now grown a pretty large river, Warwick was ever esteem’d a handsome, well-built town, and there were several good houses in it, but the face of it is now quite alter’d; for having been almost wholly reduc’d to a heap of rubbish, by a terrible fire about two and twenty years ago, it is now rebuilt in so noble and so beautiful a manner, that few towns in England make so fine an appearance. The new church also is a fine building, but all the old monuments, which were very many, are entirely defac’d, and lost by the fire: However the memory and even the figure of ’em are eminently preserv’d by Mr. Dugdale, in his Antiquities of this county, to which I refer.

The castle is a fine building, beautiful both by situation and its decoration; it stands on a solid rock of free-stone, from whose bowels it may be said to be built, as likewise is the whole town; the terrass of the castle, like that of Windsor, overlooks a beautiful country, and sees the Avon running at the foot of the precipice, at above 50 foot perpendicular hight: the building is old, but several times repair’d and beautify’d by its several owners, and ’tis now a very agreeable place both within and without: the apartments are very nicely contrived, and the communication of the remotest parts of the building, one with another, are so well preserved by galleries, and by the great hall, which is very magnificent, that one finds no irregularity in the whole place, notwithstanding its ancient plan, as it was a castle not a palace, and built for strength rather than pleasure.

The possession of this castle is now in the family of Grevil Lord Brook, but the honour and possession is separated, and has been for some time; the ancient family of Beauchamp, or Bello Campo, E. of Warwick, held it for many ages, from whom ’tis now descended to the Earls of Holland, who are Earls of Holland and also of Warwick. But this by the way.

Here we saw the antient cell or hermitage, where they say the famous Guy Earl of Warwick ended his days in a private retreat for his devotion, and is from him call’d Guy Clift, by others Gibclift; ’tis now, as Mr. Cambden gives an account, which Mr. Dugdale also confirms, the pleasant seat of an antient Norman family of the name of De Beau-foe, whose posterity remain there, and in several other parts of the county, retaining the latter part of their sirname, but without the former to this day. Mr. Dugdale gives the monuments of them, and it appears they removed hither, on account of some marriage, from Seyton in Rutlandshire, where they were lords of the mannor, and patrons of the church, and where several of the name also still remain.

Being at Warwick, I took a short circuit thro’ the S.E. part of the county, resolving after viewing a little the places of note, that lay something out of my intended rout, to come back to the same place.

Three miles from Warwick we pass’d over the Foss Way, which goes on to Leicester; then we came by Southam to Daventry, a considerable market town, but which subsists chiefly by the great concourse of travellers on the old Watling-street way, which lies near it; and the road being turned by modern usage, lies now thro’ the town itself, then runs on to Dunsmore Heath, where it crosses the Foss, and one branch goes on to Coventry, the other joins the Foss, and goes on to a place call’d High-Cross, where it falls into the old Watling-street again, and both meet again near Litchfield.

It is a most pleasant curiosity to observe the course of these old famous highways; the Icknild Way, the Watling-street, and the Foss, in which one sees so lively a representation of the antient British, Roman and Saxon governments, that one cannot help realizing those times to the imagination; and tho’ I avoid meddling with antiquity as much as possible in this work, yet in this case a circuit or tour thro’ England would be very imperfect, if I should take no notice of these ways, seeing in tracing them we necessarily come to the principal towns, either that are or have been in every county.

East Midlands

From Daventry we cross’d the country to Northampton, the handsomest and best built town in all this part of England; but here, as at Warwick, the beauty of it is owing to its own disasters, for it was so effectually and suddenly burnt down, that very few houses were left standing, and this, tho’ the fire began in the day-time; the flame also spread itself with such fury, and run on with such terrible speed, that they tell us a townsman being at Queen’s Cross upon a hill, on the south side of the town, about two miles off, saw the fire at one end of the town then newly begun, and that before he could get to the town it was burning at the remotest end, opposite to that there he first saw it; ’tis now finely rebuilt with brick and stone, and the streets made spacious and wide.

The great new church, the town-hall, the jayl, and all their public buildings, are the finest in any country town in England, being all new built: But he took very little notice of Northampton, or rather had never seen it, who told us of a cathedral, a chapter-house and a cloyster.

The great inn at the George, the corner of the High Street, looks more like a palace than an inn, and cost above 2000l. building; and so generous was the owner, that, as we were told, when he had built it, he gave it to the poor of the town.

This is counted the center of all the horse-markets and horse-fairs in England, there being here no less than four fairs in a year: Here they buy horses of all sorts, as well for the saddle as for the coach and cart, but chiefly for the two latter.

Near this town is the ancient royal house of Holmby, which was formerly in great esteem, and by its situation is capable of being made a royal palace indeed. But the melancholy reflection of the imprisonment of King Charles the First in this house, and his being violently taken hence again by the mutinous rebels, has cast a kind of odium upon the place, so that it has been, as it were, forsaken and uninhabited. The house and estate has been lately purchas’d by the Dutchess of Marlborough; but we do not see that the house is like to be built or repair’d, as was at first discours’d; on the contrary it goes daily to decay.

The Earl of Sunderland’s house at Althorp, on the other hand, has within these few years changed its face to the other extreme, and had the late earl liv’d to make some new apartments, which, as we were told, were design’d as two large wings to the buildings, it would have been one of the most magnificent palaces in Europe. The gardens are exquisitely fine, and add, if it be possible, to the natural beauty of the situation.

From hence we went north to Harborough, and in the way, in the midst of the deep dismal roads, the dirtyest and worst in all that part of the country, we saw Boughton, the noble seat of the Duke of Mountague, a house built at the cost and by the fancy of the late duke, very much after the model of the Palace of Versailles; the treble wings projecting and expanded, forming a court or space wider and wider, in proper stades, answerable to the wings, the body of the house closing the whole view.

The pavillions are also after the manner of Versailles; the house itself is very large and magnificent, but the situation facing so beautiful a park adds to the glory of it; the park is wall’d round with brick, and so finely planted with trees, and in such an excellent order, as I saw nothing more beautiful, no not in Italy itself, except that the walks of trees were not orange and limon, and citron, as it is in Naples, and the Abruzzo, and other southern parts of Italy.

Here they shew’d us a petrifying spring, and told us so many stories of its turning every thing that was laid in it into stone, that we began to discredit the tale as fabulous; but I have been assur’d, that the water of this spring does really petrify, and that in such a manner as deserves the observation of the curious.

From hence we went on to Harborough intending to go forward to Leicester; but curiosity turn’d us west a little to see an old town call’d Lutterworth, famous for being the birthplace of honest John Wickliffe, the first preacher of the Reformation in England, whose disciples were afterwards called Lollards; when we came there we saw nothing worth notice, nor did the people, as I could find, so much as know in general, that this great man was born amongst them.

Being thus got a little out of our way, we went on with it, and turning into the great Watling-street way, at High Cross, where the Foss crosses it, and which I suppose occasioned the name, we kept on the street way to Non-Eaton, a manufacturing town on the River Anker, and then to Atherstone, a town famous for a great cheese fair on the 8th of September; from whence the great cheese factors carry the vast quantities of cheese they buy to Sturbridge Fair, which begins about the same time, but holds much longer; and here ’tis sold again for the supply of the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk.

From Atherston we turn’d N. to see Bosworth-Field, famous for the great battle which put an end to the usurpation of Richard III. and to the long and bloody contention between the red rose and the white, or the two royal houses of York and Lancaster, which, as fame tells us, had cost the lives of eleven princes, three and twenty earls and dukes, three thousand noblemen, knights, and gentlemen, and two hundred thousand of the common people: They shew’d us the spot of ground where the battle was fought, and at the town they shew’d us several pieces of swords, heads of lances, barbs of arrows, pieces of pole-axes, and such like instruments of death, which they said were found by the country people in the several grounds near the place of battle, as they had occasion to dig, or trench, or plough up the ground.

Having satisfy’d our curiosity in these points, we turn’d east towards Leicester. The E. of Stamford has a good old hunting seat on this side of the country, call’d Bradgate, and a fine park at Grooby; but they were too much out of our way, so we came on through a fine forest to Leicester.

Leicester is an ancient large and populous town, containing about five parishes, ’tis the capital of the county of Leicester, and stands on the River Soar, which rises not far from that High Cross I mention’d before: They have a considerable manufacture carry’d on here, and in several of the market towns round for weaving of stockings by frames; and one would scarce think it possible so small an article of trade could employ such multitudes of people as it does; for the whole county seems to be employ’d in it: as also Nottingham and Darby, of which hereafter.

Warwickshire and Northamptonshire are not so full of antiquities, large towns, and gentlemens seats, but this county of Leicester is as empty. The whole county seems to be taken up in country business, such as the manufacture above, but particularly in breeding and feeding cattle; the largest sheep and horses in England are found here, and hence it comes to pass too, that they are in consequence a vast magazine of wool for the rest of the nation; even most of the gentlemen are grasiers, and in some places the grasiers are so rich, that they grow gentlemen: ’tis not an uncommon thing for grasiers here to rent farms from 500l . to two thousand pounds a year rent.

The sheep bred in this county and Lincolnshire, which joins to it, are, without comparison, the largest, and bear not only the greatest weight of flesh on their bones, but also the greatest fleeces of wool on their backs of any sheep of England: nor is the fineness of the wool abated for the quantity; but as ’tis the longest staple, (so the clothiers call it) so ’tis the finest wool in the whole island, some few places excepted, such as Lemster in Herefordshire, the South Downs in Sussex, and such little places, where the quantity is small and insignificant, compar’d to this part of the country; for the sheep-breeding country reaches from the River Anker on the border of Warwickshire to the Humber at the farthest end of Lincolnshire, which is near a hundred miles in length, and from the bank of Trent in Lincoln and Leicestershire, to the bank of Ouse bordering Bucks, Bedford, Cambridge, and Huntingdonshires, above sixty miles in breadth.

These are the funds of sheep which furnish the city of London with their large mutton in so incredible a quantity: There are indeed a few sheep of a large breed, which are brought up from Rumney Marsh, and the adjoining low grounds in Kent and Sussex, but they are but few, and indeed scarce worth naming, compar’d to the vast quantity, which are produced in these counties.

The horses produced here, or rather fed here, are the largest in England, being generally the great black coach horses and dray horses, of which so great a number are continually brought up to London, that one would think so little a spot as this of Leicestershire could not be able to supply them: Nor indeed are they all bred in this county, the adjoining counties of Northampton and Bedford having of late come into the same business; but the chief supply is from this county, from whence the other counties rather buy them and feed them up, as jockeys and chapmen, than breed them up from their beginning.

In the south west part of the country rise four considerable second rate rivers, which run every one a directly contrary course in a most remarkable manner.

The Avon, which runs by Rugby, and goes away to Warwick; SOUTH WEST.

The Soar, which runs by Leicester, and goes away to the Trent; NORTH EAST.

The Anker, which runs by Nun-Eaton, and goes away to Tamworth; NORTH WEST.

The Welland, which runs by Harborough, and goes away to Stamford; SOUTH WEST.

I should not pass over this just remark of the town, or, as Mr. Cambden calls it, city of Leicester, namely, that as it was formerly a very strong and well fortify’d town, being situated to great advantage for strength, the river compassing it half about, so it was again fortify’d in the late unhappy wars, and being garrison’d by the Parliament forces, was assaulted by the Royalists, and being obstinately defended, was taken sword in hand, with a great slaughter, and not without the loss also of several of the inhabitants, who too rashly concern’d themselves in opposing the conquerors. They preserve here a most remarkable piece of antiquity, being a piece of mosaick work at the bottom of a cellar; ’tis the story of Actæon, and his being kill’d by his own hounds, wrought as a pavement in a most exquisite manner; the stones are small, and of only two colours, white and brown, or chesnut, and very small.

The great Henry Duke of Lancaster, and the earl his father lye both bury’d in this town, in the hospital church, without the south gate, which church and hospital also the said duke was the founder of; but there is no monument to be found that shews the particular place of their interment.

The Foss Way leads us from hence through the eastern and north east part of the county, and particularly through the vale of Belvoir, or, as it is commonly call’d, of Bever, to Newark in Nottinghamshire: In all this long tract we pass a rich and fertile country, fruitful fields, and the noble River Trent, for twenty miles together, often in our view; the towns of Mount Sorrel, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray, and Waltham in the Would, that is to say, on the Downs; all these are market towns, but of no great note.

Belvoir Castle is indeed a noble situation, tho’ on a very high precipice; ’tis the antient seat of the Dukes of Rutland, a family risen by just degrees to an immense state both of honour and wealth. I shall mention the house again in my return out of Lincolnshire.

At Newark one can hardly see without regret the ruins of that famous castle, which maintain’d itself through the whole Civil War in England, and keeping a strong garrison there for the king to the last, cut off the greatest pass into the north that is in the whole kingdom; nor was it ever taken, ‘till the king, press’d by the calamity of his affairs, put himself into the hands of the Scots army, which lay before it, and then commanded the governor to deliver it up, after which it was demolish’d, that the great road might lye open and free; and it remains in rubbish to this day. Newark is a very handsome well-built town, the market place a noble square, and the church is large and spacious, with a curious spire, which, were not Grantham so near, might pass for the finest and highest in all this part of England: The Trent divides itself here, and makes an island, and the bridges lead just to the foot of the castle wall; so that while this place was in the hands of any party, there was no travelling but by their leave; But all the travelling into the north at that time was by Nottingham Bridge, of which by itself.

From Newark, still keeping the Foss Way, which lies as strait as a line can mark it out, we went on to Lincoln, having a view of the great church call’d the minster all the way before us, the River Trent on the left, and the downs call’d Lincoln Heath on the right.

Lincoln is an antient, ragged, decay’d, and still decaying city; it is so full of the ruins of monasteries and religious houses, that, in short, the very barns, stables, out-houses, and, as they shew’d me, some of the very hog-styes, were built church-fashion; that is to say, with stone walls and arch’d windows and doors. There are here 13 churches, but the meanest to look on that are any where to be seen; the cathedral indeed and the ruins of the old castle are very venerable pieces of antiquity.

The situation of the city is very particular; one part is on the flat and in a bottom, so that the Wittham, a little river that runs through the town, flows sometimes into the street, the other part lies upon the top of a high hill, where the cathedral stands, and the very steepest part of the ascent of the hill is the best part of the city for trade and business.

Nothing is more troublesome than the communication of the upper and lower town, the street is so steep and so strait, the coaches and horses are oblig’d to fetch a compass another way, as well on one hand as on the other.

The River Wittham, which as I said runs thro’ the city, is arch’d over, so that you see nothing of it as you go thro’ the main street; but it makes a large lake on the west side, and has a canal, by which it has a communication with the Trent, by which means the navigation of the Trent is made useful for trade to the city; this canal is called the Foss-dike.

There are some very good buildings, and a great deal of very good company, in the upper city, and several families of gentlemen have houses there, besides those of the prebendaries and other clergy belonging to the cathedral.

This cathedral is in itself a very noble structure, and is counted very fine, though I thought it not equal to some that I have already describ’d, particularly not to that at Litchfield: Its situation indeed is infinitely more to advantage, than any cathedral in England, for it is seen far and wide; it stands upon an exceeding high hill, and is seen into five or six counties.

The building in general is very noble, and the church itself is very large; it has a double cross, one in the nave or center on which the great tower stands, and one at the east end of the choir, under which are several antient rnonuments; the length of the church is near 500 foot, the breadth 126; so that it is much larger than that at Litchfield; but the spires on the towers at the angles of the west end are mean, small, and low, and not to be nam’d with those at Litchfield: The tower also is very plain, and has only four very ill-proportion’d spires, or rather pinnacles, at the four corners small and very mean.

As the church is very large, so the revenue of the bishoprick is large also, and was formerly immensely great, as may be seen by the Monasticon, where there is an astonishing account of the wealth of the place.

The church, as it is the seat of the bishoprick, is not antient, the see being remov’d, since the Norman Conquest, from Dorchester, a little town in Oxfordshire, on the River Thames, not far from Tame, of which I have spoken in its place; but the city is antient, and the ruins of it tell us as much; it was certainly a flourishing city in the time of the Romans, and continued so after the fall of their empire.

Mr. Cambden says King Vortimer, that valiant Britain, dy’d here, and was bury’d in the church of the great monastery; but we see nothing of his remains in the cathedral, for that was not built ‘till several ages after.

The city was a large and flourishing place at the time of the Norman Conquest, tho’ neither the castle or the great church were then built; there were then three and fifty parish churches in it, of which I think only thirteen remain; the chief extent of the city then was from the foot of the hill south, and from the lake or lough which is call’d Swanpool east; and by the Domesday Book they tell us it must be one of the greatest cities in England, whence perhaps that old English proverbial line:

Lincoln was, London is, and York shall be.

It is certain William the Conqueror built the castle, and, as ’tis said, to curb the potent citizens; and the ruins show that it was a most magnificent work, well fortify’d, and capable of receiving a numerous garrison.

The bishoprick of Lincoln at that time contain’d all that now is contain’d in the diocesses of Ely, Peterborough, and Oxford, besides what is now the diocess of Lincoln: and ’tis still the largest diocess, tho’ not of the greatest revenue, in England; containing the several counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, Bucks, and part of Hertford; and in them 1255 parishes, whereof 577 are impropriations; and there are in this bounds six archdeacons, viz. Lincoln, Leicester, Bedford, Buckingham, Stow. and Huntington. This see, tho’ of no longer date than since the conquest, has produced to the Church and State

Three Saints,
One Cardinal, (namely Wolsey)
Six Lord Chancellors,
One Lord Treasurer,
One Lord Privy Seal,
Four Chancellors of Oxford,
Two ditto, of Cambridge.

Here was the famous battle fought between the friends of the Empress Maud, mother to Henry II. and King Stephen, in which that magnanimous prince was overthrown and taken prisoner.

But all this relates to times past, and is an excursion, which I shall attone for by making no more. Such is the present state of Lincoln, that it is an old dying, decay’d, dirty city; and except that part, which, as above, lies between the castle and the church, on the top of the hill, it is scarce tolerable to call it a city.

Yet it stands in a most rich, pleasant, and agreeable country; for on the north, and again on the south east, the noble plain, call’d Lincoln Heath, extends itself, like the plains about Salisbury, for above fifty miles; namely, from Sleeford and Ancaster south to the bank of the Humber north, tho’ not with a breadth equal to the vast stretch’d out length; for the plain is hardly any where above three or four miles broad.

On the west side of this plain, the Trent waters a pleasant and rich valley, running from Newark to Gainsborough, a town of good trade, as well foreign as home trade, thence to Burton, and so into the Humber.

As the middle of the country is all hilly, and the west side low, so the east side is the richest, most fruitful, and best cultivated of any county in England, so far from London; one part is all fen or marsh grounds. and extends itself south to the Isle of Ely, and here it is that so vast a quantity of sheep are fed, as makes this county and that of Leicester an inexhaustible fountain of wool for all the manufacturing counties in England.

There are abundance of very good towns too in this part, especially on the sea coast, as Grimsby, in the utmost point of the county north east, facing the Humber and the ocean, and almost opposite to Hull: a little farther within Humber is Barton, a town noted for nothing that I know of, but an ill-favoured dangerous passage, or ferry, over the Humber to Hull; where in an open boat, in which we had about fifteen horses, and ten or twelve cows, mingled with about seventeen or eighteen passengers, call’d Christians; we were about four hours toss’d about on the Humber, before we could get into the harbour at Hull; whether I was sea-sick or not, is not worth notice, but that we were all sick of the passage, any one may suppose, and particularly I was so uneasy at it, that I chose to go round by York, rather than return to Barton, at least for that time.

Grimsby is a good town, but I think ’tis but an indifferent road for shipping; and in the great storm, (ann. 1703.) it was proved to be so, for almost all the ships that lay in Grimsby road were driven from their anchors, and many of them lost.

Here within land we see Brigg upon the River Ankam, Castor, Louth, Horncastle, Bolingbroke, Spilsby, Wainfleet, and Boston: As these are all, except the last, inland towns, they afford little remarkable, only to intimate that all this country is employ’d in husbandry, in breeding and feeding innumerable droves and flocks of black cattle and sheep: Indeed I should not have said black cattle. I should have call’d them red cattle; for it was remarkable, that almost all their cows for 50 miles together are red, or py’d red and white, and consequently all the cattle raised there, are the same; what they feed which are brought from other counties, (for the fens feed infinite numbers which they buy from other places); that (I say) is another case.

The Fen Country begins about Wainfleet, which is within twenty miles of Grimsby, and extends itself to the Isle of Ely south, and to the grounds opposite to Lynn Regis in Norfolk east.

This part is indeed very properly call’d Holland, for ’tis a flat, level, and often drowned country, like Holland itself; here the very ditches are navigable, and the people pass from town to town in boats, as in Holland: Here we had the uncouth musick of the bittern, a bird formerly counted ominous and presaging, and who, as fame tells us, (but as I believe no body knows) thrusts its bill into a reed, and then gives the dull, heavy groan or sound, like a sigh, which it does so loud, that with a deep base, like the sound of a gun at a great distance, ’tis heard two or three miles, (say the people) but perhaps not quite so far.

Here we first saw Boston, a handsome well-built sea port town, at the mouth of the River Wittham. The tower of this church is, without question, the largest and highest in England; and, as it stands in a country, which (they say) has no bottom, nothing is more strange, than that they should find a foundation for so noble and lofty a structure; it had no ornament, spire, or pinnacle on the top, but it is so very high, that few spires in England, can match it, and is not only beautiful by land, but is very useful at sea to guide pilots into that port, and even into the mouth of the River Ouse; for in clear weather ’tis seen quite out at sea to the entrance of those channels, which they call Lynn Deeps, and Boston Deeps, which are as difficult places as most upon the whole eastern shore of Britain.

The town of Boston is a large, populous, and well-built town, full of good merchants, and has a good share of foreign trade, as well as Lynn. Here is held one of those annual fairs, which preserve the antient title of a Mart, whereof I remember only four in England of any considerable note, viz. Lynn, Gainsborough, Beverly, and Boston.

The country round this place is all fenn and marsh grounds, the land very rich, and which feeds prodigious numbers of large sheep, and also oxen of the largest size, the overplus and best of which goes all to London market; and from this part, as also from the downs or heath above-mentioned, comes the greatest part of the wool, known, as a distinction for its credit, because of its fineness, by the name of Lincolnshire Wool; which is sent in great quantities into Norfolk and Suffolk, for the manufacturers of those counties, and indeed to several other of the most trading counties in England.

These fens are indeed very considerable for their extent, for they reach in length in some places fifty miles, and in breadth above thirty: and as they are so level that there is no interruption to the sight, any building of extraordinary hight is seen a long way; for example, Boston steeple is seen upon Lincoln Heath near thirty miles, Peterborough and Ely minsters are seen almost throughout the whole level, so are the spires of Lynn, Whittlesea, and Crowland, seen at a very great distance, which adds a beauty to the country.

From Boston we came on through the fen country to Spalding, which is another sea port in the level, but standing far within the land on the River Welland. Here was nothing very remarkable to be seen as to antiquity, but the ruins of an old famous monastry, of which the Monasticon gives a particular description. There is a bridge over the Welland, and vessels of about fifty or sixty ton may come up to the town, and that is sufficient for the trade of Spalding, which is chiefly in corn and coal.

We must not pass by Crowland, another place of great religious antiquity, here being once a famous monastry, the remains of which are still to be seen: The monks of Crowland were eminent in history, and a great many stories are told of the devils of Crowland also, and what conversation they had with the monks, which tales are more out of date now, than they were formerly; for they tell us, that in antient times those things were as certainly believ’d for truths, as if they had been done before their faces.

There is one thing here that is curious indeed, and very remarkable, and which is not to be seen in any other place in Britain, if it be in Europe; namely, a triangular bridge: The case is this; The River Welland and another river, or rather branch from the River Nyne, join together just at Crowland, and the bridge being fixed at the very point where they join, stands upon a center in the middle of the united waters, and then parting into two bridges, lands you one to the right upon Thorney, and one to the left upon Holland; and yet they tell us there is a whirlpool, or bottomless pit, in the middle too; but that part I see no reason to give credit to.

The town of Spalding is not large, but pretty well built and well inhabited; but for the healthyness or pleasantness of it, I have no more to say than this, that I was very glad when I got out of it, and out of the rest of the fen country; for ’tis a horrid air for a stranger to breathe in.

The history of the draining those fens, by a set of gentlemen call’d the Adventurers, the several laws for securing and preserving the banks, and dividing the lands; how they were by the extraordinary conflux of waters from all the inland counties of England frequently overflow’d, and sometimes lay under water most part of the year; how all the water in this part of England, which does not run into the Thames, the Trent, or the Severn, falls together into these low grounds, and empty themselves into the sea by those drains, as thro’ a sink; and how by the skill of these Adventurers, and, at a prodigious expence, they have cut new channels, and even whole rivers, with particular drains from one river to another, to carry off the great flux of waters, when floods or freshes come down either on one side or on the other; and how notwithstanding all that hands could do, or art contrive, yet sometimes the waters do still prevail, the banks break, and whole levels are overflow’d together; all this, tho’ it would be very useful and agreeable to have it fully and geographically describ’d, yet it would take up so much room, and be so tedious here, where you are expecting a summary description of things, rather than the history and reasons of them, that I cannot think of entering any farther into it.

I have only to add, that these fens of Lincolnshire are of the same kind with, and contiguous to those already mentioned in the Isle of Ely, in the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, and that here as well as there, we see innumerable numbers of cattle, which are fed up to an extraordinary size by the richness of the soil.

Here are also an infinite number of wild fowl, such as duck and mallard, teal and widgeon, brand geese, wild geese, &c. and for the taking of the four first kinds, here are a great number of decoys or duckoys, call them which you please, from all which the vast number of fowls they take are sent up to London; the quantity indeed is incredible, and the accounts which the country people give of the numbers they sometimes take, are such, that one scarce dares to report it from them. But this I can say, of my certain knowledge, that some of these decoys are of so great an extent, and take such great quantities of fowl, that they are let for great sums of money by the year, viz. from l00l, to 3, 4, and 500l . a year rent.

The art of taking the fowls, and especially of breeding up a set of creatures, call’d decoy ducks, to entice and then betray their fellow-ducks into the several decoys, is very admirable indeed, and deserves a description; tho’ ’tis not very easy to describe it, take it in as few words as I can.

The decoy ducks are first naturalised to the place, for they are hatch’d and bred up in the decoy ponds: There are in the ponds certain places where they are constantly fed, and where being made tame, they are used to come even to the decoy man’s hand for their food.

When they fly abroad, or, as might be said, are sent abroad, they go none knows where; but ’tis believ’d by some they fly quite over the seas in Holland and Germany; There they meet with others of their acquaintance, that is to say, of their own kind, where sorting with them, and observing how poorly they live, how all the rivers are frozen up, and the lands cover’d with snow, and that they are almost starv’d, they fail not to let them know, (in language that they make one another understand) that in England, from whence they came, the case is quite alter’d; that the English ducks live much better than they do in those cold climates; that they have open lakes, and sea shores full of food, the tides flowing freely into every creek; that they have also within the land, large lakes, refreshing springs of water, open ponds, covered and secured from human eyes, with large rows of grown trees and impenetrable groves; that the lands are full of food, the stubbles yielding constant supplies of corn, left by the negligent husbandmen, as it were on purpose for their use, that ’tis not once in a wild duck’s age, that they have any long frosts or deep snows, and that when they have, yet the sea is never frozen, or the shores void of food; and that if they will please but to go with them into England, they shall share with them in all these good things.

By these representations, made in their own duck language, (or by whatever other arts which we know not) they draw together a vast number of the fowls, and, in a word, kidnap them from their own country; for being once brought out of their knowlcdge, they follow the decoys, as a dog follows the huntsman; and ’tis frequent to see these subtle creatures return with a vast flight of fowls with them, or at their heels, as we may say, after the said decoy ducks have been absent several weeks together.

When they have brought them over, the first thing they do is to settle with them in the decoy ponds, to which they (the decoy ducks) belong: Here they chatter and gabble to them, in their own language, as if they were telling them, that these are the ponds they told them of, and here they should soon see how well they should live, how secure and how safe a retreat they had here.

When the decoy-men perceive they are come, and that they are gathering and encreasing, they fail not to go secretly to the pond’s side, I say secretly, and under the cover which they have made with reeds, so that they cannot be seen, where they throw over the reeds handfuls of corn, in shallow places, such where the decoy ducks are usually fed, and where they are sure to come for it, and to bring their new guests with them for their entertainment.

This they do for two or three days together, and no harm follows, ‘till throwing in this bait one time in an open wide place, another time in another open wide place, the third time it is thrown in a narrower place; that is to say, where the trees, which hang over the water and the banks, stand nearer, and then in another yet narrower, where the said trees are overhead like an arbour, though at a good hight from the water.

Here the boughs are so artfully managed, that a large net is spread near the tops of the trees among the branches, and fasten’d to hoops which reach from side to side: This is so high and so wide, and the room is so much below, and the water so open, that the fowls do not perceive the net above them at all.

Here the decoy-man keeping unseen, behind the hedges of reeds, which are made perfectly close, goes forward, throwing corn over the reeds into the water; the decoy ducks greedily fall upon it, and calling their foreign guests, seem to tell them, that now they may find their words good, and how well the ducks live in England; so inviting or rather wheedling them forward, ‘till by degrees they are all gotten under the arch or sweep of the net, which is on the trees, and which by degrees, imperceptibly to them, declines lower and lower, and also narrower and narrower, ‘till at the farther end it comes to a point like a purse; though this farther end is quite out of sight, and perhaps two or three hundred yards from the first entrance

When the whole quantity are thus greedily following the leading ducks or decoys, and feeding plentifully as they go; and the decoy-man sees they are all within the arch of the net, and so far within as not to be able to escape, on a sudden a dog,

which ‘till then he keeps close by him, and who is perfectly taught his business, rushes from behind the reeds, and jumps into the water, swimming directly after the ducks, and (terribly to them) barking as he swims.

Immediately the ducks (frighted to the last degree) rise upon the wing to make their escape, but to their great surprize, are beaten down again by the arched net, which is over their heads: Being then forced into the water, they necessarily swim forward, for fear of that terrible creature the dog; and thus they crowd on, ‘till by degrees the net growing lower and narrower, as is said, they are hurried to the very farther end, where another decoy-man stands ready to receive them, and who takes them out alive with his hands.

As for the traytors, that drew the poor ducks into this snare, they are taught to rise but a little way, and so not reaching to the net, they fly back to the ponds, and make their escape; or else, being used to the decoy-man, they go to him fearless, and are taken out as the rest; but instead of being kill’d with them, are strok’d, made much of, and put into a little pond just by him, and fed and made much of for their services.

There are many particulars in the managing and draining these levels, throwing off the water by milis and engines, and cultivating the grounds in an unusual manner, which would be very useful to be describ’d; but the needfu? brevity of this work will not admit of it: yet something may be touch’d at.

1. That here are some wonderful engines for throwing up water, and such as are not to be seen any where else, whereof one in particular threw up, (as they assur’d us) twelve hundred ton of water in half an hour, and goes by wind-sails, 12 wings or sails to a mili: This I saw the model of, but I must own I did not see it perform.

2. Here are the greatest improvements by planting of hemp, that, I think, is to be seen in England; particularly on the Norfolk and Cambridge side of the Fens, as about Wisbech, Well, and several other places, where we saw many hundred acres of ground bearing great crops of hemp.

3. Here is a particular trade carry’d on with London, which is no where else practis’d in the whole kingdom, that I have met with, or heard of, (viz.) For carrying fish alive by land-carriage; this they do by carrying great buts fill’d with water in waggons, as the carriers draw other goods: The buts have a little square flap, instead of a bung, about ten, twelve, or fourteen inches square, which, being open’d, gives air to the fish, and every night, when they come to the inn, they draw off the water, and let more fresh and sweet water run into them again. In these carriages they chiefly carry tench and pike, pearch and eels, but especially tench and pike, of which here are some of the largest in England.

Whittlesea and Ramsey meres are two lakes, made by the River Nyne or Nene, which runs through them; the first is between five and six miles long, and three or four miles broad, and is indeed full of excellent fish for this trade.

From the Fenns, longing to be deliver’d from fogs and stagnate air, and the water of the colour of brew’d ale, like the rivers of the Peak, we first set foot on dry land, as I call’d it, at Peterborough.

This is a little city, and indeed ’tis the least in England; for Bath, or Wells, or Ely, or Carlisle, which are all call’d cities, are yet much bigger; yet Peterborough is no contemptible place neither; there are some good houses in it, and the streets are fair and well-built; but the glory of Peterborough is the cathedral, which is truly fine and beautiful; the building appears to be more modern, than the story of the raising this pile implies, and it wants only a fine tower steeple, and a spire on the top of it, as St. Paul’s at London had, or as Salisbury still has; I say, it wants this only to make it the finest cathedral in Britain, except St. Paul’s, which is quite new, and the church of St. Peter at York.

In this church was bury’d the body of the unhappy Mary Queen of Scots, mother to King James the First, who was beheaded not far off in Fotheringay Castle in the same county; but her body was afterwards remov’d by King James the First, her son, into Westminster Abbey, where a monument is erected for her, in King Henry the VIIth’s chappel; tho’ some do not stick to tell us, that tho’ the monument was erected, the body was never remov’d.

Here also lies interred another unhappy queen, namely, the Lady Katherine of Spain, the divorc’d wife of King Henry VIII. and mother to Queen Mary: who reigned immediately after King Edward VI. Her monument is not very magnificent, but ’tis far from mean. Here is an old decay’d monument of Bishop Wulfer, the founder of the church; but this church has so often been burnt and demolish’d, since that time, that ’tis doubtful when they shew it you, whether it be authentick or not.

The chappel here, call’d St. Mary’s, is a very curious building, tho’ now not in use; the choir has been often repair’d and beautify’d, and is now very fine; but the west end, or great gate, is a prodigy for its beauty and variety: ’Tis remarkable, that as this church, when a monastry, was famous for its great revenues, so now, as reduced, ’tis one of the poorest bishopricks in England, if not the meanest.

Coming to this little city landed us in Northamptonshire; but as great part of Lincolnshire, which is a vastly extended large county, remain’d yet unseen, we were oblig’d to turn north from Peterborough, and take a view of the fens again, though we kept them at some distance too. Here we pass’d the Welland at Market Deeping, an old, ill-built and dirty town; then we went thro’ Bourn to Folkingham, near which we saw two pieces of decay’d magnificence; one was the old demolish’d monastry of Sempringham, the seat of the Gilbertine nuns, so famous for austerity, and the severest rules, that any other religious order have yielded to, and the other was the antient house of the Lord Clinton, Queen Elizabeth’s admiral, where that great and noble person once liv’d in the utmost splendor and magnificence; the house, tho’ in its full decay, shows what it has been, and the plaister of the cielings and walls in some rooms is so fine, so firm, and so entire, that they break it off in large flakes, and it will bear writing on it with a pencil or steel pen, like the leaves of a table book. This sort of plaister I have not seen anywhere so very fine, except in the palace of Nonesuch in Surrey, near Epsom, before it was demolish’d by the Lord Berkeley.

From hence we cross’d part of the great heath mentioned before, and came into the high road again at Ankaster, a small but antient Roman village, and full of remnants of antiquity: This town gives now the title of duke to the ancient family of Lindsey, now Dukes of Ankaster, formerly only Earls of Lindsey, and hereditary Lords Chamberlains of England.

This place and Panton, a village near it, would afford great subject of discourse, if antiquity was my present province, for here are found abundance of Roman coins, urns, and other remains of antiquity, as also in several parts here about; and Mr. Cambden puts it out of doubt, that at this town of Ankaster there was a station or colony settled of Romans, which afterwards swell’d up into a city, but is now sunk again out of knowledge. From hence we came to Grantham, famous for a very fine church and spire steeple, so finely built, and so very high, that I do not know many higher and finer built in Britain. The vulgar opinion, that this steeple stands leaning, is certainly a vulgar error: I had no instrument indeed to judge it by, but, according to the strictest observation, I could not perceive it, or anything like it, and am much of opinion with that excellent poet:

’Tis hight makes Grantham steeple stand awry. This is a neat, pleasant, well-built and populous town, has a good market, and the inhabitants are said to have a very good trade, and are generally rich. There is also a very good free-school here. This town lying on the great northern road is famous, as well as Stamford, for abundance of very good inns, some of them fit to entertain persons of the greatest quality and their retinues, and it is a great advantage to the place.

From a hill, about a mile beyond this town north west, being on the great York road, we had a prospect again into the Vale of Bever, or Belvoir, which I mentioned before; and which spreads itself here into 3 counties, to wit, Lincoln, Leicester, and Rutlandshires: also here we had a distant view of Bever, or Bellevoir Castle, which ’tis supposed took its name from the situation, from whence there is so fine a prospect, or Bellevoir over the country; so that you see from the hill into six counties, namely, into Lincoln, Nottingham, Darby, Leicester, Rutland, and Northampton Shires. The castle or palace (for such it now is) of Bevoir, is now the seat of the noble family of Mannors, Dukes of Rutland, who have also a very noble estate, equal to the demesnes of some sovereign princes, and extending itself into Nottingham and Darbyshire far and wide, and in which estate they have an immense subterranean treasure, never to be exhausted; I mean the lead mines and coal-pits, of which I shall say more in its place.

Turning southward from hence we enter’d Rutlandshire, remarkable for being the least county in England, having but two market towns in it, viz. Okeham and Uppingham, but famous for abundance of fine seats of the gentlemen, and some of the first rank, as particularly the Earls of Gainsborough and Nottingham; the latter has at a very great expence, and some years labour, rebuilt the ancient seat of Burleigh on the Hill, near Okeham, and on the edge of the vale of Cathross. This house would indeed require a volume of itself, to describe the pleasant situation, and magnificent structure, the fine gardens, the perfectly well-finish’d apartments, the curious paintings, and well-stor’d library: all these merit a particular view, and consequently an exact description; but it is not the work of a few pages, and it would be to lessen the fame of this palace, to say any thing by way of abstract, where every part calls for a full account: at present, all I can say of it is, there may be some extraordinary palaces in England, where there are so many fine ones, I say there may be some that excell in this or that particular, but I do not know a house in Britain, which excels all the rest in so many particulars, or that goes so near to excelling them all in every thing. Take something of it in the following lines, part of a poem, written wholly upon the subject, by an anonymous author.

On the Earl of Nottingham’s house at Burleigh on the Hill, in Rutlandshire

Hall, happy fabrick! whose majestick view
First sees the sun, and bids him last adieu;
Seated in majesty, your eye commands
A royal prospect of the richest lands,
Whose better part, by your own lord possess’d,
May well be nam’d the crown of all the rest:
The under-lying vale shews with delight
A thousand beauties, at one charming sight;
No pencil’s art can such a landskip feign,
And Nature’s self scarce yields the like again:
Few situations may with this compare,
A fertile soil and a salubrious air.
Triumphant structure! while you thus aspire
From the dead ruin of rebellious fire;
Methinks I see the genius of the place
Advance its head, and, with a smiling face,
Say, Kings have on this spot made their abodes,
’Tis fitted now to entertain the Gods.

From hence we came to Stamford; the town is placed in a kind of an angle of the county of Lincoln, just upon the edge of three counties, viz. Lincoln, Northampton, and Rutland: this town boasts greatly too of its antiquity, and indeed it has evident marks of its having been a very great place in former days.

History tells us it was burnt by the Danes above 1500 years ago, being then a flourishing city: Tradition tells us, it was once a university, and that the schools were first erected by Bladud King of the Britains; the same whose figure stands up at the King’s Bath in the city of Bath, and who liv’d 300 years before our Saviour’s time: But the famous camps and military ways, which still appear at and near this town, are a more visible testimony of its having been a very ancient town, and that it was considerable in the Romans time.

It is at this time a very fair, well-built, considerable and wealthy town, consisting of six parishes, including that of St. Martin in Stamford-Baron; that is to say, in that part of the town which stands over the river, which, tho’ it is not a part of the town, critically speaking, being not in the liberty, and in another county, yet ’tis all called Stamford, and is rated with it in the taxes, and the like.

This town is the property, as it may be called, of the Earles of Excester; for the author of the Survey of Stamford, page 15, says, “William Cecil, Baron Burleigh, and afterwards Earl of Excester, obtain’d the fee farm of Queen Elizabeth for himself, in whose posterity it yet remains.”

The government of this town is not, it seems, as most towns of such note are, by a mayor and aldermen, but by an alderman, who is chief magistrate, and twelve comburgesses, and twenty four capital burgesses, which, abating their worships titles, is, to me, much the same thing as a mayor, aldermen, and common council.

They boast in this town of very great privileges, especially to their alderman, who is their chief magistrate, and his com-burgesses; such as being freed from the sheriffs jurisdiction, and from being empannel’d on juries out of the town; to have the return of all writs, to be freed from all lords lieutenants, and from their musters, and for having the militia of the town commanded by their own officers, the alderman being the king’s Lord Lieutenant, and immediately under his Majesty’s command, and to be (within the liberties and jurisdiction of the town) esteem’d the second man in the kingdom; and the grant of those privileges concludes thus; Ut ab antiguo usu fuerunt, as of antient time they had been accustomed: So that this Charter, which was granted by Edward IV. ann. 1461. seems to be only a confirmation of former privileges, not a grant of new ones.

In the church of St. Martin in Stamford-Baron, that is on this side the bridge, at the upper end of the choir, is a very noble monument of William Cecil Lord Burleigh, who lies bury’d there in a large vault just under it; and opposite to it, on the north side, is a more antient (but handsome) monument, tho’ not so magnificent as the former, being in memory of Richard Cecil, Esq; and Jane his wife, the father and mother of the said famous Lord Burleigh; also a more modern monument for the great earl who re-edify’d the house, being the last earl but one, and father of the present earl; and for his countess, a sister of the present Duke of Devonshire: This is a finish’d piece, ’tis all of the finest marble, and, they told us, it was made at Florence, and sent over: The said earl dy’d on his travels at Paris.

There is a very fine stone bridge over the River Welland of five arches, and the town-hall is in the upper part of the gate, upon or at the end of the bridge, which is a very handsome building. There are two constant weekly markets here, viz. on Mondays and Fridays, but the last is the chief market: They have also three fairs, viz. St. Simon and Jude, St. James’s, and Green-goose Fair, and a great Midlent mart; but the latter is not now so considerable, as it is reported to have formerly been.

But the beauty of Stamford is the neighbourhood of the noble palace of the Earl of Excester, call’d Burleigh House, built by the famous Sir William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth, the same whose monument I just now mentioned, being in St. Martin’s Church at Stamford-Baron, just without the park.

This house, built all of free-stone, looks more like a town than a house, at which avenue soever you come to it; the towers and the pinnacles so high, and placed at such a distance from one another, look like so many distant parish-churches in a great town, and a large spire cover’d with lead, over the great clock in the center, looks like the cathedral, or chief church of the town.

The house stands on an eminence, which rises from the north en trance of the park, coming from Stamford: On the other side, viz. south and west, the country lies on a level with the house, and is a fine plain, with posts and other marks for horse-races; As the entrance looks towards the flat low grounds of Lincolnshire, it gives the house a most extraordinary prospect into the Fens, so that you may see from thence twenty or near thirty miles, without any thing to intercept the sight.

As you mount the hill, you come to a fine esplanade, before the great gate or first entrance of the house, where there is a small but very handsome semi-circle, taken in with an iron balustrade, and from this, rising a few steps, you enter a most noble hall, but made infinitely more noble by the invaluable paintings, with which it is so fill’d, that there is not room to place any thing between them.

The late Earl of Excester, father of his present lordship, had a great genius for painting and architecture, and a superior judgment in both, as every part of this noble structure will testify; for he chang’d the whole face of the building; he pull’d down great part of the front next the garden, and turn’d the old Gothic windows into those spacious sashes which are now seen there; and tho’ the founder or first builder, who had an exquisite fancy also, (as the manner of buildings then was) had so well ordered the situation and avenues of the whole fabrick, that nothing was wanting of that kind, and had also contriv’d the house itself in a most magnificent manner; the rooms spacious, well directed, the cielings lofty, and the decorations just, yet the late earl found room for alterations, infinitely to the advantage of the whole; as particularly, a noble stair case, a whole set of fine apartments, with rooms of state, fitting for the entertainment of a prince, especially those on the garden side; tho’ at present a little out of repair again.

As this admirable genius, the late earl, lov’d paintings, so he had infinite advantage in procuring them; for he not only travell’d three times into Italy, and stay’d every time a considerable while at Florence, but he was so entertain’d at the Court of Tuscany, and had, by his most princely deportment and excellent accomplishments, so far obtain’d upon the great duke, that he might be said indeed to love him, and his highness shew’d the earl many ways that esteem; and more particularly, in assisting him to purchase many excellent pieces at reasonable prices; and not only so, but his highness presented him with several pieces of great value.

Among the rest, there is. in the great hall, his lordship’s picture, on horseback, done by the great duke’s principal painter, at his highness’s charge, and given to his lordship, as a mark of the great duke’s special favour: There is also a fine piece of Seneca bleeding to death in the warm bath, and dictating his last morals to his scholars; the passions are in so lively a manner described in the scholars, their eager attention, their generous regard to their master, their vigilant catching at his words, and some of them taking minutes, that it is indeed admirable and inexpressible. I have been told, that the King of France offer’d the earl 6000 pistoles for it.

It would be endless to give a detail of the fine pieces his lordship brought from Italy. all originals, and by the best masters; ’tis enough to say, they infinitely exceed all that can be seen in England, and are of more value than the house itself, and all the park belonging to it.

His lordship had indeed infinite advantage, join’d to his very good judgment, besides what I have mention’d, at the Court of the grand duke, for the furnishing himself with extraordinary paintings, having made his three journeys into Italy by several routs, and stopt at several Courts of princes; and his collection would doubtless have been still enlarg’d, had he liv’d to finish a fourth tour, which he was taking; but he was surpriz’d with a sudden and violent distemper, and dy’d at Paris (as we were told) of a dysentrie.

Besides the pictures, which, as above, were brought from abroad, the house itself, at least the new apartments may be said to be one entire picture. The stair-case, the cielings of all the fine lodgings, the chapel, the hall, the late earl’s closet, are all finely painted by VARRIO, of whose work I need say no more than this, that the earl kept him twelve years in his family, wholly employ’d in painting those cielings and staircases, &c. and allow’d him a coach and horses, and equipage, a table, and servants, and a very considerable pension.

N.B. The character this gentleman left behind him at this town, is, that he deserv’d it all for his paintings; but for nothing else; his scandalous life, and his unpaid debts, it seems, causing him to be but very meanly spoken of in the town of Stamford. I might dwell a long while upon this subject, and could do it with great pleasure, Burleigh House being well worth a full and compleat description; but this work will not admit of enlargements.

By the park wall, or, as some think, through the park, adjoining to Burleigh House, pass’d an old Roman highway, beginning at Castor, a little village near Peterborough; but which was anciently a Roman station, or colony, call’d Durobrevum; this way is still to be seen, and is now call’d The 40 Foot Way, passing from Gunworth Ferry (and Peterborough) to Stamford: This was, as the antiquaries are of opinion, the great road into the north, which is since turn’d from Stilton in Huntingdonshire to Wandsworth or Wandsford, where there is a very good bridge over the River Nyne; which coming down from Northampton, as I have observ’d already, passes thence by Peterborough, and so into the Fen country: But if I may straggle a little into antiquity, (which I have studiously avoided) I am of opinion, neither this or Wandsford was the ancient northern road in use by the Romans; for ’tis evident, that the great Roman causway is still seen on the left hand of that road, and passing the Nyne at a place call’d Water Neuton, went directly to Stamford, and pass’d the Welland, just above that town, not in the place where the bridge stands now; and this Roman way is still to be seen, both on the south and the north side of the Welland, stretching itself on to Brig Casterton, a little town upon the River Guash, about three miles beyond Stamford; which was, as all writers agree, another Roman station, and was call’d Guasennæ by the antients, from whence the river is supposed also to take its name; whence it went on to Panton, another very considerable colony, and so to Newark, where it cross’d the Foss.

This Forty Foot Way then must be a cross road from Castor, and by that from the Fen Country, so leading into the great highway at Stamford: as likewise another cross road went out of the said great road at Panton, above-named, to Ankaster, where was a Roman cohort plac’d, and thence join’d the Foss again at Lincoln.

Near this little village of Castor lives the Lord FitzWilliams, of an ancient family, tho’ an Irish title, and his lordship has lately built a very fine stone bridge over the River Nyne, near Gunworth, where formerly was the ferry.

I was very much applauding this generous action of my lord’s, knowing the inconvenience of the passage there before, especially if the waters of the Nyne were but a little swell’d, and I thought it a piece of publick charity; but my applause was much abated, when coming to pass the bridge (being in a coach) we could not be allow’d to go over it, without paying 2s. 6d. of which I shall only say this, That I think ’tis the only half crown toll that is in Britain, at least that ever I met with.

As we pass by Burleigh Park wall, on the great road, we see on the west side, not above a mile from it, another house, built by the same Lord Burleigh, and which might pass for a very noble seat, were not Burleigh by. This is call’d Wathorp, and stands just on the Great Roman Way, mention’d above; this is the house of which the old earl said he built it to remove to, and to be out of the dust, while Burleigh House was a sweeping. This saying is indeed father’d upon the noble founder, but I must acknowledge, I think it too haughty an expression to come from so wise and great a man.

At Overton, now call’d Cherry Orton, a village near Gunworth Ferry, is an old mansion house, formerly belonging to a very antient and almost forgotten race, or family of great men, call’d Lovetoft, which I nam’d for a particular reason. The estate is now in the heirs of the late Duke of Newcastle, and the house lies neglected. On the other side of the river is a fine new-built house, all of free stone, possess’d by Sir Francis St. John, Bart. which affords a very beautiful prospect to travellers, as they pass from the hill beyond Stilton to Wansford Bridge. This Wansford has obtain’d an idle addition to its name, from a story so firmly believ’d by the country people, that they will hardly allow any room for contradiction; namely, That a great flood coming hastily down the River Nyne, in hay-making-time, a country fellow, having taken up his lodging on a cock of hay in the meadow, was driven down the stream in the night, while he was fast asleep; and the hay swimming, and the fellow sleeping, they drove together towards Wisbech in the Fens, whence he was fairly going on to the sea; when being wakened, he was seen and taken up by some fishermen, almost in the open sea; and being ask’d, who he was? he told them his name; and where he liv’d? he answer’d, at Wansford in England: from this story the town is called Wansford in England; and we see at the great inn, by the south end of the bridge, the sign of a man floating on a cock of hay, and over him written, Wansford in England.

Coming south from hence we pass’d Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is call’d our English Parmesan, and is brought to table with the mites, or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese.

Hence we came through Sautrey Lane, a deep descent between two hills, in which is Stangate Hole, famous for being the most noted robbing-place in all this part of the country. Hence we pass’d to Huntington, the county town, otherwise not considerable; it is full of very good inns, is a strong pass upon the Ouse, and in the late times of rebellion it was esteemed so by both parties.

Here are the most beautiful meadows on the banks of the River Ouse, that I think are to be seen in any part of England; and to see them in the summer season, cover’d with such innumerable stocks of cattle and sheep, is one of the most agreeable sights of its kind in the world.

This town has nothing remarkable in it; ’tis a long continued Street, pretty well built, has three parish churches, and a pretty good market-place; but the bridge, or bridges rather, and causway over the Ouse is a very great ornament to the place. On the west side of this town, and in view of the plain lower side of the county, is a noble, tho’ ancient seat, of the Earl of Sandwich; the gardens very fine and well kept; the situation seems a little obscur’d by the town of Huntington. In the same plain we saw Bugden, a small village, in which is remarkable a very pleasant, tho’ ancient house or palace, of the Bishops of Lincoln: The house and garden surrounded by a very large and deep moat of water; the house is old, but pleasant, the chappel very pretty, ‘tho’ small; there is an organ painted against the wall, but in a seeming organ-loft, and so properly placed and well painted, that we at first believed it really to be an organ.

Hinchingbrook, another house belonging to a noble family, well known by the same title, shews itself at a small distance from Huntington; and a little way south stands that most nobly situated and pleasant seat of the Duke of Manchester, called Kimbolton, or Kimbolton Castle, where no pains or cost has been spar’d to make the most beautiful situation still more beautiful, and to help nature with art.

Hence we went a little north to see Oundle, being told that the famous drum was to be heard just at that time in the well; but when we came there, they shew’d us indeed the well and the town, but as for the drum, they could only tell us they heard of it, and that it did drum; but we could meet with no person of sufficient credit, that would say seriously they had heard it: so we came away dissatisfy’d.

This town of Oundle is pleasantly seated on the River Nyne, of which I have so often spoken. There are indeed a range of eminent towns upon this river; (viz.) Northampton, Wellingborough, Thrapston, Oundle, Fotheringay, Wandsford, and Peterborough; at all which, except Peterborough, there are very good stone bridges over the river.

Here again there is a most beautiful range of meadows, and perhaps they are not to be equall’d in England for length; they continue uninterrupted for above thirty miles in length, from Peterborough to Northampton, and, in some places, are near two miles in breadth, the land rich, the grass fine and good, and the cattle, which are always feeding on them, hay-time excepted, numberless.

From Oundle we cross’d the county of Northampton into Bedfordshire, and particularly to the town of Bedford, the chief town of the county; for this county has no city in it, tho’ even this town is larger and more populous, than several cities in England, having five parish-churches, and a great many, and those wealthy and thriving inhabitants. This is one of the seven counties, which they say lie together, and have not one city among them; namely, Huntington, Bedford, Bucks, Berks, Hertford, Essex, and Suffolk.

But here I must do a piece of justice to the usage of England in denominating of cities, namely, that it is not here as in France, and Flanders, and Holland, where almost all their towns of note are call’d cities, and where the gentry chiefly live in those cities, and the clergy also; I mean the religious houses, of which there are great numbers sometimes in one city, which are enough to make a city, where there was none before. But as we have no authority, but antient usage and custom, for the distinguishing places by the names of towns and cities, so since that ancient usage or authority had the titles of places, ’tis observable some places, formerly of note, are considerably decay’d, and scarce preserve the face of their ancient greatness; as Lincoln, Old Sarum, Carlisle, Verulam, and others; and several towns which in those times scarce deserv’d the name of cities, are now, by the encrease of commerce and numbers of inhabitants, become greater, more populous and wealthy, than others, which are call’d cities.

Nor is this all, but several towns, which Mr. Cambden tells us, were call’d cities in his time, are now sunk from the dignity, and are only call’d towns, and yet still retain a greatness, wealth, and populousness, superior to many cities, such as Colchester, Ipswich, Shrewsbury, Cambridge, Stamford, Leicester, and others, which are without all comparison greater now than Wells, Peterborough, Ely, or Carlisle, and yet have lost the title of cities, which the other retain.

Thus we have at this time the towns of Froom, Taunton, Tiverton, Plymouth, Portsmouth, and others in the west, and the towns of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Hull, and several others in the north, that are much larger, richer, and more populous, than Rochester, Peterborough, Carlisle, Bath, and even than York itself, and yet these retain but the name of towns, nay even of villages, in some of which the chiefest magistrate is but a constable, as in Manchester, for example.

It is remarkable of Bedfordshire, that tho’ a great part of the county lies on the north side of the Ouse; that is to say, the two whole hundreds of Stodden and Barford; yet there is not one market town in all that side of the Ouse, but Bedford only. Another thing is scarce to be equall’d in the whole isle of Britain; namely, that tho’ the Ouse, by a long and winding course, cuts through the county, and by its long reachings, so as to make above seventy miles between Oulney and St. Neots, tho’ not above twenty by land, yet in all that course it receives but one river into it, namely the little River Ivel, which falls into the Ouse a little above Temsford.

Bedford, as I have said, is a large, populous, and thriving town, and a pleasant well-built place; it has five parish churches, a very fine stone bridge over the Ouse, and the High Street, (especially) is a very handsome fair street, and very well-built; and tho’ the town is not upon any of the great roads in England, yet it is full of very good inns, and many of them; and in particular we found very good entertainment here.

Here is the best market for all sorts of provisions, that is to be seen at any country town in all these parts of England; and this occasions, that tho’ it is so far from London, yet the higglers or carriers buy great quantities of provisions here for London markets; also here is a very good trade down the river to Lynn.

Here is also a great corn market, and great quantities of corn are bought here, and carry’d down by barges and other boats to Lynn, where it is again shipp’d, and carry’d by sea to Holland: The soil hereabouts is exceeding rich and fertile, and particularly produces great quantities of the best wheat in England, which is carry’d by waggons from hence, and from the north part of the county twenty miles beyond this, to the markets of Hitchin and Hertford, and bought again there, and ground and carry’d in the meal (still by land) to London.

Indeed the whole product of this county is corn, that is to say, wheat and malt for London; for here are very few manufactures, except that of straw-hats and bone-lace, of which by itself: There are but ten market towns in the whole county, and yet ’tis not a small county neither.

The last of these was almost demolish’d by a terrible fire, which happen’d here just before my writing this account; but as this town has the good luck to belong to a noble family, particularly eminent for being good landlords; that is to say, bountiful and munificent to their poor tenants, I mean the ducal house of Bedford; there is no doubt but that the trustees, tho’ his grace the present duke is in his minority, will preserve that good character to the family, and re-edify the town, which is almost all their own.

The duke’s house, call’d Wooburn Abbey, is just by the town, a good old house, but very ancient, spacious and convenient rather than fine, but exceedingly pleasant by its situation; and for the great quantity of beach woods which surround the parks and cover the hills, and also for great woods of oak too, as rich and valuable, as they are great and magnificent: The very situation of this house to promise itself another Burleigh or Chatsworth, whenever an heir comes to enjoy the vast estate of this family, who has a genius for building; But at present, as above, the heir is an infant.

Ampthill is grac’d like Wooburn; for tho’ in itself, like the other, it is not a considerable town, and has no particular manufacture to enrich it, yet by the neighbourhood of that great and noble family of Bruce Earls of Ailesbury, the very town is made both rich and honourable: It is however the misfortune of this noble family, that the present earl lives abroad, being a Roman; but the next heirs are in view of recovering the grandeur of that ancient family. The old venerable seat of the family is near the town, and is a noble and magnificent palace, tho’ not wholly re-built, as is the fortune of many of the seats of our nobility of this age.

From hence, thro’ the whole south part of this county, as far as the border of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, the people are taken up with the manufacture of bone-lace, in which they are wonderfully encreas’d and improv’d within these few years past. Also the manufactures of straw-work, especially straw hats, spreads itself from Hertfordshire into this county, and is wonderfully encreased within a few years past.

Having thus viewed this county in all its most considerable towns, we came from Dunstable to St. Albans, and so into London, all which has been spoken of before; I therefore break off this circuit here, and subscribe,

SIR,
Your most obedient Servant.

Appendix to the second volume

THE same reasons which occasioned an Appendix to the last volume hold good still, and will hold, if ten volumes of the same kind were to be written; seeing no man can take so strict a view of England, but something will occur, which the nicest observer could not possibly see, or the most busy enquirer be inform’d of at one journey; and, which is still more, some things will be undertaken and begun in the smallest intervals of time, which were not heard of before; for example:

On a more exact enquiry into the particular state of the city of Bristol, I find it necessary to mention first, That there are but seventeen parishes in the city, tho’ there are nineteen churches, including the cathedral and the church of St. Mark: There are, besides those churches, seven meeting-houses, two Presbyterian, one Independent, two Quakers, one Baptist; also one or two other meetings not to be nam’d.

As to the Exchange design’d to be built, and for which an Act of Parliament actually pass’d, ann. 1723, it was at first intended to be built where the Tolsey now is; but so many buildings both publick and private and one church, namely Christ Church, at the corner of Vine-street, standing so near, as that they would crowd the place too much, the first measures were chang’d, and now the intended place is the meal market, between Vine-street and St. Mary Port, being on the north side of the Tolsey; but the citizens do not seem so hasty to build, as they were to get the Act of Parliament pass’d to give them power to do it.

There are no less than fifteen glass-houses in Bristol, which is more than are in the city of London: They have indeed a very great expence of glass bottles, by sending them fill’d with beer, cyder, and wine to the West Indies, much more than goes from London; also great numbers of bottles, even such as is almost incredible, are now used for sending the waters of St. Vincent’s Rock away, which are now carry’d, not all over England only, but, we may say, all over the world.

The ground is now so rais’d in Queen’s Square, (that which was formerly call’d the Mead) that the highest tide does not flow over it, and all the sides of the square are now fully built and inhabited, except one house only.

There is in the great church of Ratcliff, or Redcliff, a very antient monument for one Mr. William Cannings, burgess and merchant of Bristol, who besides repairing or new buiding part of Ratcliff great church, gave to the vicar and church-wardens, and major part of the inhabitants of the parish, in trust for the poor, 340l . This was in the year 1474. 17th of Edw. IV. N.B. Such a sum at that time was equal to eight times that money in these days.

On one part of the monument is a Latin inscription, in an odd way of writing, and full of abbreviations; and, on the other side, in English, the following account of this worthy citizen, and of the regard paid to him at that time.

Mr. William Cannings, the richest merchant of the town of Bristow; afterwards chosen five times Mayor of the town, for the good of the common wealth of the same: He was in Order of Priesthood, and afterwards Dean of Westburgh; and dy’d the 7th of November, 1474: Which said William did build within the said town of Westburgh a college with his canons and said William did maintain, by the space of 8 years, 8 hundred handy crafts men, besides carpenters and masons, every day 100 men. ——— Besides King Edward the 4th had of the said William 3000 marks for his peace, in 2470 tuns of shipping.

No age nor time can wear out well-won fame,
The stones themselves a stately work doth show;
From senseless stones we ground may mens good name,
And noble minds by virtuous deeds we know.
A lanthorn clear sets forth a candle-light:
A worthy act declares a worthy wight.
The buildings rare that here you may behold:
To shrine his bones deserves a tomb of gold:
The famous fabrick, that he here hath done,
Shines in his sphere, as glorious as the sun:
What needs more words? the future world he sought
And set the pomp and pride of this at naught;
Heaven was his aim! let Heaven be his station,
That leaves such works for others imitation.

Also here is the following inscription on the monument of Sir William Penn, Bart. the father of the great William Penn, one of the heads of the Quakers, who was a native of the city of Bristol: as follows.

To the just memory of Sir William Penn, Knt. and sometime general; borne at Bristol, in 1621, son of Capt. Giles Penn, several years consul for the English in the Mediterranean: Descended from the Penns of Penn Lodge in the county of Wilts, and the Penns of Penn near Wickham in the county of Bucks; and, by his mother, from the Gilberts in the county of Somerset, originally from Yorkshire; addicted from his youth to maritime affairs: He was made captain at the years of 21, Rear-Admiral of Ireland at 23, Vice-Admiral of Ireland at 25, Admiral to the Streights at 29, Vice-Admiral of England at 31, and General of the first Dutch Wars at 32; whence retiring, in anno 1655, he was chosen Parliament man for the town of Weymouth 1660, made Commissioner of the Admiralty and Navy, Governour of the towns and forts of Kingsaile, Vice-Admiral of Munster, and a member of the Provincial Councell; and, in anno 1664, was chosen Great Captain Commander under his Royal Highness, in that signal and most prudently successful fight against the Dutch Fleet. Thus he took leave of the sea, his old element, but continued still his other employs ‘till 1669, at what time, thro’ bodily Infirmities (contracted by the care and fatigue of the publick affairs) he withdrew, prepar’d, and made for his end, and with a gentle and even gale, in much peace, arriv’d and anchor’d in his last and best port, at Wanstead in the county of Essex, on the 16th of September, 1670, being then but 49 and 4 months old. To whose name and merit his surviving lady hath erected this remembrance.

In travelling this latter part of this second tour, it has not been taken notice of, though it very well deserves mention; That the soil of all the midland part of England, even from sea to sea, is of a deep stiff clay, or marly kind, and it carries a breadth of near 50 miles at least, in some places much more; nor is it possible to go from London to any part of Britain, north, without crossing this clayey dirty part. For example;

Suppose we take the great northern post road from London to York, and so into Scotland; you have tolerable good ways and hard ground, ‘till you reach Royston about 32, and to Kneesworth, a mile farther: But from thence you enter upon the clays, which beginning at the famous Arrington-Lanes, and going on to Caxton, Huntington, Stilton, Stamford, Grantham, Newark, Tuxford (call’d for its deepness Tuxford in the Clays) holds on ‘till we come almost to Bautree, which is the first town in Yorkshire, and there the country is hard and sound, being part of Sherwood Forest.

Suppose you take the other northern road, namely, by St. Albans, Dunstable, Hockley, Newport Pagnel, Northampton, Leicester, and Nottingham, or Darby: On this road, after you are pass’d Dunstable, which, as in the other way, is about 30 miles, you enter the deep clays, which are so surprisingly soft, that it is perfectly frightful to travellers, and it has been the wonder of foreigners, how, considering the great numbers of carriages which are continually passing with heavy loads, those ways have been made practicable; indeed the great number of horses every year kill’d by the excess of labour in those heavy ways, has been such a charge to the country, that new building of causeways, as the Romans did of old, seems to me to be a much easier expence: From Hockley to Northampton, thence to Harborough, and Leicester, and thence to the very bank of Trent these terrible clays continue; at Nottingham you are pass’d them, and the forest of Sherwood yields a hard and pleasant road for 30 miles together.

Take the same road as it leads to Coventry, and from thence to West Chester, the deep clays reach through all the towns of Brickhill, Fenny and Stony Stratford, Towcester, Daventry, Hill Morton, or Dunchurch, Coventry, Coleshill, and even to Birmingham, for very near 8o miles.

If we take the road to Worcester, it is the same through the vale of Aylesbury to Buckingham, and westward to Banbury, Keynton, and the vale of Evesham, where the clays reach, with some intermissions, even to the bank of Severn, as they do more northernly quite to West Chester.

The reason of my taking notice of this badness of the roads, through all the midland counties, is this; that as these are counties which drive a very great trade with the city of London, and with one another, perhaps the greatest of any counties in England; and that, by consequence, the carriage is exceeding great, and also that all the land carriage of the northern counties necessarily goes through these counties, so the roads had been plow’d so deep, and materials have been in some places so difficult to be had for repair of the roads, that all the surveyors rates have been able to do nothing; nay, the very whole country has not been able to repair them; that is to say, it was a burthen too great for the poor farmers; for in England it is the tenant, not the landlord, that pays the surveyors of the highways.

This necessarily brought the country to bring these things before the Parliament; and the consequence has been, that turnpikes or toll-bars have been set up on the several great roads of England, beginning at London, and proceeding thro’ almost all those dirty deep roads, in the midland counties especially; at which turn-pikes all carriages, droves of cattle, and travellers on horseback, are oblig’d to pay an easy toll; that is to say, a horse a penny, a coach three pence, a cart four pence, at some six pence to eight pence, a waggon six pence, in some a shilling, and the like; cattle pay by the score, or by the head, in some places more, in some less; but in no place is it thought a burthen that ever I met with, the benefit of a good road abundantly making amends for that little charge the travellers are put to at the turn-pikes.

Several of these turn-pikes and tolls had been set up of late years, and great progress had been made in mending the most difficult ways, and that with such success as well deserves a place in this account: And this is one reason for taking notice of it in this manner; for as the memory of the Romans, which is so justly famous, is preserv’d in nothing more visible to common observation, than in the remains of those noble causways and highways, which they made through all parts of the kingdom, and which were found so needful, even then, when there was not the five hundredth part of the commerce and carriage that is now: How much more valuable must these new works be, tho’ nothing to compare with those of the Romans, for the firmness and duration of their work?

The causways and roads, or streetways of the Romans, were perfect solid buildings, the foundations were laid so deep, and the materials so good, however far they were oblig’d to fetch them, that if they had been vaulted and arch’d, they could not have been more solid: I have seen the bottom of them dug up in several places, where I have observ’d flint-stones, chalkstones, hard gravel, solid hard clay, and several other sorts of earth, laid in layers, like the veins of oar in a mine; a laying of clay of a solid binding quality, then flint-stones, then chalk, then upon the chalk rough ballast or gravel, ‘till the whole work has been rais’d six or eight foot from the bottom; then it has been cover’d with a crown or rising ridge in the middle, gently sloping to the sides, that the rain might run off every way, and not soak into the work: This I have seen as fair and firm. after having stood, as we may conclude, at least 12 or 1600 years, as if it had been made but the year before.

And that I may not be charg’d with going beyond the most exact truth, I refer the curious to make their observations upon that causeway, call’d the Fosse, which is now remaining, and to be seen between Cirencester and Marshfield in Wiltshire, on the road to the Bath, or between the same Cirencester and Birdlip Hill in Gloucestershire, on the road to Gloucester; but more particularly, between Castleford Bridge, near Pontefract in Yorkshire, upon the River Aire, and the town of Aberford, in the road to Tadcaster and York.

In several parts of this causeway, the country being hard, and the way good on either side, travellers have not made much use of the causway, it being very high, and perhaps exposing them too much to the wind and weather, but have rather chosen to go on either side, so that the causway in some places, lies as flat and smooth on the top, as if it had never been made use of at all; and perhaps it has not, there being not so much as the mark of a wheel upon it, or of a horse foot for a good way together, for which I refer to the curious traveller that goes that way.

This very causeway have I seen cut into, so as to discover the very materials with which it was built; and in some parts of the same causeway, farther north, where the great road has taken some other way, I have seen the old causway dug down to carry the materials away, and mend the road which was then in use.

It is true the Romans being lords of the world, had the command of the people, their persons and their work, their cattle, and their carriages; even their armies were employ’d in these noble undertakings; and if the materials they wanted, were to fetch 20, nay 30 to 40 miles off, if they wanted them, they would have them, and the works were great and magnificent like themselves: Witness the numberless encampments, lines, castles and fortifications, which we see the remains of to this day.

But now the case is alter’d, labour is dear, wages high, no man works for bread and water now; our labourers do not work in the road, and drink in the brook; so that as rich as we are, it would exhaust the whole nation to build the edifices, the causways, the aqueducts, lines, castles, fortifications, and other publick works, which the Romans built with very little expence.

But to return to this new method of repairing the highways at the expence of the turn-pikes; that is to say, by the product of funds rais’d at those turn-pikes; it must be acknowledg’d they are very great things, and very great things are done by them; and ’tis well worth recording, for the honour of the present age, that this work has been begun, and is in an extraordinary manner carry’d on, and perhaps may, in a great measure be compleated within our memory. I shall give some examples here of those which have been brought to perfection already, and of others which are now carrying on.

First, that great county of Essex, of which our first tour gives an ample account. The great road from London, thro’ this whole county towards Ipswich and Harwich, is the most worn with waggons, carts, and carriages; and with infinite droves of black cattle, hogs, and sheep, of any road (that leads thro’ no larger an extent of country) in England: The length of it from Stratford-bridge by Bow, to Streetford-bridge over the Stour, on the side of Suffolk, is 50 miles, and to Harwich above 65 miles.

These roads were formerly deep, in time of floods dangerous, and at other times, in winter, scarce passable; they are now so firm, so safe, so easy to travellers, and carriages as well as cattle, that no road in England can yet be said to equal them; this was first done by the help of a turnpike, set up by Act of Parliament, about the year 1697, at a village near Ingerstone. Since that, another turnpike, set up at the corner of the Dog Row, near Mile-end; with an additional one at Rumford, which is called a branch, and paying at one, passes the person thro’ both: This I say, being set up since the other, compleats the whole, and we are told, that as the first expires in a year or two, this last will be sufficient for the whole, which will be a great case to the country: The first toll near Ingerstone, being the highest rated public toll in England; for they take 8d. for every cart, 6d. for every coach, and 12d . for every waggon; and in proportion for droves of cattle: For single horsemen indeed, it is the same as others pay, viz. 1d. per horse, and we are told, while this is doing, that the gentlemen of the county, design to petition the Parliament, to have the Commissioners of the last Act, whose turnpike, as above, is at Mile-end and Rumford, empowered to place other turnpikes, on the other most considerable roads, and so to undertake, and repair all the roads in the whole county, I mean all the considerable roads.

But to come back to the counties which I am now speaking of, some very good attempts have been made of this kind on the northern roads, thro’ those deep ways I mention’d, in the high post road; for example.

That an Act of Parliament was obtained about 30 years since, for repairing the road between Ware and Royston, and a turnpike was erected for it at Wade’s -mill, a village so called, about a mile and half beyond Ware: This proved so effectual, that the road there, which was before scarce passable, is now built up in a high, firm cause way; the most like those mentioned above, of the Romans, of any of these new undertakings. And, though this road is continually work’d upon, by the vast number of carriages, bringing malt and barly to Ware, for whose sake indeed, it was obtained; yet, with small repairs it is maintain’d, and the toll is reduced from a penny, to a half-penny, for the ease of the country, and so in proportion.

Beyond this, two grants have been obtained; one for repair of those wretched places, call’d Arrington Lanes, and all the road beyond Royston, to Caxton and Huntington; and another, for repairing the road from Stukely to Stilton, including the place called Stangate-Hole, and so on, towards Wansford and Santry Lane and Peterborough; by which these roads, which were before intollerable, are now much mended; but I cannot say, they are yet come up to the perfection of that road from London to Colchester.

One great difficulty indeed here, is, that the country is so universally made up of a deep, stiff clay; that ’tis hard to find any materials to repair the ways with, that may be depended upon. In some places they have a red sandy kind of a slate or stone, which they lay with timber and green faggots, and puts them to a very great expence; but this stone does not bind like chalk and gravel, or endure like flint and pebbles, but wears into clay from whence it proceeds; and this is the reason why they cannot expect those roads can reach up, however chargeable the repairs are to the goodness of the roads in Essex.

We see also a turnpike set up at a village very justly called Foul Mire near Cambridge, for the repair of the particular roads to the university, but those works are not yet brought to any perfection.

There is another road, which is a branch of the northern road, and is properly called the coach road, and which comes into the other near Stangate Hole; and this indeed is a most frightful way, if we take it from Hatfield, or rather the park corners of Hatfield House, and from thence to Stevenage, to Baldock, to Biggleswade, and Bugden. Here is that famous lane call’d Baldock Lane, famous for being so unpassable, that the coaches and travellers were oblig’d to break out of the way even by force, which the people of the country not able to prevent, at length placed gates, and laid their lands open, setting men at the gates to take a voluntary toll, which travellers always chose to pay, rather than plunge into sloughs and holes, which no horse could wade through.

This terrible road is now under cure by the same methods, and probably may in time be brought to be firm and solid, the chalk and stones being not so far to fetch here, as in some of those other places I have just now mention’d.

But the repair of the roads in this county, namely Bedfordshire, is not so easy a work, as in some other parts of England. The drifts of cattle, which come this way out of Lincolnshire and the fens of the Isle of Ely, of which I have spoken already, are so great, and so constantly coming up to London markets, that it is much more difficult to make the ways good, where they are continually treading by the feet of the large heavy bullocks, of which the numbers that come this way are scarce to be reckon’d up, and which make deep impressions, where the ground is not very firm, and often work through in the winter what the commissioners have mended in the summer.

But leaving these undertakings to speak for themselves when finish’d; for they can neither be justly prais’d or censur’d before; it ought to be observ’d, that there is another road branching out from this deep way at Stevenage, and goes thence to Hitchin, to Shefford, and Bedford. Hitchin is a large market town, and particularly eminent for its being a great corn market for wheat and malt, but especially the first, which is bought here for London market. The road to Hitchin, and thence to Bedford, tho’ not a great thorough-fare for travellers, yet is a very useful highway for the multitude of carriages, which bring wheat from Bedford to that market, and from the country round it, even as far as Northamptonshire, and the edge of Leicestershire; and many times the country people are not able to bring their corn for the meer badness of the ways.

This road, I hear, will be likewise repair’d, by virtue of a turn-pike to be plac’d near Hitchin on this side, and at the two bridges over the Ouse, namely Barford Bridge and Bedford Bridge, on the other side; as also at Temsford, where they drive through the river without the help of a bridge.

But to leave what may be, I return to what is. The next turnpikes are on the great north west road, or, as I have distinguish’d it already, the Watling-street Way; which, to describe it once for all, begins at Islington near London, and leads to Shrewsbury, West Chester, and Hollyhead in Wales; with other branches breaking out from it to the north, leading to Nottingham, Darby, Burton on the Trent, and Warrington, and from them all, farther north, into the north west parts of Great Britain; for they are the grand passes into Yorkshire, Darbyshire, and Lancashire, and thro’ them to Westmoreland, Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland; of all which I shall give a farther account in my next letters.

Upon this great road there are wonderful improvements made and making, which no traveller can miss the observation of, especially if he knew the condition these ways were formerly in; nor can my account of these counties be perfect, without taking notice of it; for certainly no publick edifice, almshouse, hospital, or nobleman’s palace, can be of equal value to the country with this, no nor more an honour and ornament to it.

The first attempt upon this road was at Brickhill in Buckinghamshire, and the turn-pike was set up on the hill, near the town call’d Little Brickhill, by vertue of which, they repair’d the road from thence to Stony Stratford, for about ten miles, and with very good success; for that road was broad, and capable of giving room for such a work; and tho’ materials were hard to come at, and far to fetch, yet we soon found a large firm causway, or highway, and of a full breadth, reaching from Fenny Stratford to Stony Stratford, which is six miles, and where the way was exceeding bad before.

This encourag’d the country to set about the work in good earnest; and we now see the most dismal piece of ground for travelling, that ever was in England, handsomly repair’d; namely, from the top of the chalky hill beyond Dunstable down into Hockley Lane, and thro’ Hockley, justly called Hockley in the Hole, to Newport Pagnall, being a bye branch of the great road, and leading to Northampton, and was call’d the coach road; but such a road for coaches, as worse was hardly ever seen.

The next (to come southward) was the road from St. Albans to South Mims, a village beyond Barnet: Soon after this road parts from the great coach road to the north, which I mention’d before, beginning at Hatfield.

This road, from Mims to St. Albans, is so well mended, the work so well done, and the materials so good, so plentifully furnish’d, and so faithfully apply’d, that, in short, if possible, it out-does the Essex road mention’d before; for here the bottom is not only repair’d, but the narrow places are widen’d, hills levell’d, bottoms raised, and the ascents and descents made easy, to the inexpressible ease and advantage of travellers, and especially of the carriers, who draw heavy goods and hard loads, who find the benefit in the health and strength of their cattle.

From hence, to come still more towards London, another undertaking reaches from the foot of Barnet Hill, call’d formerly the Blockhouse, to Whetstone, and so over the great heath, call’d Finchley Common, to Highgate Hill, and up the hill to the gatehouse at Highgate, where they had their turn-pike; as also at the Blockhouse; and this work is also admirably well perform’d, and thro’ a piece of ground, which was very full of sloughs and deep places before.

But from Highgate to London still requir’d help; the road branch’d into two, at the top of Highgate Hill, or just at the gatehouse there; one came to London by Islington, and there branch’d again into two, one coming by the north end of Islington, and another on the back of the town, and entring the town at the south west end near the Angel Inn, there dividing again, one branch entred London at Goswell-street and Aldersgate street; and this was the principal road for waggons and pack-horses: The other going directly to St. John-street and into Smithfield; and this way was the chief road for cattle to Smithfield Market.

The other road parting off at Highgate, came down the hill by the late Sir William Ashurst’s house, of which I made mention in its place, and thence passing through Kentish Town, entred London by two ways: one by Grays Inn Lane, and the other by Clerkenwell.

All these roads were to the last extremity run to ruin, and grew worse and worse so evidently, that it was next to impossible, the country should be able to repair them: Upon which an Act of Parliament was obtain’d for a turnpike, which is now erected at Islington aforesaid, as also all the other branches by the Kentish Town way, and others; so that by this new toll, all these roads are now likely to be made good, which were before almost a scandal to the city of London.

Another turnpike, and which was erected before this, was on the great north road, beginning at Shoreditch, and extending to Enfield Street, in the way to Ware; though this road is exceedingly throng’d, and raises great sums, yet I cannot say, that the road itself seems to be so evidently improv’d, and so effectually repair’d, as the others last mention’d, notwithstanding no materials are wanting; even on the very verge of the road itself, whether it be, that the number of carriages, which come this way, and which are indeed greater than in any other road about London, is the occasion, or whether the persons concern’d do not so faithfully, or so skilfully perform, I will not undertake to determine.

After so many encouraging examples on this great Watling-street road, as I have mention’d above, they have now begun the like on the same way farther down, and particularly from Stony Stratford to Daventry and Dunchurch, and so on to Coventry and Coles-hill; all those parts of it are at this time repairing, and they promise themselves that in a few years those roads will be compleatly sound and firm, as Watling-street was in its most antient and flourishing state; but this must be mention’d, like any publick edifice, which is now building, and perhaps may require some time to finish.

I come next to mention other works of the same kind in remoter places, also more westerly, but within the compass of this midland circuit; as particularly the road from Birdlip Hill to Gloucester, formerly a terrible place for poor carriers and travellers out of Wales, &c. But now repair’d very well.

Likewise the road from Sandy Lane Hill in Wiltshire to the Bath, which began to be repair’d by the direction of her late Majesty Queen Anne.

Also another piece of bad road near Beaconsfield in Oxfordshire.

By the same happy example, turnpikes are erected at the west end of the town, for repairing that horrid road, formerly also a part of the Watling-street Way, from St. Giles’s Church to Paddington, and thence to Edgworth, obtain’d first by the interest and motion of his grace the Duke of Chandos.

On the other side of the river is another turnpike erected, or rather two turnpikes, one at the north end of the town of Newington, call’d Newington Buts, which has two or three colateral branches, viz. one at Vaux-Hall, at the bridge near the Spring Carden corner, and another at Croydon, besides smaller toll-bars on the bye-lanes. This undertaking has been very well prosecuted, and the great Sussex road, which was formerly unsufferably bad, is now become admirably good; and this is done at so great an expence, that they told me at Strettham, that one mile between the two next bridges south of that town, cost a thousand pounds repairing, including one of the bridges, and yet it must be acknowledg’d, that the materials are very near hand, and very good all the way to Croydon.

The other turnpike on that side is placed near New Cross on the road into Kent, a little before the road to Lusum parts from the road to Deptford Bridge; so that all the road to Lee and Eltham, the road to Bromley and Tunbridge, as well as the great road to Rochester and Canterbury, are taken in there; and this undertaking, they tell us, is likewise very well perform’d.

So that upon the whole, this custom prevailing, ’tis more than probable, that our posterity may see the roads all over England restor’d in their time to such a perfection, that travelling and carriage of goods will be much more easy both to man and horse, than ever it was since the Romans lost this island.

Nor will the charge be burthensome to any body; as for trade, it will be encourag’d by it every way; for carriage of all kind of heavy goods will be much easier, the waggoners will either perform in less time, or draw heavier loads, or the same load with fewer horses; the pack-horses will carry heavier burthens, or travel farther in a day, and so perform their journey in less time; all which till tend to lessen the rate of carriage, and so bring goods cheaper to market.

The fat cattle will drive lighter, and come to market with less toil, and consequently both go farther in one day, and not waste their flesh, and heat and spoil themselves, in wallowing thro’ the mud and sloughs, as is now the case.

The sheep will be able to travel in the winter, and the city not be oblig’d to give great prizes to the butchers for mutton, because it cannot be brought up out of Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, the sheep not being able to travel: the graziers and breeders will not be oblig’d to sell their stocks of weathers cheap in October to the farmers within 20 miles of London, because after that they cannot bring them up; but the ways being always light and sound, the grasiers will keep their stocks themselves, and bring them up to market, as they see cause, as well in winter as in summer.

Another benefit of these new measures for repairing the roads by turnpikes, is the opening of drains and water-courses, and building bridges, especially over the smaller waters, which are oftentimes the most dangerous to travellers on hasty rains, and always most injurious to the roads, by lying in holes and puddles, to the great spoiling the bottom, and making constant sloughs, sometimes able to bury both man and horse; ’tis very remarkable that the overseers of these works take effectual care to have bridges built in such places, and currents made or opened for the waters to pass, by which abundance of labour is sav’d in constantly tending the waters on such occasions; but of this also we shall say more presently.

To give an eminent instance of it, we refer the curious to take the road from Blackman-street in Southwark, to Croydon, for an example, where, if we are not mistaken, he will find eleven bridges wholly new-built in ten miles length, by which the whole road is laid dry, sound, and hard, which was before a most uncomfortable road to travel.

This improving of the roads is an infinite improvement to the towns near London, in the convenience of coming to them, which makes the citizens flock out in greater numbers than ever to take lodgings and country-houses, which many, whose business call’d them often to London, could not do, because of the labour of riding forward and backward, when the roads were but a little dirty, and this is seen in the difference in the rents of houses in those villages upon such repair’d roads, from the rents of the like dwellings and lodgings in other towns of equal distance, where they want those helps, and particularly the encrease of the number of buildings in those towns, as above.

This probably has not been the least reason why such tolls are erected now on every side of London, or soon will be, and I doubt not but in time it will be the like all over England.

There are indeed some very deep roads in many places of England, and that south by Trent too, where no such provision is yet made for repair of the roads, as particularly in and through the vale of Aylesbury, and to Buckingham, and beyond it into Oxfordshire; also beyond Northampton to Harborough and Leicester; also in Lincolnshire, beyond what we nam’d to be from Huntington to Stilton, the road from Stamford to Grantham, Newark, and Tuxford, in the clays, all which remain very deep, and in some seasons dangerous.

Likewise the roads in Sussex, and that in particular which was formerly a Roman work, call’d Stony-street or Stone-street: Mr. Cambden mentions it as going from Leatherhead to Darking, and thro’ Darking church-yard, then cross a terrible deep country, call’d the Homeward, and so to Petworth and Arundel: But we see nothing of it now; and the country indeed remains in the utmost distress for want of good roads: So also all over the Wild of Kent and Sussex it is the same, where the corn is cheap at the barn, because it cannot be carry’d out; and dear at the market, because it cannot be brought in.

But the specimens above, will, we doubt not, prompt the country gentlemen in time to go through with it all over England; and ’tis to give a clear view of this important case, that we have given this account of them.

The benefit of these turnpikes appears now to be so great, and the people in all places begin to be so sensible of it, that it is incredible what effect it has already had upon trade in the countries where it is more compleatly finish’d; even the carriage of goods is abated in some places, 6d. per hundred weight, in some places 12d. per hundred, which is abundantly more advantage to commerce. than the charge paid amounts to, and yet at the same time the expence is paid by the carriers too, who make the abatement; so that the benefit in abating the rate of carriage is wholly and simply the tradesmens, not the carriers.

Yet the advantage is evident to the carriers also another way; for, as was observ’d before, they can bring more weight with the same number of horses, nor are their horses so hard work’d and fatigued with their labour as they were before; in which one particular ’tis acknowledg’d by the carriers, they perform their work with more ease, and the masters are at less expence.

The advantage to all other kinds of travelling I omit here: such as the safety and ease to gentlemen travelling up to London on all occasions, whether to the term, or to Parliament, to Court, or on any other necessary occasion, which is not a small part of the benefit of these new methods.

Also the riding post, as well for the ordinary carrying of the mails, or for the gentlemen riding post, when their occasions require speed; I say, the riding post is made extreamly easy, safe, and pleasant, by this alteration of the roads.

I mention so often the safety of travelling on this occasion, because, as I observ’d before, the commissioners for these repairs of the highways have order’d, and do daily order, abundance of bridges to be repair’d and enlarg’d, and new ones built, where they find occasion, which not only serve to carry the water off, where it otherwise often spreads, and lies as it were, damm’d up upon the road, and spoils the way; but where it rises sometimes by sudden rains to a dangerous height; for it is to be observ’d, that there is more hazard, and more lives lost, in passing, or attempting to pass little brooks and streams, which are swell’d by sudden showers of rain, and where passengers expect no stoppage, than in passing great rivers, where the danger is known, and therefore more carefully avoided.

In many of these places the commissioners have built large and substantial bridges for the benefit of travelling, as is said already, and in other places have built sluices to stop, and open’d channels to carry off the water, where they used to swell into the highway: We have two of these sluices near London, in the road thro’ Tottenham High-Cross and Edmonton, by which the waters in those places, which have sometimes been dangerous, are now carry’d off, and the road clear’d; and as for bridges I have been told, that the several commissioners, in the respective districts where they are concern’d, have already built above three hundred new ones, where there were none before, or where the former were small and insufficient to carry the traveller safe over the waters; many of these are within a few miles of London, especially, for example, on the great road from London to Edgeworth, from London to Enfield, from London to St. Albans, and, as before, from London to Croydon, where they are very plain to be seen, and to which I refer.

And for farther confirmation of what I have advanc’d above, namely, that we may expect, according to this good beginning, that the roads in most parts of England will in a few years be fully repair’d, and restor’d to the same good condition, (or perhaps a better, than) they were in during the Roman government, we may take notice, that there are no less than twelve Bills, or Petitions for Bills, depending before the Parliament, at this time sitting, for the repair of the roads, in several remote parts of England, or for the lengthening the time allow’d in former Acts; some of which, besides those hereafter mentioned, give us hopes, that the grants, when obtain’d, will be very well manag’d, and the country people greatly encourag’d by them in their commerce; for there is no doubt to be made, but that the inland trade of England has been greatly obstructed by the exceeding badness of the roads.

A particular example of this, I have mention’d already, viz. the bringing of fat cattle, especially sheep to London in the winter, from the remoter counties of Leicester and Lincoln, where they are bred; by which the country grasiers are oblig’d to sell their stocks off, at the latter end of the summer, namely September and October, when they sell cheap, and the butchers and farmers near London engross them, and keeping them ‘till December and January, sell them, tho’ not an ounce fatter than before, for an advanc’d price, to the citizens of London; whereas were the roads made good and passable, the city would be serv’d with mutton almost as cheap in the winter as in the summer, or the profit of the advance would be to the graziers of Leicester and Lincolnshires, who were the original breeders. This is evidenc’d to a demonstration in the counties of Essex and Suffolk, from whence they already bring their fat cattle, and particularly their mutton in droves, from sixty, seventy, or eighty miles, without fatiguing, harrassing, or sinking the flesh of the creatures, even in the depth of winter.

I might give examples of other branches of inland commerce, which would be quite alter’d for the better, by this restoring the goodness of the roads, and particularly that of carrying cheese, a species of provision so considerable, that nothing, except that of live cattle, can exceed it.

This is chiefly made in the three north west counties of England, viz. Cheshire, Gloucester, and Warwickshires, and the parts adjacent, from whence the nation is very meanly supply’d, by reason of the exceeding distance of the country where the cheese is made, from those counties where it is chiefly expended.

The Cheshire men indeed carry great quantities about by long sea, as they call it, to London; a terrible long, and sometimes dangerous, voyage, being thro’ the Irish Channel, round all Wales, cross the Bristol Channel, round the Land’s End of Cornwall, and up the English Channel to the mouth of the Thames, and so up to London; or else by land to Burton upon Trent, and so down that river to Gainesborough and Hull, and so by sea to London.

Again, the Gloucestershire men carry all by land-carriage to Lechlade and Cricklade on the Thames, and so carry it down the river to London.

But the Warwickshire men have no water-carriage at all, or at least not ‘till they have carry’d it a long way by land to Oxford; but as their quantity is exceeding great, and they supply not only the city of London, but also the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Hertford, Bedford, and Northampton, the gross of their carriage is by meer dead draught, and they carry it either to London by land, which is full an hundred miles, and so the London cheese-mongers supply the said counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, besides Kent, and Sussex, and Surrey by sea and river navigation: or the Warwickshire men carry it by land once a year to Sturbridge Fair, whence the shop-keepers of all the inland country above-named, come to buy it; in all which cases land-carriage being long, and the ways bad, makes it very dear to the poor, who are the consumers.

But were the ways from Warwickshire made good, as I have shewn they are already in Essex, and some other places; this carriage would be perform’d for little more than half the price that it now is, and the poor would have their provisions much cheaper.

I could enlarge here upon the convenience that would follow such a restoring the ways, for the carrying of fish from the sea coasts to the inner parts of the kingdom, where, by reason of the badness of the ways, they cannot now carry them sweet; This would greatly encrease the consumption of fish in its season, which now for that very reason, is but small, and would employ an innumerable number of horses and men, as well as encrease the shipping by that consumption.

By this carriage of fish, I do not only mean the carrying herrings and mackerell to London, as is practis’d on the coast of Sussex and Kent in particular, and bringing salmon from the remote rivers of Severn and Trent; but the carrying of herrings, mackerell, and sprats in their season, and whitings and flat fish at other times, from the coasts of Yarmouth, Swole, Ipswich, Colchester, Malden, &c. and supplying all the inland counties with them sweet and good, which ’tis plain they might do, were the roads made good, even as far as Northampton, and Coventry, and farther too.

I might give examples where the herrings, which are not the best fish to keep neither, are, even as it is, carry’d to those towns, and up to Warwick, Birmingham, Tamworth and Stafford, and tho’ they frequently stink before they come thither, yet the people are so eager of them, that they buy them, and give dear for them too; whereas were the roads good, they would come in less time, by at least two days in six, and ten-fold the quantity, nay, some say, an hundred times the quantity, be consum’d.

These, and many others, are the advantages to our inland commerce, which we may have room to hope for upon the general repair of the roads, and which I shall have great occasion to speak of again in my northern circuit, which is yet to come.

The Author’s Preface To The Third Volume

THE TOUR is now finish’d; and you have the account contracted into as narrow a compass, as, considering the extent of ground pass’d over, with the number of cities, populous towns, and a country infinitely rich, populous and prosperous, to be described, could be reasonably expected.

As I mentioned in the last volume, every new view of Great Britain would require a new description; the improvements that encrease, the new buildings erected, the old buildings taken down: New discoveries in metals, mines, minerals; new undertakings in trade; inventions, engines, manufactures, in a nation, pushing and improving as we are: These things open new scenes every day, and make England especially shew a new and differing face in many places, on every occasion of surveying it.

Since our last volume, we have to add to the description of the parts in and about London, a large variety both of publick and private buildings; as a new East-India House building in the city, and a South-Sea Company-House finished, both lofty and magnificent. Mr. Guy’s Hospital in Southwark, the noblest foundation of the age for one private charity, finished and filled at the foot of above an hundred thousand pounds gift, if common fame may be believed: The additions to Bethlehem Hospital, and several new steeples and churches; Sir Gregory Page’s house, or rather palace, upon Black-Heath, erected and finished, one of the most beautiful seats belonging to a private gentleman, that not England only, but that all Europe can produce.

Add to this the cookery, as they properly enough call it, of the South-Sea Company for their Greenland trade, their whale-fishing, and boiling their blubber, &c. being the largest magazine of all sorts of materials for the shipping, fishing, &c. that is belonging to any private branch of commerce. Then there is a little city of buildings, streets and squares, added to those mentioned before, at the west end of Hanover and Cavendish Square, with the repair of two terrible fires at Wapping and Ratcliff.

And, to close all: There is the erecting a new stone bridge over the Thames at Putney and Fulham, for which an Act of Parliament was obtained last sessions, and preparations are now actually making to set about it, which is like to be a very stately and magnificent work.

If all these additions are to be found in the small interval between the publishing the second volume and this of the third, and that in so narrow a compass, what may not every subsequent year produce? and what encouragement is here for new and more accurate surveys of this country? which, whoever travels over it, will always furnish new materials, and a variety both profitable and delightful.

The fine house built by the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole, in the north part of the county of Norfolk, is, as I am told, now also finished, at least the outside work and figure of the building is; so it is a mistake that must be acknowledged in form, (however not the author’s ) when, in our last, the inscription fixed on the foundation-stone of the building, was said to be ordered for the frize; the necessary absence of the author, (who was then on a journey for preparing this volume) may answer for a fault owing to the corrector of the press, and which, had the author seen it, could not have pass’d his notice. But the triumph one impertinent has made upon the occasion, is fully check’d by this more than needful concession. It is a happy testimony of the care and caution used by the author of this work, in every part of it, when such earnest endeavours are used to expose it, and so little found, to lay hold of. Any mistake that can be found, and, in a friendly manner, hinted, we shall receive with thankfulness, and amend chearfully; But a cavil, evidently malicious, of an author without a name, lest an answer should be given, will be treated as it deserves, with the contempt of silence.

Introduction To The Third Volume

SIR— I have now finished my account of the several circuits which I took the last year, compleating the southern parts of the isle of Britain; my last brought me to the banks of the River Trent, and from thence back to London, where I first set out.

I have yet the largest, tho’ not the most populous, part of Britain to give you an account of; nor is it less capable of satisfying the most curious traveller: Though, as in some places things may stand more remote from one another, and there may, perhaps, be more waste ground to go over; yet ’tis certain a traveller spends no waste hours, if his genius will be satisfied with just observations. The wildest part of the country is full of variety, the most mountainous places have their rarities to oblige the curious, and give constant employ to the enquiries of a diligent observer, making the passing over them more pleasant than the traveller cou’d expect, or than the reader perhaps at first sight will think possible.

The people in these northern climes will encrease the variety; their customs and genius differing so much from others, will add to our entertainment; the one part of them being, till now, a distinct nation, the inhabitants thereof will necessarily come in as a part of what we are to describe: Scotland is neither so considerable, that we should compliment her at the expence of England; or so inconsiderable, that we should think it below us to do her justice; I shall take the middle of both extremes.

I shall be tempted very often to make excursions here on account of the history and antiquities of persons and places both private and publick. For the northern parts of Britain, especially of England, as they were long the seat of war between the several nations; such as the Britains, Scots, Picts, Romans, Saxons, and Danes, so there are innumerable remains of antiquity left behind them, and those more visible in those parts, and less defac’d by time, and other accidents than in any other part of the island.

He that travels through such a country, if he sees and knows the meaning of those monuments of antiquity, and has due memoirs of the historical part still in his head, must be inexcusable if he takes up his own time, or his reader’s pateince, in observing trifles, and recording things of no signification.

I knew two gentlemen who travelled over the greatest part of England in several journies together; the result of their observations were very different indeed; one of them took some minutes of things for his own satisfaction, but not much; but the other, as he said, took an exact Journal; the case was thus:

He that took minutes only, those minutes were very critical, and upon some very significant things; but for the rest his memory was so good, and he took so good notice of every thing worth observing, that he wrote a very good and useful account of his whole journey after his return; that account I have seen, and had the advantage to look it over again upon this occasion, and by it to correct and enlarge some of my own observations; it being as impossible any one man could see or observe every thing worth seeing in England, as it is to know every face he meets in a croud.

The other gentleman’s papers, which I called an exact Journal, contained the following very significant heads:

The day of the month when he set out.

The names of the towns where they din’d every day, and where they lodg’d at night.

The signs of the inns where they din’d and lodg’d, with the memorandums of which had good claret, which not.

The day of the month when he return’d.

The moral of this brief story, which I insist that I know to be true, is very much to my purpose. The difference between these two gentlemen in their travelling, and in their remarks upon their journey, is a good emblem of the differing genius in readers. as well as authors, and may be a guide to both in the work now before us.

I have endeavoured that these letters shall not be a journal of trifles; if it is on that account too grave for some people, I hope it will not for others; I have study’d the advancement and encrease of knowledge for those that read, and shall be as glad to make them wise, as to make them merry; yet I hope they will not find the story so ill told, or so dull as to tyre them too soon, or so barren as to put them to sleep over it.

The north part of Great Britain, I mean Scotland, is a country which will afford a great variety to the observation, and to the pen of an itinerate; a kingdom so famous in the world for great and gallant men, as well states-men as soldiers, but especially the last, can never leave us barren of subject, or empty of somewhat to say of her.

The Union has seemed to secure her peace, and to encrease her commerce: But I cannot say she has raised her figure in the world at all since that time, I mean as a body; She was before considered as a nation, now she appears no more but as a province, or at best a dominion; she has not lost her name as a place; but as a state, she may be said to have lost it, and that she is now no more than a part of Great Britain in common with other parts of it, of which England it self is also no more. I might enlarge here upon the honour it is to Scotland to be a part of the British Empire, and to be incorporated with so powerful a people under the crown of so great a monarch; their being united in name as one, Britain, and their enjoying all the privileges of, and in common with, a nation who have the greatest privileges, and enjoy the most liberty of any people in the world. But I should be told, and perhaps justly too, that this was talking like an Englishman, rather than like a Briton; that I was gone from my declared impartiality, and that the Scots would perhaps talk a different stile when I came among them. Nor is it my business to enquire which nation have the better end of the staff in the late coalition, or how the articles on which it is established, are performed on one side or other.

My business is rather to give a true and impartial description of the place; a view of the country, its present state as to fertility, commerce, manufacture, and product; with the manners and usages of the people, as I have done in England; and to this I shall confine my self as strictly as the nature of a journey thro’ the country requires.

I shall, in doing this, come indeed of course to make frequent mention of the various turns and revolutions which have happened in those northern parts; for Scotland has changed its masters, and its forms of government, as often as other nations; and, in doing this, it will necessarily occur to speak of the Union, which is the last, and like to be the last revolution of affairs in Scotland for, we hope, many ages. But I shall enter no farther into this, than is concerned in the difference between the face of things there now, and what was there before the said Union, and which the Union has been the occasion or cause of; as particularly the division and government of the countries, and towns, and people in particular places; the communication of privileges, influence of government, and enlarging of the liberty of trade.

This will also bring on the needful account of alterations and improvements, in those counties, which, by reason of the long and cruel wars between the two nations in former reigns, lay waste and unimproved, thinly inhabited, and the people not only poor because of the continual incursions of the troops on either side; but barbarous and ravenous themselves, as being inured to rapine, and living upon the spoil of one another for several ages; all which is now at an end, and those counties called the marches or borders, are now as well peopled and cultivated as other counties, or in a fair way to be so.

This alteration affords abundance of useful observations, and ’tis hop’d they shall be fruitfully improved in this work; and as it is a subject which none have yet meddled with, so we believe it will not be the less acceptable for its novelty, if tolerably well handled, as we hope it shall be.

Those few cavils which have been raised at the former parts of this work; for it is with great satisfaction I can say they are but few, are far from discouraging me in this hardest and most difficult part of the undertaking; I believe it is impossible for any man to observe so narrowly upon Great Britain, as to omit nothing, or to mistake in nothing; the great Mr. Cambden has committed many mistakes, which his reverend continuator has corrected; and there are yet many more which that learned and reverend author has not seen; and both together have omitted many things very well worth observing; yet their works are justly valued, their labours and endeavours commendable and profitable to the world; and no man lessens the author for not seeing every thing, or knowing critically every thing, tho’ worth knowing, which persons inhabiting those places may be respectively informed of.

If our endeavour has been, as it really has, to give a full and just representation of persons and things wherever we came, I think the end is as fully pursued as any author can undertake to do; and for cavils and querulous criticisms, or for unavoidable omitting of what did not occur to observation, they are not worth notice; what real mistakes we have yet discovered in the last volume, are touch’d at in the Preface; and if we had met with more, they should have been mentioned faithfully; for no wise man will be ashamed to amend a mistake; but ’tis a satisfaction enough to tempt one’s vanity to be able to say how few they are.

Letter VIII

The Trent Valley

SIR— As I am to begin this circuit from the River Trent, and to confine my observations to that part of Britain which the Scots and Northumberlanders, and others on that side, call North by Trent, it seems necessary (at least it cannot be improper) to give some description of the river it self, and especially the course which it runs, by which, adding a little river call’d the Weaver, and a branch of it call’d the Dane in Staffordshire and Cheshire, the whole island of Britain is, as it were, divided into two parts.

The River Trent is rated by ancient writers as the third river in England, the two greater being the Thames and the Severn: It is also one of the six principal rivers which running across the island from the west to the east, all begin with the letter T; namely, the Thames, Trent, Tees, Tine, Tweed, and Tay.

The Trent is not the largest river of the six; yet it may be said to run the longest course of any of them, and rises nearer to the west verge of the island than any of the other; also it is the largest, and of the longest course of any river in England, which does not empty its waters immediately into the sea; for the Trent runs into the Humber, and so its waters lose their name before they reach to the ocean.

It rises in the hills or highlands of Staffordshire, called the Moorlands, receiving, from the edge of Cheshire, and towards Lancashire, a great many (some say thirty, and that thence it had its name) little rivulets into it, very near its head, all which may claim a share in being the originals of the Trent; thus it soon becomes one large river, and comes down from the hills with a violent current into the flat country; where, being encreased by several other little rivers, it carries a deeper channel, and a stiller current; and having given its name to Trentham, a small market town in the same county, it goes on to Stone, a considerable town on the great road to West-Chester.

The original of its name is very uncertain, as is the case in most other rivers of England; that it takes the name of Trent, as above, because of its receiving thirty rivers into it, or because there are thirty several sorts of fish in it, or that, like the Tibiscus in Hungary, it is three parts water, and two parts fish; all these the learned and judicious Mr. Cambden rejects, as I do for the same reason, namely, because they have no authority for the suggestion.

One branch of the Trent rises within a quarter of a mile of the Dane, (viz.) from a moor adjoining to, or part of a little ridge of hills called Molecop Hill, near Congleton, and is within twenty two miles of the Irish Sea, or that arm or inlet of the sea which the Mersee makes from Frodsham to Liverpool and Hyle-lake; and as the Dane runs into the Weaver, and both into that arm of the sea, and the Trent into the Humber, which opens into the great German Ocean, those rivers may be said to cut the island across in the middle.

It is true, the northern part is much larger than the southern, now Scotland is united; otherwise the country south by Trent, including Wales, is by far the largest: But it must be allowed still, that the country south by Trent is the richest by far, and most populous; occasioned chiefly by the city of London, and the commerce of the Thames; as for the cities of Bristol, Exceter, and Norwich, which are large and very populous, and in some things drive a prodigious trade, as well in merchandise as manufacture, we shall find them matched, if not out-done, by the growing towns of Liverpool, Hull, Leeds, Newcastle, and Manchester, and the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, as shall be shown in its place.

The Trent runs a course of near two hundred miles, through the four counties of Stafford, Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln; it receives, besides lesser waters, the larger rivers of the Sowe from the west side of the county, and from the town of Stafford; the Tame from Birmingham and Tamworth; the Soar from Leicester; and the Dove and Derwent, two furiously rapid streams, from the Peak of Derby; the Idle, a gentle navigable stream from Rhetford and Nottinghamshire; with part of the Wittham, called the Fossdike from Lincoln, also navigable; and the greatest of them all, the Don, from Doncaster, Rothram, and Sheffield, after a long and rapid course through the moors called Stanecross on the edge of Derby, and the West-Riding of Yorkshire.

The Trent is navigable by ships of good burthen as high as Gainsbrough, which is near 40 miles from the Humber by the river. The barges without the help of locks or stops go as high as Nottingham, and farther by the help of art, to Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire. The stream is full, the channel deep and safe, and the tide flows up a great way between Gainsborough and Newark. This, and the navigation lately, reaching up to Burton and up the Derwent to Derby, is a great support to, and encrease of the trade of those counties which border upon it; especially for the cheese trade from Cheshire and Warwickshire, which have otherwise no navigation but about from West Chester to London; whereas by this river it is brought by water to Hull, and from thence to all the south and north coasts on the east side of Britain; ’tis calculated that there is about four thousand ton of Cheshire cheese only, brought down the Trent every year from those parts of England to Gainsborough and Hull; and especially in time of the late war, when the seas on the other side of England were too dangerous to bring it by long-sea.

Thus much for the River Trent; The towns standing upon it, and especially on the north shore or bank are but few, at least of note: Beginning at the mouth of it, and going up the stream, all the towns, such as Burton, Stockwith, Gainsborough, and Newark, are on the south bank, and consequently have been spoken to already. The only towns of any note that are to be found on the north bank of Trent, are Nottingham, and the other Burton, of which I shall speak in their order; at present, as I took a different circuit in my riding, I must do so in my account of it also, or else if my pen does not follow my foot, I shall wander rather than travel, at least in my paper, whatever I did on my horse.

The counties north by Trent are few; but most of them large; I mean on the side of England, (viz.) York, which I shall call three counties, as it is divided into three Ridings, and are large counties too; and Lancashire, which is very large, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, which are the most southerly, are but small; I shall begin there, and take them together.

As I am travelling now cross the island, and begin at the mouth of Trent, the first town of note that I meet with is Nottingham, the capital of that shire, and is the most considerable in all that part of England. The county is small, but, like the Peak, ’tis full of wonders; and indeed there are abundance of remarkables in it: (1.) ’Tis remarkable for the soil, which on the south part is the richest and the most fruitful; and on the north part the most wild and waste, and next to barren of any part of England within many miles of it. (2.) For the fine seats of noblemen and gentlemen, not a few; such as the Dukes of Shrewsbury, Kingston, Rutland, Newcastle, and several others. But as I purpose to begin at the south entrance, I mean at the town of Nottingham, I shall speak a little of that before I describe the country about it.

Nottingham is one of the most pleasant and beautiful towns in England. The situation makes it so, tho’ the additions to it were not to be nam’d. It is seated on the side of a hill overlooking a fine range of meadows about a mile broad, a little rivulet running on the north side of the meadows, almost close to the town; and the noble River Trent parallel with both on the further or south side of the meadows: Over the Trent there is a stately stone-bridge of nineteen arches, and the river being there join’d into one united stream, is very large and deep; having, as is said, but lately received the addition of the Dove, the Derwent, the Irwash, and the Soar, three of them very great rivers of themselves, and all coming into the Trent since its passing by Burton in Staffordshire mentioned before.

The town of Nottingham is situated upon the steep ascent of a sandy rock; which is consequently remarkable, for that it is so soft that they easily work into it for making vaults and cellars, and yet so firm as to support the roofs of those cellars two or three under one another; the stairs into which, are all cut out of the solid, tho’ crumbling rock; and we must not fail to have it be remember’d that the bountiful inhabitants generally keep these cellars well stock’d with excellent ALE; nor are they uncommunicative in bestowing it among their friends. as some in our company experienc’d to a degree not fit to be made matter of history.

They tell us there, speaking of the antiquity of Nottingham, that the hill where it was built, was called the Dolorous Hill, or the Golgotha of ancient time; because of a great slaughter of the Britains there by King Humber, a northern monarch; the same who, being afterwards drowned in the passage of the sea between Hull and Barton, gave name to that arm of the sea which is now called the Humber, and which receives the Trent, and almost all the great rivers of Yorkshire into it. They also tell us, those caves and cellars, mentioned above, served the people for a retreat in those days, from the pursuit of their enemies, and that from thence the town took its first name, which was Snottengaham, which signifies hollow vaults in a rock, Speluncarum Domum, or, as Mr. Cambden observes, the British word was Tui ogo bauc; that is, the same as the Latin, and meant a house of dens, or secret caves to hide in; but this is remote.

Besides the situation of Nottingham towards the river; it is most pleasantly seated to the land side; that is to say, to the side of the forest on the north of the town. And here they have (I.) a most pleasant plain to accommodate the gentlemen who assemble once a year (at least) for the manly noble diversion of racings, and chiefly horse-races; ’tis a most glorious show they have here when the running season begins; for here is such an assembly of gentlemen of quality, that not Bansted Down, or New Market Heath, produces better company, better horses, or shews the horse and master’s skill better.

At the west end of the town there is a very steep hill, and the south side of it a cliff, which descends in a precipice towards the river; on this hill stood an old castle, but when, we know not; so that if we may plead its antiquity, ’tis only because we have no account of its beginning; the oldest thing that we read of it is, that there was a tower here which the Danes obstinately defended against King Alfred, and his brother Æthelred.

This castle, or some other building in the room of it, remained till the time of the late wars; ’tis evident it was standing in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; Mr. Cambden says, William the Norman built it; and, as he says, it was done to awe the English; it was so strong that nothing could ever reduce it but famine; after this it was repair’d and beautified, or rather rebuilt, by Edward IV. who added fine apartments to it, which Richard III. his brother, enlarged.

It was so strong, it seems, that it had not been subject to the ordinary fate of other fortify’d places; namely, to be often taken and retaken; for it was never storm’d, that is to say, never taken sword in hand; once it was indeed taken by surprize in the barons wars by Robert Earl Ferrers, who also plundered the town, (city ’twas then call’d.)

The stories that people tell us here, of one of the Davids, King of Scotland, kept prisoner in it, I believe little of, any more than I do that of Roger Mortimore Earl of March, and his being hid in a vault under ground in this castle, whence being discovered, he was taken, brought to justice, and hang’d for treason; yet the place where they say he was taken, is shewed still to strangers, and is call’d Mortimer’s Hole, to this day.

It is true, that here are such places; Mr. Cambden also gives an account that in the first court of the castle there is a way down by a great many steps to a vault under ground, where there are chambers cut out of the stone, and the people offer’d to carry us down the same; but we did not like the aspect of it, so we ventur’d rather to take their words.

Whoever built this great castle (for the dispute lies only between William the Conqueror and William de Peverell, his bastard son) I say, whoever built it, we know not; but we know who pull’d it down; namely, the government, upon the Restoration, because it had been forfeited, and held out against the Royalists: After the Restoration Cavendish, late Marquis of Newcastle, entirely bought it of King Charles II. or of the Duke of Buckingham, to whom he would have sold it; and, having bought it, went to work immediately with it, in order to pull it quite down; for it lay, as it were, waste to him, and useless. In the year 1674 he clear’d the old foundations, a small part excepted, and founded the noble structure which we see now standing; and which, thro’ several successions, has revolved to the present branch of the house of Pelham, now Duke of Newcastle; who has beautified if not enlarged the building, and has laid out a plan of the finest gardens that are to be seen in all that part of England; but they are not yet finish’d; they take up, as they tell us, threescore acres of ground in the design, and would, no doubt, be exquisitely fine; but it requires au immense sum to go on with it.

In the great church of St. Mary’s in Nottingham, we see the monument of the Plumtree’s, an honourable family, who built the hospital at the bridge end; also the family of Holles Lord Houghton, Earl of Clare, and afterwards Duke of Newcastle, lye buried here. But the learned Dr. Thornton, in his antiquities of this county, having copied all the epitaphs and inscriptions in the churches of this town; if I should repeat them, it would look as if I wanted matter to fill up; just the contrary of which is my case to an extreme.

The beauties of Nottingham, next to its situation, are the castle, the market-place, and the gardens of Count Tallard; who, in his confinement here as prisoner of war taken by the Duke of Marlborough at the great Battle of Blenheim, amused himself with making a small, but beautiful parterre, after the French fashion. But it does not gain by English keeping.

There was once a handsome town-house here for the sessions or assises, and other publick business; but it was very old, and was either so weak, or so ill looked after, that, being over-crowded upon occasion of the assises last year, it cracked, and frighted the people, and that not without cause. As it happened, no body was hurt, nor did the building fall directly down. But it must be said, (I think) that Providence had more care of the judges, and their needful attendants, than the townsmen had, whose business it was to have been well assured of the place, before they suffered a throng of people to come into it; and therefore we cannot deny, but it was a seasonable justice in the court to amerce or fine the town, as they did; as well for the omission, as for the repair of the place. We are told now that they are collecting money, not for the repair of the old house, but for erecting a new one, which will add to the beauty of the town.

The Trent is navigable here for vessels or barges of great burthen, by which all their heavy and bulky goods are brought from the Humber, and even from Hull; such as iron, block-tin, salt, hops, grocery, dyers wares, wine, oyl, tar, hemp, flax, &c. and the same vessels carry down lead, coal, wood, corn; as also cheese in great quantities, from Warwickshire and Staffordshire. By which the commerce of these counties is greatly increased. as I have mentioned already.

When I said the bridge over Trent had nineteen arches, I might as well have said the bridge was a mile long; for the Trent being, at the last time I was there, swelled over its ordinary bound, the river reached quite up to the town; yet a high causeway, with arches at proper distances, carried us dry over the whole breadth of the meadows, which, I think, is at least a mile; and it may be justly called a bridge, on several accounts, as another at Swarston is called, which is full a mile in length.

Nottingham, notwithstanding the navigation of the Trent, is not esteemed a town of very great trade, other than is usual to inland towns; the chief manufacture carried on here is frame-work knitting for stockings, the same as at Leicester, and some glass, and earthen ware-houses; the latter much increased since the increase of tea-drinking; for the making fine stone-mugs, tea-pots, cups, &c. the glass-houses, I think, are of late rather decayed.

As there is a fine market-place, so is there a very good market, with a vast plenty of provisions, and those of the best sort, few towns in England exceeding it; to say nothing of their ale, as having reserved it to a place by it self.

As they brew a very good liquor here, so they make the best malt, and the most of it of any town in this part of England, which they drive a great trade for, sending it by land-carriage to Derby, through all the Peak as far as Manchester, and to other towns in Lancashire, Cheshire, and even into Yorkshire itself; to which end all the lower lands of this county, and especially on the banks of Trent, yield prodigious crops of barley.

The government of Nottingham is in the mayor, two sheriffs, six aldermen, coroners and chamberlains. twenty four common-council, whereof six are called juniors; the rest of course, I suppose, may pass for seniors.

I might enter into a long description of all the modern buildings erected lately in Nottingham, which are considerable, and of some just now going forward. But I have a large building in the whole to overlook; and I must not dwell too long upon the threshold.

The forest of Sherwood is an addition to Nottingham for the pleasure of hunting, and there are also some fine parks and noble houses in it, as Welbeck, the late Duke of Newcastle’s, and Thoresby, the present noble seat of the Pierrepont’s, Dukes of Kingston, which lies at the farthest edge of the forest. But this forest does not add to the fruitfulness of the county, for ’tis now, as it were, given up to waste; even the woods which formerly made it so famous for thieves, are wasted; and if there was such a man as Robin Hood, a famous out-law and deer-stealer, that so many years harboured here, he would hardly find shelter for one week, if he was now to have been there: Nor is there any store of deer, compared to the quantity which in former times they tell us there usually was.

From Nottingham, a little mile west on the road to Derby, we saw Woollaton Hall, the noblest antient-built palace in this county, the mansion of the antient family of Willoughby, now Lord Middleton, created baron in the late Queen Anne’s time. The house, the gardens, the great hall, the monuments of the family in the church of Woollaton, and the pedigree of that noble family, are well worth a stranger’s view.

The park, walled in with a new brick-wall, is much finer than the great park adjoining to the castle of Nottingham, being much better planted with timber; whereas that at Nottingham was all cut down, and sequestred in the late wars.

This house, all of stone, was built by Sir Francis Willoughby, second son of the honourable ——— Willoughby Esq; slain in the 4th of Edward VI. in the rebellion or tumult at Norwich, anno 1546, and Dame Anne, daughter of the Marquis of Dorchester; the first and eldest son, Sir Thomas Willoughby, dying unmarried. The stately fabrick shews the genius, as well as the wealth, of the founder; the hall, at the first entrance, is so high that a man on horseback might exercise a pike in it. The figure of building, as an artist said of it to me, was rather antick than antient; the architect is noble, and the order of building regular, except the four pavilions of the Dorick order on the top, which they alledge is inexcusable in architecture. Some, who excuse the design, will have it to be, that the upper building is an attick, and set on to grace the other. But I must be allowed to differ from that opinion too.

However it be, take it all together, the building is far beyond any thing in this part of England, of equal antiquity, Belvoir, or Bevoir Castle excepted, and even not that for excellence of workmanship.

One of the ancestors of this noble family, Sir Richard Willoughby, was judge of the Court of King’s Bench for almost thirty years; from the third year of King Edward III. to his thirty third year; in which time he greatly advanced the honour and estate of his family.

Another branch was less fortunate, though not less famous, namely, Sir Hugh Willoughby, the famous navigator and searcher out of new discoveries; who, after many extraordinary adventures in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, went at last in search of the north east passages of Nova Zembla; and having beaten up and down among the ice a long time, was at length driven into a small fuell or inlet of the sea, near the Mer Blanch, or White Sea; and being out of his knowledge, was there found the next spring frozen to death with all his ship’s company, every one of them.

The monuments of this antient and wealthy family, for many years past, are still to be seen at Wollaton Church. Some of them are very magnificent; and others of them being very antient, are solemn even in their very ruins.

For monuments of men, like men, decay.

Having thus passed the Rubicon (Trent) and set my face northward, I scarce knew which way to set forward, in a country too so full of wonders, and on so great a journey, and yet to leave nothing behind me to call on as I came back, at least not to lead me out of my way in my return. But then considering that I call this work, a Tour, and the parts of it, Letters; I think, that tho’ I shall go a great length forward, and shall endeavour to take things with me as I go; yet I may take a review of some parts as I came back, and so may be allowed to pick up any fragments I may have left behind in my going out.

I resolved indeed first for the Peak, which lay on my left-hand north east; but, as I say, to leave as little behind me as possible, I was obliged to make a little excursion into the forest, where, in my way, I had the diversion of seeing the annual meeting of the gentry at the horse-races near Nottingham. I could give a long and agreeable account of the sport it self, how it brought into my thoughts the Olympick Games among the Greeks; and the Circus Maximus at Rome; where the racers made a great noise, and the victors made great boasts and triumphs: But where they chiefly drove in chariots, not much unlikes our chaises, and where nothing of the speed, or of skill in horsemanship could be shown, as is in our races.

It is true, in those races the young Roman and Grecian gentlemen rode, or rather drove themselves; whereas in our races the horses, not the riders, make the show; and they are generally ridden by grooms and boys, chiefly for lightness; sometimes indeed the gentlemen ride themselves, as I have often seen the Duke of Monmouth, natural son to King Charles II. ride his own horses at a match, and win it too, though he was a large man, and must weigh heavy.

But the illustrious company at the Nottingham races was, in my opinion, the glory of the day; for there we saw, besides eleven or twelve noblemen, an infinite throng of gentlemen from all the countries round, nay, even out of Scotland it self; the appearance, in my opinion, greater, as it was really more numerous, than ever I saw at Newmarket, except when the king have been there in ceremony; for I cannot but say, that in King Charles II.’s time, when his majesty used to be frequently at Newmarket, I have known the assembly there have been with far less company than this at Nottingham; and, if I might go back to one of these Nottingham meetings, when the Mareschal Duke de Tallard was there, I should say, that no occasions at Newmarket, in my memory, ever came up to it, except the first time that King William was there after the Peace of Ryswick.

Nor is the appearance of the ladies to be omitted, as fine and without comparison more bright and gay, tho’ they might a little fall short in number of the many thousands of nobility and gentry of the other sex; in short, the train of coaches filled with the beauties of the north was not to be described; except we were to speak of the garden of the Tulleries at Paris, or the Prado at Mexico, where they tell us there are 4000 coaches with six horses each, every evening taking the air.

From hence I was going on to see Rugford Abbey, the fine seat of the late Marquis of Hallifax, but was called aside to take a view of the most famous piece of church history in this part of the whole island, I mean the collegiate church of Southwell.

Paulinus, Archbishop of York, was (so antient record supplies the tale) the founder of this church, having preached to the people of the country round, and baptized them in the River Trent; the antient words imports Christianized them, by dipping them in the River Trent. Whether our Antipedo-Baptists will take any advantage of the word, I know not; but I cannot see any doubt but that antiently baptism was performed in the water; whether it was performed there by immersion, putting the person into the water, or pouring the water upon him, we know not; neither do I see any extraordinary, much less any essential difference in it, be it one way or the other; but that is not my business, especially not here: The reason of naming it, is to give you the pious occasion which made the good bishop build this church, namely, that having converted a whole province, or part of one at least, he was desirous they should not want a place of worship to serve God in.

The thing which makes this foundation the more remarkable, is, that though it was surrendered into the king’s hands, with all the rest of the religious foundations, in the reign of King Henry VIII. yet it was restored whole as it was before, in the 35th of the same reign.

But because I love to speak not from my self in cases where good authorities are to be had, and that in a cursory view of a place, such as that of a journey must be, the outsides or appearances of things only are to be seen, or such farther knowledge as may be obtained by report of inhabitants; for I copy nothing from books, but where I quote the books, and refer to them; I say, for this reason I give you an account of this venerable pile, its foundation and present constitution, from a reverend and very good friend, and one of the present prebendaries the place, and whose authority I do, and the reader may depend upon, as follows, (viz.)

An account of the town and church of Southwell

Southwell, in the county of Nottingham, is about nine miles north east from Nottingham, four miles west from Newark, eight south east from Mansfield, and about two south west from the River Trent. The soil of it rich clay and marle; the air very good, and well watered; the River Greet runs by it. It is a market town, and the market day Saturday; it is remarkable for no sort of manufacture.

There is in it but one church, which is both parochial and collegiate; which, I think, is the case of no other in England, except Rippon in Yorkshire.

The parish consists of Southwell, and the hamlets of Eastrope, which joins to Southwell on the east; Westrope, about a quarter of a mile west of Southwell; and Normanton, about a mile north; it contains about 350 families. There is a parish-vicar so called, who is generally one of the vicars choral, whose business it is to visit the sick, bury the dead, etc. the preaching part being performed by the prebendaries. This vicarage was lately augmented by Queen Anne’s Bounty, which benefit fell to it by lot.

The collegiate church consists of 16 prebendaries or canons, 6 vicars choral, an organist, 6 singing-men, 6 choristers, a register to the chapter, a treasurer; an auditor, a verger, etc. The prebenda are all in the gift of the Archbishop of York. All the rest of the members disposed of by the chapter.

The foundation of this church is doubtless very antient. It is generally supposed to be founded by Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, about the year 630.

The church was, by the several members thereof, viz. the archbishop, the prebendaries, vicars choral, chantry priests, and by the chapter, surrendered to the king, 32 Henry VIII. as appears by the records in Chancery; and was actually in the king’s possession, until by Act of Parliament, anno 35 Henry VIII. it was refounded, and restored to its antient privilege, and incorporated by the name of the Chapter of the Collegiate Church of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Southwell.

Afterward, by the statute for the dissolution of chantries, anno primo Edward VI. it was conceived, that the said church was again dissolved. But the members of the church did not quit their possession till the 4th and 5th of Philip and Mary, when ——— Griffin, the Attorney General, exhibited an Information of Intrusion against the Chapter, pleading the Crown’s title to their lands, by virtue of the Act of Edward VI. But upon full hearing it was adjudged that the Chapter was not adjudged within the said statute; and therefore the Bill was dismissed; and the Chapter continued to enjoy their rights and privileges.

Queen Elizabeth confirmed the same, and gave statutes to the said church, with this preamble: Eliz. Dei Grat. Regina, &c. Dilectis subditis nostris, Capitulo, cæterisq; Ministris Ecclesiæ nostræ Colleg. Beatæ Mariæ Virginis de Southwell per Illustrissimum Patrem nostrum Hen. VIII. nuper Regem Ang. fundatae. Notwithstanding this, in King James’s reign, the same plea was revived against the church, by the then Attorney General, and met with the same success; that is, was dismissed. And King James, in the second year of his reign, by Letters Patent under the Great Seal, confirmed and established the said church in perpetuity, according to the refoundation and restitution thereof by King Henry VIII.

There is no dean of this church; but the evidentiary for the time being has the government of it; and one of the prebendaries, by the statutes, is obliged to be resident, which at present is by agreement and by consent of the archbishop, performed by every one in their turns, and each prebendary keeps residence a quarter of a year.

Most of the prebendaries, I think twelve of them, have prebendal houses in the town of Southwell. But those being let out on lease, they now keep residence in a house built for that purpose about 30 years ago, in the east end of the college of the vicars; which house is ready furnished, and kept in repair at the charge of the chapter.

The prebendaries preach in their turn every Sunday morning, and on such festivals, &c. as preaching is required. In the afternoon on Sundays there is a lecture usually preached by the residentiary for the time being.

The Chapter of Southwell have a peculiar jurisdiction, and there are 28 parishes subject to it; to most of which they have the right of presentation; besides some others in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. This jurisdiction is exercised by a commissary or vicar-general, chosen by the Chapter out of their body, who holds visitations, &c. twice a year. And besides these, there are two synods yearly, to which ail the clergy of the county of Nottingham pay their attendance. And a certain number of the prebendaries, and others of the considerable clergy, are appointed commissioners, by a commission granted by the Archbishop of York to preside at the synods.

There are many privileges belonging to this church; one of which is, That every parish and hamlet in the county pay certain small pensions yearly to the church, called Pentecostal Offerings.

There are houses for the vicars choral adjoining to the residence house, built about a square; with a gate locked up every night, and the key kept by the residentiary. There are but five of the vicars have houses allotted them in the college. The other vicar, being parish vicar also has a vicarage house in the town. There are prayers twice every day at the usual hours, and likewise at six or seven in the morning, from Ashwednesday to St. Matthew’s Day.

The civil government of the jurisdiction of Southwell, is distinct from the county at large. It is called the Soke of Southwell cum Scrooby, which is another town in this county. There are about 20 towns subject to this jurisdiction.

The Custos Rotulorum, and the Justices of the Peace, are nominated by the Archbishop of York, and constituted by a commission under the Great Seal of England; who hold their session both at Southwell and Scrooby, and perform all other justiciary acts distinct from the county. There is no Custos Rotulorum yet appointed in the room of Lord Lexington, who died about two years ago; but a new commission is expected as soon as the archbishop is confirmed.

The fabrick of the church is at present in good and decent order. It is a strong building of the Gothick order, very plain. I remember to have met with this passage in some of our old writings; That when the dispute was about the dissolution of the church, I think in King James’s reign; among other things, it was urged by the Chapter, that the church of Southwell was a plain fabrick, free from all superstitious ornaments; that there were no painted figures in the glass-work, nor images, nor so much as a nitch capable of placing an image in; which I think is true. And from hence too it has been conjectured concerning the antiquity of this church, that it was probably built, before image-worship was practised or thought of in the Christian Church.

This church was a great part of it burnt down in the year 1711, by lightning; of which I find this memorandum in one of our books, viz. “On Monday the 5th of November, 1711. about ten a-clock at night, the top of the ball on one of the south spires of this collegiate church of Southwell was fired by lightning; which, backed by a furious wind that drove it almost directly on the body of the church, in a few hours burnt down the spire and roof, melted down the bells, and spared nothing that was combustible, except the other spire, till it came to the quire, where, after it had consumed the organs, it was by singular providence stopt and extinguish’d.”

This is a pretty exact account; to which I must add, that the damage was computed at near 4000l . which great misfortune was happily repaired by the industry of the Chapter, joined with the help of the then Archbishop of York, Dr. Sharp; who not only contributed largely themselves, but by their solicitations obtained a brief, which, with the liberal contributions of several of the nobility and gentry, and the inhabitants of Southwell and its neighbourhood, enabled them to repair the church, and to put it in as good order as it was before the fire.

Among the benefactors ought particularly to be remembered with gratitude the last Dutchess Dowager of Newcastle, who, at the intercession of the archbishop, kindly seconded by her chaplain Dr. Brailsford, now Dean of Wells.

The church is built in form of a cross; a great tower in the middle, in which are eight bells, and two spires at the west end. There is a handsome chapter-house on the north side of the quire.

The length of the church from east to west is 306 feet, of which the choir is — feet; the length of the cross isle from north to south is 121 feet; the breadth of the church 59 feet.

On a pillar at the entrance into the choir, is this inscription:

Sint Reges Nutritii tui & Regina? Nutrices,
Ecclesiam hanc Collegiatam & Parochialem
Fundavit Antiquitas.
Refundavit Illustrissimus Henricus Rex Octavus,
Edwardo Lee Archiepiscopo Eborac. intercedente.
Sancivit Serenissima Elizabetha Regina,
Edvino Sands Eborum Archiepiscopo mediante.
Stabilivit Præpotentissimus Monarcha Jac. Rex,
Henrico Howard Comite Northamp. aliisque
Supplicantibus.
Sint sicut Oreb & Zeb, Zeba & Salmana
Qui dicunt Haereditate possideamus
Sanctuarium Dei.

There are no very remarkable monuments in this church, only one of Archbishop Sands, which is within the communion rails, and is a fair tomb of alabaster, with his effigies lying on it at full length. ——— Round the verge of it is this inscription:

Edvinus Sandes Sacræ Theologiæ Doctor, postquam Vigorniensem Episcopatum Annos X, totidemque tribus demptis Londinensem gessisset Eboracensis sui Archiepiscopatus Anno XII” Vitæ autem LXIX?. obiit
Julii X. A.D. 1588.

At the head of the tomb is this inscription:

Cujus hic Reconditum Cadaver jacet, genere non humilis vixit, Dignitate locoque magnus, exemplo major; duplici functus Episcopatu, Archi-Episcopali tandem Amplitudine Illustris. Honores hosce mercatus grandi Pretio, Meritis Virtutibusque Homo hominum a Malitia & Vindicta Innocentissimus; Magnanimus, Apertus, & tantum Nescius adulari; Summe Liberalis atque Misericors: Hospitalissime optimus, Facilis, & in sola Vitia superbus. Scilicet haud minora, quam locutus est, vixit & fuit. In Evangelii prædicand. Laboribus ad extremum usque Halitum mirabiliter assiduus; a sermonibus ejus nunquam non melior discederes. Facundus nolebat esse & videbatur; ignavos, sedulatitis suæ Conscius, oderat. Bonas literas auxit pro Facultatibus; Ecclesiæ Patrimonium, velut rem Deo consecratum decuit, intactum defendit; gratia, qua floruit, apud Illustrissimam mortalium Elizabetham, effecit, ne hanc, in qua jacet, Ecclesiam ti jacentem cerneres. Venerande Præsul! Utrius memorandum Fortunæ exemplar! Qui tanta cura gesseris, multa his majora, animo ad omnia semper impavido, perpessus es; Careares, Exilia, amplissimarum Facultatum amissiones; quodque omnium difficillime Innocens perferre animus censuevit, immanes Calumnias; & si re una votis tuis memor, quod Christo Testimonium etiam sanguine non præbueris; attamen, qui in prosperis tantos fluctus, & post Aronum tot adversa, tandem quietis sempternæ Portum, fessus Mundi, Deique sitiens, reperisti, Æturnum lætare; vice sanguinis sunt sudores tui; abi lector, nec ista scias, tantum ut sciveris, sed ut imiteris.

At the feet under the coat of arms:

Verbum Dei manet in Æternum.

Round the border of another stone in the south isle of the choir.

Hic jacet Robertus Serlby, Generosus, quondam Famulus Willielmi Booth Archiepiscopo Eborac. Qui obiit 24? die Mensis Augusti, A.D. 1480, cujus animæ propitietur Deus. Amen.

On a stone fixed in the wainscot under one of the prebendal stalls in the choir, is this inscription, very antient, but without a date.

Hic jacet Wilhelmus Talbot, miser & indignus sacerdos, expectans Resurrectionem in signo Thau ———

I suppose it means a Tau to denote a cross.

On the south-side of the church in the churchyard,

Me Pede quando teris, Homo qui Mortem mediteris Sic contritus eris, & pro me quæro, preceris, without name or date.

Here was formerly a palace belonging to the Archbishop of York, which stood on the south side of the church, the ruins of which still remain; by which it appears to have been a large and stately palace. It was demolished in the time of the Rebellion against King Charles I. and the church, I have heard, hardly escaped the fury of those times; but was indebted to the good offices of one Edward Cludd, Esq; one of the Parliament side, who lived at Norwood, in the parish of Southwell, in a house belonging to the archbishop, where he lived in good esteem for some time after the Restauration; and left this estate at Norwood, which he held by lease of the archbishop, to his nephew Mr. Bartholomew Fillingham, who was a considerable officer in the Exchequer, and from whom Bartholomew Burton, Esq; who was his nephew and heir, inherited it, with the bulk of all the rest of his estate and who now enjoys it by a lease of three lives, granted by the late Archbishop Sir William Dawes. Here were no less than three parks belonging to the archbishop, which tho’ disparked, still retain the name; one of which is Norwood Park, in which is a good house, which has been very much enlarged and beautified by the said Mr. Burton, who lives in it some part of the year.

There is a free-school adjoining to the church, under the care of the Chapter; where the choristers are taught gratis; and other boys belonging to the town. The master is chosen by the Chapter; and is to be approved by the Archbishop of York.

There are also two fellowships and two scholarships in St. John’s College in Cambridge, founded by Dr. Keton, Canon of Salisbury, in the 22d year of King Henry VIII. to be chosen by the master and fellows of the said college, out of such who have been choristers of the church of Southwell, if any such able person for learning and manners, can be found in Southwell, or in the university of Cambridge; and for want of such, then out of any scholars abiding in Cambridge; which said fellowships are to be thirteen shillings and four-pence each better than any other fellowship of the college.

Hence crossing the forest I came to Mansfield, a market town, but without any remarkables. In my way I visited the noble seat of the Duke of Kingston at Thoresby, of the Duke of Newcastle at Welbeck, and the Marquis of Hallifax at Rufford, of Rugeford Abbey, all very noble seats, tho’ antient, and that at Welbeck especially, beautify’d with large additions, fine apartments, and good gardens; but particularly the park, well stocked with large timber, and the finest kind, as well as the largest quantity of deer that are any where to be seen; for the late duke’s delight being chiefly on horseback and in the chace, it is not to be wondered if he rather made his parks fine than his gardens, and his stables than his mansion-house; yet the house is noble, large, and magnificent.

Hard by Welbeck is Wirksop Mannor, the antient and stately seat of the noble family of Talbot, descended by a long line of ancestors from another family illustrious, though not enobled (of Lovetot’s ). This house, (tho’ in its antient figure) is outdone by none of the best and greatest in the county, except Wollaton Hall, already mentioned; and that though it is, as it were, deserted of its noble patrons; the family of Shrewsbury being in the person of the last duke, removed from this side of the country to another fine seat in the west, already mentioned.

From hence leaving Nottinghamshire, the west part abounding with lead and coal, I cross’d over that fury of a river called the Derwent, and came to Derby, the capital of the county.

This is a fine, beautiful, and pleasant town; it has more families of gentlemen in it than is usual in towns so remote, and therefore here is a great deal of good and some gay company: Perhaps the rather, because the Peak being so near, and taking up the larger part of the county, and being so inhospitable, so rugged and so wild a place, the gentry choose to reside at Derby, rather than upon their estates, as they do in other places.

It must be allowed, that the twelve miles between Nottingham and this town, keeping the mid-way between the Trent on the left, and the mountains on the right, are as agreeable with respect to the situation, the soil, and the well planting of the country, as any spot of ground, at least that I have seen of that length, in England.

The town of Derby is situated on the west bank of the Derwent, over which it has a very fine bridge, well built, but antient, and a chapel upon the bridge, now converted into a dwelling-house. Here is a curiosity in trade worth observing, as being the only one of its kind in England, namely, a throwing or throwster’s mill, which performs by a wheel turn’d by the water; and though it cannot perform the doubling part of a throwster’s work, which can only be done by a handwheel, yet it turns the other work, and performs the labour of many hands. Whether it answers the expence or not, that is not my business.

This work was erected by one Soracule, a man expert in making mill-work, especially for raising water to supply towns for family use: But he made a very odd experiment at this place; for going to show some gentlemen the curiosity, as he called it, of his mili, and crossing the planks which lay just above the mill-wheel; regarding, it seems, what he was to show his friends more than the place where he was, and too eager in describing things, keeping his eye rather upon what he pointed at with his fingers than what he stept upon with his feet, he stepp’d awry and slipt into the river.

He was so very close to the sluice which let the water out upon the wheel, and which was then pulled up, that tho’ help was just at hand, there was no taking hold of him, till by the force of the water he was carried through, and pushed just under the large wheel, which was then going round at a great rate. The body being thus forc’d in between two of the plashers of the wheel, stopt the motion for a little while, till the water pushing hard to force its way, the plasher beyond him gave way and broke; upon which the wheel went again, and, like Jonah’s whale, spewed him out, not upon dry land, but into that part they call the apron, and so to the mill-tail, where he was taken up, and received no hurt at all.

Derby, as I have said, is a town of gentry, rather than trade; yet it is populous, well built, has five parishes, a large market-place, a fine town-house, and very handsome streets.

In the church of Allhallows, or, as the Spaniards call it, De Todos los Santos, All Saints, is the Pantheon, or Burial-place of the noble, now ducal family of Cavendish, now Devonshire, which was first erected by the Countess of Shrewsbury, who not only built the vault or sepulchre, but an hospital for eight poor men and four women, close by the church, and settled their maintenance, which is continued to this day: Here are very magnificent monuments for the family of Cavendish; and at this church is a famous tower or steeple, which for the heighth and beauty of its building, is not equalled in this county, or in any of those adjacent.

By an inscription upon this church, it was erected, or at least the steeple, at the charge of the maids and batchelors of the town; on which account, whenever a maid, native of the town, was marry’d, the bells were rung by batchelors: How long the custom lasted, we do not read; but I do not find that it is continued, at least not strictly.

The government of this town, for it is a corporation, and sends two burgesses to Parliament, is in a mayor, high-steward, nine aldermen, a recorder, fourteen brothers, fourteen capital burgesses, and a town-clerk: The trade of the town is chiefly in good malt and good ale; nor is the quantity of the latter unreasonably small, which, as they say, they dispose of among themselves, though they spare some to their neighbours too.

The Peak District

It is observable, that as the Trent makes the frontier or bounds of the county of Derby south, so the Dove and the Erwash make the bounds east and west, and the Derwent runs through the center; all of them beginning and ending their course in the same county; for they rise in the Peak, and end in the Trent.

I that had read Cotton’s Wonders of the Peak, in which I always wondered more at the poetry than at the Peak; and in which there was much good humour, tho’ but little good verse, could not satisfy my self to be in Derbyshire, and not see the River Dove, which that gentleman has spent so much doggerel upon, and celebrated to such a degree for trout and grailing: So from Derby we went to Dove-Bridge, or, as the country people call it, Dowbridge, where we had the pleasure to see the river drowning the low-grounds by a sudden shower, and hastning to the Trent with a most outrageous stream, in which there being no great diversion, and travelling being not very safe in a rainy season on that side, we omitted seeing Ashbourn and Uttoxeter, the Utocetum of the antients, two market towns upon that river, and returning towards Derby, we went from thence directly up into the High Peak.

In our way we past an antient seat, large, but not very gay, of Sir Nathaniel Curson, a noted and (for wealth) over great family, for many ages inhabitants of this county. Hence we kept the Derwent on our right-hand, but kept our distance, the waters being out; for the Derwent is a frightful creature when the hills load her current with water; I say, we kept our distance, and contented our selves with hearing the roaring of its waters, till we came to Quarn or Quarden. a little ragged, but noted village, where there is a famous chalybeat spring, to which abundance of people go in the season to drink the water, as also a cold bath. There are also several other mineral waters in this part of the country, as another chalybeat near Quarden or Quarn, a hot bath at Matlock, and another at Buxton, of which in its place; besides these, there are hot springs in several places which run waste into the ditches and brooks, and are taken no notice of, being remote among the mountains, and out of the way of the common resort.

We found the wells, as custom bids us call them, pretty full of company, the waters good, and very physical, but wretched lodging and entertainment; so I resolved to stay till I came to the south, and make shift with Tunbridge or Epsom, of which I have spoken at large in the counties of Surrey and Kent.

From Quarden we advanc’d due north, and, mounting the hills gradually for four or five miles, we soon had a most frightful view indeed among the black mountains of the Peak; however, as they were yet at a distance, and a good town lay on our left called Wirksworth, we turned thither for refreshment; Here indeed we found a specimen of what I had heard before, (viz.) that however rugged the hills were, the vales were every where fruitful, well inhabited, the markets well supplied, and the provisions extraordinary good; not forgetting the ale, which every where exceeded, if possible, what was pass’d, as if the farther north the better the liquor, and that the nearer we approach’d to Yorkshire, as the place for the best, so the ale advanc’d the nearer to its perfection.

Wirksworth is a large well-frequented market town, and market towns being very thin placed in this part of the county, they have the better trade, the people generally coming twelve or fifteen miles to a market, and sometimes much more; though there is no very great trade to this town but what relates to the lead works, and to the subterranean wretches, who they call Peakrills, who work in the mines, and who live all round this town every way.

The inhabitants are a rude boorish kind of people, but they are a bold, daring, and even desperate kind of fellows in their search into the bowels of the earth; for no people in the world out-do them; and therefore they are often entertained by our engineers in the wars to carry on the sap, and other such works, at the sieges of strong fortified places.

This town of Wirksworth is a kind of a market for lead; the like not known any where else that I know of, except it be at the custom-house keys in London. The Barmoot Court, kept here to judge controversies among the miners, that is to say, to adjust subterranean quarrels and disputes, is very remarkable: Here they summon a master and twenty-four jurors, and they have power to set out the bounds of the works under ground, the terms are these, they are empowered to set off the meers (so they call them) of ground in a pipe and a flat, that is to say, twenty nine yards long in the first, and fourteen square in the last; when any man has found a vein of oar in another man’s ground, except orchards and gardens; they may appoint the proprietor cartways and passage for timber, &c. This court also prescribes rules to the mines, and limits their proceedings in the works under ground; also they are judges of all their little quarrels and disputes in the mines, as well as out, and, in a word, keep the peace among them; which, by the way, may be called the greatest of all the wonders of the Peak, for they are of a strange, turbulent, quarrelsome temper, and very hard to be reconciled to one another in their subterraneous affairs.

And now I am come to this wonderful place, the Peak, where you will expect I should do as some others have, (I think, foolishly) done before me, viz. tell you strange long stories of wonders as (I must say) they are most weakly call’d; and that you may not think me arrogant in censuring so many wise men, who have wrote of these wonders, as if they were all fools, I shall give you four Latin lines out of Mr. Cambden, by which you will see there were some men of my mind above a hundred years ago.

Mira alto Pecco tria sunt, barathrum, specus, antrum;
Commoda tot, Plumbum, Gramen, Ovile pecus,
Tot speciosa simul sunt, Castrum, Balnea, Chatsworth,
Plura sed occurrunt, qute speciosa minus.

CAMBD., Brit. Fol., 495.

Which by the same hand are Englished thus:
Nine things that please us at the Peak we see;
A cave, a den, a hole, the wonder be;
Lead, sheep and pasture, are the useful three.
Chatsworth the castle, and the Bath delight;
Much more you see; all little worth the sight.

Now to have so great a man as Mr. Hobbes, and after him Mr. Cotton, celebrate the trines here, the first in a fine Latin poem, the last in English verse, as if they were the most exalted wonders of the world: I cannot but, after wondering at their making wonders of them, desire you, my friend, to travel with me through this houling wilderness in your imagination, and you shall soon find all that is wonderful about it.

Near Wirksworth, and upon the very edge of Derwent, is, as above, a village called Matlock, where there are several arm springs, lately one of these being secured by a stone wall on every side, by which the water is brought to rise to a due heighth, is made into a very convenient bath; with a house built over it, and room within the building to walk round the water or bath, and so by steps to go down gradually into it.

This bath would be much more frequented than it is, if two things did not hinder; namely, a base, stony, mountainous road to it, and no good accommodation when you are there: They are intending, as they tell us, to build a good house to entertain persons of quality, or such who would spend their money at it; but it was not so far concluded or directed when I was there, as to be any where begun: The bath is milk, or rather blood warm, very pleasant to go into, and very sanative, especially for rheumatick pains, bruises, &c.

For some miles before we come to Matlock, you pass over the hills by the very mouths of the lead-mines, and there are melting-houses for the preparing the oar, and melting or casting it into pigs; and so they carry it to Wirksworth to be sold at the market.

Over against this warm bath, and on the other, or east side of the Derwent, stands a high rock, which rises from the very bottom of the river (for the water washes the foot of it, and is there in dry weather very shallow); I say, it rises perpendicular as a wall, the precipice bare and smooth like one plain stone, to such a prodigious heighth, it is really surprising; yet what the people believed of it surmounted all my faith too, though I look’d upon it very curiously, for they told me it was above four hundred foot high, which is as high as two of our Monuments, one set upon another; that which adds most to my wonder in it is, that as the stone stands, it is smooth from the very bottom of the Derwent to the uppermost point, and nothing can be seen to grow upon it. The prodigious heighth of this tor, (for it is called Matlock Tor) was to me more a wonder than any of the rest in the Peak, and, I think, it should be named among them, but it is not. So it must not be called one of the wonders.

A little on the other side of Wirksworth, begins a long plain called Brassington Moor, which reaches full twelve miles in length another way, (viz.) from Brassington to Buxton. At the beginning of it on this side from Wirksworth, it is not quite so much. The Peak people, who are mighty fond of having strangers shewed every thing they can, and of calling everything a wonder, told us here of another high mountain, where a giant was buried, and which they called the Giant’s Tomb.

This tempted our curiosity, and we presently rod up to the mountain in order to leave our horses, dragoon-like, with a servant. and to clamber up to the top of it, to see this Giant’s Tomb: Here we miss’d the imaginary wonder, and found a real one; the story of which I cannot but record, to shew the discontented part of the rich world how to value their own happiness, by looking below them, and seeing how others live, who yet are capable of being easie and content, which content goes a great way towards being happy, if it does not come quite up to happiness. The story is this:

As we came near the hill, which seemed to be round, and a precipice almost on every side, we perceived a little parcel of ground hedg’d in, as if it were a garden, it was about twenty or thirty yards long, but not so much broad, parallel with the hill, and close to it; we saw no house, but, by a dog running out and barking, we perceived some people were thereabout; and presently after we saw two little children, and then a third run out to see what was the matter. When we came close up we saw a small opening, not a door, but a natural opening into the rock, and the noise we had made brought a woman out with a child in her arms, and another at her foot. N.B. The biggest of these five was a girl, about eight or ten years old.

We asked the woman some questions about the tomb of the giant upon the rock or mountain: She told us, there was a broad flat stone of a great size lay there, which, she said, the people call’d a gravestone; and, if it was, it might well be called a giant’s, for she thought no ordinary man was ever so tall, and she describ’d it to us as well as she could, by which it must be at least sixteen or seventeen foot long; but she could not give any farther account of it, neither did she seem to lay any stress upon the tale of a giant being buried there, but said, if her husband had been at home he might have shown it to us. I snatched at the word, at home! says I, good wife, why, where do you live. Here, sir, says she, and points to the hole in the rock. Here! says I; and do all these children live here too? Yes, sir, says she, they were ail born here. Pray how long have you dwelt here then? said I. My husband was born here, said she, and his father before him. Will you give me leave, says one of our company, as curious as I was, to come in and see your house, dame? If you please, sir, says she, but ’tis not a place fit for such as you are to come into, calling him, your worship, forsooth; but that by the by. I mention it, to shew that the good woman did not want manners, though she liv’d in a den like a wild body.

However, we alighted and went in: There was a large hollow cave, which the poor people by two curtains hang’d cross, had parted into three rooms. On one side was the chimney, and the man, or perhaps his father, being miners, had found means to work a shaft or funnel through the rock to carry the smoke out at the top, where the giant’s tombstone was. The habitation was poor, ’tis true, but things within did not look so like misery as I expected. Every thing was clean and neat, tho’ mean and ordinary: There were shelves with earthen ware, and some pewter and brass. There was, which I observed in particular, a whole flitch or side of bacon hanging up in the chimney, and by it a good piece of another. There was a sow and pigs running about at the door, and a little lean cow feeding upon a green place just before the door, and the little enclosed piece of ground I mentioned, was growing with good barley; it being then near harvest.

To find out whence this appearance of substance came, I asked the poor woman, what trade her husband was? She said, he worked in the lead mines. I asked her, how much he could earn a day there? she said, if he had good luck he could earn about five pence a day, but that he worked by the dish (which was a term of art I did not understand, but supposed, as I afterwards understood it was, by the great, in proportion to the oar, which they measure in a wooden bowl, which they call a dish). Then I asked, what she did? she said, when she was able to work she washed the oar: But, looking down on her children, and shaking her head, she intimated, that they found her so much business she could do but little, which 1 easily granted must be true. But what can you get at washing the oar, said I, when you can work? She said, if she work’d hard she could gain three-pence a day. So that, in short, here was but eight-pence a day when they both worked hard, and that not always, and perhaps not often, and all this to maintain a man, his wife, and five small children, and yet they seemed to live very pleasantly, the children look’d plump and fat, ruddy and wholesome; and the woman was tall, well shap’d, clean, and (for the place) a very well looking, comely woman; nor was there any thing look’d like the dirt and nastiness of the miserable cottages of the poor; tho’ many of them spend more money in strong drink than this poor woman had to maintain five children with.

This moving sight so affected us all, that, upon a short conference at the door, we made up a little lump of money, and I had the honour to be almoner for the company; and though the sum was not great, being at most something within a crown, as I told it into the poor woman’s hand, I could perceive such a surprise in her face, that, had she not given vent to her joy by a sudden flux of tears, I found she would have fainted away. She was some time before she could do any thing but cry; but after that was abated, she expressed her self very handsomely (for a poor body) and told me, she had not seen so much money together of her own for many months.

We asked her, if she had a good husband; she smiled, and said, Yes, thanked God for it, and that she was very happy in that, for he worked very hard, and they wanted for nothing that he could do for them; and two or three times made mention of how contented they were: In a word, it was a lecture to us all, and that such, I assure you, as made the whole company very grave all the rest of the day: And if it has no effect of that kind upon the reader, the defect must be in my telling the story in a less moving manner than the poor woman told it her self.

From hence enquiring no farther after the giant, or his tomb, we went, by the direction of the poor woman, to a valley on the side of a rising hill, where there were several grooves, so they call the mouth of the shaft or pit by which they go down into a lead mine; and as we were standing still to look at one of them, admiring how small they were, and scarce believing a poor man that shew’d it us, when he told us, that they went down those narrow pits or holes to so great a depth in the earth; I say, while we were wondering, and scarce believing the fact, we were agreeably surprized with seeing a hand, and then an arm, and quickly after a head, thrust up out of the very groove we were looking at. It was the more surprizing as not we only, but not the man that we were talking to, knew any thing of it, or expected it.

Immediately we rode closer up to the place, where we see the poor wretch working and heaving himself up gradually, as we thought, with difficulty; but when he shewed us that it was by setting his feet upon pieces of wood fixt cross the angles of the groove like a ladder, we found that the difficulty was not much; and if the groove had been larger they could not either go up or down so easily, or with so much safety, for that now their elbows resting on those pieces as well as their feet, they went up and down with great ease and safety.

Those who would have a more perfect idea of those grooves, need do no more than go to the church of St. Paul’s, and desire to see the square wells which they have there to go down from the top of the church into the very vaults under it, to place the leaden pipes which carry the rain water from the flat of the roof to the common-shore, which wells are square, and have small iron bars placed cross the angles for the workmen to set their feet on, to go up and down to repair the pipes; the manner of the steps are thus describ’d:

When this subterranean creature was come quite out, with all his furniture about him, we had as much variety to take us up as before, and our curiosity received full satisfaction without venturing down, as we were persuaded to by some people, and as two of our company were inclined to do.

First, the man was a most uncouth spectacle; he was cloathed all in leather, had a cap of the same without brims, some tools in a little basket which he drew up with him, not one of the names of which we could understand but by the help of an interpreter. Nor indeed could we understand any of the man’s discourse so as to make out a whole sentence; and yet the man was pretty free of his tongue too.

For his person, he was lean as a skeleton, pale as a dead corps, his hair and beard a deep black, his flesh lank, and, as we thought, something of the colour of the lead itself, and being very tall and very lean he look’d, or we that saw him ascend ab inferis, fancied he look’d like an inhabitant of the dark regions below, and who was just ascended into the world of light.

Besides his basket of tools, he brought up with him about three quarters of a hundred weight of oar, which we wondered at, for the man had no small load to bring, considering the manner of his coming up; and this indeed made him come heaving and struggling up, as I said at first, as if he had great difficulty to get out; whereas it was indeed the weight that he brought with him.

If any reader thinks this, and the past relation of the woman and the cave, too low and trifling for this work, they must be told, that I think quite otherwise; and especially considering what a noise is made of wonders in this country, which, I must needs say, have nothing in them curious, but much talked of, more trifling a great deal. See Cotton’s Wonders of the Peak, Hobbes’s Chatsworth, and several others; but I shall make no more apologies. I return to our subterranean apparition.

We asked him, how deep the mine lay which he came out of: He answered us in terms we did not understand; but our interpreter, as above, told us, it signified that he was at work 6o fathoms deep, but that there were five men of his party, who were, two of them, eleven fathoms, and the other three, fifteen fathoms deeper: He seemed to regret that he was not at work with those three; for that they had a deeper vein of oar than that which he worked in, and had a way out at the side of the hill, where they pass’d without coming up so high as he was obliged to do.

If we blessed ourselves before, when we saw how the poor woman and her five children lived in the hole or cave in the mountain, with the giant’s grave over their heads; we had much more room to reflect how much we had to acknowledge to our Maker, that we were not appointed to get our bread thus, one hundred and fifty yards under ground, or in a hole as deep in the earth as the cross upon St. Paul’s cupolo is high out of it: Nor was it possible to see these miserable people without such reflections, unless you will suppose a man as stupid and sensless as the horse he rides on. But to leave moralizing to the reader, I proceed.

We then look’d on the oar, and got the poor man’s leave to bring every one a small piece of it away with us, for which we gave him two small pieces of better mettle, called shillings, which made his heart glad; and, as we understood by our interpreter, was more than he could gain at sixty fathoms under ground in three days; and we found soon after the money was so much, that it made him move off immediately towards the alehouse, to melt some of it into good Pale Derby; but, to his farther good luck, we were gotten to the same alehouse before him; where, when we saw him come, we gave him some liquor too, and made him keep his money, and promise us to carry it home to his family, which they told us lived hard by.

From hence entring upon Brassington Moor, mentioned above, we had eight mile smooth green riding to Buxton bath, which they call one of the wonders of the Peak; but is so far from being a wonder, that to us, who had been at Bath in Somersetshire, and at Aix la Chapelle in Germany, it was nothing at all; nor is it any thing but what is frequent in such mountainous countries as this is, in many parts of the world.

That which was more wonderful to me than all of it, was, that so light is made of them as to use; that the people rather wonder at them than take the benefit of them; and that, as there are several hot springs in this village of Buxton, as well as at Matlock, mentioned above, and at several other places, they are not built into noble and convenient bathing places; and, instead of a house or two, a city built here for the entertainment of company; which, if it were done, and countenance given to it, as is to the baths at Bath, I doubt not it would be as well frequented, and to as good purpose.

But though I shall not treat this warm spring as a wonder, for such it is not; I must nevertheless give it the praise due to the medicinal virtue of its waters; for it is not to be deny’d, but that wonderful cures have been wrought by them, especially in rheumatick, scorbutick and scrofulous distempers, aches of the joints, nervous pains, and also in scurfy and leprous maladies.

For a proof of this, and to give a just reputation to the waters of Buxton, I crave leave to give a brief account of what the learned say of their virtues, and the manner of their operation; and though I shall not croud this work with any thing from books, which is not more than common, and more than ordinary useful, yet I must be excused in this, as what I think excels in both: It is from the learned Dr. Leigh, in his Natural History of Lancashire, and of the Peak; his words are as follows:

Here, meaning at Buxton, the waters are sulphurous and saline yet not foetid, but very palatable, because the sulphur is not united with any vitriolic particles, or but very few saline; it tinges not silver, nor is it purgative, because its saline parts are dispensed in such small proportions, which saline particles make up a corn-pound salt, constituted of a marine salt, and the Sal Catharticum Amarum, which indeed is the Nitrum Calcarium that impregnates Epsom, Northall and Dullwich waters, and others in those parts, as at Stretham, Peckham, Shooters-Hill, &c. in the county of Kent.

These waters ( Buxton) if drank, create a good appetite, open obstructions, and no doubt, if mixed with the chalybeat waters that are there also, may answer all the intentions of the Bath water in Somersetshire, and that of Sir Vincent’s too at Bristol, so noted for curing the diabetes; of which I have seen several instances in these parts; and likewise for curing of bloody urines, of which I saw a most noted instance at Liverpoole.

This bath is of a temperate heat, and, without question, by a reverberating halitus might be brought to any degree of heat; but, I think, in its own natural heat, it may in general be said to be more agreeable to the constitutions of those parts; and where the hot baths cannot be safely used, this may. This last summer I saw remarkable instances of its effects in scorbutick rheumatisms in persons, that could not go before without the help of crutches, who came from thence to Manchester on foot without them, distant from Buxton full sixteen northern miles.

For the antiquity of these baths too, though there is not a King Bladud to testify for them, as at Bath in Somersetshire, whose evidence we cannot be sure is very justifiable, yet hear the same author on that article:

That these baths were eminent in the Romans time, is most certain. Lucan, and others acquaint us, they were extraordinary hot, the high road, called the Roman Bath-gate, as Mr. Cambden says, further confirms it; but it is especially evident from a Roman wall cemented with red Roman plaister, close by St. Anne’s Well, where we may see the ruins of the antient bath, its dimensions and length.

The waters are temperately hot, or rather warm, and operate rather as a cold bath, without that violent attack which the cold bath makes upon all nature at once; you feel a little chilness when you first dip or plunge into the water, but it is gone in a moment; and you find a kind of an equality in the warmth of your blood and that of the water, and that so very pleasant, that far from the fainting and weakening violence of the hot baths, which makes you ready to die away if you continue above an hour, or thereabouts, in them, and will shrivel up the fingers like those of women, who have been washing cloaths; on the contrary, here you are never tired, and can hardly be persuaded to come out of the bath when you are in.

The village where the principal springs are, is called Buxton; though there are several of them, for they rise unregarded in the banks of the enclosures, and on the sides of the hill, so that the number is hardly known; there is but one bath which is walled in with stone walls, and steps made to go down into it, and a house built over it, though not so close as is fit for winter bathing.

The Duke of Devonshire is lord of the village, and consequently of the bath itself; and his grace has built a large handsome house at the bath, where there is convenient lodging, and very good provisions, and an ordinary well served for one shilling per head; but it is but one. And though some other houses in the town take in lodgers upon occasion, yet the conveniencies are not the same; so that there is not accommodation for a confluence of people, as at the bath-house it self: If it were otherwise, and that the nobility and gentry were suitably entertained, I doubt not but Buxton would be frequented, and with more effect as to health, as well as much more satisfaction to the company; where there is an open and healthy country, a great variety of view to satisfy the curious, and a fine down or moor for the ladies to take a ring upon in their coaches, all much more convenient than in a close city as the Bath is, which, more like a prison than a place of diversion, scarce gives the company room to converse out of the smell of their own excrements, and where the very city it self may be said to stink like a general common-shore.

We saw indeed a variety of objects here; some that came purely for the pleasure of bathing, taking the air, and to see the country, which has many things rare and valuable to be seen, tho’ nothing, as I met with, can be called a wonder, Elden Hole excepted, of which in its place: We found others that came purely for cure, as the lame man to the pool; of which some openly applauded the virtue of the bath, as evidently working a cure upon them. One object indeed, who, whether his physician mistook his disease, or he gave his physician a wrong account, (as is most probable) was very inadvertently sent thither, found himself fatally injured by the bath: What the reason of that might be, I leave to the learned; but, upon this occasion, one of our company left the following lines written on the wall in the bathing house:

Buxton, may all the silver streams unite,
And be as bountiful, as they are bright:
May every votary, diseas’d and poor,
If chaste in blood, be certain of his cure.
But let thy springs refuse that wretch to heal,
Who shall a crime in his disease conceal:
May thy chast streams quench no dishonest flame,
But as thy fountain’s pure, be pure thy fame.

South west from hence, about a quarter of a mile, or not so much, on the side, or rather at the foot of a very high ridge of mountains, is a great cave or hole in the earth, called Poole’s Hole, another of the wonderless wonders of the Peak. The wit that has been spent upon this vault or cave in the earth, had been well enough to raise the expectation of strangers, and bring fools a great way to creep into it; but is ill bestowed upon al] those that come to the place with a just curiosity, founded upon antient report; when these go in to see it, they generally go away, acknowledging that they have seen nothing suitable to their great expectation, or to the fame of the place.

It is a great cave, or natural vault, antient doubtless as the mountain itself, and occasioned by the fortuitous position of the rocks at the creation of all things, or perhaps at the great absorption or influx of the surface into the abyss at the great rupture of the earth’s crust or shell, according to Mr. Burnet’s theory; and to me it seems a confirmation of that hypothesis of the breaking in of the surface. But that by the way:

It may be deepen’d and enlarged by streams and eruptions of subterraneous waters, of which here are several, as there generally are in all such cavities; as at Castleton in this country, at Wooky Hole in Somersetshire, which I have already spoken of; and at several like caves which are now to be seen among the mountains in Swisserland, in Norway, in Hungary, and other places.

The story of one Pole or Poole, a famous giant or robber, (they might as well have called him a man eater) who harboured in this vault, and whose kitchen and lodging, or bed-chamber, they show you on your right-hand, after you have crept about ten yards upon all-four; I say, this I leave to those who such stories are better suited to, than I expect of my readers.

However, this helps among the people there, to make out the wonder; and indeed such things are wanting where really wonder is wanting, else there would be no wonder at all in it; as indeed there is not.

The utmost you meet with after this, is the extraordinary heighth of the arch or roof; which, however, is far from what a late flaming author has magnified it to, (viz.) a quarter of a mile perpendicular. That it? very high, is enough to say; for it is so far from a quarter of a mile, that there seems nothing admirable in it.

Dr. Leigh spends some time in admiring the spangled roof. Cotton and Hobbes are most ridiculously and outrageously witty upon it. Dr. Leigh calls it fret work, organ, and choir work. The whole of the matter is this, that the rock being every where moist and dropping, the drops are some fallen, those you see below; some falling, those you have glancing by you en passant; and others pendant in the roof. Now as you have guides before you and behind you, carrying every one a candle, the light of the candles reflected by the globular drops of water, dazle upon your eyes from every corner; like as the drops of dew in a sunny-bright morning reflect the rising light to the eye, and are as ten thousand rainbows in miniature; whereas were any part of the roof or arch of this vault to be seen by a clear light, there would be no more beauty on it than on the back of a chimney; for, in short, the stone is coarse, slimy, with the constant wet, dirty and dull; and were the little drops of water gone, or the candles gone, there would be none of these fine sights to be seen for wonders, or for the learned authors above to show themselves foolish about.

Let any person therefore, who goes into Poole’s Hole for the future, and has a mind to try the experiment, take a long pole in his hand, with a cloth tied to the end of it, and mark any place of the shining spangled roof which his pole will reach to; and then, wiping the drops of water away, he shall see he will at once extinguish all those glories; then let him sit still and wait a little, till, by the nature of the thing, the drops swell out again, and he shall find the stars and spangles rise again by degrees, here one, and there one, till they shine with the same fraud, a meer deceptio visus, as they did before. As for the Queen of Scots pillar, as ’tis called, because her late unfortunate majesty, Mary, Queen of Scots, was pleased to have it be called so, it is a piece of stone like a kind of spar, which is found about the lead; and ’tis not improbable in a country where there is so much of the oar, it may be of the same kind, and, standing upright, obtained the name of a pillar; of which almost every body that comes there, carries away a piece, in veneration of the memory of the unhappy princess that gave it her name. Nor is there any thing strange or unusual in the stone, much less in the figure of it, which is otherwise very mean, and in that country very common.

As to the several stones called Mr. Ce’ton’s, Haycock’s, Poole’s Chair, Flitches of Bacon, and the like, they are nothing but ordinary stones; and the shapes very little resemble the things they are said to represent; but the fruitful imagination of the country carls, who fancy to call them so, will have them to look like them; a stranger sees very little even of the similitude, any more than when people fancy they see faces and heads, castles and cities, armies, horses and men, in the clouds, in the fire, and the like.

Nor is the petrifying of the water, which appears in its pendant form like icecles in the roof aloft, or rising pyramids below, if such there were, any thing but what is frequent and natural both to water and to stone, placed thus under ground, and seems to be the way by which even stone itself, like other vegetables, fructifies and grows.

So that, in short, there is nothing in Poole’s Hole to make a wonder of, any more than as other things in nature, which are rare to be seen, however easily accounted for, may be called wonderful.

Having thus accounted for two of the seven things, called wonders in this country, I pass by Elden Hole, which I shall take notice of by it self, and come to two more of them, as wonderless, and empty of every thing that may be called rare or strange, as the others; and indeed much more so.

The first of these is Mam Tor, or, as the word in the mountain jargon signifies, the Mother Rock, upon a suggestion that the soft crumbling earth, which falls from the summit of the one, breeds or begets several young mountains below. The sum of the whole wonder is this, That there is a very high hill, nay, I will add (that I may make the most of the story, and that it may appear as much like a wonder as I can) an exceeding high hill. But this in a country which is all over hills, cannot be much of a wonder, because also there are several higher hills in the Peak than that, only not just there.

The south side of this hill is a precipice, and very steep from the top to the bottom; and as the substance of this hill is not a solid stone, or rocky, as is the case of all the hills thereabouts, but a crumbling loose earth mingled with small stones, it is continually falling down in small quantities, as the force of hasty showers, or solid heavy rains, loosens and washes it off, or as frosts and thaws operate upon it in common with other parts of the earth; now as the great hill, which is thick, as well as high, parts with this loose stuff, without being sensibly diminished, yet the bottom which it falls into, is more easily perceived to swell with the quantity that falls down; the space where it is received being small, comparatively to the heighth and thickness of the mountain: Here the pretended wonder is form’d, namely, that the little heap below, should grow up into a hill, and yet the great hill not be the less for all that is fallen down; which is not true in fact, any more than, as a great black cloud pouring down rain as it passes over our heads, appears still as great and as black as before, though it continues pouring down rain over all the country. But nothing is more certain than this, that the more water comes down from it, the less remains in it; and so it certainly is of Mama Tor, in spite of all the poetry of Mr. Cotton or Mr. Hobbes, and in spight of all the women’s tales in the Peak.

This hill lies on the north side of the road from Buxton to Castleton, where we come to the so famed wonder call’d, saving our good manners, The Devil’s A ——— e in the Peak’, Now not-withstanding the grossness of the name given it, and that there is nothing of similitude or coherence either in form and figure, or any other thing between the thing signified and the thing signifying; yet we must search narrowly for any thing in it to make a wonder, or even any thing so strange, or odd, or vulgar, as the name would seem to import.

The short of this story is; that on the steep side of a mountain there is a large opening very high, broad at bottom, and narrow, but rounding, on the top, almost the form of the old Gothick gates or arches, which come up, not to a half circle or half oval at the top, but to a point; though this being all wild and irregular, cannot be said to be an arch, but a meer chasme, entring horizontally; the opening being upwards of thirty foot perpendicular, and twice as much broad at the bottom at least.

The arch continues thus wide but a little way, yet far enough to have several small cottages built on either side of it within the entrance; so that ’tis like a little town in a vault: In the middle, (as it were a street) is a running stream of water; the poetical descriptions of it will have this be called a river, tho’ they have not yet bestow’d a name upon it, nor indeed is it worthy a name.

As you go on, the roof descends gradually, and is so far from admitting houses to stand in it, that you have not leave to stand upright your self, till stooping for a little way, and passing over another rill of water, which Mr. Cotton calls a river too, you find more room over your head. But going a little farther you come to a third water, which crosses your way; and the rock stooping, as it were, down almost to the surface of the water, forbids any farther enquiry into what is beyond.

This is the whole wonder, unless it may be called so, that our ancestors should give it so homely a sirname; and give us no reason for it, but what we must guess at from the uncouth entrance of the place, which being no guide in the case, leave us to reflect a little upon their modesty of expression; but it seems they talked broader in those days than we do now.

To conclude: If there were no such vaults and arches any where but in the Peak, or indeed if they were not frequent in such mountainous countries, as well here, as in other nations, we might call this a wonder. But as we know they are to be found in many places in England, and that we read of them in the description of other countries, and even in the Scripture, we cannot think there is any room to call it a wonder. We read of the cave of Adullam, and of the cave of Mackpelah, in the Scripture, able to receive David, and his whole troop of four hundred men. We read of the persecuted worthies in the 12th of the Hebrews, who wandered about in dens and caves of the earth. We read of a cave in the Apenine Mountains near to Florence, which was able to receive an army; there are also many such caves, as I have observed above, in the Alpes, and the hills of Dauphine and Savoy, and in other parts of the world, too many to run over; and some of them, such as this is not worthy to be named among them.

Indeed, had Gervaise of Tilbury been credited, this place had deserved all that wonder cou’d ascribe to it; for he tells us of a shepherd who, having ventured into the third river in this den, and being either carried over it or down the stream, he knew not whether, saw a beautiful heavenly country beyond it, with a spacious plain watered with many clear rivers and pleasant brooks, and several lakes of standing water. But who this shepherd was, how he got into that pleasant country; and, above all, how he came back to tell the story, our friend Gervaise forgot, it seems, to take any notice of; and so the tale is broken off before it was half told, like another of the same kind which Hudibras tells of,

Which, like the tale o’th” bear and fiddle,
Was told; but broke off in the middle.

The next wonder, which makes up number five, is called Tideswell, or a spring of water which ebbs and flows, as they will have it, as the sea does. A poor thing indeed to make a wonder of; and therefore most of the writers pass it over with little notice; only that they are at a loss to make up the number seven without it.

This well or spring is called Weeden Well; the basin or receiver for the water is about three foot square every way; the water seems to have some other receiver within the rock, which, when it filis by the force of the original stream, which is small, the air being contracted or pent in, forces the water out with a bubbling noise, and so fills the receiver without; but when the force is spent within, then it stops till the place is filled again; and, in the mean time, the water without runs off or ebbs, till the quantity within swells again, and then the same causes produce the same effects, as will always be while the world endures. So that all this wonder is owing only to the situation of the place, which is a meer accident in nature; and if any person were to dig into the place, and give vent to the air, which fills the contracted space within, they would soon see Tideswell turned into an ordinary running stream, and a very little one too.

So much for fictitious wonders, or indeed simple wonders. The two real wonders which remain, are first, Elden Hole, and secondly, the Duke of Devonshire’s fine house at Chatsworth; one a wonder of nature, the other of art. I begin with the last.

Chatsworth is indeed a most glorious and magnificent house, and, as it has had two or three founders, may well be said to be compleatly designed and finished. It was begun on a much narrower plan than it now takes up, by Sir William Cavendish, of Cavendish in Suffolk, who married the Countess Dowager of Shrewsbury, and with her came into a noble and plentiful fortune in this country.

Sir William died, having done little more than built one end of the fabrick, and laid out the plan, as I have said, or ichnography of the whole. But the lady, who, it seems, was the mover of the first design, finish’d the whole in the magnificent manner which it appeared in, when it was first christen’d a wonder, and ranked among the marvelleux of the Peak. But what would the world have called it, or what would Mr. Cambden have said of it, had it appeared in those days in the glory and splendor its last great founder, for so we may justly call him, left it in.

It is indeed a palace for a prince, a most magnificent building, and, in spite of all the difficulties or disadvantages of situation, is a perfect beauty; nay, the very obstructions and, as I called them, disadvantages of its situation, serve to set off its beauty, and are, by the most exquisite decoration of the place, made to add to the lustre of the whole. But it would take up a volume by itself to describe it. I shall only touch at those things which other writers have omitted; for, as Mr. Hobbes has elegantly set it off in Latin verse, Mr. Cotton, after his manner, in English, and others, in as good a manner as they can, in history; they have yet, all of them, left enough for me to say, and so shall I, for many after me; and yet perhaps it shall be as many years describing as it was in building, and the description be no more finished than the building, which will have always an encrease of ornament, as the noble possessors see room to add to its glory.

The front to the garden is the most regular piece of architect I have seen in all the north part of England; the pilaster seventy two foot high to the foot of the ballaster on the top; the frize under the cornish is spacious, and has the motto of the family upon it, the letters so large (and gilded) as takes up the whole front, tho’ the words are but these two:

CAYENDO TUTUS

The sashes of the second story we were told are seventeen foot high, the plates polish’d looking-glass. and the woodwork double gilded; which, I think, is no where else to be seen in England.

Under this front lye the gardens exquisitely fine, and, to make a clear vista or prospect beyond into the flat country, towards Hardwick, another seat of the same owner, the duke, to whom what others thought impossible, was not only made practicable, but easy, removed, and perfectly carried away a great mountain that stood in the way, and which interrupted the prospect.

This was so entirely gone, that, having taken a strict view of the gardens at my first being there, and retaining an idea of them in my mind, I was perfectly confounded at coming there a second time, and not knowing what had been done; for I had lost the hill, and found a new country in view, which Chatsworth it self had never seen before.

The house indeed had received additions, as it did every year, and perhaps would to this day, had the duke liv’d, who had a genius for such things beyond the reach of the most perfect masters, and was not only capable to design, but to finish.

The gardens, the water-works, the cascades, the statues, vasa and painting, tho’ they are but very imperfectly described by any of the writers who have yet named them, and more imperfectly by one author, who has so lately pretended to view them; yet I dare not venture to mention them here, least, for want of time, and having so long a journey to go, I should, like those who have gone before me, do it imperfectly, or leave no room to do justice to other persons and places, which I am still to mention. I shall therefore, as I said above, only touch at what others have omitted.

First, ’tis to be observed that on the east side rises a very high mountain, on the top of which they dig mill-stones, and it begins so close to, and so overlooks the house, being prodigiously high that, should they roll down a pair of those stones coupled with a wooden axis, as is the way of drawing them, they would infallibly give a shock to the building; yet this mountain is so planted, and so covered with a wood of beautiful trees, that you see no hill, only a rising wood, as if the trees grew so much higher than one another, and was only a wall of trees, whose tops join into one another so close, as nothing is seen through them.

Upon the top of that mountain begins a vast extended moor or waste, which, for fifteen or sixteen miles together due north, presents you with neither hedge, house or tree, but a waste and houling wilderness, over which when strangers travel, they are obliged to take guides, or it would be next to impossible not to lose their way.

Nothing can be more surprising of its kind, than for a stranger coming from the north, suppose from Sheffield in Yorkshire, for that is the first town of note, and wandering or labouring to pass this difficult desart country, and seeing no end of it, and almost discouraged and beaten out with the fatigue of it, (just such was our case) on a sudden the guide brings him to this precipice, where he looks down from a frightful heighth, and a comfortless, barren, and, as he thought, endless moor, into the most delightful valley, with the most pleasant garden, and most beautiful palace in the world: If contraries illustrate, and the place can admit of any illustration, it must needs add to the splendor of the situation, and to the beauty of the building, and I must say (with which I will close my short observation) if there is any wonder in Chatsworth, it is, that any man who had a genius suitable to so magnificent a design, who could lay out the plan for such a house, and had a fund to support the charge, would build it in such a place where the mountains insult the clouds, intercept the sun, and would threaten, were earthquakes frequent here, to bury the very towns, much more the house, in their ruins.

On the top of that mountain, that is to say, on the plain which extends from it, is a large pond or basin for water, spreading, as I was told, near thirty acres of ground, which, from all the ascents round it, receives, as into a cistern, all the water that falls, and from which again by pipes, the cascades, watenvorks, ponds, and canals in the gardens, are plentifully supplied.

On the west side, which is the front or entrance of the house, and where the first foundress built a very august portal or gate; I say, on the west side, runs the River Derwent, which, though not many miles from its source here, is yet a terrible river, when, by hasty rains, or by the melting of the snows, the hills are pleased to pour down their waters into its channel; for the current is so rapid, and it has so many contracted passages among the rocks, and so many little cataracts amongst the stones, of which sometimes we see some of an incredible bulk come rouling down its stream; I say, there are so many of these, that the river, on the least motion of its waters above their ordinary highth, roars like the breaches on the shores of the sea.

Over this river there is a stately stone bridge, with an antient tower upon it, and in an island in the river an antient fabrick all of stone, and built like a castle. All these are the works of the first foundress, the Countess of Shrewsbury, and shew the greatness of the first design; but, except the bridge, are now, as it were, eclips’d by the modern glories of the later edifice.

In my discourse of the palace of Chatsworth, must not be forgot that fam’d compliment which the Mareschal Duke de Tallard pass’d upon it, when the Duke of Devonshire entertained him at Chatsworth, namely, “That when he should give his master the King of France the history of his seven years captivity in England, he would leave out those three days which he had spent so agreeably with his grace, in seeing the finest palace in the world.”

But I must dwell no longer here, however pleasant and agreeable the place. The remaining article, and which, I grant, we may justly call a WONDER, is Elden Hole: The description of it, in brief, is thus: In the middle of a plain open field, gently descending to the south, there is a frightful chasme, or opening in the earth, or rather in the rock, for the country seems thereabouts to be all but one great rock; this opening goes directly down perpendicular into the earth, and perhaps to the center; it may be about twenty foot over one way, and fifty or sixty the other; it has no bottom, that is to say, none that can yet be heard of. Mr. Cotton says, he let down eight hundred fathoms of line into it, and that the plummet drew still; so that, in a word, he sounded about a mile perpendicular; for as we call a mile 1760 yards, and 884 is above half, then doubtless eight hundred fathoms must be 1600 yards, which is near a mile.

This I allow to be a wonder, and what the like of is not to be found in the world, that I have heard of, or believe. And would former writers have been contented with one wonder instead of seven, it would have done more honour to the Peak, and even to the whole nation, than the adding five imaginary miracles to it that had nothing in them, and which really depreciatcd the whole.

What Nature meant in leaving this window open into the infernal world, if the place lies that way, we cannot tell: But it must be said, there is something of horror upon the very imagination, when one does but look into it; and therefore tho’ I cannot find much in Mr. Cotton, of merry memory, worth quoting, yet on this subject, I think, he has four very good lines, speaking of his having an involuntary horror at looking into this pit. The words are these:

For he, who standing on the brink of hell,
Can carry it so unconcern’d and well,
As to betray no fear, is certainly
A better Christian, or a worse than I.

COTTON’S Wonders of the Peak .

They tell a dismal story here, of a traveller, who, enquiring his way to Castleton, or to Buxton, in a dark night, two villains offer’d to guide him; but, intending to rob him, led him to the edge of this gulph, and either thrust him in, or persuaded him to believe there was a little gall of water, and bad him take a large step, which the innocent unfortunate did, not mistrusting the treachery, and stept at once into eternity; a story enough to make the blood run cold through the heart of those that hear it told, especially if they know the place too: They add, that one of these villains being hanged at Derby some years after for some other villany, confess’d this murther at the gallows.

Having then viewed those things with an impartial mind, give me leave to reduce the wonders of the Peak to a less number, and of a quite different kind.

Elden Hole I acknowledge to be a wonderful place, as I have said above; but to me the greatest surprise is, that, after such a real wonder, any of the trines added to it could bear the name of wonders.

Of Buxton; the wonder to me is, that in a nation so full of chronical diseases as we are, such as our scorbuticks, rheumaticks, cholicks, and niphriticks, there should be such a fountain of medicine sent from heaven, and no more notice taken of it, or care to make it useful.

That in a nation so curious, so inquiring, and so critical as this, any thing so unsatisfying, so foolish and so weak, should pass for wonders as those of Mam Tor, Tideswell, Poole’s Hole, &c.

As to Chatsworth, the wonder, as I said before, seems to me; not that so noble and magnificent a palace should be built, but that it should be built in such a situation, and in such a country so out of the way, so concealed from the world, that whoever sees it must take a journey on purpose.

Having thus viewed the two counties of Nottingham and Derby, as beginning that part of England, which we call north by Trent, I resolved to go northward on the east side of the island, taking the western shore, or the Irish Sea in my return.

The Peak concludes the northern part of Derbyshire; nor are there any towns on that side worth noting. There are some other curiosities in the Peak indeed, which would deserve a fuller account, had I leisure to enlarge or descend to particulars, as the tottering stones at Byrch Over, the Roman causeway, called Bath-Gate, the several minerals found in the hills, and in the lead mines, as black lead, stibium or antimony, christal, and other things, all much more rare than the wonders they speak of.

Bakewell, is the best town in the north west side of the Peak, near which the Duke of Rutland has a very noble palace, called Haddon; but after Chatsworth no house in the same county can bear a description; so we left the Peak, and went to Chesterfield, a handsome market town at the northermost border of the county, north east from Chatsworth.

There is indeed an extended angle of this county, which runs a great way north west by Chappel in the Frith, and which they call High Peak. This, perhaps, is the most desolate, wild, and abandoned country in all England; The mountains of the Peak, of which I have been speaking, seem to be but the beginning of wonders to this part of the country, and but the beginning of mountains, or, if you will, as the lower rounds of a ladder. The tops of these hills seem to be as much above the clouds, as the clouds are above the ordinary range of hills.

Nor is this all; but the continuance of these mountains is such, that we know no bounds set to them, but they run on in a continued ridge or ledge of mountains from one to another, till they are lost in the southern parts of Scotland, and even through that to the Highlands; so that they may be said to divide Britain, as the Appennine Mountains divide Italy. Thus these hills joyning to Blackstone Edge divide Yorkshire from Lancashire, and going on north divides the Bishoprick of Durham from Westmoreland, and so on. It is from this ridge of mountains that all the rivers in the north of England take their rise, I may say ALL, for it is so to a very trifle, not a considerable river north of this county, nay, and in this county too, but begin here; those on the east side run into the German Ocean, those on the west side into the Irish. I shall begin the observation here; the Dove and the Derwent rise both at this south end of them, and come away south to the Trent; but all the rivers afterwards run, as above, east or west; and first the Mersee rises on the west side, and the Don on the east, the first runs to Warrington, and into the sea at Liverpoole; the other to Doncaster, and into the sea at Humber. I shall carry on the observation as I go, for to give an account of rivers, is the true guide to the giving the reader the best account of the country. But to return to my progress.

Chesterfield is a handsome populous town, well-built and well inhabited, notwithstanding it stands in the farthest part of this rocky country; for being on the north west side next to Yorkshire, it enters Scarsdale, which is a rich fruitful part of the country, though surrounded with barren moors and mountains, for such the name Scarsdale signifies, according to that master of etymologies, Mr. Cambden. Here is, however, nothing remarkable in this town but a free school, and a very good market, well stored with provisions; for here is little or no manufacture.

From hence (travelling still north) we entred the great county of York, uncertain still which way to begin to take a full view of it, for as ’tis a country of a very great extent, my business is not the situation or a meer geographical description of it; I have nothing to do with the longitude of places, the antiquities of towns, corporations, buildings, charters, &c. nor much with the history of men, families, cities or towns, but to give you a view of the whole in its present state, as also of the commerce, curiosities and customs, according to my title.

The county is divided into three ridings; as I entred it from the south, it follows, I went in, by what they call the West Riding, which, as it is by much the largest, so it is the wealthiest and the most populous, has the greatest towns in it, and the greatest number of them; the greatest manufactures, and consequently the greatest share of wealth, as it has also of people.

South and West Yorkshire

Two eminent towns, tho’ only meer market towns, and one of them no corporation, open the door into the West Riding of Yorkshire; these are Sheffield and Doncaster. It is true, there Is a little market town, at the very first entrance into the county before we come to Doncaster, call’d Bautry, a town bless’d with two great conveniencies which assists to its support, and makes it a very well frequented place.

That it stands upon the great post highway, or road from London to Scotland; and this makes it be full of very good inns and houses of entertainment.

That the little but pleasant River Idle runs through, or rather just by, the side of it, which, contrary to the import of its name, is a full and quick, though not rapid and unsafe stream, with a deep channel, which carries hoys, lighters, barges, or flat-bottom’d vessels, out of its channel into the Trent, which comes within seven miles of it, to a place called Stockwith, and from thence to Burton, and from thence, in fair weather, quite to Hull; but if not, ’tis sufficient to go to Stockwith, where vessels of 200 ton burthen may come up to the town loaden as well as empty.

By this navigation, this town of Bautry becomes the center of all the exportation of this part of the country, especially for heavy goods, which they bring down hither from all the adjacent countries, such as lead, from the lead mines and smelting-houses in Derbyshire, wrought iron and edge-tools, of all sorts, from the forges at Sheffield, and from the country call’d Hallamshire, being adjacent to the towns of Sheffield and Rotherham, where an innumerable number of people are employed; as I shall speak more largely of in its place.

Also millstones and grindstones, in very great quantities, are brought down and shipped off here, and so carry’d by sea to Hull, and to London, and even to Holland also. This makes Bautry Wharf be famous all over the south part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, for it is the place whither all their heavy goods are carried, to be embarked and shipped off.

From hence to Doncaster is a pleasant road, and good ground, and never wants any repair, which is very hard to be said in any part of this lower side of the country.

Doncaster is a noble, large, spacious town, exceeding populous, and a great manufacturing town, principally for knitting; also as it stands upon the great northern post-road, it is very full of great inns; and here we found our landlord at the post-house was mayor of the town as well as post-master, that he kept a pack of hounds, was company for the best gentlemen in the town or in the neighbourhood, and lived as great as any gentleman ordinarily did.

Here we saw the first remains or ruins of the great Roman highway, which, though we could not perceive it before, was eminent and remarkable here, just at the entrance into the town; and soon after appeared again in many places: Here are also two great, lofty, and very strong stone bridges over the Don, and a long causeway also beyond the bridges, which is not a little dangerous to passengers when the waters of the Don are restrained, and swell over its banks, as is sometimes the case.

This town, Mr. Cambden says, was burnt entirely to the ground, anno 759, and is hardly recovered yet; but I must say, it is so well recovered, that I see no ruins appear, and indeed, being almost a thousand years ago, I know not how there should; and besides, the town seems as if it wanted another conflagration, for it looks old again, and many of the houses ready to fall.

I should, before I leave Doncaster, give you the famous epitaph of one Robert Byrk, a famous man of Doncaster, who lies buried in the great church here, who gave a place, call’d Rossington Wood, to the poor. On his grave is this epitaph in Old English:

Howe, howe, who’s here,
I, Robin of Doncastere,
And Margaret my fere.
That I spent, that I had;
That I gave, that I have;
That I left, that I lost;

Quoth Robertus Byrks, who in this world did reign threescore years and seven, but liv’d not one.

anno 1579.

Here lies also, under a plain gravestone in St. George’s Church, interred, the body of one Thomas Ellis, a very memorable person. He was five times mayor of the town, founded an hospital in the town, called St. Thomas’s the Apostle, and endowed it plentifully.

Strange! that of but two several authors writing a description of Yorkshire but very lately, and pretending to speak positively of the places, which they ought not to have done, if they had not been there, both of them should so strangely mistake, as one to say of Doncaster, that there was a large church with a high spire steeple; and the other to say of the cathedral at York, that from the spire of the cathedral at York, you have an unbounded prospect: Whereas neither has the tower of York, or the tower at Doncaster, any spire, unless they will pretend any of the small pinacles at the four corners of the two towers at the west end of the church at York, are to be call’d THE SPIRE of THE cathedral; so fit are such men to write descriptions of a country.

Leaving Doncaster, we turned out of the road a little way to the left, where we had a fair view of that antient whittl-making, cutlering town, called Sheffield; the antiquity, not of the town only, but of the trade also, is established by those famous lines of Geoffry Chaucer on the Miller of Trumpington, which, however they vary from the print in Chaucer, as now extant, I give you as I find it:

At Trumpington, not far from Cambridge,
There dwelt a miller upon a bridge;
With a rizzl’d beard, and a hooked nose,
And a Sheffield whittl in his hose.

This town of Sheffield is very populous and large, the streets narrow, and the houses dark and black, occasioned by the continued smoke of the forges, which are always at work: Here they make all sorts of cutlery-ware, but especially that of edged-tools, knives, razors, axes, &c. and nails; and here the only mili of the sort, which was in use in England for some time was set up, (viz.) for turning their grindstones, though now ’tis grown more common.

Here is a very spacious church, with a very handsome and high spire; and the town is said to have at least as many, if not more people in it than the city of York. Whether they have been exactly numbered one against the other, I cannot tell. The manufacture of hard ware, which has been so antient in this town, is not only continued, but much encreased; insomuch that they told us there, the hands employed in it were a prodigious many more than ever dwelt, as well in the town, as in the bounds of that they call Hallamshire; and they talked of 30000 men employed in the whole; but I leave it upon the credit of report.

There was formerly a very fine castle here, with a noble mansion-house, the seat of the Dukes of Norfolk; but it is now all demolished and decayed, though the estate or mannor remains still in the family. In the great church of this town are several very antient monuments of the family of Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury, who once had great possessions in this and the next county.

The Queen of Scots was also for a long time detained here as prisoner, not less than sixteen or seventeen years, which was fatal afterward to the house of Norfolk; as is to be seen at large in our English history.

The River Don, with a rapid terrible current, had swelled its banks, and done a prodigious deal of damage the same year that I took this view, having carried away two or three stone bridges, ploughed up some wharfs, and drove away several milis; for this river is of kin to the Derwent for the fierceness of its streams, taking its beginning in the same western mountains, which I mentioned before; and which begin to rise first in the High Peak, and run northward to Blackstone Edge; those mountains pouring down their waters with such fury into these great rivers, their streams are so rapid, that nothing is able to stand in their way.

Here is a fine engine or mill al so for raising water to supply the town, which was done by Mr. Serocoal, the same who fell into the river at the throwing-mill at Derby, as is said in its place: Here is also a very large and strong bridge over the Don, as there is another at Rotherham, a market town six miles lower. Here is also a very fine hospital, with the addition of a good revenue, settled at first by Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, and confirmed afterwards by the family of Howard, Dukes of Norfolk.

George, the first Earl of Shrewsbury, who died 1538. George the second, grandson to the first, to whose custody the Queen of Scots was committed, who died 1590, and Gilbert his son, who founded the hospital above mentioned, all lie buried here. The gift of this hospital is thus documented:

The Hospital of the Right Hon. GILBERT, Earl
of Shrewsbury, erected and settled by the
Right Hon. HENRY, Earl of Norwich,
Earl Marshal of ENGLAND, great
grandson of the said earl, in pursuance of his last Will and Testament,
An. 1673.

It is in this park that the great oak tree grew, which Mr. Evelyn gives a long account of in his book of Forest Trees; but as I did not see it, I refer to the said Mr. Evelyn’s account. The chesnut tree near Aderclift, which Mr. Cambden’s continuator mentions, the body of which could hardly be fathom’d by three men, I suppose was gone; for I could hear nothing of it.

But the remains of the Roman fortification or encampment between Sheffield and Rotherham, is there still, and very plain to be seen, and, I suppose, may remain so to the end of time.

Here is also the famous bank or trench which some call Devil’s Bank, others Danes Bank; but ’tis frequent with us to give the honour of such great trenches, which they think was never worth the while for men to dig, to the devil, as if he had more leisure, or that it was less trouble to him than to a whole army of men. This bank, ’tis said, runs five mile in length; in some places ’tis called Kemp Bank, in others Temple’s Bank.

Rotherham was the next town of any bulk in which, how- ever, I saw nothing of note, except a fine stone bridge over the Don, which is here encreased by the River Rother, from whence the town, I suppose, took its name, as the famous Bishop Rotherham did his from the town: I will not say he was a foundling child in the streets, and so was sirnamed from the place, as is often suggested in such cases, though if he was so, it did not diminish his character, which was that of a great and good man. He was Archbishop of York, and was a great bene- factor to this town, having founded a college here; but it seems it has been a long while ago.

From Rotherham we turned north west to Wentworth, on purpose to see the old seat of Tankersly, and the park, where I saw the largest red deer that, I believe, are in this part of Europe: One of the hinds, I think, was larger than my horse, and he was not a very small pad of fourteen hands and half high. This was antiently the dwelling of the great Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, beheaded in King Charles the First’s time, by a law, ex post facto, voted afterward not to be drawn into a precedent. The body lies interred in Wentworth Church.

Thence over vast moors, I had almost said waste moors, we entred the most populous part of this county, I mean of the West Riding, only passing a town call’d Black Barnsley, eminent still for the working in iron and steel; and indeed the very town looks as black and smoaky as if they were all smiths that lived in it; tho’ it is not, I suppose, called Black Barnsley on that account, but for the black hue or colour of the moors, which, being covered with heath, (or heather, as ’tis called in that country) look all black, like Bagshot Heath, near Windsor; after, I say, we had pass’d these moors, we came to a most rich, pleasant and populous country, and the first town of note we came to in it was Wakefield, a large, handsome, rich clothing town, full of people, and full of trade.

The Calder passes through this town under a stately stone bridge of twelve arches, upon which is a famous building, by some called a chapel, by others a castle; the former is the most likely; It was built by Edward IV. in memory of the fatal Battle of Wakefield, wherein his father, Richard, Duke of York, was killed by the Lancastrian army, under the command of Margaret, queen to Henry VI. anno 1460. It was indeed a fatal battle; but as that is not any part of this work, I leave it to the historians to give a fuller account of it; only one thing I must add, namely, that a little on this side of the town, I mean south between Wakefield, and a village called Sandal, they shewed us a little square piece of ground, which was fenced off by it self; and on which, before the late war, stood a large stone cross, in memory of that fatal battle; just upon that spot, the Duke of York fighting desperately, and refusing to yield, tho’ surrounded with enemies, was kill’d. The chapel on the bridge at Wakefield, the other monument of this battle, is now made use of for civil affairs; for we do not now pray for the souls of those slain in battle, and so the intent of that building ceases.

Wakefield is a clean, large, well-built town, very populous and very rich; here is a very large church, and well filled it is, for here are very few Dissenters; the steeple is a very fine spire, and by far the highest in all this part of the country, except that at Sheffield. They tell us, there are here more people also than in the city of York, and yet it is no Corporation town; and he highest magistrate, as I understand, was a constable.

Here also is a market every Friday for woollen cloaths, after the manner of that at Leeds, tho’ not so great; yet as all the cloathing trade is encreasing in this country, so this market too flourishes with the rest; not but that sometimes, as foreign markets receive interruption either by wars, by a glut of the goods, or by any other incident, there are interruptions of the manufacture too, which, when it happen, the clothiers are sure to complain of loss of trade; but when the demand comes again they are not equally forward with their acknowledgments; and this, I observed, was the case every where else, as well as here.

I cannot pass by my former observation here, namely, how evidently all the great rivers take their beginning in the mountains of Blackstone Edge and High Peak, which, as I have said, part the counties of Lancaster and York, and how these rivers take all their course due east. The Don was the first; the next is the Calder, coming now to be a very large river at Wakefield; and the Aire is the next, which, running another course, of which I shall speak presently, receives the Calder into it.

The River Calder, of which I shall give an account by and by, having trac’d it from its beginning, receiving a mighty confluence of rivers into it, is now, as I have said, become a large river, and the first town it comes near of note is Huthersfield, another large cloathing place; it passes also by Eland, where there is a very fine stone bridge. This was the original seat of the Earls or Marquisses of Hallifax, when the title went in the name of Saville. Huthersfield is one of the five towns which carry on that vast cloathing trade by which the wealth and opulence of this part of the country has been raised to what it now is, and there those woollen manufactures are made in such prodigious quantities, which are known by the name of Yorkshire Kersies. Whether the scandal upon this country be just or not, (viz.) shrinking cloth and sharping k ——— s, that I will not take upon me to determine; at this town there is a market for kersies every Tuesday.

Nor, as I speak of their manufactures, must I forget that most essential manufacture called Yorkshire Ale, which indeed is in its perfection here, and in all this part of the county; of which I shall speak again in its place.

As the Calder rises in Blackstone Edge, so the Aire, another of the Yorkshire rivers, rises, tho’ in the same ridge of hills, yet more particularly at the foot of the mountain Pennigent, on the edge of Lancashire, of which ’tis said proverbially:

Pendle-Hill and Pennigent,
Are the highest hills between Scotland and Trent.

As the Calder runs by Hallifax, Huthersfield, and through Wakefield; so the Aire runs by Skippon, Bradforth and thorough Leeds, and then both join at Castleford Bridge, near Pontefract, so in an united stream forming that useful navigation from this trading part of Yorkshire to Hull; to the infinite advantage of the whole country, and which, as I took a singular satisfaction in visiting and enquiring into, so I believe you will be no less delighted in reading the account of it, which will be many ways both useful and very instructive; and the more so, because none of the pretended travel-writers and journeyers thro’ England, have yet thought this most remarkable part of our country worth their speaking of, or knew not how to go about it: Nor have they so much as mentioned this whole part of England, which is, on many accounts, the most considerable of all the northern division of this nation.

It is not easie to take a view of this populous and wealthy part, called the West Riding, at one, no, nor at two journies, unless you should dwell upon it, and go cross the country backward and forward, on purpose to see this or that considerable place. This is perhaps the reason why, as I hinted above, the other writers of journies and travels this way might not see how to go about it. But, as I was resolved to have a perfect knowledge of the most remarkable things, and especially of the manufactures of England, which I take to be as well worth a traveller’s notice, as the most curious thing he can meet with, and which is so prodigious great in this quarter, I made no less than three journies into, and thro’, this part of the country.

In my first journey I came only west from York to Wakefield, and then, turning south by Barnsley to Doncaster, went away still south to Rotherham, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Chatsworth, and the Peak, all which journey, except York, and the towns about it, and in the way to it, I have mentioned already.

The second journey, I came out of the western part of England, namely, from Cheshire thro’ Lancashire, and, passing east over those Andes of England, called Blackstone Edge, and the mountains, which, as I hinted before, part Yorkshire and Lancashire, and reach from the High Peak to Scotland, I came to Hallifax, Bradforth, Huthersfield, Leeds, Wetherby, Pontefract and Burrow Bridge, and so went away into the East Riding, as you have heard.

The third journey, I went from the Peak in Derbyshire again, and, traversing the same country as I returned by the first journey as far as Wakefield, went on again north to Leeds, and thence over Harwood Bridge to Knaresborough Spaw, thence to Rippon, and thro’ that old Roman street-way, called Leeming Lane, to Pier’s Bridge, thence to Durham, and so into Scotland; of all which in their order.

If, by all these circuits, and traversing the country so many ways, which I name for the reasons above, I am not furnished to give a particular account of the most remarkable things, I must have spent my time very ill, and ought not to let you know how often I went through it.

In my second journey, as above, I came from Lancashire, where you are to note, that all this part of the country is so considerable for its trade, that the Post-Master General had thought fit to establish a cross-post thro’ all the western part of England into it, to maintain the correspondence of merchants and men of business, of which all this side of the island is so full; this is a confirmation of what I have so often repeated, and may still repeat many times on farther occasion, of the greatness of the trade carried on in this part of the island. This cross-post begins at Plymouth, in the south west part of England, and, leaving the great western post road of Excester behind, comes away north to Taunton, Bridgwater and Bristol; from thence goes on thro’ all the great cities and towns up the Severn; such as Gloucester, Worcester, Bridgenorth and Shrewsbury, thence by West-Chester to Liverpool and Warrington, from whence it turns away east, and passes to Manchester, Bury, Rochdale, Hallifax, Leeds, and York, and ends at Hull.

By this means the merchants at Hull have immediate advice of their ships which go out of the channel, and come in; by their letters from Plymouth, as readily as the merchants at London, and without the double charge of postage. The shop-keepers and manufacturers can correspond with their dealers at Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol, nay, even with Ireland directly; without the tedious interruption of sending their letters about by London, or employing people at London to forward their packets; and as the trade on this side is exceeding great, this correspondence is a mighty advantage; nor is the encrease of the revenue by it inconsiderable, the quantity of letters which pass and repass this way, being, as I was told, in all places very great.

I follow’d this post-road, from Liverpool to Bury and Rochdale, both manufacturing towns in Lancashire, and the last very considerable, for a sort of course goods, called half-thicks and kersies, and the market for them is very great, tho’ otherwise the town is situated so remote, so out of the way, and so at the very foot of the mountains, that we may suppose it would be but little frequented.

Here, for our great encouragement, though we were but at the middle of August, and in some places the harvest was hardly got in, we saw the mountains covered with snow, and felt the cold very acute and piercing; but even here we found, as in all those northern countries is the case, the people had an extraordinary way of mixing the warm and the cold very happily together; for the store of good ale which flows plentifully in the most mountainous part of this country, seems abundantly to make up for all the inclemencies of the season, or difficulties of travelling, adding also the plenty of coals for firing, which all those hills are full of.

We mounted the hills, fortified with the same precaution, early in the morning, and though the snow which had fallen in the night lay a little upon the ground, yet we thought it was not much; and the morning being calm and clear, we had no apprehension of an uneasy passage, neither did the people at Rochdale, who kindly directed us the way, and even offered to guide us over the first mountains, apprehend any difficulty for us; so we complimented our selves out of their assistance, which we afterwards very much wanted.

It was, as I say, calm and clear, and the sun shone when we came out of the town of Rochdale; but when we began to mount the hills, which we did within a mile, or little more of the town, we found the wind began to rise, and the higher we went the more wind; by which I soon perceived that it had blown before, and perhaps all night upon the hills, tho’ it was calm below; as we ascended higher it began to snow again, that is to say, we ascended into that part where it was snowing, and had, no doubt, been snowing all night, as we could easily see by the thickness of the snow.

It is not easy to express the consternation we were in when we came up near the top of the mountain; the wind blew exceeding hard, and blew the snow so directly in our faces, and that so thick, that it was impossible to keep our eyes open to see our way. The ground also was so covered with snow, that we could see no track, or when we were in the way, or when out; except when we were shewed it by a frightful precipice on one hand, and uneven ground on the other; even our horses discovered their uneasiness at it; and a poor spaniel dog that was my fellow traveller, and usually diverted us with giving us a mark for our gun, turn’d tail to it and cry’d.

In the middle of this difficulty, and as we began to call to one another to turn back again, not knowing what dangers might still be before us, came a surprizing clap of thunder, the first that ever I heard in a storm of snow, or, I believe, ever shall; nor did we perceive any lightning to precede the thunder, as must naturally be the case; but we supposed the thick falling of the snow might prevent our sight.

I must confess I was very much surprized at this blow; and one of our company would not be persuaded that it was thunder, but that it was some blast of a coal-pit, things which do sometimes happen in the country, where there are many coal mines. But we were all against him in that, and were fully satisfied that it was thunder, and, as we fancy’d, at last we were confirmed in it, by hearing more of it at a distance from us.

Upon this we made a full stop, and coming altogether, for we were then three in company, with two servants, we began to talk seriously of going back again to Rochdale; but just then one of our men called out to us, and said, he was upon the top of the hill, and could see over into Yorkshire, and that there was a plain way down on the other side.

We rode all up to him, and found it as the fellow had said, all but that of a plain way; there was indeed the mark or face of a road on the side of the hill, a little turning to the left north; but it was so narrow, and so deep a hollow place on the right, whence the water descending from the hills made a channel at the bottom, and looked as the beginning of a river, that the depth of the precipice, and the narrowness of the way, look’d horrible to us; after going a little way in it, the way being blinded too by the snow, the hollow on the right appeared deeper and deeper, so we resolved to alight and lead our horses, which we did for about a mile, though the violence of the wind and snow continuing, it was both very troublesome and dangerous.

The only reliefs we had in this track were, (1.) That we perceived some land marks, or tokens, which the honest Rochdale men had given us notice of, by which we believed we were right in the way; for till then we knew nothing where we were, or whether we were right or wrong. And, (2.) that as the road we were in descended apace, for it went very steep down, we found the lower we went the violence of the snow abated, just as on the other side of the hill the higher we went, it had encreased.

At length, to our great joy, we found too the wind abated, as well as the snow, that is to say, the hills being so high behind us, they kept back the wind, as is the case under a high wall, though you are on the windward side of it, yet the wind having no passage through, is not felt, as it would be on the top where the space is open for it to pass.

All this way the hollow on our right continued very deep, and just on the other side of it a parallel hill continued going on east, as that did which we rode on the side of; the main hill which we came down from, which is properly called Blackstone Edge, or, by the country people, the Edge, without any sirname or addition, ran along due north, crossing and shutting up those hollow gulls and vallies between, which were certainly originally formed by the rain and snow water running into them, and forcing its way down, washing the earth gradually along with it, till, by length of time, it wore down the surface to such a depth.

We continued descending still, and as the weather was quieter, so the way seemed to mend and be broader, and, to our great satisfaction, enclining more to the hill on the left; the precipice and hollow part where the water run, as I have said, went a little off from us, and by and by, to our no small comfort, we saw an enclosed piece of ground that is enclosed with a stone wall, and soon after a house, where we asked our way, and found we were right.

Soon after this we came to the bottom, by another very steep descent, where we were obliged to alight again, and lead our horses. At the bottom, we found the hollow part, which I have so often mentioned as a precipice, was come to a level with us, that is to say, we were come down to a level with it, and it turning to the left toward us, we found a brook of water running from it, which cross’d our way to the north, you shall hear of it again presently; when we cross’d this brook, which, by reason of the snow on the hills which melted, was risen about knee deep, and run like a sluice for strength, we found a few poor houses, but saw no people, no not one; till we call’d at a door, to get directions of our way, and then we found, that though there was no body to be seen without doors, they were very full of people within, and so we found it on several occasions afterward, of which we shall speak again.

We thought now we were come into a Christian country again, and that our difficulties were over; but we soon found our selves mistaken in the matter; for we had not gone fifty yards beyond the brook and houses adjacent, but we found the way began to ascend again, and soon after to go up very steep, till in about half a mile we found we had another mountain to ascend, in our apprehansion as bad as the first, and before we came to the top of it, we found it began to snow too, as it had done before.

But, to cut short the tedious day’s work, the case was this; the hill was very high, and, in our opinion, not inferior to the Edge which we came just down from; but the sun being higher, and the wind not blowing so hard, what snow fell upon the hill melted as it fell, and so we saw our way plainer, and master’d the hill, though with some labour, yet not any terror or apprehensions of losing our way, falling down precipices, and the like.

But our case was still this; that as soon as we were at the top of every hill, we had it to come down again on the other side; and as soon as we were down we had another to mount, and that immediately; for I do not remember that there was one bottom that had any considerable breadth of plain ground in it, but always a brook in the valley running from those gulls and deeps between the hills, with this remark, that they always cross’d our way in the bottoms from the right-hand to the left, the reason of which you shall see presently.

From Blackstone Edge to Hallifax is eight miles, and all the way, except from Sorby to Hallifax, is thus up hill and down; so that, I suppose, we mounted to the clouds and descended to the water level about eight times, in that little part of the journey.

But now I must observe to you, that after having pass’d the second hill, and come down into the valley again, and so still the nearer we came to Hallifax, we found the houses thicker, and the villages greater in every bottom; and not only so, but the sides of the hills, which were very steep every way, were spread with houses, and that very thick; for the land being divided into small enclosures, that is to say, from two acres to six or seven acres each, seldom more; every three or four pieces of land had a house belonging to it.

Then it was I began to perceive the reason and nature of the thing, and found that this division of the land into small pieces, and scattering of the dwellings, was occasioned by, and done for the convenience of the business which the people were generally employ’d in, and that, as I said before, though we saw no people stirring without doors, yet they were all full within; for, in short, this whole country, however mountainous, and that no sooner we were down one hill but we mounted another, is yet infinitely full of people; those people all full of business; not a beggar, not an idle person to be seen, except here and there an alms-house, where people antient, decrepid, and past labour, might perhaps be found; for it is observable, that the people here, however laborious, generally live to a great age, a certain testimony to the goodness and wholesomness of the country, which is, without doubt, as healthy as any part of England; nor is the health of the people lessen’d, but help’d and establish’d by their being constantly employ’d, and, as we call it, their working hard; so that they find a double advantage by their being always in business.

This business is the clothing trade, for the convenience of which the houses are thus scattered and spread upon the sides of the hills, as above, even from the bottom to the top; the reason is this; such has been the bounty of nature to this otherwise frightful country, that two things essential to the business, as well as to the ease of the people are found here, and that in a situation which I never saw the like of in any part of England; and, I believe, the like is not to be seen so contrived in any part of the world; I mean coals and running water upon the tops of the highest hills: This seems to have been directed by the wise hand of Providence for the very purpose which is now served by it, namely, the manufactures, which otherwise could not be carried on; neither indeed could one fifth part of the inhabitants be supported without them, for the land could not maintain them. After we had mounted the third hill, we found the country, in short, one continued village, tho’ mountainous every way, as before; hardly a house standing out of a speaking distance from another, and (which soon told us their business) the day clearing up, and the sun shining, we could see that almost at every house there was a tenter, and almost on every tenter a piece of cloth, or kersie, or shalloon, for they are the three articles of that country’s labour; from which the sun glancing, and, as I may say, shining (the white reflecting its rays) to us, I thought it was the most agreeable sight that I ever saw, for the hills, as I say, rising and falling so thick, and the vallies opening sometimes one way, sometimes another, so that sometimes we could see two or three miles this way, sometimes as far another; sometimes like the streets near St. Giles’s, called the Seven Dials; we could see through the glades almost every way round us, yet look which way we would, high to the tops, and low to the bottoms, it was all the same; innumerable houses and tenters, and a white piece upon every tenter.

But to return to the reason of dispersing the houses, as above; I found, as our road pass’d among them, for indeed no road could do otherwise, wherever we pass’d any house we found a little rill or gutter of running water, if the house was above the road, it came from it, and cross’d the way to run to another; if the house was below us, it cross’d us from some other distant house above it, and at every considerable house was a manufactury or work-house, and as they could not do their business without water, the little streams were so parted and guided by gutters or pipes, and by turning and dividing the streams, that none of those houses were without a river, if I may call it so, running into and through their work-houses.

Again, as the dying-houses, scouring-shops and places where they used this water, emitted the water again, ting’d with the drugs of the dying fat, and with the oil, the soap, the tallow, and other ingredients used by the clothiers in dressing and scouring, &c. which then runs away thro’ the lands to the next. the grounds are not only universally watered, how dry soever the season, but that water so ting’d and so fatten’d enriches the lands they run through, that ’tis hardly to be imagined how fertile and rich the soil is made by it.

Then, as every clothier must keep a horse, perhaps two, to fetch and carry for the use of his manufacture, (viz.) to fetch home his wooll and his provisions from the market, to carry his yarn to the spinners, his manufacture to the fulling mili, and, when finished, to the market to be sold, and the like; so every manufacturer generally keeps a cow or two, or more, for his family, and this employs the two, or three, or four pieces of enclosed land about his house, for they scarce sow corn enough for their cocks and hens; and this feeding their grounds still adds by the dung of the cattle, to enrich the soil.

But now, to speak of the bounty of nature again, which I but just mentioned; it is to be observed, that these hills are so furnished by nature with springs and mines, that not only on the sides, but even to the very tops, there is scarce a hill but you find, on the highest part of it, a spring of water, and a coal-pit. I doubt not but there are both springs and coal-pits lower in the hills, ’tis enough to say they are at the top; but, as I say, the hills are so full of springs, so the lower coal-pits may perhaps be too full of water, to work without dreins to carry it off, and the coals in the upper pits being easie to come at, they may chuse to work them, because the horses which fetch the coals, go light up the hill, and come loaden down.

Having thus fire and water at every dwelling, there is no need to enquire why they dwell thus dispers’d upon the highest hills, the convenience of the manufactures requiring it. Among the manufacturers houses are likewise scattered an infinite number of cottages or small dwellings, in which dwell the workmen which are employed, the women and children of whom, are always busy carding, spinning, &c. so that no hands being unemploy’d, all can gain their bread, even from the youngest to the antient; hardly any thing above four years old, but its hands are sufficient to it self.

This is the reason also why we saw so few people without doors; but if we knock’d at the door of any of the master manufacturers, we presently saw a house full of lusty fellows, some at the dye-fat, some dressing the cloths, some in the loom, some one thing, some another, all hard at work, and full employed upon the manufacture, and all seeming to have sufficient business.

I should not have dwelt so upon this part, if there was not abundance of things subsequent to it, which will be explained by this one description, and which are needful to be understood by any one that desires a full understanding of the manner how the people of England are employed, and do subsist in these remoter parts where they are so numerous; for this is one of the most populous parts of Britain, London and the adjacent parts excepted.

Having thus described the country, and the employment of the people, I am to tell you, that this part of it which I mentioned, is all belonging to and in the parish of Hallifax, and that brings me on towards the town which I shall speak of presently.

I must only say a word or two of the River Calder, to compleat the description of the country I thus pass’d through. I hinted to you, that all the rills or brooks of water which we cross’d, one at least in every bottom, went away to the left or north side of us as we went forward east: I am to add, that following those little brooks with our eye, we could observe, that at some distance to the left there appeared a larger valley than the rest, into which not only all the brooks which we pass’d emptied themselves, but abundance more from the like hollow deep bottoms, among the hills on the north side of it, which emptied this way south, as those on our side run that way north, so that it was natural to conclude, that in this larger valley the waters of all those brooks joining, there must be some pretty large stream which received them all, and ran forward east, parallel to the way we were in.

After some time we found that great opening seemed to bend southward towards us, and that probably it would cross our road, or our road would rather cross the valley; and so it was natural to expect we should pass that larger water, either by a bridge or a ford; but we were soon convinced it was not the latter; for the snow, as is said, having poured down a quantity of water, we soon found at the next opening, that there was a considerable river in the larger valley, which, having received all those little brooks, was risen to a little flood; and at the next village we pass’d it over a stately stone bridge of several great arches. This village is called Sorby or Sowreby; and this was the main River Calder, which I mentioned at Wakefield, where it begins to be navigable, and which, without any spring or fountain, to be called the head or source of it, is formed on the declivity of these mountains, meerly by the continued fall of rains and snows, which the said mountains intercepting the clouds, are seldom free from; and this stream receiving the smaller gulls and hollows, I just now mentioned, like a common-shore, carries all away in the channel of a noble river.

This is the beginning of the Calder; and my reason for dwelling upon it, and giving so particular a description, is, because this may, once for all, shew you how all, or most of the great rivers in the north, take their rise, there being hardly any that has their beginning in any publick springs or lakes, as most of the rivers in the south of England have, as the Thames, for example, near Tring in Hertfordshire, the Vandal at Croydon and Cashalton, the Amewell at Ware, and the like.

As the Calder is thus nothing but a collection of water from the fall of these mountains, so was the Derwent, and the Don, from the High Peak, and the hills of the same range more south of the edge, and so is the Aire, the Wharf, the Swale, the Eure, the Nid, the Tees, and the Were, all in the same county of York; and so the Tyne, the Cockett, the Till, and the Tweed, farther north; and even the like of the Forth, the Tay, the Clyde, the Nyd, in Scotland; also the Mersee, the Ribble, the Rocke and the Lune, the West Calder, the Lowther and the Eden, on the other side of these mountains, in Lancashire, Westmoreland and Cumberland. And thus this description will serve for all the rest.

Having thus, I say, accounted for them all at once; I shall only mention them now as they come in my way; for you will observe, I cross’d one or other of them at every considerable town; for all the rivers as well in England as in Scotland, north of this place, run from the middle of the country where these mountains rise, either east into the German, or west into the Irish sea. None of them run like the Severn, or the Wye, or the rivers in South Wales, or the Exe in Devon, or the Avon in Wilts, or the Arun in Sussex, and others north and south. But I return to the north.

Having passed the Calder at Sorby Bridge, I now began to approach the town of Hallifax; in the description of which, and its dependencies, all my account of the commerce will come in, for take Hallifax, with all its dependencies, it is not to be equalled in England. First, the parish or vicaridge, for it is but a vicaridge; is, if not the largest, certainly the most populous in England; in short, it is a monster, I mean, for a country parish, and a parish so far out of the way of foreign trade, Courts, or sea ports.

The extent of the parish, they tell us, is almost circular, and is about twelve miles in diameter. There are in it twelve or thirteen chapels of ease, besides about sixteen meeting-houses, which they call also chapels, and are so, having bells to call the people, and burying grounds to most of them, or else they bury within them. I think they told me, the Quakers meetings, of which there are several too, are not reckoned into the number. In a word, it is some years ago that a reverend clergyman of the town of Hallifax, told me, they reckoned that they had a hundred thousand communicants in the parish, besides children.

History tells us also, that in Queen Elizabeth’s time, when the inhabitants of Hallifax addressed the queen for some privileges, which I do not at present remember the particulars of, it was expressed in the petition as a moving argument, why the queen should take them into her royal care, that they were zealous Protestants, and were so loyal to her majesty, as well as so considerable, that no less than twelve thousand young men went out arm’d from this one parish, and, at her majesty’s call, joined her troops to fight the Popish army, then in rebellion under the Earl of Westmorland.

If they were so populous at that time, how much must they be encreased since? and especially since the late Revolution, the trade having been prodigiously encouraged and encreased by the great demand of their kersies for clothing the armies abroad, insomuch that it is the opinion of some that know the town, and its bounds very well, that the number of people in the vicaridge of Hallifax, is encreased one fourth, at least, within the last forty years, that is to say, since the late Revolution. Nor is it improbable at all, for besides the number of houses which are encreased, they have entered upon a new manufacture which was never made in those parts before, at least, not in any quantities, I mean, the manufactures of shalloons, of which they now make, if fame does not bely them, a hundred thousand pieces a year in this parish only, and yet do not make much fewer kersies than they did before.

The trade in kersies also was so great, that I was told by very creditable, honest men, when I was there, men not given to gasconading or boasting, and less to lying, that there was one dealer in the vicaridge, who traded, by commission, for three-score thousand pounds a year in kersies only, and all that to Holland and Hamburgh.

But not to enter into particulars, it is evident that the trade must be exceeding great, in that it employs such a very great number of people, and that in this one town only; for, as I shall fully describe in my account of other places, this is not what I may call the eldest son of the cloathing trade in this county; the town of Leeds challenges a pre-eminence, and I believe, merits the dignity it claims, besides the towns of Huthersfield, Bradforth, Wakefield, and others.

But I must not leave Hallifax yet, as the vicaridge is thus far extended, and the extent of it so peopled, what must the market be, and where must this vast number of people be supplied? For, (I.) as to corn, I have observed already, they sow little and hardly enough to feed their poultry, if they were to be corn fed; and as to beef and mutton, they feed little or none; and as they are surrounded with large, populous, manufacturing towns on every side, all of them employed as these are, in the cloathing trade, they must then necessarily have their provisions from other parts of the country.

This then is a subsistence to the other part of the country, and so it is for us, the West Riding is thus taken up, and the lands occupied by the manufacture; the consequence is plain, their corn comes up in great quantities out of Lincoln, Nottingham, and the East Riding, their black cattle and horses from the North Riding, their sheep and mutton from the adjacent counties every way, their butter from the East and North Riding, their cheese out of Cheshire and Warwickshire, more black cattle also from Lancashire. And here the breeders and feeders, the farmers and country people find money flowing in plenty from the manufacturers and commerce; so that at Hallifax, Leeds, and the other great manufacturing towns so often mentioned, and adjacent to these, for the two months of September and October, a prodigious quantity of black cattle is sold.

This demand for beef is occasioned thus; the usage of the people is to buy in at that season beef sufficient for the whole year, which they kill and salt, and hang up in the smoke to dry. This way of curing their beef keeps it all the winter, and they eat this smoak’d beef as a very great rarity.

Upon this foot, ’tis ordinary for a clothier that has a large family, to come to Hallifax on a market-day, and buy two or three large bullocks from eight to ten pounds a piece. These he carries home and kills for his store. And this is the reason that the markets at all those times of the year are thronged with black cattle, as Smithfield is on a Friday; whereas all the rest of the year there is little extraordinary sold there.

Thus this one trading, manufacturing part of the country supports all the countries round it, and the numbers of people settle here as bees about a hive.

As for the town of Hallifax it self, there is nothing extraordinary except on a market-day, and then indeed it is a prodigious thing, by reason of the multitude of people who throng thither, as well to sell their manufactures as to buy provisions; and so great is the confluence of people hither, that, except Leeds and Wakefield, nothing in all the north part of England can come near it.

The church is old, but stately and venerable, and has in it many extraordinary monuments, but most of them of great antiquity. Here is a very good hospital, and a work-house of an antient establishment, and there are several charities, of like sort, in other parts of the parish.

But I must not quit Hallifax, till I give you some account of the famous course of justice antiently executed here, to prevent the stealing of cloth. Modern accounts pretend to say, it was for all sorts of felons; but I am well assured, it was first erected purely, or at least principally, for such thieves as were apprehended stealing cloth from the tenters; and it seems very reasonable to think it was so, because of the conditions of the trial. The case was thus:

The erecting the woollen manufacture here was about the year 1480, when King Henry VII. by giving encouragement to foreigners to settle in England, and to set up woollen manufactures, caused an Act to pass prohibiting the exportation of wooll into foreign parts, unwrought, and to encourage foreign manufacturers to come and settle here, of whom several coming over settled the manufactures of cloths in several parts of the kingdom, as they found the people tractable, and as the country best suited them; as the bays at Colchester, the says at Sudbury, the broad-cloth in Wilts, and other counties; so the trade of kersies and narrow cloth fixed at this place, and other adjacent towns.

When this trade began to settle, nothing was more frequent than for young workmen to leave their cloths out all night upon the tenters, and the idle fellows would come in upon them, and tearing them off without notice, steal the cloth. Now as it was absolutely necessary to preserve the trade in its infancy, this severe law was made, giving the power of life and death so far into the hands of the magistrates of Hallifax, as to see the law executed upon them. As this law was particularly pointed against the stealing of cloth, and no other crime, so no others were capable of being punished by it, and the conditions of the law intimate as much; for the power was not given to the magistrates to give sentence, unless in one of these three plain cases:

Hand napping, that is, to be taken in the very fact, or, as the Scots call it in the case of murther, red hand.

Back bearing, that is, when the cloth was found on the person carrying it off.

Tongue confessing, that part needs no farther explanation.

This being the case, if the criminal was taken, he was brought before the magistrates of the town, who at that time were only a baily and the eoaldermen, how many we do not read, and these were to judge, and sentence, and execute the offender, or clear him, within so many days; I think it was three market days if the offence was committed out of the vicaridge, but within the bounds of the forest then there were frith borges also to judge of the fact, who were to be summoned of the forest holders, as they are called, who were to hold of that frith, that is, of the forest; but those were to be good and sober men, and by the magistrates of the town to be approved as such; if those acquitted him of the fact he was immediately discharged; if those censured him, no body could reprieve him but the town. The country people were, it seems, so terrified at the severity of this proceeding, that hence came that proverbial saying, which was used all over Yorkshire, (viz.)

From Hell, Hull, and Hallifax, Good Lord, deliver us.

How Hull came to be included in this petition, I do not find; for they had no such law there, as I read of.

The manner of execution was very remarkable; the engine indeed is carried away, but the scaffold on which it stood is there to this time, and may continue many ages; being not a frame of wood, but a square building of stone, with stone steps to go up, and the engine it self was made in the following manner.

They tell us of a custom which prevailed here, in the case of a criminal being to be executed, (viz.) that if after his head was laid down, and the signal given to pull out the pin, he could be so nimble as to snatch out his head between the pulling out the pin and the falling down of the ax, and could get up upon his feet, jump off of the scaffold, run down a hill that lies just before it, and get through the river before the executioner could overtake him, and seize upon him, he was to escape; and though the executioner did take him on the other side the river, he was not to bring him back, at least he was not to be executed.

But as they shewed me the form of the scaffold, and the weight of the ax, it was, in my opinion, next to impossible, any man should be so quick-eyed as to see the pulling out the pin, and so quick with his head, as to snatch it out; yet they tell a story of one fellow that did it, and was so bold after he had jumpt off of the scaffold, and was running down the hill, with the executioner at his heels, to turn about and call to the people to give him his hat; that having afterwards jumpt into the river, which is but a little one, and not deep, he stopt, intending to drown the hangman, if he had come up to him; at which the poor fellow stopt too, and was afraid to go into the water to seize him. But this story is said to be too long ago to have any vouchers, though the people indeed all receive it for truth.

The force of this engine is so strong, the head of the ax being loaded with a weight of lead to make it fall heavy, and the execution is so sure, that it takes away all possibility of its failing to cut off the head; and to this purpose, the Hallifax people tell you another story of a country woman, who was riding by upon her doffers or hampers to Hallifax Market, for the execution was always on a market day (the third after the fact) and passing just as the ax was let fall upon the neck of the criminal, it chopt it thro’ with such force, that the head jumpt off into one of her hampers, and that the woman not perceiving it, she carry’d it away to the market.

All the use I shall make of this unlikely story, is this, that it seems executions were so frequent, that it was not thought a sight worth the peoples running out to see; that the woman should ride along so close to the scaffold, and that she should go on, and not so much as stop to see the ax fall, or take any notice of it. But those difficulties seem to be much better solved, by saying, that ’tis as reasonable to think the whole tale is a little Yorkshire, which, I suppose, you will understand well enough.

This engine was removed, as we are told, in the year 1620, during the reign of King James the First, and the usage and custom of prosecution abolished, and criminals or felons left to the ordinary course of justice, as it is still; and yet they do not find the stealing cloth from the tenters is so frequent now as it was in those times.

But the manner of execution is preserv’d; for in the reign of the same prince, the Earl Morton, Regent or Prime Minister of Scotland, under King James, passing thro’ Hallifax, and seeing one of their executions, was so pleased with the performance, that he caused a model to be taken and carried into Scotland, where it is preserved and constantly made use of for executions to this day. But one thing must not be forgotten in this part of the story, namely, that his lordship’s own head was the first that was cut off with it; and it being many years before that happened, the engine was called the Maiden, as not having so long handsell’d, and still retains the name, tho’ it has cut off many a head since that.

We quitted Hallifax not without some astonishment at its situation, being so surrounded with hills, and those so high, as (except the entrance by the west) makes the coming in and going out of it exceeding troublesome, and indeed for carriages hardly practicable, and particularly the hill which they go up to come out of the town eastwards towards Leeds, and which the country people call Hallifax Bank, is so steep, so rugged, and sometimes too so slippery, that, to a town of so much business as this is, ’tis exceeding troublesome and dangerous.

Leeds and North Yorkshire

From Hallifax it is twelve miles to Leeds north east, and about as many to Wakefield; due east, or a little southerly, between Hallifax and Leeds, is a little town called Burstall. Here the kersey and shalloon trade being, as it were, confined to Hallifax, and the towns already named, of Huthersfield and Bradforth, they begin to make broad cloth; I call it broad, in distinction from kersies and druggets, and such things, though the cloths in this country are called narrow, when they are spoken of in London, and compared with the broad cloths made in Wilts, Gloucester, Somerset and Devonshire, of which I have spoken in former letters.

This town is famed for dying, and they make a sort of cloths here in imitation of the Gloucester white cloths, bought for the Dutch and the Turkey trades; and though their cloths here may not be as fine, they told us their colours are as good. But that is not my business to dispute, the west country clothiers deny it; and so I leave it as I find it.

From hence to Leeds, and every way to the right hand and the left, the country appears busy, diligent, and even in a hurry of work, they are not scattered and dispersed as in the vicaridge of Hallifax, where the houses stand one by one; but in villages, those villages large, full of houses, and those houses thronged with people, for the whole country is infinitely populous.

A noble scene of industry and application is spread before you here, and which, joined to the market at Leeds, where it chiefly centers, is such a surprising thing, that they who have pretended to give an account of Yorkshire, and have left this out, must betray an ignorance not to be accounted for, or excused; ’tis what is well worth the curiosity of a stranger to go on purpose to see; and many travellers and gentlemen have come over from Hamburgh, nay, even from Leipsick in Saxony, on purpose to see it.

And this brought me from the villages where this manufacture is wrought, to the market where it is sold, which is at Leeds.

Leeds is a large, wealthy and populous town, it stands on the north bank of the River Aire, or rather on both sides the river, for there is a large suburb or part of the town on the south side of the river, and the whole is joined by a stately and prodigiously strong stone bridge, so large, and so wide, that formerly the cloth market was kept in neither part of the town, but on the very bridge it self; and therefore the refreshment given the clothiers by the inn-keepers, of which I shall speak presently is called the Brigg-shot to this day.

The encrease of the manufacturers and of the trade, soon made the market too great to be confined to the brigg or bridge, and it is now kept in the High-street, beginning from the bridge, and running up north almost to the market-house, where the ordinary market for provisions begins, which also is the greatest of its kind in all the north of England, except Hallifax, of which I have spoken already, nay, the people at Leeds will not allow me to except Hallifax, but say, that theirs is the greatest market, and that not the greatest plenty only, but the best of all kinds of provisions are brought hither.

But this is not the case; it is the cloth market I am now to describe, which is indeed a prodigy of its kind, and is not to be equalled in the world. The market for serges at Exeter is indeed a wonderful thing, and the value sold there is very great; but then the market there is but once a week, here it is twice a week, and the quantity of goods vastly great too.

The market it self is worth describing, tho’ no description can come up to the thing it self; however, take a sketch of it with its customs and usages as follows:

The street is a large, broad, fair, and well-built street, beginning, as I have said, at the bridge, and ascending gently to the north.

Early in the morning, there are tressels placed in two rows in the street, sometimes two rows on a side, but always one row at least; then there are boards laid cross those tressels, so that the boards lie like long counters on either side, from one end of the street to the other.

The clothiers come early in the morning with their cloth; and as few clothiers bring more than one piece, the market being so frequent, they go into the inns and publick-houses with it, and there set it down.

At seven a clock in the morning, the clothiers being supposed to be all come by that time, even in the winter, but the hour is varied as the seasons advance (in the summer earlier, in the depth of winter a little later) I take it, at a medium, and as it was when I was there, at six or seven, I say, the market bell rings; it would surprize a stranger to see in how few minutes, without hurry or noise, and not the least disorder, the whole market is fill’d; all the boards upon the tressels are covered with cloth, close to one another as the pieces can lie long ways by one another, and behind every piece of cloth, the clothier standing to sell it.

This indeed is not so difficult, when we consider that the whole quantity is brought into the market as soon as one piece, because as the clothiers stand ready in the inns and shops just behind, and that there is a clothier to every piece, they have no more to do, but, like a regiment drawn up in line, every one takes up his piece, and has about five steps to march to lay it upon the first row of boards, and perhaps ten to the second row; so that upon the market bell ringing, in half a quarter of an hour the whole market is fill’d, the rows of boards cover’d, and the clothiers stand ready.

As soon as the bell has done ringing, the merchants and factors, and buyers of all sorts, come down, and coming along the spaces between the rows of boards, they walk up the rows, and down as their occasions direct. Some of them have their foreign letters of orders, with patterns seal’d on them, in rows, in their hands; and with those they match colours, holding them to the cloths as they think they agree to; when they see any cloths to their colours, or that suit their occasions, they reach over to the clothier and whisper, and in the fewest words imaginable the price is stated; one asks, the other bids; and ’tis agree, or not agree, in a moment.

The merchants and buyers generally walk down and up twice on each side of the rows, and in little more than an hour all the business is done; in less than half an hour you will perceive the cloths begin to move off, the clothier taking it up upon his shoulder to carry it to the merchant’s house; and by half an hour after eight a clock the market bell rings again; immediately the buyers disappear, the cloth is all sold, or if here and there a piece happens not to be bought, ’tis carried back into the inn, and, in a quarter of an hour, there is not a piece of cloth to be seen in the market.

Thus, you see, ten or twenty thousand pounds value in cloth, and sometimes much more, bought and sold in little more than an hour, and the laws of the market the most strictly observed as ever I saw done in any market in England; for,

Before the market bell rings, no man shews a piece of cloth, nor can the clothiers sell any but in open market.

After the market bell rings again, no body stays a moment in the market, but carries his cloth back if it be not sold.

And that which is most admirable is, ’tis all managed with the most profound silence, and you cannot hear a word spoken in the whole market, I mean, by the persons buying and selling; ’tis all done in whisper.

The reason of this silence, is chiefly because the clothiers stand so near to one another; and ’tis always reasonable that one should not know what another does, for that would be discovering their business, and exposing it to one another.

If a merchant has bidden a clothier a price, and he will not take it, he may go after him to his house, and tell him he has considered of it, and is willing to let him have it but they are not to make any new agreement for it, so as to remove the market from the street to the merchant’s house.

By nine a clock the boards are taken down, the tressels are removed, and the street cleared, so that you see no market or goods any more than if there had been nothing to do; and this is done twice a week. By this quick return the clothiers are constantly supplied with money, their workmen are duly paid, and a prodigious sum circulates thro’ the county every week.

If you should ask upon all this, where all these goods, as well here as at Wakefield, and at Hallifax, are vented and disposed of? It would require a long treatise of commerce to enter into that part: But that I may not bring you into the labyrinth, and not show you the way out, I shall, in three short heads, describe the consumption, for there are three channels by which it goes:

For the home consumption; their goods being, as I may say, every where made use of, for the cloathing the ordinary people, who cannot go to the price of the fine medley cloths made, as I formerly gave you an account, in the western counties of England. There are for this purpose a set of travelling merchants in Leeds, who go all over England with droves of pack horses, and to all the fairs and market towns over the whole island, I think I may say none excepted. Here they supply not the common people by retail, which would denominate them pedlars indeed, but they supply the shops by wholesale or whole pieces; and not only so, but give large credit too, so that they are really travelling merchants, and as such they sell a very great quantity of goods; ’tis ordinary for one of these men to carry a thousand pounds value of cloth with them at a time, and having sold it at the fairs or towns where they go, they send their horses back for as much more, and this very often in a summer, for they chuse to travel in the summer, and perhaps towards the winter time, tho’ as little in winter as they can, because of the badness of the roads.

Another sort of buyers are those who buy to send to London; either by commissions from London, or they give commissions to factors and warehouse-keepers in London to sell for them; and these drive also a very great trade: These factors and warehouse-keepers not only supply all the shop-keepers and wholesale men in London, but sell also very great quantities to the merchants, as well for exportation to the English colonies in America, which take off great quantities of those course goods, especially New England, New York, Virginia, &c. as also to the Russia merchants, who send an exceeding quantity to Petersburgh, Riga, Dantzic, Narva, and to Sweden and Pomerania.

The third sort of buyers, and who are not less considerable than the other, are truly merchants, that is to say, such as receive commissions from abroad to buy cloth for the merchants chiefly in Hamburgh, and in Holland, and from several other parts; and these are not only many in number, but some of them are very considerable in their dealings, and correspond as far as Nuremberg, Frankfort, Leipsick, and even to Vienna and Ausburgh, in the farthest provinces of Germany.

On account of this trade it was, that some years ago an Act of Parliament was obtained for making the Rivers Aire and Calder navigable; by which a communication by water was opened from Leeds and Wakefield to Hull, and by which means all the woollen manufactures which those merchants now export by commission, as above, is carried by water to Hull, and there shipped for Holland, Bremen, Hamburgh, and the Baltick. And thus you have a brief account, by what methods this vast manufacture is carried off, and which way they find a vent for it.

There is another trade in this part of the country, which is now become very considerable since the opening the navigation of these rivers, and that is, that from hence they carry coals down from Wakefield (especially) and also from Leeds, at both which they have a very great quantity, and such, as they told me, could never be exhausted. These they carry quite down into the Humber, and then up the Ouse to York, and up the Trent, and other rivers, where there are abundance of large towns, who they supply with coals; with this advantage too, that whereas the Newcastle coals pay four shillings per chaldron duty to the publick; these being only called river borne coal, are exempted, and pay nothing; though, strictly speaking, they are carried on the sea too, for the Humber is properly the sea. But they have been hitherto exempted from the tax, and so they carry on the trade to their very great profit and advantage.

I need not add, that by the same navigation they receive all their heavy goods, as well such as are imported at Hull, as such as come from London, and such as other counties supply, as butter, cheese, lead, iron, salt; all sorts of grocery. as sugars, tobacco, fruit, spice, hops, &c. oyl, wine, brandy, spirits, and every sort of heavy or bulky goods.

The town of Leeds is very large, and, as above, there are abundance of wealthy merchants in it. Here are two churches, and two large meeting-houses of Dissenters, and six or seven chapels of ease, besides Dissenters chapels, in the adjacent, depending villages; so that Leeds may not be much inferiour to Hallifax in numbers of people: It is really a surprising thing to see what numbers of people are thronged together in all the villages about these towns, and how busy they all are, being fully employed in this great manufacture.

Before I go forward from hence, I should tell you, that I took a little trip to see the antient town of Pontefract, with that dismal place called the Castle, a place that was really dismal on many accounts, having been a scene of blood in many several ages; for here Henry, the great Earl of Lancaster, who was at the same time lord of the castle, and whose ancestors had beautified and enlarged it exceedingly, and fortified it too, was beheaded, in King Edward the IId’s time, with three or four more of the English barons. Here Richard lid, being deposed and imprisoned, was barbarously murthered, and, if history lies not, in a cruel manner; and here Anthony, Earl Rivers, and Sir Richard Gray, the first uncle, and the last brother-in-law to King Edward the Fifth, were beheaded by that tyrant Richard III. Here, in the late wars, a small party of brave fellows took the castle, by surprise, for the king, and having desperately defended it to the last extremity, and being obliged to yield, five of them attempted to break thro’ the besiegers camp, three of whom perished in the attempt.

The town is large and well built, but much smaller than it has been; the castle lies in its ruins, tho’ not demolished; within a mile of it is Ferry Bridge, where there is a great stone bridge over the Aire and Calder (then united) and a large stone causeway, above a mile in length, to a town call’d Brotherton, where Queen Margaret, wife of King Edward the First, was delivered of a son, being surprised as she was abroad taking the air, some histories say, a hunting; but, I must confess, it seems not very probable, that queens big with child, and within a few hours of their time, should ride a hunting. Be that as it will, here her majesty was catch’d (as the women call it) and forc’d to take up, and brought forth a son, who was christened Thomas, and sirnamed from the place, De Brotherton; he afterwards was a famous man, and was made Earl of Norfolk, and Earl Marshal of England; which office is hereditary to the title of Norfolk to this day. A little on the south side of this village the road parts, and one way goes on to the right towards Tadcaster, and so to York, of which in its order; the other, being the high-post road for Scotland, goes on to Wetherby, over Bramham Moor, famous for a fight between the Royalists and the fam’d Sir Thomas Fairfax, in which the last was worsted and wounded, but made a retreat, which gain’d him as great reputation as a victory would have done.

Near the road is a noble seat of Benson, Lord Bingly, an antient family, raised to the dignity of a peer in the person of the present Lord Bingly, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the time of the late Queen Anne, and nominated her majesty’s Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of Spain; but the queen dying, that embassy was laid aside. It is a fine, new built, beautiful house, with very curious gardens, tho’ not large. Wetherby is a small town, but being a great thoroughfare to the north, has several good inns, and a very lofty stone bridge over the River Wharfe, which comes down from the hills also, as the rest do.

But I must go back to Pontefract, to take notice, that here again the great Roman highway, which I mentioned at Doncaster, and which is visible from thence in several places on the way to Pontefract, though not in the open road, is apparent again, and from Castleford Bridge, which is another bridge over the united rivers of Aire and Calder, it goes on to Abberforth, a small market town famous for pin-making, and so to Tadcaster and York. But I mention it here on this present occasion, for otherwise these remains of antiquity are not my province in this undertaking; I say, ’tis on this occasion.

1. That in some places this causeway being cut into and broken up, the eminent care of the Romans for making firm causeways for the convenience of carriage, and for the passing of travellers, is to be seen there. The layings of different sorts of earth, as clay at the bottom, chalk upon that, then gravel upon the chalk, then stones upon the gravel, and then gravel again; and so of other kinds of earth, where the first was not to be had.

2. In some places between this bridge and the town of Abberforth, the causeway having not been used for the ordinary road, it lies as fair and untouch’d, the surface covered with turf, smooth as at its first making, not so much as the mark of a hoof or of a wheel upon it; so that it is to be seen in its full dimensions and heighth, as if it had been made but the same week; whereas ’tis very probable it had stood so fifteen or sixteen hundred years; and I take notice of it here, because I have not seen any thing like it in any other place in England, and because our people, who are now mending the roads almost every where, might take a pattern from it.

As I made this little excursion to see the town of Pontefract from Leeds, you must suppose me now returned thither, and setting out thence northward. I had no sooner pass’d out of the district of Leeds about four or five miles, and pass’d the Wharfe, at a fine stone bridge of eleven arches at a little pretty town call’d Harwood; I say, I was no sooner gotten hither, but it was easie to see we were out of the manufacturing country. Now the black moorish lands, like Black Barnsley, shew’d dismal again and frightful, the towns were thin, and thin of people too; we saw but little enclosed ground, no tenters with the cloths shining upon them, nor people busied within doors, as before; but, as in the Vicaridge, we saw inhabited mountains, here we saw waste and almost uninhabited vales.

In a word, the country look’d as if all the people were transplanted to Leeds and Hallifax, and that here was only a few just left at home to cultivate the land, manage the plough, and raise corn for the rest.

The River Wharfe seemed very small, and the water low, at Harwood Bridge, so that I was surprised to see so fine a bridge over it, and was thinking of the great bridge at Madrid over the Mansanares, of which a Frenchman of quality looking upon it, said to the Spaniards that were about him, That the King of Spain ought either to buy them some water, or they should sell their bridge. But I was afterwards satisfied that was not the case here; for coming another time this way after a heavy rain, I was convinced the bridge was not at all too big, or too long, the water filling up to the very crown of the arches, and some of the arches not to be seen at all.

From the Wharfe we went directly north, over a continued waste of black, ill looking, desolate moors, over which travellers are guided, like race horses, by posts set up for fear of bogs and holes, to a town call’d Ripley, that stands upon another river called the Nud by some, by others the Nyd, smaller than the Wharfe, but furiously rapid, and very dangerous to pass in many places, especially upon sudden rains. Notwithstanding such lofty, high built bridges as are not to be seen over such small rivers in any other place; and, on this occasion, it may be observed here, once for all, that no part of England, I may say so because I can say I have seen the whole island, a very little excepted, I say, no part can shew such noble, large, lofty, and long stone bridges as this part of England, nor so many of them; nor do I remember to have seen any such thing as a timber bridge in all the northern part of England, no not from the Trent to the Tweed; whereas in the south parts of England there are abundance, as particularly over the great river of Thames at Kingston, Chertsey, Staines, Windsor, Maidenhead, Reading, Henley, Marlow, and other places, and over the River Lea, tho’ a navigable river, of thirteen bridges, we see but one built of stone, (viz.) that at Bow.

A little below Ripley, on the same River Nyd, and with a very fine bridge over it also, we saw Knaresborough; known among foreigners by the name of Knaresborough Spaw; in the south of England I have heard it call’d the Yorkshire Spaw. I shall not enter here upon the definition of the word spaw, ’tis enough to speak familiarly, that here is a well of physical or mineral waters, or, to speak more exactly as one viewing the country, here are at the town, and in the adjacent lands, no less than four spaws or mineral waters.

The first thing recommended to me for a wonder, was that four springs, the waters of which are in themselves of so different a quality, should rise in so narrow a compass of ground; but I, who was surfeited with country wonders in my passing the Peak, was not so easily surprized at the wonderful strangeness of this part; and when my landlord at Knaresborough took me short, with a But is it not a strange thing, sir? I answered him with a question, Is it not as strange, sir, said I, that in Derbyshire two springs, one hot, and another cold, should rise within a hand’s breadth of one another? Tis certain, that though the eruption of the water may be near, yet the subterranean passages may be as remote as east and west, and the mineral lying in veins may run remote also, so as to take off all the wonder.

2. The springs themselves, and indeed one of them, is nothing extraordinary, namely, that in a little cave a petrifying water drops from the roof of the cavity, which, as they say, turns wood into stone. This indeed I made light of too, because I had already been at Poole’s Hole and Castleton in the Peak, and at Harwich.

But now to speak of the other two springs, they are indeed valuable rarities, and not to be equalled in England.

The first is the Sweet Spaw, or a vitriolick water; it was discovered by one Mr. Slingsby, anno 1630. and all physicians acknowledge it to be a very sovereign medicine in several particular distempers. Vid. Dr. Leigh’s Nat. Hist. of Lancashire.

The Stinking Spaw, or, if you will, according to the learned, the Sulphur Well. This water is clear as chrystal, but foetid and nauseous to the smell, so that those who drink it are obliged to hold their noses when they drink; yet it is a valuable medicine also in scorbutic, hypochondriac, and especially in hydropic distempers; as to its curing the gout, I take that, as in other cases, ad referendum.

The people formerly, and that for many years, only drank these waters, and used them no otherwise; but are now come into the use of bathing in them as a cold bath, and thus they must necessarily be very good for rheumatic pains, paralitic numbnesses, and many other distempers which afflict mankind.

We were surprised to find a great deal of good company here drinking the waters, and indeed, more than we found afterwards at Scarborough; though this seems to be a most desolate out-of-the-world place, and that men would only retire to it for religious mortifications, and to hate the world, but we found it was quite otherwise.

Those two bridges at Harwood and Ripley are very firm, fine, and, I assure you, very chargeable bridges; and at Rippon there are two stone bridges, whereof one of them has, I think, thirteen arches, or more, over the Eure, and is indeed a very stately and chargeable work. It is true, a bridge over the same river at Burrowbrigg, four mile lower than Rippon, has but four or five arches, but then those arches are near forty foot diameter, and one of the middlemost much more, and high in proportion, and the ends of the bridge continued by high causeways, built of stone, to keep the water in its course; and yet sometimes all is too little.

From the bridges may be observ’d, that however low these waters are in the summer, they are high and furious enough in the winter; and yet the River Aire, tho’ its beginning is in the same ridge of mountains as the other, and particularly in the hill called Penigent, which overtops all its neighbours; I say this river is gentle and mild in its stream, when the other are all raging and furious; the only reason I can give for it, which however I think is a very just account, is, that it runs in a thousand windings and turnings more than any other river in those parts; and these reaches and meanders of the river greatly help to check the sharpness of the stream: The next reason is, that after it has descended from the mountains it has a deeper channel; both which, I think, put together, will sufficiently account for the abating the current.

Rippon is a very neat, pleasant, well built town, and has not only an agreeable situation on a rising ground between two rivers, but the market place is the finest and most beautiful square that is to be seen of its kind in England.

In the middle of it stands a curious column of stone, imitating the obelisks of the antients, tho’ not so high, but rather like the pillar in the middle of Covent-Garden, or that in Lincoln’s Inn, with dials also upon it.

But I must not omit to tell you also, however other pretended travelling writers were pleased not to see it as they went by, that here is a large collegiate church, and tho’ it is not a bishoprick but a deanery only, in the diocess of York, yet it is a very handsome, antient and venerable pile of building, and shews it self a great way in the country. Mr. Cambden says, this town of Rippon owes its greatness to religion.

That here was a famous monastery built by Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, and that in the first ages of Christianity, at least in this island, is certain; but this pious gift of the bishop was swallowed up some years after, when the Danes over-running Yorkshire, rifled and burnt it to the ground, as likewise the whole town of Rippon; It afterwards flourished again as a monastery. But those being all given up in the reign of King Henry VIII. the church only was preserved. Mr. Cambden says it was built, which I conceive rather to be form’d into a church, from the ruin of the monastery, by the contribution of the gentry thereabouts.

While it was a monastery, here was a famous sanctuary, a thing however useful in some cases, yet so abused in foreign countries, by making the church a refuge of rogues, thieves and murtherers, that ’tis happy for England it is out of use here. This privilege of sanctuary was, it seems, granted to the church of Rippon by King Athelstan, an. — and with this extraordinary sanction, that whosoever broke the rights of sanctuary of the church of Rippon, and which he extended to a mile on either side the church, should forfeit life and estate; so that, in short, not the church only, but the whole town, and a circle of two miles diameter, was like the Rules of the King’s Bench here in Southwark, a refuge for all that fled to it, where they liv’d safe from all manner of molestation, even from the king, or his laws, or any person whatsoever.

Annexed to this monastery was an hospital, the intent and purposes of which are very remarkable, and would be worthy imitation in our days of Protestant charity, when indeed I see nothing come up to it. The house was called the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, where, according to the foundation, were to be maintained two chaplains to perform divine service; and if any begging clergymen, or other needy persons; should happen to travel or stray out of their way, and call at the said hospital, they should be relieved there for one night only, with food and a bed, and to be gone in the morning; and to every poor person that came craving an alms, on St. Mary Magdalen’s Day yearly, they should give one loaf, value a half penny, when corn was at the price of five shillings per quarter, and one herring.

Also ’tis recorded, that one branch of this hospital was founded and endowed, and given to a society of religious sisters by a certain Archbishop of York, but the inquisition taken does not find his name, to the intent that they should maintain one chaplain to perform divine service, and to the farther intent that they should maintain all the lepers born and bred in Hipschire, that should come to it for maintenance; and that they should allow to each of them a garment call’d Rak, and two pair of shoes yearly, with every day a loaf fit for a poor man’s sustenance, half a pitcher of beer, a sufficient portion of flesh on flesh days, and three herrings on fish days.

After this, other gifts were added to this foundation; also the sisters were removed, and a brotherhood established in their stead, which continued some time; and after that a mastership; and the maintenance of lepers finding no clients, the country proving healthy, that part was turned into a charity, to be dealt out to the poor on St. Mary Magdalen’s Day, as above: At length all was demolished together, and the house, with the monastery, suppress’d, as it now stands, a collegiate church being erected on the room of it: Besides, it seems upon another inquisition, and a jury empanelled to give their verdict, it appeared in the 10th of Edward III. that the revenue of one branch of the hospital had been embezzled and squandered away by the master of the hospital, the charities interrupted, and the poor defrauded.

And so in the visitation of the church, for it seems there were frauds and embezzlements in those days, even of the goods of the church, as well as since. Mr. Dugdale, in his Monasticon, gives an account, that William, Archbishop of York, in a visitation of the church of Rippon, anno 1331. found it almost bandoned, notwithstanding much cure of souls depended on it; that there were good revenues belonging to it, but that they were consumed by the absent canons. N.B. There was then also non-residence, and the non-residents too devouring the goods of the church.

Upon this, the good archbishop took order for the future, that all the lands, meadows, revenues, and services (I give you the very words of the archbishop’s decree upon his visitation) with the tithes of garbs and hay, of Nyd and Grantilaye, with a pension of twenty shillings due from the Vicar of Nyd, and the spiritual jurisdiction, and the profits of the same, should, for the future, be divided among those who should reside at the church of Rippon, and no other.

There were at that time, in this church, nine chanteries, besides two out-chanteries in the parish, the same which we call now chapels of ease; and besides the chantery of the two priests in the hospital, the out-chanteries were one at Hutton Conyers, and one at Clotheram. N.B. A chantery is any consecrated place where is an oratory, and a priest allowed to sing mass, and therefore call’d a chantery or singing house.

These were noble stipends in those days. How our clergy would serve at this time under such great encouragement, is left to enquiry, especially the organist’s salary was notable; from whence I may, I hope without offence, suppose, that he being a layman, might get business in the town, (perhaps he was a dancing-master, or a musick-master, or both) to teach the young ladies of Rippon; and his wife might keep a boarding-school too; and so the grammar school-master might be a writing-master in the town, and the like.

Be that as it will, the church is still standing, tho’ the monastery and hospital are suppress’d, and the canons and choir are maintain’d at a much better rate than as above, for they now eat as good beef, and drink as good Yorkshire ale, as their neighbours.

It is an antient building, but firm and strong, the work Gothick, according to the times, and plain; no imagry or statues of any note to be seen about it; there are three homely spires, one on the tower in the middle, and the other two on the angle towers of the west end; they are covered with lead, but not very high or handsome.

But I must not leave Rippon without giving the fam’d tale of St. Wilfrid’s Needle. St. Wilfrid was the saint to whom the monastery was dedicated, and this needle was, it seems, for the trial of chastity. There was a dark vault under ground in one part of the monastery, into which there was an easy passage one way, but a narrow long entry, also dark and uneven to come out of it: If any person’s chastity was suspected, it does not say whether it was not for men as well as women, but to be sure it was for the latter, they were put into this vault, and the first entrance being closed, they were at liberty to come out by the other, which was called the needle, or the eye of the needle; if they were chaste and untainted, they came out boldly, and without any difficulty; but if faulty, they were stopp’d, and could not get along in the narrow eye or passage, and, as I think the story says, were left there, unable to get out till they had confess’d their fault. Whether the priests had no craft in this case, to put some secret barrier cross the narrow passage in the dark, so to impose upon the poor girls that were put to the trial, that I am not to enquire too far into: However it was, the priests made a miracle of it; and the poor Yorkshire lasses have, no doubt, good reason to be satisfied that St. Wilfrid has left off shewing those miraculous things at this time. In the churchyard of this minster lies a plain monument or gravestone over the remains of a generous soul, who, in charity, gave two thousand pounds to pious uses; the modest epitaph is, however, very important, as follows:

Hic jacet Zacharias Jopson, cujus Æt. fuit 49. per paucos annos tantum vixit.

To conclude our observations of this church, be pleas’d to take the grant of King Athelstan, mentioned above, of the sanctuary of peace. I suppose all such grants were poetical.

The Charter granted by King Athelstan to St. Wilfrid of Rippon

Wyt all that es an es gan,
Yat ik King Adelstan,
As given als frielith as i may,
And to the capital of Seint Wilfrai,
Of my free devotion,
Yak pees ar Rippon
On ylke side the kyrke a mile,
For all ill deedys an ylke agyle,
And within yair kyrke gate.
At ye stan yat Grithstole hate
Within ye kyrke dore, and ye quare,
Yair have pees for less and mare;
Ilkan of yis stedes sal have pees,
Of frod mortel and ill deeds.
Yet yair don is tol and tem,
With iren and with water deme;
And yat ye lond of Seint Wilfrai,
Of alkyn geld fre sal be ay;
Ut na man at langs me to,
In yair herps ac sal have to do.
And for ik wil at yai be save,
I wil, at yai alkyn freedom hav;
And in all thynges be als free
As hert may thynk, or eygh may see:
At ye power of a kynge
Marts make free any thynge.
And my seal have sat yerto,
For I will yat no man it undo.

If you will have this grant speak more modern English, take it thus:

Know all men that are or are to be,[9]
That I, King Athelstan,
Has given as freely as I am able,
To the body politick [10] of St. Wilfrid,
Of my meer bounty [11] and good-will,
Their peace who are at Rippon,[12]
For a mile on every side of the church,
For all ill deeds, and every guile,[13]
And also within the churchyard gate.[14]
He that shall stand and do pennance
Within the church door, or in the quire,
Shall be protected, let it be less or more [15];
All his goods and chattels shall have peace,[16]
Tho’ guilty of mortal feud [17], or any ill deeds.
That I give them also freedom from toll
By land or by water, for themselves, horses and carts;
And that all the lands of the monastery of St. Wilfrid,
Shall be for ever free from all taxes;
So that no man that belongs to me [18]
Shall have any thing to do with their purse.[19]
And because ’tis my pleasure they shall be safe,
I will, that they every freedom have,
And in all things be as free
As heart can wish, or eye can see:
So as the power of a king
Can make free to any thing.
And my seal I have set hereto,
Because no man shall it undo.[20]

A mile from this town, or less, is a stately beautiful seat, built a few years since by Sir Edward Blacket; the park is extended to the bank of the River Eure, and is sometimes in part laid under water by the river, the water of which, they say, coming down from the western mountains, thro’ a marly, loamy soil, fructifies the earth, as the River Nile does the Egyptian fields about Grand Cairo, tho’ by their leave not quite so much.

As Sir Edward spared no cost in the building, and Sir Christopher Wren laid out the design, as well as chose the ground for him, you may believe me the better, when I add, that nothing can either add to the contrivance or the situation; the building is of brick, the avenues, now the trees are grown, are very fine, and the gardens not only well laid out, but well planted, and as well kept; the statues are neat, the parterre beautiful; but, as they want fine gravel, the walks cannot shew themselves, as in this southern part of England they would. The house has a fine prospect over the country, almost to York, with the river in view most of the way; and it makes it self a very noble appearance to the great north road, which lies within two miles of it, at Burrow-bridge.

As you now begin to come into the North Riding, for the Eure parts the West Riding from it, so you are come into the place noted in the north of England for the best and largest oxen, and the finest galloping horses, I mean swift horses, horses bred, as we call it, for the light saddle, that is to say, for the race, the chace, for running or hunting. Sir Edward was a grazier, and took such delight in the breeding and feeding large siz’d black cattle, that he had two or three times an ox out of his park led about the country for a sight, and shewed as far as Newcastle, and even to Scotland, for the biggest bullock in England; nor was he very often, if ever, over-match’d.

From this town of Rippon, the north road and the Roman highway also, mentioned before, which comes from Castleford Bridge, parting at Abberforth, leads away to a town call’d Bedal, and, in a strait line (leaving Richmond about two miles on the west) call’d Leeming Lane, goes on to Piersbridge on the River Tees, which is the farthest boundary of the county of York.

But before I go forward I should mention Burrow Bridge, which is but three miles below Rippon, upon the same River Eure, and which I must take in my way, that I may not be obliged to go farther out of the way, on the next journey.

There is something very singular at this town, and which is not to be found in any other part of England or Scotland, namely, two borough towns in one parish, and each sending two members to Parliament, that is, Borough Brigg and Aldborough.

Borough Brigg, or Bridge, seems to be the modern town risen up out of Aldborough, the very names importing as much, (viz.) that Burrough at the Bridge, and the Old Borough that was before; and this construction I pretend to justify from all the antiquaries of our age, or the last, who place on the side of Aldborough or Old Borough, an antient city and Roman colony, call’d Isurium Brigantum; the arguments brought to prove the city stood here, where yet at present nothing of a city is to be seen, no not so much as the ruines, especially not above ground, are out of my way for the present; only the digging up coins, urns, vaults, pavements, and the like, may be mentioned, because some of them are very eminent and remarkable ones, of which an account is to be seen at large in Mr. Cambden, and his continuator, to whom I refer. That this Old Burrough is the remain of that city, is then out of doubt, and that the Burrough at the Bridge, is since grown up, and perhaps principally by the confluence of travellers, to pass the great bridge over the Eure there; this seems too out of question by the import of the word. How either of them came to the privilege of sending members to Parliament, whether by charter and incorporation, or meer prescription, that is to say, a claim of age, which we call time out of mind, that remains for the Parliament to be satisfied in. Certain it is, that the youngest of the two, that is, Burrow Bridge, is very old; for here, in the barons wars, was a battle, and on this bridge the great Bohun, Earl of Hereford, was killed by a soldier, who lay concealed under the bridge, and wounded him, by thrusting a spear or pike into his body, as he pass’d the bridge. From whence Mr. Cambden very gravely judges, that it was not a stone bridge as is now, but a bridge of timber, a thing any man might judge without being challenged for a wizard.

I had not the curiosity so much as to go to see the four great stones in the fields on the left-hand, as you go through Burrow Bridge, which the country people, because they wonder how they could come there, will have be brought by the devil, and call them the Devil’s Bolts. Mr. Cambden describes them, and they are no more than are frequent; and I have been obliged to speak of such so often, that I need say no more, but refer to other authors to describe the Romans way of setting up trophies for victory, or the dead, or places of sacrifices to their gods, and which soever it may be, the matter is the same.

From the Eure entring the North Riding, and keeping the Roman causeway, as mentioned before, one part of which went by this Isurium Brigantum from York, we come to Bedall, all the way from Hutton, or thereabout, this Roman way is plain to be seen, and is called now Leeming Lane, from Leeming Chapel, a village which it goes through.

I met with nothing at or about Bedall, that comes within the compass of my enquiry but this, that not this town only, but even all this country, is full of jockeys, that is to say, dealers in horses, and breeders of horses, and the breeds of their horses in this and the next country are so well known, that tho’ they do not preserve the pedigree of their horses for a succession of ages, as they say they do in Arabia and in Barbary, yet they christen their stallions here, and know them, and will advance the price of a horse according to the reputation of the horse he came of.

They do indeed breed very fine horses here, and perhaps some of the best in the world, for let foreigners boast what they will of barbs and Turkish horses, and, as we know five hundred pounds has been given for a horse brought out of Turkey, and of the Spanish jennets from Cordova, for which also an extravagant price has been given, I do believe that some of the gallopers of this country, and of the bishoprick of Durham, which joins to it, will outdo for speed and strength the swiftest horse that was ever bred in Turkey, or Barbary, take them all together.

My reason for this opinion is founded upon those words altogether; that is to say, take their strength and their speed together; for example; match the two horses, and bring them to the race post, the barb may beat Yorkshire for a mile course, but Yorkshire shall distance him at the end of four miles; the barb shall beat Yorkshire upon a dry, soft carpet ground, but Yorkshire for a deep country; the reason is plain, the English horses have both the speed and the strength; the barb perhaps shall beat Yorkshire, and carry seven stone and a half; but Yorkshire for a twelve to fourteen stone weight; in a word, Yorkshire shall carry the man, and the barb a feather.

The reason is to be seen in the very make of the horses. The barb, or the jennet, is a fine delicate creature, of a beautiful shape, clean limbs, and a soft coat; but then he is long jointed, weak pastured, and under limb’d: Whereas Yorkshire has as light a body, and stronger limbs, short joints, and well bon’d. This gives him not speed only but strength to hold it; and, I believe, I do not boast in their behalf, without good vouchers, when I say, that English horses, take them one with another, will beat all the world.

As this part of the country is so much employed in horses, the young fellows are naturally grooms, bred up in the stable, and used to lie among the horses; so that you cannot fail of a good servant here, for looking after horses is their particular delight; and this is the reason why, whatever part of England you go to, though the farthest counties west and south, and whatever inn you come at, ’tis two to one but the hostler is a Yorkshire man; for as they are bred among horses, ’tis always the first business they recommend themselves to; and if you ask a Yorkshire man, at his first coming up to get a service, what he can do; his answer is, sir, he can look after your horse, for he handles a curry-comb as naturally as a young scrivener does a pen and ink.

Besides their breeding of horses, they are also good grasiers over this whole country, and have a large, noble breed of oxen, as may be seen at North Allerton fairs, where there are an incredible quantity of them bought eight times every year, and brought southward as far as the fens in Lincolnshire, and the Isle of Ely, where, being but, as it were, half fat before, they are fed up to the grossness of fat which we see in London markets. The market whither these north country cattle are generally brought is to St. Ives, a town between Huntingdon and Cambridge, upon the River Ouse, and where there is a very great number of fat cattle every Monday.

Richmond, which, as I said, is two or three mile wide of the Leeming Lane, is a large market town, and gives name to this part of the country, which is called after it Richmondshire, as another part of it east of this is call’d North Allertonshire. Here you begin to find a manufacture on foot again, and, as before, all was cloathing, and all the people clothiers, here you see all the people, great and small, a knitting; and at Richmond you have a market for woollen or yarn stockings, which they make very coarse and ordinary, and they are sold accordingly; for the smallest siz’d stockings for children are here sold for eighteen pence per dozen, or three half pence a pair, somctimes less.

This trade extends itself also into Westmoreland, or rather comes from Westmoreland, extending itself hither, for at Kendal, Kirkby Stephen, and such other places in this county as border upon Yorkshire; the chief manufacture of yarn stockings is carried on; it is indeed a very considerable manufacture in it self, and of late mightily encreased too, as all the manufactures of England indeed are.

This town of Richmond (Cambden calls it a city) is wall’d, and had a strong castle; but as those things are now all slighted, so really the account of them is of small consequence, and needless; old fortifications being, if fortification was wanted, of very little signification; the River Swale runs under the wall of this castle, and has some unevenness at its bottom, by reason of rocks which intercept its passage, so that it falls like a cataract, but not with so great a noise.

The Swale is a noted river, though not extraordinary large, for giving name to the lands which it runs through for some length, which are called Swale Dale, and to an antient family of that name, one of whom had the vanity, as I have heard, to boast, that his family was so antient as not to receive that name from, but to give name to the river it self. One of the worthless successors of this line, who had brought himself to the dignity of what they call in London, a Fleeter, used to write himself, in his abundant vanity, Sir Solomon Swale, of Swale Hall, in Swale Dale, in the county of Swale in the North Riding of York.

This addition of dale, first given here to the low lands about the head of the Swale, is grown up into a custom or usage from all the rivers which rise in those western hills north of this, quite to and into Scotland; for example,

Teesdale for the River Tees.
Wierdale for the Wier, which runs through Durham.
Tine Dale for the Tine, which runs to Newcastle.
Tweedale for the Tweed, which passeth by Berwick.
Clydsdale, Nydsdale, and many others.

Leaving Richmond, we continue through this long Leeming Lane, which holds for about the length of six mile to the bank of Tees, where we pass’d over the River Tees at Piersbridge; the Tees is a most terrible river, so rapid, that they tell us a story of a man who coming to the ferry place in the road to Darlington, and finding the water low began to pull off his hose and shoes to wade thro’, the water not being deep enough to reach to his knees, but that while he was going over, the stream swell’d so fast as to carry him away and drown him.

This bridge leads into the bishoprick of Durham, and the road soon after turns into the great post road leading to the city of Durham. I shall dwell no longer upon the particulars found on this side except Barnard Castle, which is about four miles distant from the Tees bank west, and there I may speak of it again; as all the country round here are grooms, as is noted before; so here and hereabouts they have an excellent knack at dressing horses hides into leather, and thinking or making us think it is invulnerable, that is to say, that it will never wear out; in a word, they make the best bridle reins, belts broad or narrow, and all accoutrements for a compleat horse-master, as they do at Rippon for spurs and stirrups.

Barnard’s Castle stands on the north side of the Tees, and so is in the bishoprick of Durham. ’Tis an antient town, and pretty well built, but not large; the manufacture of yarn stockings continues thus far, but not much farther; but the jockeys multiply that way; and here we saw some very fine horses indeed; but as they wanted no goodness, so they wanted no price, being valued for the stallion they came of, and the merit of the breed. One very beautiful stone-horse which they here kept, they asked two hundred guineas for; but, as I heard afterwards, tho’ they carried him to London, which was no small addition to the charge of him, they sold him for much less money.

The length of the late war, it seems, caused the breeders here to run into a race or kind of horses, differing much from what they were used to raise, that is to say, from fine fleet horses for galloping and hunting, to a larger breed of charging horses, for the use of the general officers, and colonels of horse, aids du camp, and the like, whose service required strong charging horses, and yet if they were fleet horses too, they had a vast advantage of the enemy; for that if the rider was conquered and forced to fly, there was no overtaking him; and if his enemies fled they could never get away from him. I saw some of this breed, and very noble creatures they were, fit for any business whatever; strong enough for charging, fleet enough for hunting, tempered enough for travelling; and indeed, there is one thing to be said for the horse breeders in this country, their horses are all well broke, perfectly brought to hand, and to be under command, which is a thing absolutely necessary in the army, and in the hunting field also.

I was come now to the extent of the county of York northward. But as I have kept all along to the west side of the county, even from the Peak of Derby hither; and that I have all the East Riding and the eastern part of the North and West Riding to go over, I shall break off here, and conclude my first circuit; and am, with due respect,

SIR,
Your most humble servant.

Letter IX

Eastern Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland

SIR— I began my first circuit at the bank of Trent, namely, at Nottingham Bridge, and keeping the middle of the island, travelled due north into the West Riding of Yorkshire, and to the farthest part of the county to the bank of Tees, as you have seen.

I am now come back, as the French say, sur mes pas, to the same bank of the Trent, though lower down, towards the east, and shall gather up some fragments of Nottinghamshire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, as I go, and then hasten to the sea side, where we have not cast our eye yet.

Passing Newark Bridge, we went through the lower side of Nottinghamshire, keeping within the River Idle. Here we saw Tuxford in the Clays, that is to say, Tuxford in the Dirt, and a little dirty market town it is, suitable to its name.

Then we saw Rhetford, a pretty little borough town of good trade, situate on the River Idle; the mayor treated us like gentlemen, though himself but a tradesman; he gave us a dish of fish from the River Idle, and another from the Trent, which I only note, to intimate that the salmon of the Trent is very valuable in this country, and is oftentimes brought to London, exceeding large and fine; at Newark they have it very large, and like wise at Nottingham.

From Rhetford, the country on the right or east lies low and marshy, till, by the confluence of the Rivers Trent, Idle, and Don, they are formed into large islands, of which the first is called the Isle of Axholm, where the lands are very rich, and feed great store of cattle: But travelling into those parts being difficult, and sometimes dangerous, especially for strangers, we contented our selves with having the country described to us, as above, and with being assured that there were no towns of note, or any thing to be call’d curious, except that they dig old fir trees out of the ground in the Isle of Axholm, which they tell us have lain there ever since the Deluge; but, as I shall meet with the like more eminently in many other places, I shall content my self with speaking of it once for all, when we come into Lancashire.

There are some few market towns in these low parts between this place and the Humber, though none of great consideration, such as Thorne upon the Don, Snathe upon the Aire, Selby upon the Ouse, and Howdon near the same river; the two last are towns of good trade, the first being seated where the Ouse is navigable for large vessels, has a good share in the shipping of the river, and some merchants live and thrive here; the latter is one of the towns in England, where their annual fairs preserve the name of a mart, the other Lyn, Boston, Ganesborough, Beverley, tho’ of late they begin to lose the word. The fair or mart held here is very considerable for inland trade, and several wholesale tradesman come to it from London. But I take this town to be more famous for the birth of one of our antient historians, (viz.) Roger of Hovedon or Howdon; Mr. Cambden’s continuator is much in the wrong to say this town stands upon the Derwent; whereas it is above three mile east of the Derwent, and no river of any note near it but the Humber.

Having found nothing in this low part of the country but a wonderful conflux of great rivers, all pouring down into the Humber, which receiving the Aire, the Ouse, the Don and the Trent, becomes rather a sea than a river, we left it on the right; and knowing we should necessarily visit its shores again, we turned up into the post road, where, as I said, I left it before near Brotherton, and went on for Tadcaster.

On this road we pass’d over Towton, that famous field where the most cruel and bloody battle was fought between the two Houses of Lancaster and York, in the reign of Edward IV. I call it most cruel and bloody, because the animosity of the parties was so great, that tho’ they were countrymen and Englishmen, neighbours, nay, as history says, relations; for here fathers kill’d their sons, and sons their fathers; yet for some time they fought with such obstinacy and such rancour, that, void of all pity and compassion, they gave no quarter, and I call it the most bloody, because ’tis certain no such numbers were ever slain in one battle in England, since the great battle between King Harold and William of Normandy, call’d the Conqueror, at Battle in Sussex; for here, at Towton, fell six and thirty thousand men on both sides, besides the wounded and prisoners (if they took any).

Tradition guided the country people, and they us, to the very spot; but we had only the story in speculation; for there remains no marks, no monument, no remembrance of the action, only that the ploughmen say, that sometimes they plough up arrow-heads and spear-heads, and broken javelins, and helmets, and the like; for we cou’d only give a short sigh to the memory of the dead, and move forward.

Tadcaster has nothing that we could see to testify the antiquity it boasts of, but some old Roman coins, which our landlord the post master shewed us, among which was one of Domitian, the same kind, I believe, with that Mr. Cambden gives an account of, but so very much defaced with age, that we could read but D O, and A V, at a distance. Here is the hospital and school, still remaining, founded by Dr. Oglethorp, Bishop of Carlisle, who, for want of a Protestant archbishop, set the crown on the head of Queen Elizabeth.

Here also we saw plainly the Roman highway, which I have mentioned, as seen at Aberforth; and, as antient writers tell us, of a stately stone bridge here, I may tell you, here was no bridge at all; but perhaps no writer after me will ever be able to say the like; for the case was this, the antient famous bridge, which, I suppose, had stood several hundred years, being defective, was just pull’d down, and the foundation of a new bridge, was laid, or rather begun to be laid, or was laying; and we were obliged to go over the river in a ferry boat; but coming that way since, I saw the new bridge finished, and very magnificent indeed it is.

Mr. Cambden gives us a little distich of a learned passenger upon this river, and the old bridge, at Tadcaster; I suppose he pass’d it in a dry summer, as the Frenchman did the bridge at Madrid, which I mentioned before.

Nil Tadcaster habes muris vel carmine dignum,
Præter magnifice structum sine flumine pontem.

But I can assure the reader of this account, that altho’ I pass’d this place in the middle of summer, we found water enough in the river, so that there was no passing it without a boat.

From Tadcaster it is but twelve miles to York; the country is rich, fruitful and populous, but not like the western parts about Leeds, Wakefield, Hallifax, &c. which I described above; it bears good corn, and the city of York being so near, and having the navigation of so many rivers also to carry it to Hull, they never want a good market for it.

The antiquity of York, though it was not the particular enquiry I proposed to make, yet shewed it self so visibly at a distance, that we could not but observe it before we came quite up to the city, I mean the mount and high hills, where the antient castle stood, which, when you come to the city, you scarcely see, at least not so as to judge of its antiquity.

The cathedral, or the minster, as they call it, is a fine building, but not so antient as some of the other churches in the city seem to be: That mount I mentioned above, and which, at a distance, I say was a mark of antiquity, is called the old Bale, which was some ages ago fortified and made very strong; but time has eaten through not the timber and plank only, which they say it was first built with, but even the stones and mortar; for not the least footstep of it remains but the hill.

York is indeed a pleasant and beautiful city, and not at all the less beautiful for the works and lines about it being demolished, and the city, as it may be said, being laid open, for the beauty of peace is seen in the rubbish; the lines and bastions and demolished fortifications, have a reserved secret pleasantness in them from the contemplation of the publick tranquility, that outshines all the beauty of advanced bastions, batteries, cavaliers, and all the hard named works of the engineers about a city.

I shall not entertain you either with a plan of the city, or a draught of its history; I shall only say in general, the first would take up a great deal of time, and the last a great deal of paper; it is enough to tell you, that as it has been always a strong place, so it has been much contended for, been the seat of war, the rendezvous of armies, and of the greatest generals several times.

It boasts of being the seat of some of the Roman emperors, and the station of their forces for the north of Britain, being it self a Roman colony, and the like, all which I leave as I find it; it may be examined critically in Mr. Cambden, and his continuator, where it is learnedly debated. However, this I must not omit, namely, that Severus and Constantius Chlorus, father to Constantine the Great, both kept their Courts here, and both died here. Here Constantine the Great took upon him the purple, and began the first Christian empire in the world; and this is truly and really an honour to the city of York; and this is all I shall say of her antiquity.

But now things infinitely modern, compared to those, are become marks of antiquity; for even the castle of York, built by William the Conqueror, anno 1069. almost eight hundred years since Constantine, is not only become antient and decayed, but even sunk into time, and almost lost and forgotten; fires, sieges, plunderings and devastations, have often been the fate of York; so that one should wonder there should be any thing of a city left.

But ’tis risen again, and all we see now is modern; the bridge is vastly strong, and has one arch which, they tell me, was near 70 foot in diameter; it is, without exception, the greatest in England, some say it’s as large as the Rialto at Venice, though I think not.

The cathedral too is modern; it was begun to be built but in the time of Edward the First, anno 1313. or thereabouts, by one John Roman, who was treasurer for the undertaking; the foundation being laid, and the whole building designed by the charitable benevolence of the gentry, and especially, as a noted antiquary there assured me, by the particular application of two eminent families in the north, namely, the Piercys and Vavasors, as is testified by their arms and portraits cut in the stone work; the first with a piece of timber, and the last with a hew’d stone in their hands; the first having given a large wood, and the latter a quarry of stone, for encouraging the work.

It was building during the lives of three archbishops, all of the Christian name of John, whereof the last, (viz.) John Thoresby, lived to see it finished, and himself consecrated it.

It is a Gothick building, but with all the most modern addenda that order of building can admit; and with much more ornament of a singular kind, than we see any thing of that way of building grac’d with. I see nothing indeed of that kind of structure in England go beyond it, except it be the building we call King Henry VIIth’s Chapel, additional to the abbey church of Westminster, and that is not to be named with this, because it is but a chapel, and that but a small one neither.

The royal chapel at Windsor, and King’s College Chapel, at Cambridge, are indeed very gay things, but neither of them can come up to the minster of York on many accounts; also the great tower of the cathedral church at Canterbury is named to match with this at York; but this is but a piece of a large work, the rest of the same building being mean and gross, compared with this at York.

The only deficiency I find at York Minster, is the lowness of the great tower, or its want of a fine spire upon it, which, doubtless, was designed by the builders; he that lately writing a description of this church, and that at Doncaster, placed high fine spires upon them both, took a great deal of pains to tell us he was describing a place where he had never been, and that he took his intelligence grossly upon trust.

As then this church was so compleatly finished, and that so lately that it is not yet four hundred years old, it is the less to be wondered that the work continues so firm and fine, that it is now the beautifullest church of the old building that is in Britain. In a word, the west end is a picture, and so is the building, the outsides of the quire especially, are not to be equall’d.

The choir of the church, and the proper spaces round and behind it, are full of noble and magnificent monuments, too many to enter upon the description of them here, some in marble, and others in the old manner in brass, and the windows are finely painted; but I could find no body learned enough in the designs that could read the histories to us that were delineated there.

The Chapter-House is a beauty indeed, and it has been always esteemed so, witness the Latin verse which is written upon it in letters of gold.

Ur Rosa flos florum, sic est Domus ista Domorum.

But, allowing this to be a little too much of a boast, it must be own’d to be an excellent piece of work, and indeed so is the whole minster; nor does it want any thing, as I can suppose, but, as I said before, a fine spire upon the tower, such a one as is at Grantham, or at Newark.

But to return to the city it self; there is abundance of good company here, and abundance of good families live here, for the sake of the good company and cheap living; a man converses here with all the world as effectually as at London; the keeping up assemblies among the younger gentry was first set up here, a thing other writers recommend mightily as the character of a good country, and of a pleasant place; but which I look upon with a different view, and esteem it as a plan laid for the ruin of the nation’s morals, and which, in time, threatens us with too much success that way.

However, to do the ladies of Yorkshire justice, I found they did not gain any great share of the just reproach which in some other places has been due to their sex; nor has there been so many young fortunes carried off here by half-pay men, as has been said to be in other towns, of merry fame, westward and southward.

The government of the city is that of a regular corporation, by mayor, aldermen and common-council; the mayor has the honour here, by antient prescription, of being called My Lord; it is a county within its self, and has a jurisdiction extended over a small tract of land on the west suburb, called the Liberty of Ansty, which I could get no uniform account of, one pretending one thing, one another. The city is old but well built; and the clergy, I mean such as serve in, and depend upon the cathedral, have very good houses, or little palaces rather here, adjoining the cymeterie, or churchyard of the minster; the bishop’s is indeed called a palace, and is really so; the deanery is a large, convenient and spacious house; and among these dwellings of the clergy is the assembly house. Whence I would infer, the conduct of it is under the better government, or should be so.

No city in England is better furnished with provisions of every kind, nor any so cheap, in proportion to the goodness of things; the river being so navigable, and so near the sea, the merchants here trade directly to what part of the world they will; for ships of any burthen come up within thirty mile of the city, and small craft from sixty to eighty ton, and under, come up to the very city.

With these they carry on a considerable trade; they import their own wines from France and Portugal, and likewise their own deals and timber from Norway; and indeed what they please almost from where they please; they did also bring their own coals from Newcastle and Sunderland, but now have them down the Aire and Calder from Wakefield, and from Leeds, as I have said already.

The publick buildings erected here are very considerable, such as halls for their merchants and trades, a large town-house or guild-hall, and the prison, which is spacious, and takes up all the ground within the walls of the old castle, and, in a building newly erected there, the assizes for the county are kept. The old walls are standing, and the gates and posterns; but the old additional works which were cast up in the late rebellion, are slighted; so that York is not now defensible as it was then: But things lie so too, that a little time, and many hands, would put those works into their former condition, and make the city able to stand out a small siege. But as the ground seems capable by situation, so an ingenious head, in our company, taking a stricter view of it, told us, he would undertake to make it as strong as Tourney in Flanders, or as Namure, allowing him to add a citadel at that end next the river. But this is a speculation; and ’tis much better that we should have no need of fortified towns than that we should seek out good situations to make them.

While we were at York, we took one day’s time to see the fatal field called Marston Moor, where Prince Rupert, a third time, by his excess of valour, and defect of conduct, lost the royal army, and had a victory wrung out of his hands, after he had all the advantage in his own hands that he could desire: Certain it is, that charging at the head of the right wing of horse with that intrepid courage that he always shewed, he bore down all before him in the very beginning of the battle, and not only put the enemies cavalry into confusion, but drove them quite out of the field.

Could he have bridled his temper, and, like an old soldier, or rather an experienced general, have contented himself with the glory of that part, sending but one brigade of his troops on in the pursuit, which had been sufficient to have finished the work, and have kept the enemies from rallying, and then with the rest of his cavalry, wheeled to the left, and fallen in upon the croup of the right wing of the enemies cavalry, he had made a day of it, and gained the most glorious victory of that age; for he had a gallant army. But he followed the chace clear off, and out of the field of battle; and when he began to return, he had the misfortune to see that his left wing of horse was defeated by Fairfax and Cromwell, and to meet his friends flying for their lives; so that he had nothing to do but to fly with them, and leave his infantry, and the Duke, then Marquis of Newcastle’s, old veteran soldiers to be cut in pieces by the enemy.

I had one gentleman with me, an old soldier too, who, though he was not in the fight, yet gave us a compleat account of the action from his father’s relation, who, he said, had served in it, and who had often shew’d him upon the very post every part of the engagement where every distinct body was drawn up, how far the lines extended, how the infantry were flank’d by the cavalry, and the cavalry by the woods, where the artillery were planted, and which way they pointed; and he accordingly described it in so lively a manner to me, that I thought it was as if I had just now seen the two armies engaging.

His relation of Prince Rupert’s ill conduct, put me in mind of the quite different conduct of old General Tilly, who commanded the imperial army at the great Battle of Leipsick in Germany, against that glorious Prince Gustavus Adolphus.

Upon the first charge, the cavalry of the right wing of Tilly’s army, commanded by the Count of Furstemburgh, fell on with such fury, and in such excellent order, being all old troops, and most of them cuirassers, upon the Saxon troops, which had the left of the Swedish army, and made twenty two thousand men, that, in short, they put them into confusion, and drove them upon their infantry of the main battle, so that all went off together except General Arnheim, who commanded the Saxon right wing, and was drawn up next to the Swedes.

The Saxons being thus put into confusion, the Imperialists cried Victoria, the enemy fly, and their general officers cry’d out to Tilly to let them follow. No, says Tilly, let ’em go, let ’em go; but let us beat the Swedes too, or we do nothing; and immediately he ordered the cavalry that had performed so well, should face to the left, and charge the rest of the army in flank. But the King of Sweden, who saw the disorder, and was ready at all places to encourage and direct his troops, ordered six thousand Scots, under Sir John Hepburn, who made his line of reserve, to make a front to the left, and face the victorious troops of the Imperialists, while, in the mean time, with a fury not to be resisted, he charg’d, in person, upon the Imperial left wing, and bore down all before him.

Then it appeared that Count Tilly was in the right; for though he had not let his right wing pursue the Saxons, who, notwithstanding being new men, never rallied, yet with his whole army he was not able to beat the rest; but the King of Sweden gained the most glorious victory that ever a Protestant army had till then obtain’d in the world over a Popish. This was 1632.

I came back extremely well pleased with the view of Marston Moor, and the account my friend had given of the battle; ’twas none of our business to concern our passions in the cause, or regret the misfortunes of that day; the thing was over beyond our ken; time had levelled the victors with the vanquished, and the royal family being restored, there was no room to say one thing or other to what was pass’d; so we returned to York the same night.

York, as I have said, is a spacious city, it stands upon a great deal of ground, perhaps more than any city in England out of Middlesex, except Norwich; but then the buildings are not close and throng’d as at Bristol, or as at Durham, nor is York so populous as either Bristol or Norwich. But as York is full of gentry and persons of distinction, so they live at large, and have houses proportioned to their quality; and this makes the city lie so far extended on both sides the river. It is also very magnificent, and, as we say, makes a good figure every way in its appearance, even at a distance; for the cathedral is so noble and so august a pile, that ’tis a glory to all the rest.

There are very neat churches here besides the cathedral, and were not the minster standing, like the Capitol in the middle of the city of Rome, some of these would pass for extraordinary, as the churches of St. Mary’s and Allhallows, and the steeples of Christ-Church, St. Mary’s, St. Pegs, and Allhallows.

There are also two fine market-houses, with the town-hall upon the bridge, and abundance of other publick edifices, all which together makes this city, as I said, more stately and magnificent, though not more populous and wealthy, than any other city in the king’s dominions, London and Dublin excepted. The reason of the difference is evidently for the want of trade.

Here is no trade indeed, except such as depends upon the confluence of the gentry: But the city, as to lodgings, good houses, and plenty of provisions, is able to receive the King, Lords and Commons, with the whole Court, if there was occasion; and once they did entertain King Charles I. with his whole Court, and with the assembly of Peers, besides a vast confluence of the gentry from all parts to the king, and at the same time a great part of his army.

We went out in a double excursion from this city, first to see the Duke of Leeds’s house, and then the Earl of Carlisle’s, and the Earl of Burlington’s in the East Riding; Carlisle House is by far the finest design, but it is not finished, and may not, perhaps, in our time; they say his lordship sometimes observes noblemen should only design, and begin great palaces, and leave posterity to finish them gradually, as their estates will allow them; it is called Castle Howard. The Earl of Burlington’s is an old built house, but stands deliciously, and has a noble prospect towards the Humber, as also towards the Woulds.

At Hambledon Down, near this city, are once a year very great races, appointed for the entertainment of the gentry, and they are the more frequented, because the king’s plate of a hundred guineas is always run for there once a year; a gift designed to encourage the gentlemen to breed good horses.

Yorkshire is throng’d with curiosities, and two or three constantly attend these races, namely, First, That (as all horse matches do) it brings together abundance of noblemen and gentlemen of distinction, and a proportion of ladies; and, I assure you, the last make a very noble appearance here, and, if I may speak my thoughts without flattery, take the like number where you will, yet, in spite of the pretended reproach of country breeding, the ladies of the north are as handsome and as well dress’d as are to be seen either at the Court or the Ball.

From York we did not jump at once over the whole country, and, like a late author, without taking notice of any thing, come out again sixty or seventy miles off, like an apparition, without being seen by the way. The first thing we did, we took a view of the suburb of York over the river, opposite to the city, and then entring the East Riding, took our audience de conge in form, and so stood over that division towards Hull.

In our road we had a clear view of the Earl of Burlington’s noble and magnificent house, mentioned just now, soon after our passing the River Derwent, on a very high rising ground, very advantageously situated.

The River Derwent, contrary to the course of all the rivers in Yorkshire, (as I have observed) runs north and south, rising in that part of the country called Cleveland, and running through, or hard by, several market towns, as Pickering, Pocklington, North Malton, and others, and is, by the course, a good guide to those who would take a view of the whole country.

I observed the middle of this riding or division of Yorkshire is very thin of towns, and consequently of people, being over-spread with Woulds, that is to say, plains and downs, like those of Salisbury; on which they feed great numbers of sheep, and breed also a great many black cattle and horses; especially in the northern part, which runs more mountainous, and makes part of the North Riding of York. But the east and west part is populous and rich, and full of towns, the one lying on the sea coast, and the other upon the River Derwent, as above; the sea coast or west side, is call’d Holderness.

After passing the Derwent we saw little of moment, but keeping under the woulds or hills mentioned above, we came to your old acquaintance John a Beverley, I mean the famous monastery at that town.

It is a large and populous town, though I find no considerable manufacture carried on there. The great collegiate church is the main thing which ever did, and still does, make the town known in the world. The famous story of John of Beverley, is, in short, this: That one John, Archbishop of York, a learned and devout man, out of meer pious zeal for religion, and contempt of the world, quitted or renounced his honours and superiority in the Church, and, laying aside the pall, and the mitre, retired to Beverley, and liv’d here all the rest of his time a recluse.

This story will prompt you to enquire how long ago ’twas, for you know as well as I, and will naturally observe, that very few such bishops are to be found now; it was indeed a long time ago, for it is this very year just five year above a thousand year ago that this happened; for the good man died Anno Dom. 721. you may soon cast up the rest to 1726.

The memory of this extraordinary man has been much honoured; and had they gone no farther, I should have join’d with them most heartily. But as to sainting him, and praying to him, and offering at his shrine, and such things, that we Protestants must ask their leave to have nothing to say to.

However, King Athelstan, after making a vow to him if he got the victory over the Danes, made him his tutelar saint, and gave great gifts and immunities to this place on his account; among the rest, the king granted his peace to it, as was the word in those days; that is to say, made it a sanctuary, as he did much about the same time to the church at Rippon; and I shall here give you the copy of his grant in the old English rhimes, as I did of the other.

As to this privilege of sanctuary, Mr. Cambden gives us the description of a stone chair, with a Latin inscription upon it in capital letters, which he Englishes also.

Here on the I3th of September, anno 1664, upon opening a grave they met with a vault of square free stone fifteen foot long, and two foot broad; within it was a sheet of lead four foot long, and in that the ashes, six beads (whereof three crumbled to dust with a touch; of the three remaining two were supposed to be Cornelian) with three great brass pins, and four large iron nails. Upon the sheet laid a leaden plate, with this inscription:

ANNO AB INCARNATIONE DOMINI MCLXXXVIII. COMBUSTA FUIT ECCLESIA IN MENSE SEPTEMBRI, IN SEQUENTI NOCTE POST FESTUM SANCTI MATHI APOSTOLI. ET IN ANNO MCXCVII. SEXTO IDUS MARTII, PACTA FUIT INQUISITIO RELIQUIARUM BEATI JOHANNIS, IN HOC LOCO, ET INVENTA SUNT HJEC OSSA IN ORIENTALI PARTE SEPULCHRI ET HIC RECONDITA, ET PULVIS CEMENTO MIXTUS IBIDEM INVENTUS EST ET RECONDITUS.

Cross over this there lay a box of lead about seven inches long, six broad, and five high, wherein were several pieces of bones mixed with a little dust, and yielding a sweet smell. All these things were carefully re-interred in the middle alley of the body of the minster, where they were taken up: This circumstance does not by any means agree with what Bishop Godwin has left us about this saint, namely, that he was buried in the church porch; for though what is mentioned in the inscription was only a reinterment upon the inquisition made; yet it looks a little odd they should not lay the relicks in the same place where they found them, unless one should solve it this way, that but part of the church was then standing, and they might lay him there with a design to remove him when it should be rebuilt, but afterwards either neglected or forgot it.

The minster here is a very fair and neat structure; the roof is an arch of stone, in it there are several monuments of the Piercy’s, Earls of Northumberland, who have added a little chapel to the choir, in the windows of which are the pictures of several of that family drawn in the glass at the upper end of the choir. On the right side of the altar-place stands the freed stool, mentioned by our author, made of one entire stone, and said to have been removed from Dunbar in Scotland, with a well of water behind it. At the upper end of the body of the church, next the choir, hangs an antient table with the picture of St. John (from whom the church is named) and of King Athelstan the founder of it, and between them this distich:

Ais free make I thee,
As heart can wish, or egh can see.

Hence the inhabitants of Beverley pay no toll or custom in any port or town in England; to which immunity (I suppose) they owe, in great measure, their riches and flourishing condition; for indeed, one is surprised to find so large and handsome a town within six miles of Hull: In the body of the church stands an antient monument, which they call the Virgins Tomb, because two virgin sisters lay buried there who gave the town a piece of land, into which any freeman may put three milch kine from Ladyday to Michaelmas. At the lower end of the body of the church, stands a fair, large font of agat stone.

Near the minster, on the south side of it, is a place nam’d Hall Garth, wherein they keep a court of record, called the Provost’s Court. In this may be try’d causes for any sum arising within its liberties; (which are very large, having about a hundred towns and parts of towns in Holderness, and other places of the East Riding belonging to it). It is said to have also a power in criminal matters, though at present that is not used.

But to come to the present condition of the town, it is above a mile in length, being of late much improv’d in its buildings, and has pleasant springs running quite through its streets. It is more especially beautified with two stately churches, and has a free-school that is improved by two fellowships, six scholarships, and three exhibitions in St. John’s College, in Cambridge, belonging to it; besides six alms-houses, the largest whereof was built lately by the executors of Michael Warton, Esq; who, by his last will, left one thousand pounds for that use; the mayor and aldermen having sometimes been deceived in their choice, admit none into their alms-houses but such as will give bond to leave their effects to the poor when they die; a good example to other places.

The principal trade of the town is making malt, oatmeal, and tann’d leather; but the poor people mostly support themselves by working bone-lace, which of late has met with particular encouragement, the children being maintain’d at school to learn to read, and to work this sort of lace. The cloathing trade was formerly follow’d in this town, but Leland tells us, that even in his time it was very much decay’d.

They have several fairs, but one more especially remarkable, called the Mart, beginning about nine days before Ascension Day, and kept in a street leading to the Minster Garth, called Londoners Street, for then the Londoners bring down their wares, and furnish the country tradesmen by wholesale.

About a mile from Beverly to the east, in a pasture belonging to the town, is a kind of spaw, though they say it cannot be judg’d by the taste whether or no it comes from any mineral; yet taken inwardly it is a great drier, and wash’d in, dries scorbutick scurf, and all sorts of scabs, and also very much helps the king’s evil.

It is easie to conceive how Beverley became a town from this very article, namely, that all the thieves, murtherers, house-breakers and bankrupts, fled hither for protection; and here they obtained safety from the law whatever their crimes might be.

After some time, the town growing bigger and bigger, the church was also enlarged; and though it fell into the king’s hands, King Henry VIII. having done by this as he did by others; and the monks of Beverley were suppress’d, yet the town continues a large, populous town; and the River Hull is made navigable to it for the convenience of trade.

I remember, soon after the Revolution, when the late King William hired six thousand Danish auxiliaries to assist him in his wars in Ireland, they landed at Hull, and, marching from thence for West-Chester, in order to embark for Carrickfergus, they came thro’ this town, and halted here a few days for refreshment. Here two of their foot soldiers quarrelled and fought a duel, in which one of them was kill’d. The other being taken, was immediately tried and sentenced to a court marshal of their own officers, and by the rules of war, such as were in force among them, was sentenced and put to death, and was then buried in the same grave with the man he had kill’d; and upon their grave is set up a stone with an English inscription thus: Under this stone two Danish soldiers lie.

There are other lines mentioning the story, as above, but I do not remember them, it being some years since I made this observation. But to return to St. John of Beverley, and King Athelstan’s merry grant, which I shall make speak English as well as I can; it is as follows:

The Charter of Privileges granted by King Athelstan to St. John of Beverley, in the Year of Our Lord 925

Yat witen alle yat ever been,
Yat yis Charter heren and seen,
Yat j ye King Adelstan,
Has yaten and given to Seint John
Of Beverlike; yat sai know
Tol and theam, yet wit ye now,
Sok and sake over all yat land
Yat is given into his hand:
On ever ilks kinges gai,
Be it all free yon and ay.
Be it almousend, be all free
Wit ilke man, and ekke wit mee.
Yat will j (be him yat me scop)
Bot till an ercebiscop,
And til ye seven minstre prestes,
Yat serves God ther Saint John restevs
Yat give j God and Saint John,
Her before you ever ilkan,
All my herst corn in eldeel,
To uphold his minstre weel;
Ya four threve (be Heven kinge)
Of ilka plough of Estriding.

If it swa betid or swa gaas,
Yat ani man her again taas,
Be he baron, be he erle,
Clare, prest, parson, or cherel;
Na, be he na yet ilke gome,
I will forsaye yat he come:
(Yat wit ye weel, (or and or)
Tul Saint John minstre dor.
And yar i will (swa Christ me red)
Yat he bet his misdeed,
Or he be cursed for on on.
Wit at yat ser vis Saint John.

Yit hit swa betid and swa es,
Yat ye man in mansing es,
J say, you over fourty daghes,
Swilke yan be Saint John laghes,
Yat the Chapitel of Beverlike
Till ye Scirif of Everwike.
Send yair writ son anon,
Yat yis man sed man becan.
Ye the scirif yan say I ye,
Witout en any writ one me,
Sal minen him (swa Christ me red)
And into my prison lede
And hald him, (yat is my will)
Till he bet his misgilt.

If men rise new laghes
In any oyer kinges daghes,
Be yay framed, be yay yemed,
Wit yham of the mynstree demed,
Ye mercy of the misdeed,
Gif j Saint John (swa Crist me red)
Yif man be cald of limes or lif,
Or men challenges land in strife,
Wit my bodlack wit writ of right,
Y will Saint John have ye might,
Yat man yer for nought fight in feeld,
Now yet wit staf no with sheeld;
Bot twelve men will j yat it telle,
Swo sail it be, swo her ibelle.
And he yat him swo werne may
Overcomen be he ever and ay,
Als he in feeld war overcomen.
Ye cravantise of him be nomen,
Yat yat j God, and Saint John;
Her before iow ever ilkon.
If men be founden than I drunkened,
Sterved on Saint John, rike his agmen men.
Without en swike his akkend bailife make ye sight,
Nad oyer coroner have ye might:
Swa milkel freedom give I ye,
Swa hert may think, or eghe see,
Yat have j thought and forbiseen,
Y will yat yar ever been,
Samenyng, and mynstre life.
Last follike witout en strife.
God helpe alie that ilk men
Yat helpes to ye thowen. Amen.

The same in modern English:

Let all men know that e’er have been,
That this Charter have heard and seen;
That I, King Athelstan,
Have taken and given to Saint John
Of Beverley, I say again (or now)
Toll and team, that know ye too,
Sok and sake o’er all that land
That is given into his hand;
As ever as any kings whatever,
It shall be all free then and for ever
As my alms are all free;
Witness every man, and witness me.
I will also (in spite of any that shall hinder me),
That as well an archbishop
As seven ministers of priests orders,
Shall serve God there where Saint John lies;
And that I give to God, and to Saint John,
Here, in all your presence ever one,
All my last crop of corn in Erdale,
To maintain his ministers very well,
And four trave [21] (by the King of Heaven)
Of every plough land in the East Riding.[22]

If it shall happen, or so fall out,
That any man with-holds it, or takes it away,
Be he lord, or be he earl,
Clerk, priest, parson, or layman;
Nay, be he never so great a person,
I will forbid that he shall touch it:
(That pray observe over and over)
Till St. John’s ministers have their due:
And moreover I will (so Christ hear me)
That he shall pay for the trespass,
Or be he curs’d from son to son;
Know ye this all that serve St. John,
(Witness all you servants of St. John).

If it should so happen, or so is,
That any man is secured in or fled to a house,
I command, that in forty days,
According to St. John’s laws,
That the Chapter of Beverley
Shall send out his writ with all speed
To the Sheriff of Everwick,
That the man may be apprehended:
And to the sheriff I hereby say,
Without any farther warrant from me,
Shall carry him (so Christ me bless)
Into my prison directly;
And shall keep him there, such is my will,
Till he make satisfaction for the trespass.

If other men make other laws,
In any other king’s reign;
Be they made or intended to be made,
Witness those then in trust,
The amends or fines of every such trespass
I give St. John (as Christ me help).
If any man be accused for life or limb,
Or titles of land be disputed at law,
Taken in execution or legal process;
I will, that St. John shall have the decision;
And no man shall combat for any cause whatever
Neither with weapon, or with armour,
But twelve men shall decide the cause,
That so it shall be well and fairly tried;
And he that is cast by their sentence
Shall be so for ever,
As much as if he were overcome in fight:
And the estate shall be called his
As if ’twas given him by Me, God, and St. John,
In presence of you every one.
If any man be found kill’d, or dead with drink,
Or starv’d with hunger, or cold in St. John’s bounds,
His next doers shall be told thereof;
Ye shall have no other coroner to judge.
As much freedom give I to you,
As heart can think, or eye can see.
That I have thought or have foreseen;
I will also that there shall always be,
Peaceable and quiet living among ye,
To the last, without any strife.
And God help every man
That gives to you his help. Amen.

From Beverley I came to Hull, distance six miles. If you would expect me to give an account of the city of Hamburgh or Dantzick, or Rotterdam, or any of the second rate cities abroad, which are fam’d for their commerce, the town of Hull may be a specimen. The place is indeed not so large as those; but, in proportion to the dimensions of it, I believe there is more business done in Hull than in any town of its bigness in Europe; Leverpool indeed of late comes after it apace; but then Leverpool has not the London trade to add to it.

In the late war, the fleets from Hull to London were frequently a hundred sail, sometimes including the other creeks in the Humber, a hundred and fifty to a hundred and sixty sail at a time; and to Holland their trade is so considerable, that the Dutch always employ’d two men of war to fetch and carry, that is, to convoy the trade, as they call’d it, to and from Hull, which was as many as they did to London.

In a word, all the trade at Leeds, Wakefield and Hallifax, of which I have spoken so justly and so largely, is transacted here, and the goods are ship’d here by the merchants of Hull; all the lead trade of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, from Bautry Wharf, the butter of the East and North Riding, brought down the Ouse to York: The cheese brought down the Trent from Stafford, Warwick and Cheshire, and the corn from all the counties adjacent, are brought down and shipp’d off here.

Again, they supply all these countries in return with foreign goods of all kinds, for which they trade to all parts of the known world; nor have the merchants of any port in Britain a fairer credit, or fairer character, than the merchants of Hull, as well for the justice of their dealings as the greatness of their substance or funds for trade. They drive a great trade here to Norway, and to the Baltick, and an important trade to Dantzick, Riga, Narva and Petersburgh; from whence they make large returns in iron, copper, hemp, flax, canvas, pot-ashes, Muscovy linnen and yarn, and other things; all which they get vent for in the country to an exceeding quantity. They have also a great importation of wine, linen, oil, fruit, &c. trading to Holland, France and Spain; the trade of tobacco and sugars from the West-Indies, they chiefly manage by the way of London. But besides all this, their export of corn, as well to London as to Holland and France, exceeds all of the kind, that is or can be done at any port in England, London excepted.

Their shipping is a great article in which they outdo all the towns and ports on the coast except Yarmouth, only that their shipping consists chiefly in smaller vessels than the coal trade is supplied with, tho’ they have a great many large vessels too, which are employed in their foreign trade.

The town is situated at the mouth of the River Hull, where it falls into the Humber, and where the Humber opens into the German Ocean, so that one side of their town lies upon the sea, the other upon the land. This makes the situation naturally very strong; and, were there any occasion, it is capable of being made impregnable, by reason of the low situation of the grounds round it.

King Charles II. on occasion of the frequent Dutch wars in that reign, had once resolved to appoint a station for a squadron of men of war here; with a yard and dock, for building men of war (ships) in the Humber; and, on this occasion, resolved to make the place strong, in proportion to the necessity of those affairs; upon which a large citadel was marked out on the other side the river; but it was never finished.

The greatest imperfection, as to the strength of Hull in case of a war, is, that, lying open to the sea, it is liable to a bombardment; which can only be prevented by being masters at sea, and while we are so, there’s no need of fortifications at all; and so there’s an end of argument upon that subject.

The town is exceeding close built, and should a fire ever be its fate, it might suffer deeply on that account; ’tis extraordinary populous, even to an inconvenience, having really no room to extend it self by buildings. There are but two churches, but one of them is very large, and there are two or three very large meeting-houses, and a market stored with an infinite plenty of all sorts of provision.

They shew us still in their town-hall the figure of a northern fisherman, supposed to be of Greenland, that is to say, the real Greenland, being the continent of America to the north of those we call the north west passages; not of Spiltbergen, where our ships go a whale fishing, and which is, by mistake, called Greenland. He was taken up at sea in a leather boat, which he sate in, and was covered with skins, which drew together about his waste, so that the boat could not fill, and he could not sink; the creature would never feed nor speak, and so died.

They have a very handsome exchange here, where the merchants meet as at London, and, I assure you, it is wonderfully filled, and that with a confluence of real merchants, and many foreigners, and several from the country; for the navigation of all the great rivers which fall into the Humber centers here, such as the Trent, the Idle, the Don, the Aire and Calder, and the Ouse; and consequently the commerce of all the great towns on those rivers is managed here, from Gainsborough and Nottingham on the Trent, York and Selby on the Ouse, and so of the rest.

There is also a fine free-school, over which is the merchant’s hall. But the Trinity-House here is the glory of the town: It is a corporation of itself, made up of a society of merchants: It was begun by voluntary contribution for relief of distressed and aged seamen, and their wives or widows; but was afterwards approved by the government, and incorporated: They have a very good revenue, which encreases every day by charities, and bounties of pious minded people.

They maintain thirty sisters now actually in the house, widows of seamen; they have a government by twelve eider brethren and six assistants; out of the twelve they chuse annually two wardens, but the whole eighteen vote in electing them, and two stewards. These have a power to decide disputes between masters of ships and their crews, in matters relating to the sea affairs only; and with this limitation, that their judgment be not contrary to the laws of the land; and, even in trials at law, in such affairs they are often called to give their opinions.

They have a noble stone bridge here over the River Hull, consisting of fourteen arches. They had once set up a Greenland fishery, and it went on with success for a time; but it decayed in the time when the Dutch wars were so frequent, and the house built by the Greenland merchants is now turned into granaries for corn, and warehouses for other goods.

The old hospital, call’d GOD’S House, stands near it, with a chapel rebuilt since the late war, and the arms of Michael de la Pole, the first founder, set up again; so that the foundation is restored, the building is nobly enlarged, and an entire new hospital built as an addition to the old one. The story of this De la Pole may not be unwelcome, because, though it be a piece of antiquity, ’tis a piece of honour both to the merchants of Hull, and to the town it self. Sir Michael de la Pole was a merchant of Hull, but first at a place called Raven’s Rood in Brabant, where, growing rich, he advanced to King Richard II. several thousand pounds in gold for his urgent occasions in his wars; upon which the king invited him to come and live in England, which he did; here the king knighted him, made his son, Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and gave him several lordships in Holderness; and Mr. Cambden observes, he is stiled by the king in those grants, William de la Pole, Dilectus Valectus & Mercator Noster, so that he was called the King’s Merchant.

This De la Pole founded a monastery of Carthusians, and an hospital, which, when that was suppress’d, remain’d; and this they call GOD’S House.

Farther east from Hull there is a little pleasant town call’d Headon, handsome, well built, and having a little haven from the sea, which threatens Hull, that it will in time grow up to be a great place, for it indeed increases daily; but I fear for them, that their haven will do nothing considerable for them, unless they can do something very considerable for that.

They tell us at Headon, that the sea encroaches upon the land on all that shore, and that there are many large fields quite eaten up; that several towns were formerly known to be there, which are now lost; from whence they may suppose, that as the sea by encroachment had damnified their harbour, so if it grows upon them a little more they shall stand open to the sea, and so need no harbour at all, or make a mole, as ’tis called abroad, and have a good road without it. But this is a view something remote.

The Spurn Head, a long promontory thrusting out into the sea, and making the north point of Humber, is a remarkable thing. But I leave that to the description of the sea coasts, which is none of my work; the most that I find remarkable here, is, that there is nothing remarkable upon this side for above thirty miles together; not a port, not a gentleman’s seat, not a town of note; Bridlington or Burlington is the only place, and that is of no note, only for a bay or road for shipping, which is of use to the colliers on this coast to defend them, in case of extremity of weather.

The country people told us a long story here of gipsies whicl visit them often in a surprising manner. We were strangely amused with their discourses at first, forming our ideas from the word, which, in ordinary import with us, signifies a sort of strolling, fortune-telling, hen-roost-robbing, pocket-picking vagabonds, called by that name. But we were soon made to understand the people, as they understood themselves here, namely, that at some certain seasons, for none knows when it will happen, several streams of water gush out of the earth with great violence, spouting up a huge heighth, being really natural jette d’eaus or fountains; that they make a great noise, and, joining together, form little rivers, and so hasten to the sea. I had not time to examine into the particulars; and as the irruption was not just then to be seen, we could say little to it: That which was most observable to us, was, that the country people have a notion that whenever those gipsies, or, as some call ’em, vipseys, break out, there will certainly ensue either famine or plague. This put me in mind, that the very same thing is said to happen at Smitham Bottom in Surrey, beyond Croydon, and that the water gushing out of the chalky hills about eight miles from Croydon, on the road to Ryegate, fills the whole bottom, and makes a large river running just to the towns end of Croydon; and then turning to the left runs into the river which rises in the town, and runs to Cashalton; and I name it, because the country people here have exactly the same notion, that this water never breaks out but against a famine; and as I am sure it has not now broken out for more than fifty years, it may, for ought I know, be true.

Scarborough next presents it self, a place formerly famous for the strong castle, situate on a rock, as it were hanging over the sea, but now demolish’d, being ruined in the last wars. The town is well built, populous and pleasant, and we found a great deal of good company here drinking the waters, who came not only from all the north of England, but even from Scotland. It is hard to describe the taste of the waters; they are apparently ting’d with a collection of mineral salts, as of vitriol, allom, iron, and perhaps sulphur, and taste evidently of the allom. Here is such a plenty of all sorts of fish, that I have hardly seen the like, and, in particular, here we saw turbets of three quarters of a hundred weight, and yet their flesh eat exceeding fine when taken new.

To describe the herring, the mackrel, the cod, the whiting, is only to repeat what is said in other places, and what we shall have occasion to repeat more than once, now we begin to go far north.

At the entrance of a little nameless river, scarce indeed worth a name, stands Whitby, which, however, is an excellent harbour, and where they build very good ships for the coal trade, and many of them too, which makes the town rich.

From hence the North Riding holds on to the bank of Tees, the northern bounds of Yorkshire, and where there are two good towns, (viz.) Stockton and Yarum, towns of no great note; but what they obtain by the river and adjacent sea, but are greatly encreased of late years, especially the first, by being the chiefest place in the North Riding of York, or in the county of Cumberland, for the shipping off lead, and butter for London.

I began now to consider the long journey I had to go, and that I must not stop at small matters: We went from Stockton to Durham. North Allerton, a town on the post road, is remarkable for the vast quantity of black cattle sold there, there being a fair once every fortnight for some months, where a prodigious quantity are sold.

I have not concern’d this work at all in the debate among us in England, as to Whig and Tory. But I must observe of this town, that, except a few Quakers, they boasted that they had not one Dissenter here, and yet at the same time not one Tory, which is what, I believe, cannot be said of any other town in Great Britain.

I must now leave Yorkshire, which indeed I might more fully have described, if I had had time; for there are abundance of rarities in nature spoken of in this North Riding, which I had not leisure to enquire into; as the allom mines or pits near Moultgrave or Musgrave, from whence the Lord Musgrave now Duke of Buckinghamshire, has his title, as he has also a great part of his estate from the allom works not far off. Next here are the snake stones, of which nothing can be said but as one observes of them, to see how nature sports her self to amuse us, as if snakes could grow in those stones. Then the glates or gargates, that is, in short jett, a black smooth stone found in Cleveland; also a piece of ground, which, if the wild geese attempt to fly over, they fall down dead. But I cannot dwell any longer here.

Darlington, a post town, has nothing remarkable but dirt, and a high stone bridge over little or no water, the town is eminent for good bleaching of linen, so that I have known cloth brought from Scotland to be bleached here. As to the Hell Kettles, so much talked up for a wonder, which are to be seen as we ride from the Tees to Darlington, I had already seen so little of wonder in such country tales, that I was not hastily deluded again. ’Tis evident, they are nothing but old coal pits filled with water by the River Tees.

Durham is next, a little compact neatly contriv’d city, surrounded almost with the River Wear, which with the castle standing on an eminence, encloses the city in the middle of it; as the castle does also the cathedral, the bishop’s palace, and the fine houses of the clergy, where they live in all the magnificence and splendour imaginable.

I need not tell you, that the Bishop of Durham is a temporal prince, that he keeps a court of equity, and also courts of justice in ordinary causes within himself. The county of Durham, like the country about Rome, is called St. Cuthbert’s Patrimony. This church, they tell us, was founded by David, King of Scots; and afterward Zouch, the valiant bishop, fought the Scots army at Nevil’s Cross, where the Scots were terribly cut in pieces, and their king taken prisoner.

But what do I dip into antiquity for, here, which I have avoided as much as possible every where else? The church of Durham is eminent for its wealth; the bishoprick is esteemed the best in England; and the prebends and other church livings, in the gift of the bishop, are the richest in England. They told me there, that the bishop had thirteen livings in his gift, from five hundred pounds a year to thirteen hundred pounds a year; and the living of the little town of Sedgfield, a few miles south of the city, is said to be worth twelve hundred pounds a year, beside the small tithes, which maintain a curate, or might do so.

Going to see the church of Durham, they shewed us the old Popish vestments of the clergy before the Reformation, and which, on high days, some of the residents put on still. They are so rich with embroidery and emboss’d work of silver, that indeed it was a kind of a load to stand under them.

The town is well built but old, full of Roman Catholicks, who live peaceably and disturb no body, and no body them; for we being there on a holiday, saw them going as publickly to mass as the Dissenters did on other days to their meeting-house.

From hence we kept the common road to Chester in the Street, an old, dirty, thorowfare town, empty of all remains of the greatness which antiquaries say it once had, when it was a Roman colony. Here is a stone bridge, but instead of riding over it we rode under it, and riding up the stream pass’d under or through one of the arches, not being over the horse hoofs in water; yet, on enquiry, we found, that some times they have use enough for a bridge.

Here we had an account of a melancholy accident, and in it self strange also, which happened in or near Lumley Park, not long before we pass’d through the town. A new coal pit being dug or digging, the workmen workt on in the vein of coals till they came to a cavity, which, as was supposed, had formerly been dug from some other pit; but be it what it will, as soon as upon the breaking into the hollow part, the pent up air got vent, it blew .up like a mine of a thousand barrels of powder, and; getting vent at the shaft of the pit, burst out with such a terrible noise, as made the very earth tremble for some miles round, and terrify’d the whole country. There were near three-score poor people lost their lives in the pit, and one or two, as we were told, who were at the bottom of the shaft, were blown quite out, though sixty fathom deep, and were found dead upon the ground.

Lumley Castle is just on the side of the road as you pass between Durham and Chester, pleasantly seated in a fine park, and on the bank of the River Were. The park, besides the pleasantness of it, has this much better thing to recommend it, namely, that it is full of excellent veins of the best coal in the country, (for the Lumley coal are known for their goodness at London, as well as there). This, with the navigable river just at hand, by which the coals are carried down to Sunderland to the ships, makes Lumley Park an inexhaustible treasure to the family.

They tell us, that King James the First lodg’d in this castle, at his entrance into England to take possession of the crown, and seeing a fine picture of the antient pedigree of the family, which carried it very far beyond what his majesty thought credible, turn’d this good jest upon it to the Bishop of Durham, who shewed it him, viz. That indeed he did not know that Adam’s sirname was Lumley before.

From hence the road to Newcastle gives a view of the in-exhausted store of coals and coal pits, from whence not London only, but all the south part of England is continually supplied; and whereas when we are at London, and see the prodigious fleets of ships which come constantly in with coals for this encreasing city, we are apt to wonder whence they come, and that they do not bring the whole country away; so, on the contrary, when in this country we see the prodigious heaps, I might say mountains, of coals, which are dug up at every pit, and how many of those pits there are; we are filled with equal wonder to consider where the people should live that can consume them.

Newcastle is a spacious, extended, infinitely populous place; ’tis seated upon the River Tyne, which is here a noble, large and deep river, and ships of any reasonable burthen may come safely up to the very town. As the town lies on both sides the river, the parts are join’d by a very strong and stately stone bridge of seven very great arches, rather larger than the arches of London Bridge; and the bridge is built into a street of houses also, as London Bridge is.

The town it self, or liberty, as it is a Corporation, extends but to part of the bridge, where there is a noble gate built all of stone, not much unlike that upon London Bridge, which so lately was a safeguard to the whole bridge, by stopping a terrible fire which otherwise had endangered burning the whole street of houses on the city side of the bridge, as it did those beyond it.

There is also a very noble building here, called the Exchange: And as the wall of the town runs parallel from it with the river, leaving a spacious piece of ground before it between the water and the wall, that ground, being well wharf’d up, and fac’d with free-stone, makes the longest and largest key for landing and lading goods that is to be seen in England, except that at Yarmouth in Norfolk, and much longer than that at Bristol.

Here is a large hospital built by contribution of the keel men, by way of friendly society, for the maintenance of the poor of their fraternity, and which, had it not met with discouragements from those who ought rather to have assisted so good a work, might have been a noble provision for that numerous and laborious people. The keel men are those who manage the lighters, which they call keels; by which the coals are taken from the steaths or wharfs, and carryed on board the ships, to load them for London.

Here are several large publick buildings also, as particularly a house of state for the mayor of the town (for the time being) to remove to, and dwell in during his year: Also here is a hall for the surgeons, where they meet, where they have two skeletons of humane bodies, one a man and the other a woman, and some other rarities.

The situation of the town to the landward is exceeding unpleasant, and the buildings very close and old, standing on the declivity of two exceeding high hills, which, together with the smoke of the coals, makes it not the pleasantest place in the world to live in; but it is made amends abundantly by the goodness of the river, which runs between the two hills, and which, as I said, bringing ships up to the very keys, and fetching the coals down from the country, makes it a place of very great business. Here are also two articles of trade which are particularly occasioned by the coals, and these are glass-houses and salt pans; the first are at the town it self, the last are at Shields, seven miles below the town; but their coals are brought chiefly from the town. It is a prodigious quantity of coals which those salt works consume; and the fires make such a smoke, that we saw it ascend in clouds over the hills, four miles before we came to Durham, which is at least sixteen miles from the place.

Here I met with a remark which was quite new to me, and will be so, I suppose, to those that hear it. You well know, we receive at London every year a great quantity of salmon pickled or cured, and sent up in the pickle in kits or tubs, which we call Newcastle salmon; now when I came to Newcastle, I expected to see a mighty plenty of salmon there, but was surprized to find, on the contrary, that there was no great quantity, and that a good large fresh salmon was not to be had under five or six shillings. Upon enquiry I found, that really this salmon, that we call Newcastle salmon, is taken as far off as the Tweed, which is three-score miles, and is brought by land on horses to Shields, where it is cur’d, pickl’d, and sent to London, as above; so that it ought to be called Berwick salmon, not Newcastle.

There are five or six churches in Newcastle, I mean on the town side, being north by Tine, besides meeting-houses, of which, I was told, there are also five or six, (including the Quakers) some of which are throng’d with multitudes of people, the place, as has been said, being exceeding populous. It is not only enriched by the coal trade; but there are also very considerable merchants in it, who carry on foreign trade to divers parts of the world, especially to Holland, Hamburgh, Norway, and the Baltick.

They build ships here to perfection, I mean as to strength, and firmness, and to bear the sea; and as the coal trade occasions a demand for such strong ships, a great many are built here. This gives an addition to the merchants business, in requiring a supply of all sorts of naval stores to fit out those ships.

Here is also a considerable manufacture of hard ware, or wrought iron, lately erected after the manner of Sheffield, which is very helpful for employing the poor, of which this town has always a prodigious number.

West of this town lies the town of Hexham, a pass upon the Tine, famous, or indeed infamous, for having the first blood drawn at it, in the war against their prince by the Scots in King Charles the First’s time, and where a strong detachment of English, tho’ advantageously posted, were scandalously defeated by the Scots. Whether the commanders were in fault, or the men, I know not, but they gave way to an inferior number of Scots, who gain’d the pass, fought through the river, and killed about four hundred men, the rest basely running away; after which, the town of Newcastle was as easily quitted also, without striking a stroke; the country round this town is vulgarly call’d Hexamshire.

I was tempted greatly here to trace the famous Picts Wall, built by the Romans, or rather rebuilt by them, from hence to Carlisle; of the particulars of which, and the remains of antiquity seen upon it, all our histories are so full; and I did go to several places in the fields thro’ which it passed, where I saw the remains of it, some almost lost, some plain to be seen. But antiquity not being my business in this work, I omitted the journey, and went on for the north.

Northumberland is a long coasting county, lying chiefly on the sea to the east, and bounded by the mountains of Stainmore and Cheviot on the west, which are in some places inaccessible in many unpassable. Here is abundant business for an antiquary every place shews you ruin’d castles, Roman altars, inscriptions monuments of battles, of heroes killed, and armies routed, and the like: The towns of Morpeth, Alnwick, Warkworth, Tickill and many others, shew their old castles, and some of them still in tolerable repair, as Alnwick in particular, and Warkworth; others, as Bambrough, Norham, Chillingham, Horton, Dunstar, Wark, and innumerable more, are sunk in their own ruins, by the meer length of time.

We had Cheviot Hills so plain in view, that we could not but enquire of the good old women every where, whether they had heard of the fight at Chevy Chace: They not only told us they had heard of it, but had all the account of it at their fingers end; and, taking a guide at Wooller to shew us the road, he pointed out distinctly to us the very spot where the engagement was, here, he said Earl Piercy was killed, and there Earl Douglas, here Sir William Withington fought upon his stumps, here the Englishmen that were slain were buried, and there the Scots.

A little way off of this, north, he shewed us the field of battle, called Flodden Field, upon the banks of the Till, where James IV. King of Scotland, desperately fighting, was killed, and his whole army overthrown by the English, under the noble and gallant Earl of Surrey, in the reign of King Henry VIII. upon their perfidiously invading England, while the king was absent on his wars in France.

I must not quit Northumberland without taking notice, that the natives of this country, of the antient original race or families, are distinguished by a shibboleth upon their tongues, namely, a difficulty in pronouncing the letter r, which they cannot deliver from their tongues without a hollow jarring in the throat, by which they are plainly known, as a foreigner is, in pronouncing the th: This they call the Northumbrian r, and the natives value themselves upon that imperfection, because, forsooth, it shews the antiquity of their blood.

From hence lay a road into Scotland, by the town of Kelso, which I after pass’d thro’, but at present not willing to omit seeing Berwick upon Tweed, we turn’d to the east, and visited that old frontier, where indeed there is one thing very fine, and that is, the bridge over the Tweed, built by Queen Elizabeth, a noble, stately work, consisting of sixteen arches, and joining, as may be said, the two kingdoms. As for the town it self, it is old, decay’d, and neither populous nor rich; the chief trade I found here was in corn and salmon.

I am now on the borders of Scotland, and must either enter upon it now, and so mix it with other parts of England, or take up short, and call to mind that I have not yet taken the western coast of England in my way, I mean, the three north west counties of Lancaster, Westmoreland and Cumberland.

I cannot but say, that since I entred upon the view of these northern counties, I have many times repented that I so early resolved to decline the delightful view of antiquity, here being so great and so surprizing a variety, and every day more and more discovered; and abundance since the tour which the learned Mr. Cambden made this way, nay, many since his learned continuator; for as the trophies, the buildings, the religious, as well as military remains, as well of the Britains, as of the Romans, Saxons, and Normans, are but, as we may say, like wounds hastily healed up, the calous spread over them being remov’d, they appear presently; and though the earth, which naturally eats into the strongest stones, metals, or whatever substance, simple or compound, is or can be by art or nature prepared to endure it, has defaced the surface, the figures and inscriptions upon most of these things, yet they are beautiful, even in their decay, and the venerable face of antiquity has some thing so pleasing, so surprizing, so satisfactory in it, especially to those who have with any attention read the histories of pass’d ages, that I know nothing renders travelling more pleasant and more agreeable.

But I have condemn’d my self (unhappily) to silence upon this head, and therefore, resolving however to pay this homage to the dust of gallant men and glorious nations, I say therefore, I must submit and go on; and as I resolve once more to travel through all these northern countries upon this very errand, and to please, nay, satiate my self with a strict search into every thing that is curious in nature and antiquity. I mortify my self now with the more case, in hopes of letting the world see, some time or other, that I have not spent those hours in a vain and barren search, or come back without a sufficient reward to all the labours of a diligent enquirer; but of this by the way, I must, for the present, make this circuit shorter than usual, and leave the description of the other three counties to my next.

I am, &c.

Letter X

Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland

SIR,-Having thus finished my account of the east side of the north division of England, I put a stop here, that I may observe the exact course of my travels; for as I do not write you these letters from the observations of one single journey, so I describe things as my journies lead me, having no less than five times travelled through the north of England, and almost every time by a different rout; purposely that I might see every thing that was to be seen, and, if possible, know every thing that is to be known, though not (at least till the last general journey) knowing or resolving upon writing these accounts to you. Now as by my exact observations on all these several traverses of the country, I hope I am not the less able, so I am sure I am much the better furnished, as well to tell you wherein others have ignorantly or superficially represented things, as to give you such other and fuller accounts, as in your own intended travels you will find confirmed, and by which you will be able the better to guide your farther equines.

I entred Lancashire at the remotest western point of that county, having been at West-Chester upon a particular occasion, and from thence ferry’d over from the Cestrian Chersonesus, as I have already call’d it, to Liverpoole. This narrow slip of land, rich, fertile and full of inhabitants, tho’ formerly, as authors say, a meer waste and desolate forest, is called Wirall, or by some Wirehall. Here is a ferry over the Mersee, which, at full sea, is more than two miles over. We land on the flat shore on the other side, and are contented to ride through the water for some length, not on horseback but on the shoulders of some honest Lancashire clown, who comes knee deep to the boat side, to truss you up, and then runs away with you, as nimbly as you desire to ride, unless his trot were easier; for I was shaken by him that I had the luck to be carry’d by more than I car’d for, and much worse than a hard trotting horse would have shaken me.

Liverpoole is one of the wonders of Britain, and that more, in my opinion, than any of the wonders of the Peak; the town was, at my first visiting it, about the year 1680, a large, handsome, well built and encreasing or thriving town; at my second visit, anno 1690, it was much bigger than at my first seeing it, and, by the report of the inhabitants, more than twice as big as it was twenty years before that; but, I think, I may safely say at this my third seeing it, for I was surpriz’d at the view, it was more than double what it was at the second; and, I am told, that it still visibly encreases both in wealth, people, business and buildings: What it may grow to in time, I know not.

There are no fortifications either to landward or seaward, the inhabitants resting secure under the protection of the general peace; though when the late northern insurrection spread down their way, and came to Preston, they could have been glad of walls and gates; and indeed, had the rebel party had time to have advanced to Warrington, seized the pass there, and taken Manchester, as they would certainly have done in three days more, it would have fared but very ill with Liverpoole; who could have made but little resistance against an arm’d and desperate body of men, such as they appeared to be, and by that time would have been: Besides, the invaders would here have found not the sweets of plunder only, but arms, ammunition, powder and lead, all which they extreamly wanted; they would have had ships also to have facilitated a communication with their fellows in Ireland, who would have throng’d over upon the least view of their success, if it had been only in hopes of plunder.

But heaven had Liverpoole in its particular protection, as well as the whole kingdom; the rebels were met with, fought and defeated, before they gat leave to get so far, or to make any offer that way. The story of which, as it does not belong to this work, so it is too recent in memory, to need any account of it here, other than in general.

The town has now an opulent, flourishing and encreasing trade, not rivalling Bristol, in the trade to Virginia, and the English island colonies in America only, but is in a fair way to exceed and eclipse it, by encreasing every way in wealth and shipping. They trade round the whole island, send ships to Norway, to Hamburgh, and to the Baltick, as also to Holland and Flanders; so that, in a word, they are almost become like the Londoners, universal merchants.

The trade of Liverpoole is not my particular province, so I shall be short in that part; it consists not only in merchandizing and correspondencies beyond seas; but as they import almost all kinds of foreign goods, they have consequently a great inland trade, and a great correspondence with Ireland, and with Scotland, for their consumption, exactly as it is with Bristol; and they really divide the trade with Bristol upon very remarkable equalities.

Bristol lies open to the Irish Sea, so does Liverpoole: Bristol trades chiefly to the south and west parts of Ireland; from Dublin in the east, to Galloway west; Liverpoole has all the trade of the east shore and the north from the harbour of Dublin to London Derry.

Bristol has the trade of South Wales; Liverpoole great part of the trade of North Wales; Bristol has the south west counties of England, and some north of it, as high as Bridge North, and perhaps to Shrewsbury; Liverpoole has all the northern counties, and a large consumption of goods in Cheshire and Staffordshire are supplied from Liverpoole. It is some advantage to the growing commerce of this town, that the freemen of it are, in consequence of that freedom, free also of Bristol; and they are free also of the corporations of Waterford and Wexford in the kingdom of Ireland. Not that these corporation privileges are of any great value to Liverpoole in its foreign trade, but in particular cases it may be some advantage, as in town duties, in admitting them to set up trades in those corporations, and the like.

The people of Liverpoole seem to have a different scene of commerce to act on from the city of Bristol, which to me is a particular advantage to both, namely, that though they may rival one another in their appearances, in their number of shipping, and in several particulars, yet they need not interfere with one another’s business, but either of them seem to have room enough to extend their trade, even at home and abroad, without clashing with one another. One has all the north, and the other all the south of Britain to correspond in. As for Wales, ’tis, as it were, divided between them by nature it self. Bristol lies open to South Wales, and into the very heart of it, by the navigation of the Rivers Wye and Lug, and by the many open harbours all the way to Milford Haven and St. David’s, and into all the east side of Wales, and the counties of Monmouth, Hereford and Salop, by the Severn; Liverpoole has the same with North Wales, by the water of Dee, the Cluyd, the Conway, Canal of the Mona, and all the rivers in Carnarvon Bay.

Ireland is, as it were, all their own, and shared between them, as above; and for the northern coast of it, if the Liverpoole men have not the whole fishery, or, at least, in company with the merchants of London Derry, the fault is their own. The situation of Liverpoole gives it a very great advantage to improve their commerce, and extend it in the northern inland counties of England, particularly into Cheshire and Staffordshire, by the new navigation of the Rivers Mersee, the Weaver, and the Dane, by the last of which they come so near the Trent with their goods, that they make no difficulty to carry them by land to Burton, and from thence correspond quite through the kingdom, even to Hull; and they begin to be very sensible of the advantage of such a commerce. But I must not dwell here; I might otherwise take up great part of the sheets I have left in describing the commerce of this town, and some of its neighbours.

I return therefore to the description of it as a town; the situation being on the north bank of the river, and with the particular disadvantage of a flat shore. This exposed the merchants to great difficulties in their business; for though the harbour was good, and the ships rode well in the offing, yet they were obliged to ride there as in a road rather than a harbour. Here was no mole or haven to bring in their ships and lay them up, (as the seamen call it) for the winter; nor any key for the delivering their goods, as at Bristol, Biddiford, Newcastle, Hull, and other sea ports: Upon this, the inhabitants and merchants have, of late years, and since the visible encrease of their trade, made a large basin or wet dock, at the east end of the town, where, at an immense charge, the place considered, they have brought the tide from the Mersee to flow up by an opening that looks to the south, and the ships go in north; so that the town entirely shelters it from the westerly and northerly winds, the hills from the easterly, and the ships lye, as in a mill-pond, with the utmost safety and convenience. As this is so great a benefit to the town, and that the like is not to be seen in any place in England but here, I mean London excepted, it is well worth the observation and imitation of many other trading places in Britain who want such a convenience, and, for want of it, lose their trade.

The new church built on the north side of the town is worth observation. ’Tis a noble, large building, all of stone, well fmish’d; has in it a fine font of marble placed in the body of the church, surrounded with a beautiful iron pallisado; the gift of the late Mr. Heysham, a merchant of London, but considerably concerned in trade on this side, and for many years Member of Parliament for Lancaster. There is a beautiful tower to this church, and a new ring of eight very good bells. The town-house is a fine modern building, standing and upon pillars of free-stone; the place under it is their Tolsey or Exchange, for the meeting of their merchants; but they begin to want room, and talk of enlarging it or removing the Exchange to the other part of the town, where the ships and the merchants business is nearer hand.

In a word, there is no town in England, London excepted, that can equal Liverpoole for the fineness of the streets, and beauty of the buildings; many of the houses are all of free stone, and compleatly finished; and all the rest (of the new part I mean) of brick, as handsomely built as London it self. Mr. Cambden says, it was a neat and populous town in his time; his reverend continuator confirms what I have said thus, that it was more than doubly encreased in buildings and people in twenty eight years, and that the customs were augmented tenfold in the same time; to which I am to add, that they are now much greater, that being written about two and thirty years ago, before the new church, or the wet dock, mentioned above, were made, and we know they have gone on encreasing in trade, buildings and people, to this day. I refer the reader therefore to judge of the probable greatness of it now.

From hence the Mersee opening into the Irish Sea, we could see the great and famous road of Hile Lake, made famous for the shipping off, or rather rendezvous of the army and fleet under King William, for the conquest of Ireland, an. 1689, for here the men of war rode as our ships do in the Downs, till the transports came to them from Chester and this town.

The sea coast affords little remarkable on the west side of this port, till we come farther north; so we left that part of the county, and going east we came to Warrington. This is a large market town upon the River Mersee, over which there is a stately stone bridge, which is the only bridge of communication for the whole county with the county of Chester; it is on the great road from London leading to Carlisle and Scotland, and, in case of war, has always been esteemed a pass of the utmost importance. It was found to be so upon several extraordinary occasions in the time of the late civil war; and had the rebels advanced thus far in the late Presten affair, so as to have made themselves masters of it, it would have been so again; and, on that account, the king’s forces took special care, by a speedy advance to secure it.

Warrington is a large, populous old built town, but rich and full of good country tradesmen. Here is particularly a weekly market for linnen, as I saw at Wrexham in Wales, a market for flannel. The linnen sold at this market, is, generally speaking, a sort of table linnen, called huk-a-back or huk-a-buk; ’tis wail known among the good housewives, so I need not describe it. I was told there are generally as many pieces of this linnen sold here every market day as amounts to five hundred pounds value, sometimes much more, and all made in the neighbourhood of the place.

From hence, on the road to Manchester, we pass’d the great bog or waste call’d Chatmos, the first of that kind that we see in England, from any of the south parts hither. It extends on the left-hand of the road for five or six miles east and west, and they told us it was, in some places, seven or eight miles from north to south. The nature of these mosses, for we found there are many of them in this country; is this, and you will take this for a description of all the rest.

The surface, at a distance, looks black and dirty, and is indeed frightful to think of, for it will bear neither horse or man, unless in an exceeding dry season, and then not so as to be passable, or that any one should travel over them.

The substance of the surface seems to be a collection of the small roots of innumerable vegetables matted together, inter-woven so thick, as well the bigger roots as the smaller fibres, that it makes a substance hard enough to cut out into turf, or rather peat, which, in some places, the people cut out, and piling them up in the sun, dry them for their fewel. The roots I speak of are generally small and soft not unlike the roots of asparagus or of bearbind, they have no earth among them, except what they contract from the air, and dust flying in it, but the rain keeps them, as it were, always growing, though not much encreasing.

In some places the surface of this kind lies thicker, in some not very thick. We saw it in some places eight or nine foot thick, and the water that dreins from it look’d clear, but of a deep brown, like stale beer. What nature meant by such a useless production, ’tis hard to imagine; but the land is entirely waste, except, as above, for the poor cottagers fuel, and the quantity used for that is very small.

Under this moss, or rather in the very body of it, not here only, but in several like places, and perhaps in all of them, those antient fir trees are found, of which so much dispute has been what they are or were, but especially how they should come there. Much mob-learning is sometimes expended upon these questions, which, in my weak judgment, amounts to no more than this; That nature, whose works are all directed by a superior hand, has been guided to produce trees here under ground, as she does in other places above ground; that these live rather than grow, though ’tis manifest they encrease too, otherwise they would not be found of so great a bulk; that as the trees above the surface grow erect and high, these lie prone and horizontal; those shoot forth branches and leaves; these shoot forth no branches or leaves, yet have a vegetation by methods directed by nature, and particularly to that kind; and ’tis remarkable, that as if they lie buried they will grow and encrease, so if you take them up, and plant them in the air, they will wither and die; and why should this be more strange than that a fish will strangle in the air, and a bird drown in the water, or than that every thing lives in its proper element, and will not live, or at least not thrive out of it.

It is observable, that these trees are a kind of fir, and are very full of turpentine. Whether there is any tar in them I am not positive, but I suppose there is. And yet I do not see, that for this reason they should not be a natural ordinary product, as other vegetables are.

If it be enquired, why no kind of trees should grow thus but fir; it may be as well ask’d, why no stone grows in such or such quarries, or countries, but marble, or in others than free stone, nature alone can resolve that part.

As to their being brought hither by the general convulsion of the globe at the deluge, the thought is so mean, and the thing so incongruous, that I think it neither needs or deserves any other notice.

From hence we came on to Manchester, one of the greatest, if not really the greatest meer village in England. It is neither a wall’d town, city, or corporation; they send no members to Parliament; and the highest magistrate they have is a constable or headborough; and yet it has a collegiate church, several parishes, takes up a large space of ground, and, including the suburb, or that part of the town called — over the bridge; it is said to contain above fifty thousand people; and though some people may think this strange, and that I speak by guess, and without judgment, I shall justify my opinion so well, that I believe, it will convince you my calculation is at least very probable, and much under what fame tells us is true.

The Manchester trade we all know; and all that are concerned in it know that it is, as all our other manufactures are, very much encreased within these thirty or forty years especially beyond what it was before; and as the manufacture is encreased, the people must be encreased of course. It is true, that the encrease of the manufacture may be by its extending itself farther in the country, and so more hands may be employed in the county without any encrease in the town. But I answer that though this is possible, yet as the town and parish of Manchester is the center of the manufacture, the encrease of that manufacture would certainly encrease there first, and then the people there not being sufficient, it might spread itself further.

But the encrease of buildings at Manchester within these few years, is a confirmation of the encrease of people; for that within very few years past, here, as at Liverpoole, and as at Froom in Somersetshire, the town is extended in a surprising manner; abundance, not of new houses only, but of new streets of houses, are added, a new church also, and they talk of another, and a fine new square is at this time building; so that the town is almost double to what it was a few years ago, and more than double to what it was at the time I am to mention.

Now to go back to the last age, the right reverend continuator of Mr. Cambden tells us positively, that sixty years before his writing, and that is now thirty-two years ago, there were computed twenty thousand communicants in Manchester parish, for then the whole town was but one parish. Now if there were twenty thousand communicants, we may be allowed to suppose ten thousand children, from fifteen years old down wards, which is thirty thousand people; and if the town is since more than doubled in buildings, and the trade manifestly encreased, as I believe every one will grant; and also that I take in the suburb or village of — to it, which is another parish, I think my computation of fifty thousand people to be not reasonable only, but much within compass; and some of the antient inhabitants are of the opinion there are above sixty thousand.

If then this calculation is just, as I believe it really is, you have here then an open village, which is greater and more populous than many, nay, than most cities in England, not York, Lincoln, Chester, Salisbury, Winchester, Worcester, Gloucester, no not Norwich it self, can come up to it; and for lesser cities, two or three put together, would not equal it, such as Peterborough, Ely, and Carlisle, or such as Bath, Wells and Litchfield, and the like of some others.

I must not quit Manchester without giving some account of the college there, which has been very famous for learning and learned men, even in our age; and has just now given a bishop to the church in the person of the late master Dr. Peploe, now Lord Bishop of Chester.

The town of Manchester boasts of four extraordinary foundations, viz. a college, an hospital, a free-school, and a library, all very well supported.

The college was the charity of Thomas, Lord Delaware, who being but the cadet of the family, was bred a scholar, and was in orders; afterwards became rector of the parish, and enjoy’d the same many years, succeeding to that honour by the decease of his eider brother without heirs.

He founded the college anno 1421, after he was come to the honour and estate of his brother. By the foundation it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and the two patron saints of France and England, St. Dennis and St. George.

The foundation escaped the general ruin in the time of Henry VIII. but was dissolved in the reign of his successor Edward VI. and the revenues fell to the Crown; but they were restored by Queen Mary, and the house re-established upon the first foundation, though with several additions.

Queen Elizabeth enquiring into the nature of the gift, and having a favourable representation of it as a seminary not of Popery but of learning and true religion, founded it anew, at the same time as she did the great free-school at Shrewsbury. This was anno 1578. and as, I say, she refounded it, so she new christen’d it, gave it the name it still enjoys, of Christ’s College in Manchester, and settled its antient revenues as far as they could be recovered; but there had been great dilapidations in the time of the former unsettled governours of it by several former foundations, as follows:

The college was first founded, A.D. 1421, by Thomas de la Ware, at first, rector of the said parish church, and brother to the Lord De la Ware, whom he succeeded in the estate and honour; and then himself founded a college there, consisting of one master or keeper, eight fellows chaplains, four clerks, and six choristers, in honour of St. Mary, (to whom the said parish church was formerly dedicated) St. Dennis of France, and St. George of England.

This foundation was dissolved 1547, in the first year of King Edward VI. the lands and revenues of it taken into the king’s hands, and by him demised to the Earl of Derby, and the college-house, and some lands sold to the said earl.

After this, the college was refounded by Queen Mary, who restored most of the lands and revenues, only the college it self, and some of its revenues, remained still in the hands of the Earl of Derby.

It was also founded anew by Queen Elizabeth, A.D. 1578. by the name of Christ’s College, in Manchester, consisting of one warden, four fellows, two chaplains, four singing men, and four choristers, the number being lessened, because the revenues were so; chiefly by the covetousness and base dealing of Thomas Herle, then warden, and his fellows, who sold away, or made such long leases of the revenues, as could never yet, some of them, be retrieved.

It was last of all refounded by King Charles the First, A.D. 1636, consisting then of one warden, four fellows, two chaplains, four singing-men, and four choristers, and incorporating them, as before, by the name of the Warden and Fellows of Christ’s College in Manchester, the statutes for the same being drawn up by Archbishop Laud.

The hospital was founded by Humphry Cheetham, Esq; and incorporated by King Charles the Second, designed by the said bountiful benefactor for the maintenance of forty poor boys out of the town and parish of Manchester, and some other neighbouring parishes; but since ’tis enlarged to the number of sixty, by the governours of the said hospital, to be taken in between the age of six and ten, and there maintain’d with meat, drink, lodging and cloaths, to the age of fourteen, and then to be bound apprentices to some honest trade or calling, at the charge of the said hospital; for the maintenance of which he endowed it with the yearly revenue of 420l . which is since improved by the care and good husbandry of the feoffees or governours, to the yearly sum of 517l . 8s. 4d . they having laid out in the purchase of lands the sum of 1825l. which was saved out of the yearly income, over and above the maintenance of the poor children, and others, belonging to the said hospital, wherein there are annually near seventy persons provided for. By the bounty of the said founder, is also erected a very fair and spacious library, already furnished with a competent stock of choice and valuable books, to the number of near four thousand, and daily increasing with the income of no, per annum, settled upon the same by the said worthy benefactor, to buy books for ever, and to afford a competent salary for a library keeper. There is also a large school for the hospital boys, where they are daily instructed, and taught to read and write.

The publick school was founded, A.D. 1519. by Hugh Oldham, D.D. and Bishop of Exeter, who bought the lands on which the school stands, and took the mills there in lease on the Lord De la Ware, for sixty years; afterwards, with the bishop’s money, Hugh Benwick, and Joan his sister, purchased of the Lord De la Ware, his land in Ascots, and the mills upon right and left of them in feoffment to the said free-school for ever, which revenues are of late very much encreased by the feoffees of the schools; who, out of the improvements, have as well considerably augmented the masters salaries, as the exhibitions annually allowed to the maintenance of such scholars at the university, as the warden of the college and the high master shall think requisite, and have besides, for some years past, added a third master, for whom they have lately erected a new and convenient school at the end of the other. Besides these publick benefactions and endowments, there have been several other considerable sums of money, and annual revenues, left and bequeathed to the poor of the said town, who are thereby, with the kindness and charity of the present inhabitants, competently provided for, without starving at home, or being forced to seek relief abroad.

As for the antiquity of the place, I have no room to mention it here, though the authors who have mentioned it say much of that part too; nor is it my business, the antiquity of the manufacture indeed is what is of most consideration; and this, though we cannot trace it by history, yet we have reason to believe it began something earlier than the great woollen manufactures in other parts of England, of which I have spoken so often, because the cotton might it self come from the Mediterranean, and be known by correspondents in those countries, when that of wooll was not push’d at, because our neighbours wrought the goods, and though they bought the wool from England, yet we did not want the goods; whereas, without making the cotton goods at home, our people could not have them at all; and that necessity, which is the mother of invention, might put them upon one; whereas having not the same necessity, ignorance and indolence prevented the other.

I am the rather of this opinion too, because Mr. Cambden speaks of this manufacture too, by the name of Manchester Cottons, and that being written in Queen Elizabeth’s time, when the woollen manufacture was, though much improved, yet, as we may say, in its infancy, or, at least, not at full age; we may reasonably believe, that cotton was the eider manufacture of the two, and that by some considerable time. This manufacture of Manchester Cottons, as it seems they were then call’d, I suppose is the same that is now call’d fustian or dimity, or that both these are but different kinds of the other.

I cannot doubt but this encreasing town will, some time or other, obtain some better face of government, and be incorporated, as it very well deserves to be.

The River Irwell runs close by this town, and receives the little River Irke just above the town, on the north and north east side. There is a very firm, but antient stone bridge over the Irwell, which is built exceeding high, because this river, though not great, yet coming from the mountainous part of the country, swells sometimes so suddenly, that in one night’s time they told me the waters would frequently rise four or five yards, and the next day fall as hastily as they rose.

The author of the Geographical Dictionary places this town upon the bank of the River Spolden, which Mr. Cambden’s continuator, mentioned so often, takes notice of as a mistake, and so it is; but I suppose ’twas occasioned by this: There is a river named Spodden, not Spolden, which rising under Blackstone Edge, runs into the Roch at Rochdale, and so losing its name in the Roch, runs into the Irwell, about Ratcliff, six or seven miles above Manchester, and, in some maps, they have made not the Spodden lose its name in the Roch, but the Roch in the Spodden, and so give it yet its own name after it joins the Irwell, and on to Manchester.

About eight mile from Manchester, north west, lies Bolton, the town which gives title to the noble family of Powlet, Dukes of Bolton, raised to the heighth of duke by the late King William, at the same time, or near it, with the Dukes of Bedford, Devonshire, Rutland and Newcastle. We saw nothing remarkable in this town, but that the cotton manufacture reach’d hither; but the place did not, like Manchester, seem so flourishing and encreasing.

On the left hand of this town, west, even to the sea-shore, there are not many towns of note, except Wiggan, on the high post road, and Ormskirk, near which we saw Latham House, famous for its being not only gallantly defended in the times of the late fatal wars, but that it was so by a woman; for the Lady Charlotte, Countess of Derby, defended the house to the last extremity against the Parliament forces; nor could she ever be brought to capitulate, but kept the hold till Prince Rupert, with a strong body of the King’s army, came to her relief, and obliged the enemy to raise their siege, anno 1644: It was indeed ruin’d in a second siege, and is not yet fully recovered from the calamity of it.

In this town of Bolton the old Earl of Derby was beheaded by the Parliament, or by the army rather, in the time of those fatal wars, October 15. 1651.

In the neighbourhood of this town, that is to say, between Wiggan and Bolton, in the estate of Sir Roger Bradshaw, is found that kind of coal they call Canell or Candle Goal, which, tho’ they are found here in great plenty, and are very cheap, are yet very singular; for there are none such to be seen in Britain, or perhaps in the world besides: They so soon take fire, that, by putting a lighted candle to them, they are presently in a flame, and yet hold fire as long as any coals whatever, and more or less, as they are placed in the grate or hearth, whether flat or edg’d, whether right up and down, and polar, or level and horizontal.

They are smooth and slick when the pieces part from one another, and will polish like alabaster; then a lady may take them up in a cambrick handkerchief and they will not soil it, though they are as black as the deepest jet. They are the most pleasant agreeable fuel that can be found, but they are remote; and though some of them have been brought to London, yet they are so dear, by reason of the carriage, that few care to buy them; we saw some of them at Warrington too, but all from the same pits.

We saw nothing remarkable in Ormskirk but the monuments of the antient family of the Stanly’s, before they came to the title of Earls of Derby. Here they are all buried, and have some very fine, tho’ antient, and even decayed remains of monuments; and here they continue to bury the family still, whose seat of Latham, as I said before, is but hard by. Mr. Cambden gives a full account how Latham House, and a great estate with it, came to the Earls of Derby by marriage, and has continued in the family to this day.

It is not to be forgot that Warrington is near Winnick, a small town, but a large parish, and great benefice; but though it might be the greatest in England in those days, ’tis very far from being now so; for we never heard that it was worth above 8ool per annum, whereas Sedgfield, near Durham, is valued at this time at 12ool . per annum at least.

I must not pass over here the Burning Well, as ’tis called, near Wiggan, though I must acknowledge, that being turned from Bolton towards Rochdale, before I heard any thing of it that I gave any credit to, I did not go back to see it; not that I had not curiosity enough, if I had been satisfied it was valuable, but the country people, who usually enlarge upon such things rather than lessen them, made light of this; and so I cool’d in my curiosity.

But the account given in publick of it is also so particular, that it abundantly makes amends to me for my not seeing it. Mr. Cambden’s continuator gives the following account of it: Within a mile and a half of Wiggan is a well, which does not appear to be a spring but rather rain water, at first sight. There is nothing about it that seems extraordinary, but, upon emptying it, there presently breaks out a sulphureous vapour, which makes the water bubble up as if it boiled; a candle being put to it, it presently takes fire, and burns like brandy; the name, in a calm season, will continue a whole day, by the heat whereof they can boil eggs, meat, &c. though the water it self be cold By this bubbling the water does not encrease, but is only kept in motion by the constant halitus of the vapours breaking out; the same water taken out of the well will not burn, as neither the mud upon which the halitus has beat.

Dr. Leigh, in his Natural History of Lancashire, not only describes it, but accounts very judiciously for the thing it self, and by it for the warmth of all not baths.

As I have noted above, we turned east here, and came to Bury, a small market town on the River Roch, mentioned above, where we observed the manufacture of cotton, which are so great at Manchester, Bolton, &c. was ended, and woollen manufacture of coarse sorts, called half-thicks and kersies, began, on which the whole town seemed busy and hard at work; and so in all the villages about it.

From thence we went on to Rochdale, a larger and more populous town than Bury, and under the hills, called Blackstone Edge, of which I have spoken sufficiently in my former letter having travelled this way to Hallifax, &c.

But I must now look northward. This great county, as we advance, grows narrow, and not only so, but mountainous, and not so full of towns or inhabitants as the south part, which I have been over; Presten and Lancaster are the only towns of note remaining.

Preston is a fine town, and tolerably full of people, but not like Liverpoole or Manchester; besides, we come now beyond the trading part of the county. Here’s no manufacture; the town is full of attorneys, proctors, and notaries, the process of law here being of a different nature than they are in other places, it being a dutchy and county palatine, and having particular privileges of its own. The people are gay here, though not perhaps the richer for that; but it has by that obtained the name of Proud Preston. Here is a great deal of good company, but not so much, they say, as was before the late bloody action with the northern rebels; not that the battle hurt many of the immediate inhabitants, but so many families there and thereabout, have been touched by the consequences of it, that it will not be recovered in a few years, and they seem to have a kind of remembrance of things upon them still.

Lancaster is the next, the county town, and situate near the mouth of the River Lone or Lune. The town is antient; it lies, as it were, in its own ruins, and has little to recommend it but a decayed castle, and a more decayed port (for no ships of any considerable burthen); the bridge is handsome and strong, but, as before, here is little or no trade, and few people. It surprized me to hear that there is not above sixty parishes in all this large county, but many of them are necessarily very large.

This part of the country seemed very strange to us, after coming out of so rich, populous and fruitful a place, as I have just now described; for here we were, as it were, lock’d in between the hills on one side high as the clouds, and prodigiously higher, and the sea on the other, and the sea it self seemed desolate and wild, for it was a sea without ships, here being no sea port or place of trade, especially for merchants; so that, except colliers passing between Ireland and Whitehaven with coals, the people told us they should not see a ship under sail for many weeks together.

Here, among the mountains, our curiosity was frequently moved to enquire what high hill this was, or that; and we soon were saluted with that old verse which I remembered to have seen in Mr. Camden, viz.

Ingle rough, Penndel-hill and Penitent,
Are the highest hills between Scotland and Trent?

Indeed, they were, in my thoughts, monstrous high; but in a country all mountainous and full of innumerable high hills, it was not easy for a traveller to judge which was highest. Nor were these hills high and formidable only, but they had a kind of an unhospitable terror in them. Here were no rich pleasant valleys between them, as among the Alps; no lead mines and veins of rich oar, as in the Peak; no coal pits, as in the hills about Hallifax, much less gold, as in the Andes, but all barren and wild, of no use or advantage either to man or beast. Indeed here was formerly, as far back as Queen Elizabeth, some copper mines, and they wrought them to good advantage; but whether the vein of oar fail’d, or what else was the reason, we know not, but they are all given over long since, and this part of the country yields little or nothing at all.

But I must not forget Winander Meer, which makes the utmost northern bounds of this shire, which is famous for the char fish found here and hereabout, and no where else in England; it is found indeed in some of the rivers or lakes in Swisserland among the Alps, and some say in North Wales; but I question the last. It is a curious fish, and, as a dainty, is potted, and sent far and near, as presents to the best friends; but the quantity they take also is not great. Mr. Cambden’s continuator calls it very happily the Golden Alpine Trout.

Here we entred Westmoreland, a country eminent only for being the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over in England, or even in Wales it self; the west side, which borders on Cumberland, is indeed bounded by a chain of almost unpassable mountains, which, in the language of the country, are called Fells, and these are called Fourness Fells, from the famous promontory bearing that name, and an abbey built also in antient times, and called Fourness.

But ’tis of no advantage to represent horror, as the character of a country, in the middle of all the frightful appearances to the right and left; yet here are some very pleasant, populous and manufacturing towns, and consequently populous. Such is Kirby Launsdale, or Lunedale, because it stands on the River Lune, which is the boundary of the county, and leaves the hills of Mallerstang Forest, which are, in many places, unpassable. The manufacture which the people are employed in here, are chiefly woollen cloths, at Kirkby Launsdale, and Kendal, and farther northward, a security for the continuance of the people in the place; for here is a vast concourse of people. In a word, I find no room to doubt the hills above mentioned go on to Scotland, for from some of the heighths hereabouts, they can see even into Scotland it self.

The upper, or northern part of the county, has two manufacturing towns, called Kirkby Stephen, and Appleby; the last is the capital of the county, yet neither of them offer any thing considerable to our observation, except a great manufacture of yarn stockings at the former.

My Lord Lonsdale, or Lonsdown, of the antient family of Louther, has a very noble and antient seat at Louther, and upon the River Louther; all together add a dignity to the family, and are tests of its antiquity. The house, as now adorned, is beautiful; but the stables are the wonder of England, of which, having not taken an exact view of them my self, I am loth to say, at second-hand, what fame has said; but, in general, they are certainly the largest and finest that any gentleman or nobleman in Britain is master of.

When we entred at the south part of this county, I began indeed to think of Merionethshire, and the mountains of Snowden in North Wales, seeing nothing round me, in many places, but unpassable hills, whose tops, covered with snow, seemed to tell us all the pleasant part of England was at an end. The great Winander Meer, like the Mediterranean Sea, extends it self on the west side for twelve miles and more, reckoning from North Bridge on the south, where it contracts it self again into a river up to Grasmere North, and is the boundary of the county, as I have said, on that side; and the English Appenine, as Mr. Cambden calls them, that is, the mountains of Yorkshire North Riding, lie like a wall of brass on the other; and in deed, in one sense, they are a wall of brass; for it is the opinion of the most skilful and knowing people in the country, that those mountains are full of inexhaustible mines of copper, and so rich, as not only to be called brass, copper being convertible into brass, but also to have a quantity of gold in them also: It is true, they do at this time work at some copper mines here, but they find the oar lies so deep, and is so hard to come at, that they do not seem to go cheerfully on.

But notwithstanding this terrible aspect of the hills, when having passed by Kendal, and descending the frightful mountains, we began to find the flat country show it self; we soon saw that the north and north east part of the county was pleasant, rich, fruitful, and, compared to the other part, populous. The River Eden, the last river of England on this side, as the Tyne is on the other, rises in this part out of the side of a monstrous high mountain, called Mowill Hill, or Wildbore Fell, which you please; after which, it runs through the middle of this vale, which is, as above, a very agreeable and pleasant country, or perhaps seems to be so the more, by the horror of the eastern and southern part.

In this vale, and on the bank of this river, stands Appleby, once a flourishing city, now a scattering, decayed, and half-demolished town, the fatal effects of the antient inroads of the Scots, when this being a frontier county, those invasions were frequent, and who several times were masters of this town, and at length burnt it to the ground, which blow it has not yet recovered.

The searchers after antiquity find much more to recreate their minds, and satisfy their curiosity, in these northern countries than in those farther south, which are more populous and better inhabited, because the remains of antient things have met with less injury here, where there are not so many people, or so many buildings, or alterations, enclosings and plantings, as in other places; but, for my purpose, who am to give the present state of things, here is not much to observe; nor are there many houses or seats of the nobility in this part, tho’ many antient families dwell here, as particularly Strickland, from the lands of Strickland, Wharton from Wharton Hall, Louther from the River Louther, as above, Warcop of Warcop, Langdale of Langdale, Musgrave from Musgrave, and many others.

The Roman highway, which I have so often mentioned, and which, in my last letter, I left at Leeming Lane and Peers Brigg, in the North Riding of York, enters this county from Rear Cross upon Stanmore, and crossing it almost due east and west, goes through Appleby, passing the Eden a little north from Perith, at an antient Roman station call’d Brovoniacam, where there was a large and stately stone bridge; but now the great road leads to the left-hand to Perith, in going to which we first pass the Eden, at a very good stone bridge call’d Louther Bridge, and then the Elnot over another.

Perith, or Penrith, is a handsome market town, populous, well built, and, for an inland town, has a very good share of trade. It was unhappily possessed by the late party of Scots Highland rebels, when they made that desperate push into England, and which ended at Preston; in the moor or heath, on the north part of this town, the militia of the county making a brave appearance, and infinitely out-numbering the Highlanders, were drawn up; yet, with all their bravery, they ran away, as soon as the Scots began to advance to charge them, and never fired a gun at them, leaving the town at their mercy. However, to do justice even to the rebels, they offered no injury to the town, only quartered in it one night, took what arms and ammunition they could find, and advanced towards Kendal.

From hence, in one stage, through a country full of castles, for almost every gentleman’s house is a castle, we came to Carlisle, a small, but well fortified city, the frontier place and key of England on the west sea, as Berwick upon Tweed is on the east; and in both which there have, for many years, I might say ages, been strong garrisons kept to check the invading Scots; from below this town the famous Picts Wall began, which cross’d the whole island to Newcastle upon Tyne, where I have mentioned it already.

Here also the great Roman highway, just before named, has its end, this being the utmost station of the Roman soldiers on this side.

But before I go on to speak of this town, I must go back, as we did for our particular satisfaction, to the sea coast, which, in this northern county, is more remarkable than that of Lancashire, though the other is extended much farther in length; for here are some towns of good trade; whereas in Lancashire, Liverpoole excepted, there is nothing of trade to be seen upon the whole coast.

I enquired much for the pearl fishery here, which Mr. Cambden speaks of, as a thing well known about Ravenglass and the River Ire, which was made a kind of bubble lately: But the country people, nor even the fishermen, could give us no account of any such thing; nor indeed is there any great quantity of the shell-fish to be found here (now) in which the pearl are found, I mean the large oyster or muscle. What might be in former times, I know not.

The cape or head land of St. Bees, still preserves its name; as for the lady, like that of St. Tabbs beyond Berwick, the story is become fabulous, viz. about her procuring, by her prayers, a deep snow on Midsummer Day, her taming a wild bull that did great damage in the country; these, and the like tales, I leave where I found them, (viz.) among the rubbish of the old women and the Romish priests.

In the little town, which bears her name there, is a very good free-school, founded by that known and eminent benefactor to, and promoter of pious designs, Archbishop Grindal; it is endowed very well by him, and the charity much encreased by the late Dr. Lamplugh, Archbishop of York: The library annexed to this foundation is very valuable, and still encreasing by several gifts daily added to it; and they show a list of the benefactors, in which are several persons of honour and distinction. The master is put in by the Provost and Fellows of Queen’s College in Oxon.

Under this shore, the navigation being secured by this cape of St. Bees, is the town of Whitehaven, grown up from a small place to be very considerable by the coal trade, which is encreased so considerably of late, that it is now the most eminent port in England for shipping off coals, except Newcastle and Sunderland, and even beyond the last, for they wholly supply the city of Dublin, and all the towns of Ireland on that coast; and ’tis frequent in time of war, or upon the ordinary occasion of cross winds, to have two hundred sail of ships at a time go from this place for Dublin, loaden with coals.

They have of late fallen into some merchandizing also, occasioned by the great number of their shipping, and there are now some considerable merchants; but the town is yet but young in trade, and that trade is so far from being ancient, that Mr. Cambden does not so much as name the place, and his continuator says very little of it.

About ten miles from Whitehaven north east, lies Cockermouth, upon the little River Cocker, just where it falls into the Derwent. This Derwent is famous for its springing out of those hills, call’d Derwent Fells, where the ancient copper mines were found in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and in which, it was said, there was a large quantity of gold. But they are discontinued since that time, for what reason, I know not; for there are several copper mines now working in this county, and which, as they told me, turn to very good account.

Some tell us, the copper mines on Derwent Fells were discontinued, because there being gold found among the oar, the queen claimed the royalty, and so no body would work them; which seems to be a reason why they shou’d have been applied to the search with more vigor; but be that how it will, they are left off, and the more probable account is, what a gentleman of Penrith gave us, namely, that the charge of working them was too great for the profits.

Here are still mines of black lead found, which turn to very good account, being, for ought I have yet learned, the only place in Britain where it is to be had.

Here we saw Skiddaw, one of those high hills of which, wherever you come, the people always say, they are the highest in England. Skiddaw indeed is a very high hill, but seems the higher, because not surrounded with other mountains, as is the case in most places where the other hills are, as at Cheviot, at Penigent, and at other places. From the top of Skiddaw they see plainly into Scotland, and quite into Dumfries-shire, and farther.

Cockermouth stands upon the River Derwent, about twelve miles from the sea, but more by the windings of the river, yet vessels of good burthen may come up to it. The Duke of Somerset is chief lord of this town, in right of his lady, the only heiress of the ancient family of the Piercy’s, Earls of Northumberland, and which the duke of Somerset enjoys now in right of marriage.

The castles and great houses of this estate go every where to ruin, as indeed all the castles in this county do; for there being no more enemy to be expected here, the two kingdoms being now united into one, there is no more need of strong holds here, than in any other part of the kingdom. At Cockermouth there is a castle which belongs to the same family, and, I think they told us, the duke has no less than thirteen castles in all, here and in Northumberland.

This River Derwent is noted for very good salmon, and for a very great quantity, and trout. Hence, that is, from Workington at the mouth of this river, and from Carlisle, notwithstanding the great distance, they at this time carry salmon (fresh as they take it) quite to London. This is perform’d with horses, which, changing often, go night and day without intermission, and, as they say, very much out-go the post; so that the fish come very sweet and good to London, where the extraordinary price they yield, being often sold at two shillings and sixpence to four shillings per pound, pay very well for the carriage.

They have innumerable marks of antiquity in this county, as well as in that of Westmoreland, mentioned before; and if it was not, as I said before, that antiquity is not my search in this work, yet the number of altars, monuments, and inscriptions, is such, that it would take up a larger work than this to copy them, and record them by themselves; yet, passing these, I could not but take notice of two or three more modern things, and which relate to our own nation: Such as,

That of Hart-Horn Tree, where they shew’d us the head of a stag nail’d up against a tree, or rather shew’d us the tree where they said it was nail’d up, in memory of a famous chase of a stag by one single dog. It seems the dog (not a greyhound, as Mr. Cambden’s continuator calls it, but a stanch buckhound, to be sure) chas’d a stag from this place, (Whitfield Park) as far as the Red Kirk in Scotland, which, they say, is sixty miles at least, and back again to the same place, where, being both spent, and at the last gasp, the stag strain’d all its force remaining to leap the park pales, did it, and dy’d on the inside; the hound, attempting to leap after him, had not strength to go over, but fell back, and dy’d on the outside just opposite; after which the heads of both were nail’d up upon the tree, and this distich made on them; the hound’s name, it seems, was Hercules.

Hercules kill’d Hart a Greese,

And Hart a Greese kill’d Hercules.

Another thing they told us was in the same park, viz. three oak trees which were call’d the Three Brether, the least of which was thirteen yards about; but they own’d there was but one of them left, and only the stump of that; so we did not think it worth going to see, because it would no more confirm the wonder, than the peoples affirming it by tradition only. The tree or stump left, is call’d the Three Brether Tree, that is to say, one of the three brothers, or brethren.

West of this Hart-horn Tree, and upon the old Roman way, is the famous column, call’d the Countess Pillar, the best and most beautiful piece of its kind in Britain. It is a fine column of free-stone, finely wrought, enchas’d, and in some places painted. There is an obelisk on the top, several coats of arms, and other ornaments in proper places all over it, with dials also on every side, and a brass-plate with the following inscription upon it:

THIS PILLAR WAS ERECTED ANNO MDCLVI, BY THE RIGHT HONORABLE ANNE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF PEMBROKE, AND SOLE HEIR OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE GEORGE EARL OF CUMBERLAND, ETC. FOR A MEMORIAL OF HER LAST PARTING IN THIS PLACE WITH HER GOOD AND PIOUSE MOTHER THE RIGHT HONORABLE MARGARETE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF CUMBERLAND, THE SECOUND OF APRIL, MDCXVI, IN MEMORY WHEREOF SHE ALSO LEFT AN ANNUITY OF FOUR POUNDS, TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO THE POOR WITHIN THIS PARISH OF BROUGHAM EVERY SECOND DAY OF APRIL FOR EVER UPON THE STONE TABLE HERE BY.

This Countess of Pembroke had a noble and great estate in this county, and a great many fine old seats or palaces, all which she repaired and beautified, and dwelt sometimes at one, and sometimes at another, for the benefits of her tenants, and of the poor, who she always made desirous of her presence, being better’d constantly by her bounty, and her noble house-keeping. But those estates are all since that time gone into other families. This lady was of the family of Clifford; she had no less than four castles in this county, of which Pendragon Castle was the chief, which is a fine building to this day.

At Penrith also we saw several remarkable things, some of which I find mentioned by the right reverend continuator of Mr. Cambden, and which I was glad to see, so confirm’d my observation, viz. (1.) Two remarkable pillars fourteen or fifteen foot asunder, and twelve foot high the lowest of them, though they seem equal. The people told us, they were the monument of Sir Owen Caesar, the author above-nam’d calls him, Sir Ewen Gesarius, and perhaps he may be right; but we have no inscription upon them. This Sir Owen, they tell us, was a champion of mighty strength, and of gygantick stature, and so he was, to be sure, if, as they say, he was as tall as one of the columns, and could touch both pillars with his hand at the same time.

They relate nothing but good of him, and that he exerted his mighty strength to kill robbers, such as infested the borders much in those days, others related wild boars; but the former is most probable. (2.) On the north side of the vestry of this church is erected in the wall an ancient square stone, with a memorial, intimating, that in the year 1598 there was a dreadful plague in those parts, in which there dy’d:

Persons.
In Kendal, 2500
In Penrith, 2266
In Richmond, 2200
In Carlisle, 1196
8162

N.B. By this account it should seem that every one of those towns had separately more people than the city of Carlisle, and that Kendal, which is the only manufacturing town of them, was the most populous. We did not go into the grotto on the bank of the River Eden, of which mention is made by Mr. Cambden’s continuator; the people telling us, the passage is block’d up with earth, so I must be content with telling you, that it seems to have been a lurking place, or retreat of some robbers in old time; as to its being a place of strength, I do not see any possibility of that; but its strength seems to be chiefly in its being secret and concealed; it had certainly been worth seeing, if it had been passable, the entry is long and dark, but whether strait or crooked, I cannot say, the iron gates leading to it are gone, nor is there any sign of them, or what they were hung to.

But though I am backward to dip into antiquity, yet no English man, that has any honour for the glorious memory of the greatest and truest hero of all our kings of the English or Saxon race, can go to Carlisle, and not step aside to see the monument of King Edward I. at Burgh upon the Sands, a little way out of the city Carlisle, where that victorious prince dy’d. Indeed I cannot wonder that two writers, both Scots, viz. Ridpath and Mr. Kay, should leave it, as it were, not worth their notice, that prince being the terror of Scotland, and the first compleat conqueror of their country, who brought away the sacred stone at Scone Abbey, on which their kings were crowned, also the regalia, and, in a word, made their whole country submit to his victorious arms.

Near this town, and, as the inhabitants affirm, just on the spot where the king’s tent stood in which he expired, for he died in the camp, is erected a pillar of stone near thirty foot high, besides the foundation. On the west side is the following inscription:

Memoriæ Æternae Edvardi I. Regis Angliæ longe Clarissimi, qui in Belli apparatu contra Scotos occupatus. Hic in Castris obiit. 7 Julii, A.D. 1307.

On the south side:

Nobilissimus Princeps Henricus Howard, Dux Norfolciæ, Comes Marshal Angliæ, Comes Arund. &c. . . . ..ab Edvardo I, Rege Angliæ oriundus P. 1685.

On the north side:

Johannes Aglionby, J. C. F. i.e. Juris-consultus fieri fecit. Beneath, Tho. Langstone fecit. 1685.

It is not to be ask’d why Mr. Cambden takes no notice of this because it was not erected till near an hundred years after his survey of the country, only the place was marked by the country people, or perhaps by the soldiers of his army, by a great heap of stones rolled together upon the place; but this monument was erected, as is said above, by a private gentleman, for the eternal memory of a prince, who, when he lived, was the darling of the world, both for virtue and true fame.

But I return to Carlisle: The city is strong, but small, the buildings old, but the streets fair; the great church is a venerable old pile, it seems to have been built at twice, or, as it were, rebuilt, the upper part being much more modern than the lower. King Henry VIII fortify’d this city against the Scots, and built an additional castle to it on the east side, which Mr. Cambden, though I think not justly, calls a cittadel; there is indeed another castle on the west, part of the town rounds the sea, as the wall rounds the whole, is very firm and strong.

But Carlisle is strong by situation, being almost surrounded with rivers. On the east it has the River Poterell, on the north Eden, and on the south the Cande, or Canda, or Calda, which all fall into the arm of the sea, which they call the Solway, or Solway Firth.

Here is a bridge over the Eden, which soon lets you into Scotland; for the limits are not above eight miles off, or thereabout. The south part of Scotland on this side, coming at least fifty miles farther into England, than at Berwick.

There is not a great deal of trade here either by sea or land, it being a meer frontier. On the other side the Eden we saw the Picts Wall, of which I have spoken already, and some remains of it are to be seen farther west, and of which I shall perhaps have occasion to speak again in my return. But being now at the utmost extent of England on this side, I conclude also my letter, and am,

SIR, &c.

Introduction To The Account And Description Of Scotland

HITHERTO all the descriptions of Scotland, which have been publish’d in our day, have been written by natives of that country, and that with such an air of the most scandalous partiality, that it has been far from pleasing the gentry or nobility of Scotland themselves, and much farther has it been from doing any honour to the nation or to the country.

One known author has taken pains to describe their commerce as an immense thing for magnitude, has set off their manufactures in such a figure, and as such extraordinary things, that the English are trifles to them, and their merchandizing, according to his account, must be inferior to very few, if any nation in Europe; nay, he is not asham’d to give us an account of the particulars of their exportations to China and the East Indies, to Turkey, and the Levant, where, I believe, never Scots ship yet sail’d, unless it was in the service of English merchants, or some other foreign nation.

A more modern, and I must acknowledge, more modest writer than this, knowing he could not, with a front that, perhaps, he had not yet arriv’d to, set forth his country to her advantage, by giving a real description of that part which would necessarily shew her deficiences, as well as her beauties; and retaining still that piece of northern vanity peculiar to the climate, to think mighty well of his own country, takes up with describing the seats of the nobility and gentry; a subject, which, it must be confess’d, give him a greater scope, and in which he has good materials to work on: But, even in this, it must be added he would have done better, if he would have given the noblemen and gentlemen of Scotland leave to have known their own houses again, when they saw his description of them.

I have so much honour for the noblemen and gentlemen of Scotland, that I am persuaded they will be as well pleas’d to see justice done them and their country, as to see themselves flatter’d, and the world impos’d upon about them. Their country is not so void of beauty, or their persons of merit, as to want it; and (I believe) they will not seek to be flatter’d, or be oblig’d by it,, when ’tis attempted.

But be that as it will, the world shall, for once, hear what account an Englishman shall give of Scotland, who has had occasion to see most of it, and to make critical enquiries into what he has not seen; and, if describing it, as it really is, and as in time it may be, with probable reasons for the variation, will give satisfaction to the Scots, they will be oblig’d; on the contrary I shall neither flatter them or deceive them. Scotland is here describ’d with brevity, but with justice; and the present state of things there, plac’d in as clear a light as the sheets, I am confin’d to, will admit; if this pleases, more particulars may be adventured on hereafter; if it should not, it would make me suspect the other authors I have mention’d, knew what would please their country-men better than I: But I must run the venture of that, rather than trespass upon my own truth and their modesty.

I hope it is no reflection upon Scotland to say they are where we were, I mean as to the improvement of their country and commerce; and they may be where we are.

Here are but a few things needful to bring Scotland to be (in many parts of it at least) as rich in soil, as fruitful, as populous, as full of trade, shipping, and wealth, as most, if not as the best counties of England. These few things, indeed, are such as are absolutely necessary, and, perhaps, as things stand, may be difficult: Such as

Time, public changes cannot be brought about in a day.

A change in the disposition of the common people, from a desire of travelling abroad, and wandering from home, to an industrious and diligent application to labour at home.

Stock and substance, to encourage that application: sloth is not a meer disease of the nation: The Scots are as diligent, as industrious, as apt for labour and business, and as capable of it, when they are abroad, as any people in the world; and why should they not be so at home? and, if they had encouragement, no doubt they would.

Some little alteration in their methods of husbandry, by which their lands would be improv’d, and the produce thereof turn better to account; of all which something may be said in our progress thro’ the country, as occasion presents.

In the meantime, as I shall not make a Paradise of Scotland, so I assure you I shall not make a wilderness of it. I shall endeavour to shew you what it really is, what it might be, and what, perhaps, it would much sooner have been, if some people’s engagements were made good to them, which were lustily promis’d a little before the late Union: Such as erecting manufactures there under English direction, embarking stocks from England to carry on trade, employing hands to cut down their northern woods, and make navigations to bring the fir-timber,. and deals to England, of which Scotland is able to furnish an exceeding quantity; encouraging their fishery, and abundance of fine things more which were much talk’d of I say, but little done; and of which I could say more, but it is not the business of this. work, nor, perhaps, will the age care to hear it, at least, south by Tw —

I must, therefore, be contented to give an Account of Scotland in the present state of it, and as it really is; leaving its misfortunes, and want of being improv’d as it might be, and, perhaps, ought to have been, for those to consider of, in whose power it is to mend it.

Letter XI

South-Eastern Scotland

SIR,-I am now just enter’d Scotland, and that by the ordinary way from Berwick. We tread upon Scots ground, after about three miles riding beyond Berwick; the little district between, they say, is neither in England or Scotland, and is call’d Berwickshire, as being formerly a dependant upon the town of Berwick; but we find no towns in it, only straggling farm-houses; and one sees the Tweed on one side, which fetches a reach north ward, the sea on the other, and the land between lies so high, that in stormy weather ’tis very bleak and unpleasant; however, the land is good, and compar’d to our next view, we ought to think very well of it.

The first town in Scotland is call’d Mordintown, where the minister, at that time, was a man of learning, particularly in matters of religious antiquity, and very well known for being author of a book, entitul’d, The Cyprianick Age, in defence of the Scots doctrines of the purity of the Christian ministers; a piece, that shews the author a man of a good share of learning, and a double stock of reading, especially in the most valuable part of church antiquity: His name is Lauder.

Mordintown lying to the west, the great road does not lie thro’ it, but carries us to the brow of a very high hill, where we had a large view into Scotland: But we were welcom’d into it with such a Scots gale of wind, that, besides the steepness of the hill, it oblig’d us to quit our horses, for real apprehensions of being blown off, the wind blowing full north, and the road turning towards the north, it blew directly in our faces: And I can truly say, I never was sensible of so fierce a wind, so exceeding keen and cold, for it pierc’d our very eyes, that we could scarcely bear to hold them open.

When we came down the hill, the strength of the wind was not felt so much, and, consequently, not the cold. The first town we come to is as perfectly Scots, as if you were 100 miles north of Edinburgh; nor is there the least appearance of any thing English, either in customs, habits, usages of the people, or in their way of living, eating, dress, or behaviour; any more than if they had never heard of an English nation; nor was there an Englishman to be seen, or an English family to be found among them.

On the contrary, you have in England abundance of Scotsmen, Scots customs, words, habits, and usages, even more than comes them; nay, even the buildings in the towns, and in the villages, imitate the Scots almost all over Northumberland; witness their building the houses with the stairs (to the second floor) going up on the outside of the house, so that one family may live below, and another above, without going in at the same door; which is the Scots way of living, and which we see in Alnwick and Warkworth, and several other towns; witness also their setting their corn up in great numbers of small stacks without doors, not making use of any barns, only a particular building, which they call a barn, but, which is itself no more than a threshing-floor, into which they take one of those small stacks at a time, and thresh it out, and then take in another; which we have great reason to believe was the usage of the antients, seeing we read of threshing-floors often; but very seldom, of a barn, except that of the rich glutton.

Being down this hill, we pass’d a bridge over the little River Eye, at the mouth of which there is a small habour, with a town call’d Eyemouth, or, as some call it, Heymouth, which has of late been more spoken of than formerly, by giving the title of baron to the late Duke of Marlborough, who was Duke of Marlborough, Marquis of Blandford, and Baron of Eyemouth in Scotland; and, by virtue of this title, had a right of peerage in the Parliament of Scotland. But notwithstanding all this, I never heard that he did any thing for the town, which is, at present, just what it always was, a good fishing town, and some fishing vessels belong to it; for such it is a good harbour, and for little else; in Queen Elizabeth’s time, indeed, the French held it and fortify’d it for their particular occasion; because, being the first port in Scotland, they might safely land their supplies for the Queen-Mother, who stood in great need of their assistance against the reformers: But they were oblig’d to quit both that and all the kingdom some time after, by a treaty; Queen Elizabeth supporting the reformers against her.

From this bridge we enter upon a most desolate, and, in winter, a most frightful moor for travellers, especially strangers, call’d Coudingham, or, to speak properly, Coldingham Moor; upon which, for about eight miles, you see hardly a hedge, or a tree, except in one part, and that at a good distance; nor do you meet with but one house in all the way, and that no house of entertainment; which, we thought, was but a poor reception for Scotland to give her neighbours, who were strangers, at their very first entrance into her bounds.

The place call’d Coudingham, from whence this moor derives, is an old monastery, famous before the Reformation; the monks of Coldingham being eminent for their number and wealth; as for any thing else, this Deponet saith not.

Here was formerly a little cell, or religious house also, sacred to the memory of St. Ebbe, or Ebba, daughter of King Edelfrid, King of Northumberland; who, her father being taken prisoner by the pagan Mercians, gat into a boat in the Humber, with three other women, and, by their own prayers only, for skill we may suppose they had none, nor could they labour much; yet, putting to sea, were miraculously preserv’d, and carry’d as far as Scotland; where, under a great promontory, they were driven on shore by a storm, and their boat dash’d in pieces, as indeed, any one, though knowing the place, might very well be, for the shore is all rock and high precipices for a long way.

However, being on shore, they labour’d with their hands, made themselves a little hut to lodge in, and continuing their devout prayers, the country people sustain’d them with food, till at length, gaining an opinion for their sanctity and austerity, they were address’d from far and near for their prayers, and, by the charity of the people, got enough to build a religious house at Coldingham.

Here, as fame says, when the cruel Danes came on shore, the religious lady, who was wondrous beautiful too, it seems, cut off her nose and upper lip, and made all her nuns do the same, to preserve, by that means, their chastity. But the barbarous Danes, enrag’d at them for their zeal, fir’d their nunnery, and burnt them all alive; from this lady, who, it is said, was sainted for these miracles, the promontory, where she landed, is to this day call’d St. Ebba’s Head; and vulgarly by our sailors, who nickname e very thing, St. Tabbs.

Having pass’d this desart, which indeed, makes a stranger think Scotland a terrible place, you come down a very steep hill into the Lothains, so the counties are divided, and they are spoken of in plural; because as Yorkshire is divided into the East and West Riding, so here is the East, and West, and Mid Lothain, or Louthain, and therefore justly call’d Lothains in the plural. From the top of this hill you begin to see that Scotland is not all desart; and the Low Lands, which then show themselves, give you a prospect of a fruitful and pleasant country: As soon as we come down the hill, there is a village call’d Cockburnspeth, vulgarly Cobberspeth, where nature forms a very steep and difficult pass, and where, indeed, a thousand men well furnish’d, and boldly doing their duty, would keep out an army, if there was occasion.

The first gentleman’s house we met with in Scotland was that of Dunglass, the seat of Sir James Hall; a gentleman so hospitable, so courteous to strangers, so addicted to improve and cultivate his estate, and understood it so well, that we began to see here a true representation of the gentry of Scotland; than whom, I must say, without compliment, none in Europe, understand themselves better, or better deserve the name of Gentlemen. We began also to see that Scotland was not so naturally barren, as some people represent it, but, with application and judgment, in the proper methods of improving lands, might be made to equal, not England only, but even the richest, most fruitful, most pleasant, and best improv’d part of England: Nor, if I have any skill in the nature of improving lands, which I a little pretend to, or judgment of what land itself is capable of, is the county of Middlesex, or Hertfordshire, which is esteem’d the most completely improv’d part of England, and the richest soil, capable of any improvement, which this country of East Lothain is not also capable of, if they had the same methods of improvement, and the Scots were as good husbandmen as the English; and even this too might easily be brought to pass, would the gentlemen set about it, as this gentleman has, in part, already done, at their own expence.

The truth is, the soil hereabout is very good; and tho’ they have not marle, or chalk, or much lime-stone to mend and manure it, yet, the sea-ware, as they call the weeds, which the sea casts up, abundantly supplies; and by laying this continually on the land, they plow every year without laying their lands fallow, as we do; and I found they had as much corn, as our plowmen express it, as could stand upon the ground.

The first town of note, from hence, is Dunbar, a royal burgh, so they are call’d in Scotland, which is (much what) we call a Corporation in England, and which sent members to parliament, as our corporations in England do, only that in Scotland, as is generally to be understood, they had some particular privileges separate to themselves; as that, for example, of holding a parliament, or convention of burghs by themselves, a method taken from the union of the Hans-Towns in the north, and not much unlike it, in which they meet and concert measures for the publick good of the town, and of their trade, and make by-laws, or Acts and declarations, which bind the whole body.

Nor have they lost this privilege by the Union with England; but it is preserved entire, and, perhaps, is now many ways more advantageous to them than it was before, as their trade is like to be, in time, more considerable than before.

This town of Dunbar is a handsome well-built town, upon the sea-shore; where they have a kind of a natural harbour, tho’ in the middle of dangerous rocks.

They have here a great herring-fishery, and particularly they hang herrings here, as they do at Yarmouth in Norfolk, for the smoking them; or, to speak the ordinary dialect, they make red herrings here: I cannot say they are cur’d so well as at Yarmouth, that is to say, not for keeping and sending on long voyages, as to Venice and Leghorn, though with a quick passage, they might hold it thither too: However, they do it very well. The herrings also themselves may a little make the difference, because they are generally larger and fatter than those at Yarmouth, which makes it more difficult to cure them, so as to keep in a hot country, and on a long voyage.

Between the town and the great road stands a little, but pleasant and agreeable seat of the Duke of Roxburgh, with a park well planted: And as the gentlemen of Scotland are now set upon planting forest trees, as well for ornament as profit, this park is, among the rest, very handsomely planted with young trees in vistas and walks, and will, when grown, add both to the value and beauty of the seat, which otherwise is but as a box. And here I would give an useful hint to the gentlemen who plant trees in Scotland, the want of which I have observ’d at several great houses and parks in that country, is the reason why they do not thrive, as they might otherwise do: The case is this. The gentlemen, at a great expence, get quantities of forest trees, either of their own raising, or from the nursery-men, as they call them in England. Those are set at a good length, perhaps, 12 to 15 foot high, handsome bodies, and good heads; and I acknowledge they are the best siz’d trees to plant, and that when set younger they seldom stand it, or come to the like perfection: But then these trees should be all secur’d by a triangular frame to each tree; that is to say, three large stakes set about them in an equilateral triangle, and fasten’d all together by three short cross pieces at the top; and these stakes should stand from 7 to 8 foot high.

In the center of the triangle stands the planted tree; which way soever the wind blows, the body bends from it to the cross piece, which joins the stakes on that side, and which make the triangle, and then can bend no farther; by which means the root is not shaken, or the earth mov’d and loosen’d about it, and then the tree will strike root, and grow.

But for want of this, the tree being left without support, before, as we may say, it can stand alone; and the winds, especially in winter, being very strong in that country, the tree is bended every way, the earth loosen’d continually about it, the root is often stirr’d, and the tree gets no time to strike root into the earth. And this is the reason why, in many of the gentlemen’s parks, I saw the trees stented and bauk’d; and that, tho’ they had been planted many years, they could not thrive: If this caution may be of use, as I recommend it with a desire it may, the gentlemen will not think their time lost in the reading it.

On the south west side of this town, under the mountains, near a place call’d Dun-Hill, is the fatal field where the battel, call’d the battel of Dunbar, was fought, between Oliver Cromwell and General Lesly, who then commanded the royal army; where the desperate few, for Cromwell’s army was not above 8,000 men, defeated and totally overthrew the great army of the other side, kill’d 6,000, and took 10,000 prisoners, to the surprize of the world; but that is matter of history, and none of my business at present.

Here we turn’d out of the way to see the Marquess of Tweedal’s fine park, and which is, indeed, the main thing, his fine planting at Yester, or, as Antiquity calls it, Zester; I say the park, because, tho’ there is the design of a noble house or palace, and great part of it built; yet, as it is not yet, and perhaps, will not soon be finished, there is no giving a compleat description of it.

The old Earl of Tweedale, who was a great favourite of King Charles II. tho’ not much concern’d in politic affairs, at least, not in England, yet took in from the king the love of managing what we call forest trees, and making fine vistas and avenues: The very first year after the Restoration the king laid out, with his own hand, the planting of Greenwich and St. James’s parks, and several others, and the said earl had seen them, and was extremely delighted with the method.

This occasion’d his lordship, as soon as he went down into Scotland, to lay out the plan and design of all those noble walks and woods of trees, or, as it might be call’d, forests of trees, which he afterwards saw planted, and of which a gentleman, whose judgment I cannot doubt, told me, that if ever those trees came to be worth but six pence a tree, they would be of more value than the fee simple of that estate; not meaning by that estate the land they grow on, but the whole paternal estate of the family: Nor is it unlikely, if it be true, that his lordship, and his immediate successor, planted above 6,000 acres of land all full of firr-trees; and that, where-ever it was found that any tree fail’d, they were constantly renew’d the next year.

It is certain, that many of the trees are, by this time, of much more value than six pence a tree; for they have now been planted near three-score years. And tho’ it is true, that a firr-tree is but a slow grower, and that most, if not all the trees I speak of, are firr; yet it must be allow’d that, the trees thriving very well, they must, by this time, be very valuable; and, if they stand another age, and we do not find the family needy of money enough to make them forward to cut any of them down, there may be a noble estate in firr timber, enough, if it falls into good hands, to enrich the family.

The park itself is said to be eight miles about, but the plantation of firr is not simply confin’d to the park, nor, indeed, to this estate; for the family of Tweedale has another seat near Musclebro, at Pinkey, where the same lord planted also a great number of trees, as his successors have likewise done at another seat, which they have in Fife, near Aberdour.

The house, however, must not be forgot; and if it shall be finish’d, as they now tell us it will soon be, it will not suffer itself to be forgot, for there will be few finer palaces in Scotland; I mean, if it be finish’d according to the magnificence of the first design.

As the success of this planting is a great encouragement to the nobility of Scotland to improve their estates by the same method, so we find abundance of gentlemen of estates do fall into it, and follow the example: And you hardly see a gentleman’s house, as you pass the Louthains, towards Edinburgh, but they are distinguish’d by groves and walks of firr-trees about them; which, tho’ in most places they are but young, yet they shew us, that in a few years, Scotland will not need to send to Norway for timber and deal, but will have sufficient of her own, and perhaps, be able to furnish England too with considerable quantities.

We saw an example of this at the Earl of Hadington’s house at Tinningham; where, tho’ the trees are younger than at Yester, yet, they seem to follow them apace, and to thrive so much, as that they may, one time or other, overtake them. The like we saw in Fife, at Sir William Bruce’s, and at several other places in this part of the country.

From this town of Dunbar to Edinburgh, the country may be reckon’d not only as fruitful and rich in soil, but also as pleasant and agreeable a country as any in Scotland, and, indeed, as most in England; the sea on the right hand, at a moderate distance, and the hills on the left, at a farther distance; and even those hills not extremely high, not barren, not desolate mountains, as I have given an account of some farther south, and have more to speak of farther north. But these hills are passable and habitable, and have large flocks of sheep, in many places, feeding on them, and many open roads lie over them, as from Edinburgh, and other parts towards England; as particular to Yester, and to Duns and Coldstream on the Tweed; another way to Kelsoe, where also there is a ford and a ferry over the Tweed, and likewise by another way to Tiviotdale, to Peebles and Jedburgh, of which hereafter.

The greatest thing this country wants is more enclos’d pastures, by which the farmers would keep stocks of cattle well fodder’d in the winter, and, which again, would not only furnish good store of butter, cheese, and beef to the market, but would, by their quantity of dung, enrich their soil, according to the unanswerable maxim in grazing, that stock upon land improves land.

Two other articles would encrease and enrich them, but which they never practise.

Folding their sheep.
Fallowing their plow’d land.

The first would fatten the land, and the latter destroy the weeds: But this is going out of my way. They have, indeed, near the sea, an equivalent which assists them exceedingly, namely, the sea weed, they call it the sea ware, which the sea casts up from about November to January in great quantities, and which extremely fattens and enriches the lands, so that they are plow’d from age to age without lying fallow: But farther from the sea, and where they cannot fetch it, there they are forc’d to lay the lands down to rest; when, as we say in England, they have plow’d them out of heart, and so they get no advantage by them; whereas could they, by a stock of cattle, raise a stock of muck, or by folding sheep upon them, mend them that way, and lay them down one year in three or four, as we do in England, the lands would hold from one generation to another.

But at present, for want of enclosures, they have no winter provision for black cattle; and, for want of that winter provision, the farmers have no dairies, no butter or cheese; that is to say, no quantity, and no heaps of dung in their yards to return upon the land for its improvement: And thus a good soil is impoverish’d for want of husbandry.

I deliver this once for all; for I shall make all my farther observations of this kind very short, and only proper to the particular places where I shall mention them.

From Dunbar we pass another River Tyne, which, to distinguish it from the two Tynes in Northumberland, I call Scots Tyne, tho’ not forgetting to let you know it is not so distinguish’d there, the inhabitants thereabouts scarce knowing any other. It rises in the hills near Yester, and watering part of the fine and pleasant vale I mentioned before, runs by Haddington, an old half ruin’d, yet remaining town; which shews the marks of decay’d beauty, for it was formerly a large, handsome, and well built town, or city rather, and esteem’d very strong; for, besides the walls of stone, which were in those times esteem’d strong, the English fortify’d it with lines and bastions, four of which bastions were very large, as may be seen, by the remains of them, to this day; also they had a large ditch; as for counterscarps, they were scarce known in those times. However, it was so strong, that the English, commanded by an old soldier, Sir George Wilford, defended it obstinately against a great army of Frenen and Scots, till his garrison were almost all swept away by the plague; and, even then, held out till he was reliev’d from England, when the English army quitted the place, and demolish’d the fortifications.

However, Haddington is still a good town, has some handsome streets, and well built; and they have a good stone bridge over the Tyne, tho’ the river is but small. The church was large, but has suffer’d in the ruin of the rest, and is but in part repair’d, tho’ ’tis still large enough for the number of inhabitants; for, tho’ the town is still what may be call’d populous, ’tis easy to see that it is not like what it has been. There are some monuments of the Maitlands, antient lords of this part of the country, remaining; but as the choir of the church is open and defac’d, the monuments of the dead have suffer’d with the rest.

I saw here something of a manufacture, and a face of industry; and it was the first that I had seen the least appearance of in Scotland; particularly here, was a woollen manufacture, erected by a company, or corporation, for making broad cloths, such as they call’d English cloth. And as they had English workmen employ’d, and, which was more than all, English wool, they really made very good cloth, well mix’d, and good colours: But I cannot say they made it as cheap, or could bring it so cheap to market as the English; and this was the reason, that, tho’ before the late Union, the English cloth being prohibited upon severe penalties, their own cloth supplied them very well; yet, as soon as the Union was made, and by that means the English trade open’d, the clothiers from Worcester, and the counties adjoining such as Gloucester and Wilts, brought in their goods, and under selling the Scots, those manufactories were not able to hold it.

However, as I said, here was a woollen manufacture, and the people being employ’d in spinning, dying, weaving, &c. they turn’d their hands to other things; and there is still some business going on to the advantage of the poor. Also upon the Tyne, near Haddington, we saw very good fulling-mills; whether they still have employment, I am not certain. They talk’d also of setting up a paper-mill after the Union, the French paper being not allow’d to be imported as formerly.

At the mouth of this river stands the remains of Tantallon Castle, mostly bury’d in its own ruins; it was famous, in the Scots history, for being the seat of rebellion, in the reign of King James V. And hence came the old, and odd fancy among the soldiers, that the drums beating the Scots March, say, “Ding down tan-tallon.” That beat or march being invented by King James the Vth’s soldiers (or, perhaps, drummers) when they march’d against the Earl of Angus, who held out Tantallon Castle against the king. But this by the way: Tantallon is now no more a fortress, or able to shelter a rebel army.

Neither is the Bass worth naming any more, which being a meer rock, standing high out of the sea, and in its situation inaccessible, was formerly made a small fortification, rather to prevent its being made a retreat for pyrates and thieves, than for any use it could be of to command the sea; for the entrance of the Forth, or Firth, is so wide, that ships would go in and out, and laugh at any thing that could be offer’d from the Bass. The most of its modern fame is contain’d in two articles, and neither of them recommend it to posterity.

That in the times of tyranny and cruelty, under the late King Charles II. and King James II. it was made a state-prison, where the poor persecuted western people, call’d, in those times, Cameronians, were made close prisoners, and liv’d miserably enough, without hope or expectation of deliverance, but by death.

That after the Revolution a little desperate crew of people got possession of it; and, having a large boat, which they hoisted up into the rock, or let down at pleasure, committed several pyracies, took a great many vessels, and held out the last of any place in Great Britain, for King James; but their boat being at last seiz’d, or otherwise lost, they were oblig’d to surrender. The Soland geese are the principal inhabitants of this island, a fowl rare as to the kind; for they are not found in any part of Britain, that I can learn, except here, and at some of the lesser islands in the Orcades, and in the island of Ailzye, in the mouth of the Clyde. They come as certainly at their season, as the swallows or woodcocks, with this difference, if what the people there tell us may be depended on; that they come exactly, to the very same day of the month, or, if they change it for reasons best known to themselves, then they keep exactly to the new fix’d day; and so, upon any alteration of their time, which also is very seldom.

They feed on the herrings, and therefore ’tis observ’d they come just before, or with them, and go away with them also; tho’, ’tis evident, they do not follow them, but go all away to the north, whither, as to that, none knows but themselves, and he that guides them: As they live on fish, so they eat like fish, which, together with their being so exceeding fat, makes them, in my opinion, a very coarse dish, rank, and ill relish’d, and soon gorging the stomach. But as they are look’d upon there as a dainty, I have no more to say; all countries have their several gusts and particular palates. Onions and garlick were dainties it seems, in Egypt, and horse-flesh is so to this day in Tartary, and much more may a Soland goose be so in other places.

It is a large fowl, rather bigger than an ordinary goose; ’tis duck-footed, and swims as a goose; but the bill is long, thick, and pointed like a crane, or heron, only much thicker, and not above five inches long. Their laying but one egg, which sticks to the rock, and will not fall off, unless pull’d off by force, and then not to be stuck on again; though we thought them fictions, yet, being there at the season, we found true; as also their hatching, by holding the egg fast in their foot. What Nature meant by giving these singularities to a creature, that has nothing else in it worth notice, we cannot determine.

From hence, keeping the shore of the Firth, or Forth, due west, we find a range of large and populous villages all along the coast, almost to Leith, interspers’d with abundance of the houses of the nobility and gentry, at a small distance from them, farther into the country.

But I must enter a caution for your notice, and please to take it here once for all. I am writing a description of places, not of persons, giving the present state of things, not their history: And therefore, though in some cases I may step back into history, yet, it shall be very seldom, and on extraordinary occasions. For Scotland is not so barren of things, worth observation, that we should run into the history, and the genealogies of families, the description of the constitution, the laws, and manner of administration of civil justice, government, and such things as are remote from the profess’d business of a tour. I shall not, therefore, with every nobleman’s house, give a history of the family: The nobility of Scotland are antient, illustrious, and personally great, and, if spoken of at all, require and ought to have a full and authentic description of their families and glorious ancestors perform’d by itself; and, I must confess, ’tis great pity such a thing is not undertaken by some hands equal to so great a work, both here and in England also; for want of which, many, if not most of the great actions of the nobility and gentry of these two kingdoms, are either quite lost and dropt out of knowledge, or are dwindled into fable and romance, and, like the battle of Chevy-Chase, preserv’d only in bailad and song.

But I am not to go about this here, tho’ I shall, on all occasions, give the noble families a due homage, and speak of them as they ought to be spoken of; yet, as it is not the business of this undertaking, you will not expect me to enter into the history of families, or to look any farther into persons than into things, namely to give an account of their present situation and condition.

In order to this ’tis sufficient to mark, that this part of the country is delightfully spread with the seats of noblemen and gentlemen; as the Duke of Roxburgh’s at Dunbar, the Earl of Haddington’s at Tinningham, both mentioned before; the Lord Bellhaven’s, at Bellhaven; that of the family of Dalrymple ennobl’d in the Earl of Stairs, and honour’d in several branches of that house, the eldest being now Lord President of their Session, and another lately Lord Advocate, &c. These about north Berwick, where there is a small and a tolerable good market: They have also in the neighbourhood of this place several very fine seats, and finely planted. The house and estate of Dirleton, now in the family of Nisbet, is in this part of the country, and well situated also. Ormistoun, the seat of the present Lord Justice Clerk, of the antient house of Cockburn, or, as commonly express’d, Coburn.

And I must add here, the antient and noble house of Seaton and Winton: Both the palaces, for so they deserve to be call’d, of the late Earl of Winton, who did so many weak and rash things, to say no worse of him, in the affair of the late rebellion; and the kindest thing can be said of him now is, to leave it upon record, that he seem’d to be turn’d in his head. The houses are now in a state of ruin, and as fine an estate, for its value, as any in Scotland, all lying contiguous with itself, and valued at almost 5,000l . sterling per Annum besides; but all now under forfeiture, and sold to the York-Buildings Company. The fine gates and stone-wall were demolish’d by the government, after it had been made a garrison by the Highlanders; who, from hence began their hairbrain’d march to England, which expedition ended at Presten, as has been mention’d in my account of Lancashire. But I return to the sea-shore as above.

The towns upon this coast, as I said, stand very thick, and here are two or three articles of trade which render them more populous, and more considerable than they would otherwise be.

There are great quantities of white fish taken and cur’d upon this coast, even within, as well as at the mouth of the Firth; and, as I had occasion to inspect this part, I took notice the fish was very well cur’d, merchantable, and fit for exportation; and there was a large ship at that time come from London, on purpose to take in a loading of that fish for Bilboa in Spain.

There is great plenty of coal in the hills, and so near the sea as to make the carriage not difficult; and much of that coal is carried to Edinburgh, and other towns, for sale.

The coal being thus at hand, they make very good salt at almost all the towns upon the shore of the Firth; as at Seaton, Cockenny, Preston, and several others, too many to name: They have a very great trade for this salt to Norway, Hamburgh, Bremen, and the Baltick; and the number of ships loaded here yearly with salt is very considerable; nay, the Dutch and Bremers in particular, come hither on purpose to load salt, as they do on the opposite side of the Firth also, (viz.) the shore of Fife, of which I shall speak in its place.

They take great quantities of oysters upon this shore also, with which they not only supply the city of Edinburgh, but they carry abundance of them in large, open boats, call’d Cobles, as far as Newcastle upon Tyne, from whence they generally bring back glass bottles. But there has, within a few years, a bottle-house been set up at Leith, which, for a while, work’d with success; also some furnaces were erected at Preston-Pans, one of those villages, for making flint-glass, and other glass ware: But I hear they are discontinued for want of skilful hands.

It must not be omitted, that at several of those villages there are little moles and harbours, or piers, and heads built up at considerable expence, for the securing the ships that come to them to load salt, or other goods; as at Seaton, Cokenny, at north Berwick, at Preston, and other places.

We come now to Musclebro, a large borough-town and populous, and may, indeed, be said to be a cluster of towns, all built together into one, namely, Musclebro, Innerask, or Inneresk, and Fisheraw; all which amount to no more than this. Musclebro, or the main or chief town of Musclebro; Inneresk, or that part of Musclebro which stands within, or on the inner side of the River Esk, and Fisheraw, or the row of houses where the fishermen usually dwell; for here is still many fishermen, and was formerly many more, when the Muscle fishing was counted a valuable thing; but now ’tis given over, tho’ the Muscles lye on the shore, and on the shoals of sand in the mouth of this river, in vast quantities.

These three towns together make one large burrough, very populous; for here are thought to be more people than at Haddington. Here also we saw the people busy on the woollen manufacture; and as the goods they made here were an ordinary kind of stuff for poor peoples wearing, we do not find they are out-done at all from England, so that the manufacture is carried on here still with success.

They call this a sea-port town; but as their river, tho’ sometimes full enough of water, is not navigable; for, at low water, people ride over the mouth of it upon the sands, and even walk over it; so they do not meddle much with trading by sea.

At that part of the town call’d Inner-Esk are some handsome country houses with gardens, and the citizens of Edinburgh come out in the summer and take lodgings here for the air, as they do from London at Kensington Gravel-Pits, or at Hampstead and Highgate.

Adjoining to this part is the other fine seat of the Marquess of Tweedale. call’d Pinkey, which I mention’d before, and which the family resides at, rather than at Yester; for, tho’ Yester be the noblest and most magnificent building; yet this is, by far, the most agreeable situation; besides, the former is not finish’d, nor like to be finish’d in many years, tho’ they were to go faster on with it than they do.

The house of Pinkey has a park, which they call four miles about, but, I think, is not much above half so much: But the spirit of planting, which the old Earl of Tweedale so happily exerted at Yester, shew’d itself here also, and an innumerable number of fir trees are seen here in a very thriving condition, and promising, in time, to be of an inestimable value.

As the house at Yester is not finish’d, all the rich furniture, and especially pictures, of which the same Earl was a great collector, are lodg’d here; though, ’tis not doubted, they will hereafter be transpos’d and remov’d to adorn the chief palace and mansion of the family. Here are, indeed, a great many valuable pieces of painting, but the family pieces are particular, and very remarkable, some for their antiquity, and the antient dress of the age they were wrought in, and others, for the fineness of the workmanship; as especially that of the old Marquess of Tweedale, and his fifteen children, done after the manner of that of King Charles I. and his royal family, which formerly stood at the upper end of the long gallery, at Whitehall. So this stands at the upper end of a large room, fill’d up with other family pieces, and takes up one whole square of the room.

I cannot dwell upon the rest of the fine paintings here; it must surfice to add, here are a great many, and very good. Here are also three very fine altar pieces, with others of that kind, suppos’d to belong to private Oratories in Popish times, with Passion pieces, and others of that kind also.

From hence we have but four miles to Edinburgh. But, before I go thither, I must dip so far into story, as to observe that here it was the famous Battle of Musclebro was fought between the English, under the Duke of Somerset, in the time of King Edward VI. of England, and the Scots royal army under the Regent, which was afterwards call’d, the English way of wooing: The quarrel was to obtain the young Queen of Scots for a wife to King Edward, which the Scots Popish Party, back’d by the French, were obstinately against; and that so much, that tho’ the English won the battle, yet they lost the prize, for the young queen was privately embarqu’d, carry’d away into France, and there marry’d to the dauphin.

I say this battle was fought here, tho’ we call it the Battle of Musclebro: And some Scots gentlemen, who rode out with us afterwards to shew us the place, particularly mark’d out every step to us, where the action was both begun and ended, as well the fight as the pursuit; and we agreed that the Scots are in the right, who call it the Battle of Pinkie, not of Musclebro. ’Tis none of my business to give an account of battles and sieges; besides, the English being victors, I shall not mingle any of our trophies and triumphs with my account of Scotland; that would not be using the Scots fairly. I shall speak freely of those where they were victors, but not throw the English, as it were, in their faces; that would be to act the very part which I blame the Scots writers for, namely to be always crying up my own country, and my own people. Certain it is, the Scots’ great error at this battle, as it was afterwards at the Battle of Dunbar, was want of unanimity among themselves; for we must always blush when we pretend to say the Scots ever wanted courage in the field, let the cause, or the time, or the government be what, when, and how they will.

Another mistake of the Scots, at this fight, was that they ventur’d to engage so near the sea, as to be within reach of the cannon from the English men of war, in the road of Musclebro, who, very much to their damage, flank’d their army, and kept firing on the left wing all the while of the battle, till the troops were so mingled with one another, that they could not, from the ships, distinguish their enemies from their friends. This was a great disadvantage to their whole army, and especially discourag’d and disorder’d their infantry, and was owing to the inadvertency of the general officers, not want of courage or bravery in their men; and it would have been the same to the English had the case been theirs.

I am now at the gates of Edinburgh; but before I come to describe the particulars of that city, give me leave to take it in perspective, and speak something of its situation, which will be very necessary with respect to some disadvantage which the city lyes under on that account.

When you stand at a small distance, and take a view of it from the east, you have really but a confus’d idea of the city, because the situation being in length from east to west, and the breadth but ill proportion’d to its length, you view under the greatest disadvantage possible; whereas if you turn a little to the right hand towards Leith, and so come towards the city, from the north you see a very handsome prospect of the whole city, and from the south you have yet a better view of one part, because the city is encreased on that side with new streets, which, on the north side, cannot be.

The particular situation then of the whole is thus. At the extremity of the east end of the city stands the palace or court, call’d Haly-Rood House; and you must fetch a little sweep to the right hand to leave the palace on the left, and come at the entrance, which is call’d the Water Port, and which you come at thro’ a short suburb, then bearing to the left again, south, you come to the gate of the palace which faces the great street. From the palace, west, the street goes on in almost a straight line, and for near a mile and a half in length, some say full two measur’d miles, thro’ the whole city to the castle, including the going up the castle in the inside; this is, perhaps, the largest, longest, and finest street for buildings and number of inhabitants, not in Britain only, but in the world.

From the very palace door, which stands on a flat, and level with the lowest of the plain country, the street begins to ascend; and tho’ it ascends very gradually at first, and is no where steep, yet ’tis easy to understand that continuing the ascent for so long a way, the further part must necessarily be very high; and so it is; for the castle which stands at the extremity west, as the palace does east, makes on all the three sides, that only excepted, which joins it to the city, a frightful and impassable precipice.

Together with this continued ascent, which, I think, ’tis easy to form an idea of in the mind, you are to suppose the edge or top of the ascent so narrow, that the street, and the row of houses on each side of it, take up the whole breadth; so that which way soever you turn, either to the right, or to the left, you go down hill imediately, and that so steep, as is very troublesome to those who walk in those side lanes which they call Wynds, especially if their lungs are not very good: So that, in a word, the city stands upon the narrow ridge of a long ascending mountain.

On the right side, or north side of the city, and from the very west end of it, where the castle stands, is a lough, or lake of standing water; there is, indeed, a small brook runs thro’ it, so that it cannot be said to be quite standing water. And we were told, that in former days there was another lough on the south side of it, which, being now fill’d up, is built into a street, tho’ so much lower than the high street, or ridge, that, as I said before, the lanes or wynds between them are very steep.

It is easy to conclude, that such a situation as this could never be pick’d out for a city or town, upon any other consideration than that of strength to defend themselves from the suddain surprizes and assaults of enemies: And, tho’ the building is so antient, that no history has recorded the foundation, either when, or by who, or on what occasion it was built; yet, I say, it seems most natural to conclude, that it was built for a retreat from the outrages and attempts of the Picts or Irish, or whatever other enemies they had to fear.

On the top of the ridge of a hill, an impregnable castle and precipice at one end, a lough, or lake of water on either side; so that the inhabitants had nothing to defend but the entrance at the east end, which it was easy to fortify.

If this was not the reason, what should have hinder’d them from building the city in a pleasant, delightful valley, with the sea flowing up to one side, and a fresh water river running thro’ the middle of it; such as is all that space of ground between the city, as it now stands, and the sea, or Firth, and on the south shore, whereof the town of Leith now stands?

Here they had had a noble, a pleasant, and a most useful situation, a very fine harbour for their trade, a good road in the Firth for their ships of burthen, a pleasant river, which, with small art or charge, might have been so drawn round the city as to have fill’d its ditches, and made its fortifications as impregnable as the two loughs did the city, and as the French, when they fortify’d Leith, found easy to do. Or had they gone to the south side of the city, beyond the deep lough, which, they say it was, and which is now call’d the Cowgate, and extended the city towards Libertoun, and towards Good-Trees, where now stands the delightful seat of Sir James Stuart, late Lord Advocate of Scotland, and the antient seat of Craigmiller, the seat of Sir Alexander — of Craigmiller. Here had been a plain large enough to have contain’d a second London, and water’d on the south part with a pleasant brook, sufficient, by the help of pipes, to have carried water into every street, and every house.

These things they did not foresee, or understand in those days; but, regarding immediate safety, fix’d on the place as above as a sure strength, form’d by Nature, and ready at their hand. By this means the city suffers infinite disadvantages, and lies under such scandalous inconveniences as are, by its enemies, made a subject of scorn and reproach; as if the people were not as willing to live sweet and clean as other nations, but delighted in stench and nastiness; whereas, were any other people to live under the same unhappiness, I mean as well of a rocky and mountainous situation, throng’d buildings, from seven to ten or twelve story high, a scarcity of water, and that little they have difficult to be had, and to the uppermost lodgings, far to fetch; we should find a London or a Bristol as dirty as Edinburgh, and, perhaps, less able to make their dwelling tolerable, at least in so narrow a compass; for, tho’ many cities have more people in them, yet, I believe, this may be said with truth, that in no city in the world so many people live in so little room as at Edinburgh.

On the north side of the city, as is said above, is a spacious, rich, and pleasant plain, extending from the lough, which as above joins the city, to the river of Leith, at the mouth of which is the town of Leith, at the distance of a long Scots mile from the city: And even here, were not the north side of the hill, which the city stands on, so exceeding steep, as hardly, (at least to the westward of their flesh-market) to be clamber’d up on foot, much less to be made passable for carriages. But, I say, were it not so steep, and were the lough fill’d up, as it might easily be, the city might have been extended upon the plain below, and fine beautiful streets would, no doubt, have been built there; nay, I question much whether, in time, the high streets would not have been forsaken, and the city, as we might say, run all out of its gates to the north.

This might have been expected, if the city had been in a state of encrease, for the trade having flourished, as was reasonably expected upon the Union, the inhabitants had likewise encreas’d; whereas, there being reason to doubt that this is not the case, but rather the contrary, we cannot talk of this as prospect in hope.

Having thus consider’d the city in its appearance, and in its present situation, I must look next into its inside, where we shall find it under all its discouragements and disadvantages, (and labouring with whatever inconveniences) a large, populous, noble, rich, and even still a royal city. The main street, as above, is the most spacious, the longest, and best inhabited street in Europe; its length I have describ’d; the buildings are surprizing both for strength, for beauty, and for height; all, or the greatest part of free-stone, and so firm is every thing made, that tho’ in so high a situation, and in a country where storms and violent winds are so frequent, ’tis very rare that any damage is done here. No blowing of tiles about the streets, to knock people on the head as they pass; no stacks of chimneys and gable-ends of houses falling in to bury the inhabitants in their ruins, as we often find it in London, and other of our paper built cities in England; but all is fix’d, and strong to the top, tho’ you have, in that part of the city call’d the Parliament-close, houses, which, on the south side, appear to be eleven or twelve story high, and inhabited to the very top.

From the palace gate, westward, this street is call’d the Cannon-Gate, vulgarly the Canni-gate, which part, tho’ a suburb, is a kind of Corporation by itself, as Westminster to London; and has a toll-booth, a prison, and a town-guard by itself, tho’ under the government of the provost and bailiffs of Edinburgh as Leith itself also is. In this part of the street, tho’ otherwise not so well inhabited as the city itself, are several very magnificent houses of the nobility, built for their residence when the court was in town, and on their other occaasions, just as was the case in the Strand between London and Whitehall, before the encrease of the city prompted the building those fine houses into streets. Of those the Duke of Queensberry’s, the Earl of Wintoun’s, the Duke of Roxburgh’s, and the Earl of Murray’s are the chief; the first and last are very magnificent, large and princely buildings, all of free-stone, large in front, and with good gardens behind them, and the other are very fine buildings, too many to be describ’d.

At the upper, or west end of this street, and where it joins to the city, is a gate which, just as Ludgate, or Temple-Bar, stands parting the city itself from the suburb, but not at all discontinuing the street, which rather widens, and is more spacious when you are thro’ the gate than before. This gate, or Bow, is call’d the Nether-Bow, or, by some, the Nether-Bow port.

Just at this port, on the outside, turn away two streets, one goes south to a gate or port which leads out of the city into the great road for England, by the way of Kelso, and is call’d St. Mary Wynde; and, on the right hand of it, another port turns away west, into the low street, mention’d before, where was a lough formerly fill’d up, and is call’d the Cowgate, because, by this street, the cattle are driven to and from the great marketplace, call’d the Grass-market, where such cattle are bought and sold, as also where is a horse-market weekly, as in Smithfield. This street, call’d the Cowgate, runs parallel with the high street, but down in a bottom, as has been said. But to go back to the Nether-Bow Port, as this turning is on the left hand going into the city, so on the right hand goes another street, which they call Leith Wynd, and leads down to a gate which is not in the city wall immediately, but adjoining to a church call’d the College-Kirk, and thro’ which gate, a suburb runs out north, opening into the plain, leads to Leith; and all along by the road side, the road itself pav’d with stones like a street, is a broad causeway, or, as we call it, a foot way, very firm, and made by hand at least 20 foot broad, and continued to the town of Leith. This causeway is very well kept at the publick expence, and no horses suffer’d to come upon it.

At the turning down of this street, without the Nether-Bow port, which they call the head of the Cannon-gate, there stood a very great pile of building which went both ways, part made the east side of the turning call’d Leith Wynd, and part made the north side of the Cannon-gate; the whole was built, as many such are, for private dwellings, but were stately, high, and very handsome buildings, seven or eight stories: But great part of this fine pile of building was very unhappily burnt a few years ago; whether they are yet fully rebuilt, I cannot say.

We now enter the city, properly so call’d; in almost the first buildings of note on the north side of the street, the Marquess of Tweedale has a good city house, with a plantation of lime-trees behind it, instead of a garden, the place not allowing room for a large garden; adjoining to which are very good buildings, tho’ in the narrow wynds and alleys, such as if set out in handsome streets, would have adorn’d a very noble city, but are here crouded together, as may be said, without notice.

Here the physicians have a hall, and adjoining to it a very good garden; but I saw no simples in it of value, there being a physick garden at the palace which furnishes them sufficiently: But they have a fine Musæum, or Chamber of Rarities, which are worth seeing, and which, in some things, is not to be match’d in Europe. Dr. Balfour, afterwards knighted, began the collection. Sir Robert Sibbald has printed a catalogue of what was then deposited in his time. The physitians of Edinburgh have preserved the character of able, learned, and experienc’d, and have not been outdone by any of their neighbours: And the late Dr. Pitcairn, who was the Ratcliff of Scotland, has left large testimonies of his skill in nature and medicine to the world.

It must not be expected I can go on to describe all the buildings of the city; I shall therefore only touch at such things, and go on. From the Nether-Bow, you have an open view up the high street. On the south side is the trone kirk, and a little farther, in the middle of the street the guard house, where the town guard does duty every night. These are in the stead of our watchmen; and the town maintains two full companies of them, cloth’d and arm’d as grenadiers.

Those are as a guard to keep the publick peace of the city; but I cannot but acknowledge that they are not near so good a safeguard to the citizens, against private robberies, as our watchmen in London are; and Edinburgh is not without such fellows as shop-lifters, house-robbers, and pick-pockets, in proportion to the number of people, as much as London itself.

About midway, between the Nether-Bow and the Castle-Hill, is the great church, formerly it was call’d the cathedral, and was all one church, dedicated to St. Giles: But since the abolishing episcopacy, and that the Presbyterian church is now establish’d by the Union, so as never legally to suffer another change; I say never legally, because it cannot be done without dissolving the Union, which I take to be indissolvable: Since this establishment, the cathedral church is divided into four parochial churches.

In one of those churches, which they call the new church, were seats for the Parliament, high commissioners, and the nobility, when the Parliament was assembled, tho’ that occasion is now over: In a room, formerly a kind of consistory room, on the south side of the church, the General Assembly hold their meetings once a year, as also does the Commission of the Assembly in the intervals of the General Meeting, as occasion requires. In the great tower of this church they have a set of bells, which are not rung out as in England, for that way of ringing is not known here; but they are play’d upon with keys, and by a man’s hand, like a harpsicord; the person playing has great strong wooden cases to his fingers, by which he is able to strike with the more force, and he plays several tunes very musically, tho’ they are heard much better at a distance than near at hand; the man plays every day, Sunday and fast days excepted, at twelve a clock, and has a yearly salary for doing it, and very well he earns the money.

On the south side of this church is a square of very fine buildings, which is call’d by the name of the Parliament Close; the west side of the square, and part of the south, is taken up with the Parliament House, and the several Courts of Justice, the Council-Chamber, the Treasury, the publick offices, registers, the publick library, &c. the court for the meeting of the Royal Boroughs, and several offices needful, when the independency of Scotland was in being, but now not so much in use. But as the Session, or College of Justice, the Exchequer, and the Justiciary, or courts for criminal causes still exist, the usual places for their assembling are still preserved. These buildings are very fine, all of free-stone, well finish’d, and very magnificent. The great church makes up the north side of the square, and the east remaining part of the south side is built into private dwellings very stately, lofty, and strong, being seven story high to the front of the square, and the hill they stand on giving so sudden a descent, they are eleven or twelve story high backward.

The publick part was first finish’d by King Charles I. and an equestrian statue of King Charles II. stands in the middle of the square; all the east part was burnt down by a most terrible fire, in the year — or thereabouts; but ’tis rebuilt as fine as ever. The great opening into the High Street, being the only passage into it for coaches, is at the north east corner, between the south east corner of the High Kirk, and the opposite high buildings, and a little from the opening is the market-cross, where all their proclamations and publick acts are read and publish’d by sound of trumpet. Here is the great parade, where, every day, the gentlemen meet for business or news, as at an Exchange; the usual time of meeting is from eleven to one. Here is also another passage at the north west corner, which goes into the Land-market, and another passage down innumerable stone stairs, on the south side, leading into the Cowgate.

On the west end of the great Church, but in a different building, is the Tolbooth, or common prison, as well for criminals as debtors, and a miserable hole it is, to say no worse of it; tho’, for those that can pay for it, there are some apartments tolerable enough, and persons of quality are sometimes confin’d here. The great church and this prison also standing in the middle of the street, the breadth and beauty of it is for some time interrupted, and the way is contracted for so far as those buildings reach on the north side.

But those buildings past, the street opens again to a breadth rather wider than before, and this is call’d the Land-market, but for what reason I know not. This part is also nobly built, and extends west to the Castle Hill, or rather to a narrower street which leads up to the castle.

At the upper end of this Land-market is a stone building, appropriated to several publick offices of lesser value, and is call’d the Weigh-house; for below stairs are warehouses, with publick weights and scales for heavy goods.

Here the High Street ends, and parting into two streets, one goes away south west, and descending gradually, leads by the West Bow, as ’tis call’d, to the Grass-market, This street, which is call’d the Bow, is generally full of wholesale traders, and those very considerable dealers in iron, pitch, tar, oyl, hemp, flax, linsced, painters colours, dyers, drugs and woods, and such like heavy goods, and supplies country shopkeepers, as our wholesale dealers in England do: And here I may say, is a visible face of trade; most of them have also warehouses in Leith, where they lay up the heavier goods, and bring them hither, or fell them by patterns and samples, as they have occasion.

There are large gates in the city which they call ports, including those to the Cannon-gate.

The Water-Gate, which is the east gate by the palace, leading out of the city towards Berwick, and is the great post road to England.

The South Port, mention’d before, leading likewise into the road to Soutra Hill, and so to England by way of Kelso.

The Cowgate Port, at the east end of the Cowgate, and entring from the street leading to the South Port.

The College Port, or the gate going south by the wall of Harriot’s hospital.

The West-Bow Port, spoken of before in the middle of the street, mention’d above where the wholesale dealers dwell.

The North Port, a gate leading from the butchery, or flesh-market, over the end of the lough.

The Nether-Bow Port, spoken of at large, leading into the city from the Cannon-gate.

The College-Kirk Port, at the bottom or foot of Leith Wynd.

The West Port, which is the only gate in the west end of the city, and leads out to all the west and north parts of Scotland, and especially to Glasgow, to Sterling, and to the Queens Ferry, the two last being the principal passages into the north.

The markets in Edinburgh are not in the open street, except that in the High Street, where there is every morning an herb and fruit market, which yet abates before noon, and what remains then is no grievance. Besides this, there are several distinct market places wall’d in, and reserv’d for the particular things they are appointed for, and very well regulated by the magistrates, and well supplied also; as

1. The Meal-market.

2. The Flesh-market.

3. The Poultry-market.

4. The Butter-market.

5. The Grass-market.

}

Kept open, and in the same street just within the west port, with several others.

6. The Horse-market.

There is also, in the street call’d the Land-market, a weekly market for all sorts of woollen manufactures, and some mercery and drapery goods, and also for linnen cloth.

But I must not omit the seminaries of learning, and the attendants upon them, nor the surgeons and apothecaries, with the great hospital, all which stand on the south side of the city; the first of them is the surgeons hall, or surgeon-apothecaries, for here they make but one profession. They have set up a large building all at their own charge, in which is their great hall, hung round with the pictures of all the surgeons of the city, that are, or have been since the building was erected, as also the pictures of Duke Hamilton and the late Lord Chancellor. They have also a Chamber of Rarities, a theatre for dissections, and the finest bagnio in Britain; ’tis perfectly well contriv’d, and exactly well finish’d, no expence being spar’d to make it both convenient and effectually useful.

In their Chamber of Rarities they have several skeletons of strange creatures, a mummy, and other curious things, too many to be particular in them here.

The Humanity school is kept in the same part, which is reckon’d as a part of the university, as being employ’d in the finishing youth for the college. West of these is the college itself, they call it the university: But as it consists of but one college, I call it no more. However, here are all the usual methods of academick learning in their full perfection. The principal, or master, has a handsome dwelling-house and garden in the college: There are, besides a Professor of Divinity, four Regents, or Professors of Philosophy; a Professor of Greek, another of Hebrew, another of History, of the Mathematicks, and of the Civil Law.

The college has a very handsome publick library; and, though not famous for number of books, is yet so for its being a valuable collection of antiquity, and has some very good manuscripts. The late Act of Parliament for settling the right of copies, has made provision for a constant supply of modern books, especially such as are printed in England; so the library is like to encrease, in time, to a great one.

Here was formerly a mint, but that is now laid aside, the Union having made one and the same coinage common to the whole island.

The churches in this populous City are but ten, (viz.)

The Cannon-gate Church.

The College Kirk.

The Trone Kirk.

The New Kirk.

The Old Kirk.

The Tolbrook Kirk.

The Haddocks Hole Kirk.

The Lady Yester’s Kirk.

The Gray Friars Kirk.

The West Kirk.

There are also many meeting-houses of the Episcopal party who call themselves Church of England, though they do not all use the English Common-Prayer. These are the dissenters in Scotland, as the Presbyterians are Dissenters in England.

There are also two churches at Leith, and very large and very full they are, and so indeed are all the churches in the city, for the people of Scotland do not wander about on the sabbath-days, as in England; and even those who may have no more religion than enough, yet custom has made it almost natural to them, they all go to the kirk.

They have also one very good custom as to their behaviour in the church, which I wish were practis’d here, namely, that after the sermon is over, and the blessing given, they all look round upon their friends, and especially to persons of distinction, and make their civilities and bows as we do here, for, by the way, the Scots do not want manners. But if any person come in when the worship is begun, he takes notice of no body, nor any body of him; whereas here we make our bows and our cringes in the middle of our very prayers.

I have now done with the city; the palace only, and the castle remain to be mention’d; the last is strong by situation, not much better’d by art, and far from being impregnable, as has been prov’d more than once. It is now of little use, unless for salutes, and firing guns upon festivals, and in some cases to lay up a magazine of arms and ammunition, and to receive prisoners of State.

The Governor has very good apartments, and so has the Lieutenant Governor, as also the Fort-major, and some other officers, and there are deep vaults in the rock, which they say are bomb-proof, and I doubt not but they are so, for they go down into them by a great number of steps. There is also a well of very good water in the castle, and it is carefully kept, but it is a prodigious depth. Here are not a great many guns planted, neither, indeed, is there room to place many guns, or use for them where they can be plac’d, the works being so very high.

The palace is a handsome building, rather convenient than large. The entrance is majestick, and over the gate a large apartment, which the Duke of Hamilton claims as housekeeper, or rather gate-keeper of the palace; within this is a large, irregular court, where, I must needs say, are very improperly plac’d the coach-houses and stables, which should much rather have been farther off, either in the park, or without the outgate: And, if here had been a barrack, or guard-house, like the Horse-Guards at Whitehall, it would have look’d much more like a royal palace for the king. On either side of this court are gardens, yards the Scots call them, whereof one is like our apothecaries garden at Chelsea, call’d a physick garden, and is tolerably well stor’d with simples, and some exoticks of value; and, particularly I was told, there was a rhubarb-tree, or plant, and which throve very well. In this garden stands Queen Mary’s Dial, which is a very curious one, but neglected.

Antiquity claims the fee simple here, and tells us that the church is still ground landlord; for, before the Reformation, this was a monastery; and, tho’ it was converted into a palace before the suppression of religious houses, yet, that till then the monks had a fair apartment, and was therefore call’d Haly-Rood House, and they did but entertain the kings and queens in the other as a kind of Guest Mates, or, as we call them, lodgers.

But, be that as it will, the Reformation found a good house upon the premises, which serv’d the kings for some ages before, and which King Charles II. after the Restoration, caus’d to be pull’d down, except the two rondels, or towers, and built the whole fabrick new as it now stands. It is a firm, strong building, square in form, having one court only in the center; and the lower story being divided, the inner part makes a very handsome piazza, tho’ the work is plain, and very little ornament, therefore not to be describ’d as one author does by the pillars of the Exchange of London, which are set off with almost all the ornament art could invent.

The apartments are all upon the first floor, the offices below, and some upper rooms are allotted to the servants of the court when the court is there. I have not room to describe the particular apartments, nor is it of moment. The great staircase is at the south west corner of the house, and the guard-chamber and rooms of state take up the south side of the house, as the king’s lodgings do the east side, which the Lord Commissioner makes use of in time of parliament; and the west side would be suppos’d to be the queen’s lodgings, if such a thing was to be seen again in Scotland, but at present are out of use. The north side is taken up with one large gallery, reaching the whole length of the house, famous for having the pictures of all the kings of Scotland, from King Fergus, who, they say, reign’d Anno ant. CHR. 320. But, in my opinion, as these pictures cannot be, and are not suppos’d to be originals, but just a face and dress left to the discretion of the limner, and so are all guess-work, I see no rarity, or, indeed, any thing valuable in it. As to their later kings there may be some pretence to have their pictures from old preserv’d draughts, or from their coins or medals, and such may be, indeed, worth preserving; and, tho’ they were but copy’d again, it would have been worth seeing; but, as it is, I must confess it seems a trifling thing, rather than a gallery fit for a court.

The old Chapel Royal, or church of the convent, stands in its disshabile, ruin’d and decay’d, and must fall down. In King James IId’s time, the old council-chamber was consecreated for a chapel, instead of the antient fabrick; and there the Roman priests officiated for some time, promising themselves not only to restore the great antient chapel, but even to seize upon the palace itself in the right of the Church, and make a noble monastery of it which it must be confess’d might have been done with very little change: But their reign was too short for the undertaking.

On the side of the park was a part set out for fine gardens, and they are still call’d St Ann’s Yards, that is gardens; but they have never been planted or form’d.

I must now visit Leith, the sea-port of Edinburgh, as it is properly call’d: It is a large and populous town, or rather two towns, for the river or harbour parts them, and they are join’d by a good stone bridge, about half a mile, or more, from the mouth of the river.

Up to this bridge ships of burthen may come, and, at high water, lay their sides close to the shore; but at low water people pass over on foot, even without the pier; but the water flows in the Firth near three fathom right up and down.

Here is a very fine key well wharf’d up with stone, and fenc’d with piles, able to discharge much more business than the place can supply, tho’ the trade is far from being inconsiderable too. At the mouth of the harbour is a very long and well built pier, or head, which runs out beyond the land a great way, and which defends the entrance into the harbour from filling up with sand, as, upon hard gales of wind at north east, would be very likely: There are also ranges of piles, or break-waters, as the seamen call them, on the other side the harbour, all which are kept in good repair; and by this means the harbour is preserv’d, and kept open in spight of a flat shore, and a large swell of the sea.

On the other side the bridge is the remains of a strong castle, built by Oliver Cromwell to command the port, but demolish’d; yet not so much, but that a little expence and a few hands would soon restore it. Here the late rebel Highlanders made a bold stop, and took possession of it for one night; but not finding their friends in the city in any condition to join them; and the troops preparing to attack them, they quitted it in the night, and march’d off to the Earl of Winton’s house, as has been said. Leith, tho’ it has a particular bayliff, is yet under the jurisdiction of the magistrates of Edinburgh, and is govern’d by them. The town had a great disaster a few years before the Union, by a store-house of gunpowder taking fire, which demolish’d almost a whole street of houses; the loss is not fully repair’d to this day: Many lives also were lost, and many people miserably hurt and bruis’d, which, I think, should serve as a hint to all governments, not to suffer quantities of powder to be kept in populous towns.

This town was once very strong, when the French held it, as they did for many years against the Reformers, and were not at last driven out, but by an army from England, which Queen Elizabeth sent to assist the Protestants.

From Leith, the Firth, which is there, at least, two leagues over, holds that breadth for five or six miles, and then narrows a little beyond Cramond; and again at the Queens-Ferry, it is reduc’d to two miles breadth, and an island in the middle also.

There is also a ferry at Leith, the boats going from Leith to Burnt-Island, or, as the Scots call it, Bruntillian; but as ’tis no less than seven miles, and that sometimes they meet with bad weather, the passengers are so often frighted, that I knew several gentlemen that would always choose to go round to the Queens-Ferry, rather than venture over at Leith; this, I suppose, gave beginning to that homely piece of proverb poetry, that

There is never a laird in Fife,

But once a year he would give his estate for his life.

Queens-Ferry is not a passage over the water only, but a very good town also, and a Corporation. And here I must take notice of a thing which was to me surprising, I mean as to the quantity of herrings taken, and that might be taken in those seas. There was, at that time, a fleet of between seven and eight hundred sail of Dutch Busses come into the Firth, loaden with herrings, and their convoy with them, for it was in the time of the late wars; the Scots themselves had taken a vast quantity, for they said they had had a very good fishery all along upon the coast of Fife, and of Aberdeen, and the Dunbar men, and the Firth boats, were every day taking more; and yet the water of the Firth was so full of fish, that passing at the Queens-Ferry in a little Norway yawl, or boat, row’d by two boys, the boys toss’d the fish out of the water into the boat with their naked hands only: But I shall have occasion to mention this again.

Between Edinburgh and this town the Marquess of Annandale has a small, but very pleasant house: And here I observ’d his lordship was making bricks, in order to build walls round his garden; a thing hardly to be seen in Scotland, except there. On the other hand, it is for want of brick walls that the wall-fruit in Scotland does not thrive so well there as it would otherwise do: And whereas they have no peaches or nectarines, or but very few, it is evident, had they brick walls they might have both; but the stone will not do it. The reflexion of the sun is not equally nourishing, nor does the stone hold the warmth of the sun, after it is gone, as the bricks do.

All the country between Edinburgh and this place, is throng’d with gentlemen’s houses, also as it was observ’d to be on the other side: But the beauty of all this part is Hopton House, built upon a delightful plain, and yet upon the edge, as we may say, of a high precipice; from whence you, as it were, look down upon the ships as they sail by, for you stand above the top-mast heads of them.

The house was originally a square; but the earl is now adding two wings to it, which will greatly add to the beauty of the building; the situation is so good, and gives so fine a prospect, as well to the sea as to the land, that nothing can be finer. It is exquisitely finish’d, both within and without; and besides family-pieces, the earl has some fine pieces of painting that are very curious. The stables and riding-place are by far the finest and most magnificent in Scotland; and his lordship, who delights in good horses, has the best, without comparison, in all the country. But it would be endless to dwell upon the description of gentlemen’s seats, in a country where they are so numerous, and where, indeed, they are the chief thing of value that is to be seen.

From hence the Firth widens again, and soon after is three or four miles wide, and makes a safe and deep road, with good anchor ground; and if there was a trade to answer it, here might ride a thousand sail of ships of any burthen.

On the south-shore, upon a narrow slip or point of land, running far into the water, lyes Blackness Castle, in former times infamous for the cruel confining state-prisoners, and especially such as were taken up for religious differences, where many perished, either by the unhealthiness of the place, or want of conveniences, or something worse. It might be of use, if the harbour, as I have said, was frequented; but as it is, there seems to be no occasion at all for it.

Farther west is Boristown Ness, a long town, of one street, and no more, extended along the shore, close to the water. It has been, and still is, a town of the greatest trade to Holland and France, before the Union, of any in Scotland, except Edinburgh; and, for shipping, it has more ships belong to it than to Edinburgh and Leith put together; yet their trade is declin’d of late by the Dutch trade, being carry’d on so much by way of England: But, as they tell us, the Glasgow merchants are resolving to settle a trade to Holland and Hamburgh in the Firth, by bringing their foreign goods, (viz.) their sugars and tobacco by land to Alloway, and from thence export them as they see occasion. I say, in this case, which is very probable, the Boristoun Ness men will come into business again; for as they have the most shipping, so they are the best seamen in the Firth; and particularly they are not sailors only, but even pilots for the coast of Holland, they are so acquainted with it, and so with the Baltick, and the coast of Norway also.

As I resolve to go through my account of the south part of Scotland first, I shall not pass the Firth at all, till giving you an account of the western part, I come back to Sterling Bridge, and there I suppose I may finish my next letter; mean time

I am, &c.

Letter XII. Containing A Description Of The South-Western Part Of Scotland; Including The City Of Glasgow

South-Western Scotland

SIR,-As I enter’d the east side of Scotland from Berwick upon Tweed, and have carry’d on my accounts through the Louthians, which are deservedly call’d the best and most pleasant, as well as most fruitful part of Scotland; and therein have also given you my observations of the capital city and port of the kingdom, I mean Edinburgh and Leith: So the west part having been travell’d over by me at another particular journey from England; and that I went from England by another road, I shall give you my account of it also by itself.

Passing the River Eden, or (as it is ordinarily call’d) the Solway Firth at Carlisle, we enter’d upon Scotland, on the side of Dumfries-shire, the southmost shire of the west of Scotland. The division of this county into Eskdale, Nithsdale, and Annandale, is but the ordinary marking out the rivers Esk, Annan, and Nid, as I observ’d of the rivers in the north of England, Tweedale, Tyndale, Swale Dale, and others; for the whole province makes but one Dumfries-shire, and as such you will understand it as I go on.

The Esk is a tolerable large river, and gives name to the south east part of this county; but we saw little worth notice but Kirsop, a small market town on a river of the same name, which afterwards falls into Esk, and is famous for being the place where, by a treaty, after the battle of Pinkey, the limits or borders of the two kingdoms were settled; though the borderers observ’d it no longer than serv’d for their purpose, robbing and plundering one another upon all occasions, as opportunity offer’d.

This river soon after leaves Scotland, and runs into the English border, leaving nothing behind it worth my trouble of remarking, or yours of reading, only to tell you it empties itself into the Solway Firth, which indeed receives all the rivers on this part of the island, as well from England as from Scotland.

The first place of note we came to in Scotland was Annand, or as some call it, Annandale, as they do the county, though, I think, improperly. It was a town of note, and a sea-port, and having a good river and harbour, was esteem’d a town of good trade; but it was not situated for strength; and the English took it so often, and specially the last time burnt it to the ground, in that war so fatal to the Scots, in the reign of Edward VI. that it never recover’d. Here was a good salmon fishery, and a trade to the Isle of Man, and by that to Ireland: But as the face of trade is alter’d since that time, and by the ruins of the place the merchants, and men of substance, remov’d to Dumfries, the town continues, to all appearance, in a state of irrevocable decay.

It was but a dull welcome into Scotland to see, not only by this town, that the remains of the old devastations, committed in the time of the hostilities between the two nations, were so visible, so unrepair’d, and, as we might say, so likely to continue unrepair’d; whereas, tho’ there are remains also on the English side, yet, not so plain, and in many places things much restor’d, and in a way to be more so: But the poverty of the common people, and the indolence of the gentry, will fully account for the difference. The bridge over the river at Annand is very firm and good, and there is a tolerable good market.

From hence, keeping the sea as close as we could on our left, we went on due west to Dumfries, a sea-port town at the mouth of the River Nid, or Nith, which gives name to the third division of the county call’d Nithsdale; but the town is justly the capital of the whole shire, and indeed, of all the south west part of Scotland.

Here, indeed, as in some other ports on this side the island, the benefits of commerce, obtain’d to Scotland by the Union, appear visible; and that much more than on the east side, where they seem to be little, if any thing mended, I mean in their trade.

Dumfries was always a good town, and full of merchants. By merchants, here I mean, in the sense that word is taken and understood in England (viz.) not mercers and drapers, shopkeepers, &c. but merchant-adventurers, who trade to foreign parts, and employ a considerable number of ships. But if this was so before, it is much more so now; and as they have (with success) embark’d in trade, as well to England as to the English plantations, they apparently encrease both in shipping and people; for as it almost every where appears, where trade increases, people must and will increase; that is, they flock to the place by the necessary consequences of the trade, and, in return, where the people increase, the trade will increase, because the necessary consumption of provisions, cloaths, furniture, &c. necessarily increases, and with them the trade.

This is such a chain of trading consequences, that they are not to be separated; and the town of Dumfries, as well as Liverpool, Manchester, Whitehaven, and other towns in England are demonstrations of it.

This town is situated also for an increase of commerce on the River Nid, for tho’ it stands near two leagues from the sea, yet the tide flows up to the town, and ships of burthen come close up to the key; but at about four miles below the town the largest merchant-ships in Britain might come up, and ride in safety.

There is a very fine stone bridge here over the River Nid; as also a castle, tho’ of old work, yet still good and strong enough; also an exchange for the merchants, and a Tolbooth, or townhall for the use of the magistrates. They had formerly a woollen manufacture here: But as the Union has, in some manner, suppress’d those things in Scotland, the English supplying them fully, both better and cheaper; so they have more than an equivalent by an open trade to all the English plantations, and to England itself.

The castle in this town, as well as that at Carlavrock, near the mouth of the river, and opening to the Firth of Solway, was formerly belonging to the antient family of Nithsdale, the only remaining branch of which being unhappily embark’d in the late rebellion, and taken in arms at Presten, made his escape out of the tower, and is now abroad, but under forfeiture. That last mention’d castle has been a very magnificent structure, though now, like its owner, in a state of ruin and decay.

The River Nid here parts the two counties of Galloway and Dumfries shire; and there is a gate in the middle of the bridge which is the limit between them: And this neighbourhood of Galloway, which is a great and rich province, promotes the trade of Dumfries very much.

We could not pass Dumfries without going out of the way upwards of a day, to see the castle of Drumlanrig, the fine palace of the Duke of Queensberry, which stands at twelve miles distance, upon the same river; the vale on either side the river is pleasant, and tolerably good: But when these rapid rivers overflow their banks, they do not, like Nile, or even like the Thames, and other southern streams, fatten and enrich the soil; on the contrary, they lodge so much sand and splinters of stone upon the surface of the earth, and among the roots of the grass, that spoils and beggars the soil; and the water is hurried on with such force also, as that in a good light soil it washes the best part of the earth away with it, leaving the sand and stones behind it.

Drumlanrig, like Chatsworth in Darbyshire, is like a fine picture in a dirty grotto, or like an equestrian statue set up in a barn; ’tis environ’d with mountains, and that of the wildest and most hideous aspect in all the south of Scotland; as particularly that of Enterkin, the frightfullest pass, and most dangerous that I met with, between that and Penmenmuir in North Wales; but of that in its place.

We were not so surpriz’d with the height of the mountains, and the barrenness of the country beyond them, as we were with the humour of the people, who are not in this part, by many degrees, so populous, or so polish’d, as in the other parts of Scotland. But that which was more surprising than all the rcst, was to see a palace so glorious, gardens so fine, and every thing so truly magnificent, and all in a wild, mountainous country, the like we had not seen before; where, in a word, we saw the peak of Darby restor’d, (viz.) the finest palace in all that part of Britain, erected under the mountains, full of lead-mines, and quarries of freestone, and where nothing, but what was desolate and dismal, could be expected, especially if you come to it by the said pass of Enterkin, or by the mountains of Cumock and Carrick, more to the north west of the place. This was certainly a foil to the buildings, and sets them off with all possible advantage; upon which the same hand which before gave us the lines upon the waters of Buxton-Bath, being in the company, bestow’d the following upon Drumlanrig Castle.

Just thus, with horrid desart hills embrac’d,
Was Paradise on Euphra’s border plac’d.
The God of Harmony to grace the view,
And make the illustrations just and true,
Strong contraries presented to the eye,
And circled beauty in deformity.
The happy discord entertains the sight,
And as these shew more black, that shews more bright.

As you come to the palace from the road of Edinburgh, which is by the said pass of Enterkin, you come first to the River Nid, which is just there both broad and exceeding deep, over which there is a stately stone-bridge, built by the noble founder of the castle, I mean the first Duke of Queensberry, who built the house. The building is four-square, with roundels in the inner angles of the court, in every one of which is a stair-case, and a kind of a tower on the top. This way of building, ’tis confess’d, does not seem so modern as the rest of the building; but as ’tis not seen in the front, ’tis well enough.

The house stands on the top of a rising ground, which, at its first building, lay with a steep and uncouth descent to the river, and which made the lookers-on wonder what the duke meant to build in such a disproportion’d place: But he best understood d his own design; for the house “once laid out, all that unequal descent is so beautifully levell’d and lay’d out in slopes and terrasses, that nothing can be better design’d, or, indeed, better perform’d than the gardens are, which take up the whole south and west sides of the house; and, when the whole design will be done, the rest will be more easy, the ground being a plain the other way, and the park and avenues compleatly planted with trees.

At the extent of the gardens there are pavillions and banquetting-houses, exactly answering to one another, and the greens trimm’d, spaliers and hedges are in perfection.

The inside is answerable to the outside, the apartments finely plac’d and richly furnish’d: And the gallery may well be call’d a gallery of beauties, itself’s a beauty. And being fill’d from end to end, the whole length of one side of the building, with the family-pieces of the duke’s ancestors, most of them at full length, and in their robes of state, or of office, as their history directed. William, the first raiser of the family, was only a knight and laird of Drumlanrig, who was sent ambassador to England, to ransome King James I. at that time detain’d in England. He was afterwards kill’d on the side of the French, in the great battle of Agincourt, fighting against Henry V. King of England, 1427. They were first ennobled for the real merit of their services, in the person of the first Lord of Drumlanrig, Ann. 1640. And King Charles I. made the then Lord of Drumlanrig Earl of Queensberry; a title taken from Queensberry Hill, a high, round hill, in a particular lordship of the estate, and in view of the house. After the Restoration, the grandson of the earl was created marquess and duke by King Charles II.

This was the person who built the noble palace I am speaking of, who, every way, merited the honours which the prince rather loaded him with, than bestow’d on him: He lyes buried in the parish church of Disdier or Didier, with a fine monument over him; but not like that lately erected for his son the late duke.

This last mention’d duke would require a history rather than a bare mention, in a work of this kind: But I have forbid myself entring far into the characters of persons and families; and therefore, tho’ I think myself bound to honour the merit of so great a person, I shall sum it up all in this; that as I had the honour to be known to his Grace, so I had the opportunity to see and read by his permission, several letters written to him by the late King William, with his own hand, and several more by Queen Anne, written also by her Majesty’s own hand; with such expressions of their satisfaction in his fidelity and affection to their Majesties’ service, his ability and extraordinary judgment in the affairs entrusted to him; his knowledge of, and zeal for the true interest of his country, and their dependance upon his councils and conduct, that no minister of state in Europe could desire greater testimonies of his services, or a better character from his sovereign, and this from differing princes, and at the distance of several years from one another, and, to be sure, without any manner of corresponding one with the other.

That this noble person was Lord Commissioner at the time of the Union, sat in the throne at the last parliament of Scotland, and touch’d with the scepter the Act of Parliament, which put an end to parliaments for ever in that part of Great Britain, will always be matter of history to the end of time; whether the Scots will remember it to the advantage of the duke’s character, in their opinion, that must be as their several opinions guide them.

This duke’s monument, curiously done in marble at full length, is also plac’d in the same church at Disdier, where he is buried with his dutchess, a daughter of the house of Burlington in England.

But I dwell too long here. While I was at Drumlanrig, being desir’d by the late duke to make some observations on his Grace’s estate there, which is very great, in order to some English improvement, I, in particular, view’d some of the hills to the north of the castle, and having a Darbyshire gentleman with us, who was thoroughly acquainted with those things, we discover’d in several places evident tokens of lead-mines, such as in Darbyshire, and in Somersetshire, are said never to fail; and to confirm our opinions in it, we took up several small pieces of oar in the gulls and holes, which the rains had made in the sides of the mountains, and also of a plain sparr, such as is not found any where without the oar: But the duke’s death put an end to these enquiries, as also to several other improvements then in view.

Here we were surpriz’d with a sight, which is not now so frequent in Scotland as it has been formerly, I mean one of their field meetings, where one Mr. John Hepburn, an old Cameronian, preach’d to an auditory of near 7,000 people, all sitting in rows on the steep side of a green hill, and the preacher in a little pulpit made under a tent at the foot of the hill; he held his auditory, with not above an intermission of half an hour, almost seven hours; and many of the poor people had come fifteen or sixteen miles to hear him, and had all the way to go home again on foot. I shall say nothing to it, for my business is not to make remarks on such things; only this I may add, that if there was an equal zeal to this in our part of the world, and for that worship which we acknowledge to be true, and of a sacred institution, our churches would be more throng’d, and our ale-houses and fields less throng’d on the sabbath-day than they are now. But that also by the way.

From Drumlanrig I took a turn to see the famous pass of Enterkin, or Introkin Hill: It is, indeed, not easy to describe, but by telling you that it ascends through a winding bottom for near half a mile, and a stranger sees nothing terrible, but vast high mountains on either hand, tho’ all green, and with sheep feeding on them to the very top; when, on a suddain, turning short to the left, and crossing a rill of water in the bottom, you mount the side of one of those hills, while, as you go on, the bottom in which that water runs down from between the hills, keeping its level on your right, begins to look very deep, till at length it is a precipice horrible and terrifying; on the left the hill rises almost perpendicular, like a wall; till being come about half way, you have a steep, unpassable height on the left, and a monstrous calm or ditch on your right; deep, almost as the monument is high, and the path, or way, just broad enough for you to lead your horse on it, and, if his foot slips, you have nothing to do but let go the bridle, least he pulls you with him, and then you will have the satisfaction of seeing him dash’d to pieces, and lye at the bottom with his four shoes uppermost. I pass’d twice this hill after this, but the weather was good, and the way dry, which made it safe; but one of our company was so frighted with it, that in a kind of an extasy, when he got to the bottom, he look’d back, and swore heartily that he would never come that way again.

Indeed, there were several things this last time we pass’d it, which render’d it more frightful to a stranger: One was, that there had been, a few days before, a suddain frost, with a great deal of snow; and though, a little before the snow, I pass’d it, and there was nothing to be seen; yet then I look’d down the frightful precipice, and saw no less than five horses in several places, lying at the bottom with their skins off, which had, by the slipperiness of the snow, lost their feet, and fallen irrecoverably to the bottom, where the mountaineers, who make light of the place, had found means to come at them, and get their hides off.

But that which is most remarkable of this place is yet behind, (viz.) that noted story of the Whigs in the old persecuting times, in King Charles IId’s time, and which I must give you a short account of, for I have not room for the whole history.

A troop of dragoons had been sent, by order of their commanding officer, to disturb a field-meeting, such a one as I just now describ’d. These meetings were strictly forbidden at that time and the minister, if taken, was punish’d with death, without mercy: The poor people of this country being all what they then call’d Cameronians and Whigs, (for here, by the way, the word Whig began first to be known) I say, the people being zealous in their way, would, and did hold their field-meetings, notwithstanding all the prohibitions the court could make; upon which the Government quarter’d the dragoons upon them, with orders, on all such occasions, to disperse them, and what prisoners they took they were to carry to Edinburgh, especially their ministers. Accordingly, at this time, there was an extraordinary meeting of many thousand people, and the dragoons march’d to disturb them.

As the whole country were their friends, the dragoons could not stir, but immediately notice would be taken, and the alarm given: The people at the meeting had always some stout fellows arm’d with fire-arms, to prevent a surprize, and they had so now, enough to have beaten off the dragoons, if they had attack’d them, but as they did not covet fighting and blood, otherwise than on necessity for their own defence, and that they had now timely notice given them, they chose to break up and disperse, and they were really dispers’d, when the dragoons came to the place.

However, the dragoons resolving not to lose their labour, pursued the straggling people, and ill used some of them, took others prisoners, and, among the rest, very unhappily surpriz’d their minister, which was a booty to them; and, as soon as they had him, they march’d off directly to carry him to Edinburgh, where he might depend upon being hang’d.

The poor people, terribly alarm’d at the loss of their minister; for no people in the world love their ministers like them; the cries of the one part animating and exasperating the other part, and a small body of those who were the guard before, but chose peaceably to separate, rather than dispute it with the dragoons, resolv’d to rescue their minister, whatever it cost.

They knew the dragoons would carry him to Edinburgh, and they knew, that to do so, they must necessarily go thro’ this narrow pass of Interken: They were but thirteen men on foot; but being nimble fellows, and knowing the private ways perfectly well, they reach’d the top of the hill long before the dragoons; eight of them therefore plac’d themselves in the head of the narrow way, where the dragoons were coming on one by one, or at most two by two, and very softly, you may believe, by the nature of the place.

The other five sliding down from the top of the hill, on the left of the pass, plac’d themselves, as they found to their advantage, being resolv’d to speak with the troop as they came by. It was a thick mist, as is often upon those hills, (indeed seldom otherwise) so that the dragoons could not discover them, till they were within hearing, nor then, so as to know how many they were.

When the dragoons came up within hearing, one of the five boldly calls to the commander by his name, and bids him halt with his troop, and advance no farther at his peril; the captain calls out again, who are you? and what would you have? They answer’d, deliver our minister; the captain damn’d them a little, and march’d on: The Cameronian called to him again with a threatning air-Will you deliver our minister? at which he reply’d as loud-No, you dog, and if you were to be damn’d; at which the man fir’d immediately, and shot him thro’ the heart, so that he fell from his horse, and never spoke a word, and the frighted horse, fluttering a little at the fall of his rider, fell down the precipice, and there was an end both of horse and man together.

At that very moment the eight men, at the head of the pass, shew’d themselves, though at a distance, and gave a shout, which put the whole body into a pannick fear; for had they fir’d, and the horses been put into the least confusion, half of them would have been down the precipice immediately. In short, the lieutenant that commanded next, being wiser than his captain, gave them better words, and desir’d them to forbear firing for a minute or two; and after a very short conference with his men (for they had no more officers to call a council of war with) resolv’d upon a parley, in which, upon their promising to march off and leave the pass free, they deliver’d their minister, and they carry’d him off; and glad the dragoons were of their deliverance; for, indeed, if they had been 500 instead of 50, the thirteen men might have destroy’d them all; nay, the more they had been, the more certain would have been their destruction.

But I must go back to Dumfries again, for this was but an excursion from thence, as I observ’d there: I resolv’d, before I quitted the west coast, to see all that was worth seeing on that side, and the next trip we made was into Galloway: And here, I must confess, I could not but look with grief and concern upon the country, and indeed upon the people.

Galloway, as I hinted before, begins even from the middle of the bridge of Dumfries; the first town on the coast, of any note, is Kirkubright, or, as vulgarly call’d, Kirkubry. It must be acknowledg’d this very place is a surprize to a stranger, and especially one whose business is observation, as mine was.

Here is a pleasant situation, and yet nothing pleasant to be seen. Here is a harbour without ships, a port without trade, a fishery without nets, a people without business; and, that which is worse than all, they do not seem to desire business, much less do they understand it. I believe they are very good Christians at Kirkubry, for they are in the very letter of it, they obey the text, and are contented with such things as they have. They have all the materials for trade, but no genius to it; all the oppportunities for trade, but no inclination to it. In a word, they have no notion of being rich and populous, and thriving by commerce. They have a fine river, navigable for the greatest ships to the town-key; a haven, deep as a well, safe as a mill-pond; ’tis a meer wet dock, for the little island of Ross lyes in the very entrance, and keeps off the west and north west winds, and breaks the surge of the sea; so that when it is rough without, ’tis always smooth within. But, alas! there is not a vessel, that deserves the name of a ship, belongs to it; and, though here is an extraordinary salmon fishing, the salmon come and offer themselves, and go again, and cannot obtain the privilege of being made useful to mankind; for they take very few of them. They have also white fish, but cure none; and herrings, but pickle none. In a word, it is to me the wonder of all the towns of North-Britain; especially, being so near England, that it has all the invitations to trade that Nature can give them, but they take no notice of it. A man might say of them, that they have the Indies at their door, and will not dip into the wealth of them; a gold mine at their door, and will not dig it.

It is true, the reason is in part evident, namely, poverty; no money to build vessels, hire seamen, buy nets and materials for fishing, to cure the fish when it is catch’d, or to carry it to market when it is cur’d; and this discourages the mind, checks industry, and prevents all manner of application. People tell us, that slothfulness begets poverty, and it is true; but I must add too, that poverty makes slothfulness, and I doubt not, were two or three brisk merchants to settle at Kirkubry, who had stocks to furnish out ships and boats for these things, they would soon find the people as industrious, and as laborious as in other places; or, if they did not find them so, they would soon make them so, when they felt the benefit of it, tasted the sweet of it, had boats to fish, and merchants to buy it when brought in; when they found the money coming, they would soon work. But to bid men trade without money, labour without wages, catch fish to have them stink, when they had done, is all one as to bid them work without hands, or walk without feet; ’tis the poverty of the people makes them indolent.

Again, as the people have no hands (that is, no stock) to work, so the gentry have no genius to trade; ’tis a mechanism which they scorn; tho’ their estates are not able to feed them, they will not turn their hands to business or improvement; they had rather see their sons made foot soldiers, (than which, as officers treat them now, there is not a more abject thing on earth), than see them apply to trade, nay, to merchandize, or to the sea, because those things are not (forsooth) fit for gentlemen.

In a word, the common people all over this country, not only are poor, but look poor; they appear dejected and discourag’d, as if they had given over all hopes of ever being otherwise than what they are. They are, indeed, a sober, grave, religious people, and that more, ordinarily speaking, than in any other part of Scotland, far from what it is in England; conversation is generally sober, and grave; I assure you, they have no assemblies here, or balls; and far from what it is in England, you hear no oaths, or prophane words in the streets; and, if a mean boy, such as we call shoe-blackers, or black-guard boys, should be heard to swear, the next gentleman in the street, if any happen’d to be near him, would cane him, and correct him; whereas, in England, nothing is more frequent, or less regarded now, than the most horrid oaths and blasphemies in the open streets, and that by the little children that hardly know what an oath means.

But this we cannot cure, and, I doubt, never shall; and in Scotland, but especially in this part of Scotland, you have none of it to cure.

It is the honour of Scotland that they are the strictest observers of the Lord’s -Day of any nation in the world; and, if any part of Scotland are more strict observers of it than the rest, it is in this part, and all the country from Dumfries, and the parts adjacent to Glasgow, and the Clyde, inclusive of both the towns of Dumfries and Glasgow; and tho’ this country of Galloway may be the poorest and empty of commerce, it is, perhaps, the most religious part of all Scotland. Some people, I know, will not think that an equivalent for their poverty; as to that, let every body think for themselves; ’tis my business only to relate the fact, and represent things as they are.

It must be acknowledg’d, and there my opinion concurs, they might be as religous and as serious as they are; and the more so, the better, and yet, they might at the same time be industrious, and apply themselves to trade, and to reap the advantages that nature offers them; might build ships, catch and cure fish, and carry them to all the markets in Europe, as the Glasgow merchants shew them the example. But the hindrance is in the nature of the thing; the poverty of the commons, and the indolence of the gentry forbid it; and so Kirkubry, and all the shores of Galloway must remain unnavigated; the fine harbours be unfrequented, the fish be secure and safe from nets till time and better opportunities alter the case, or a people better able, and more inclin’d to business, comes among them, and leads them into it.

But I must speak no more in generals. I left Kirkubright with a sort of concern; it is so noble a prospect, of what business, and commerce might, and I am persuaded, some time or other will do for it; the river, that enters the sea here, and makes the fine harbour I mentioned, is call’d the Dee, or the Dea, and is of a considerable long course, coming out of mountains, in the remotest north-angle of this shire, towards Carrick; and, as it is full of turnings and meanders, more than any river in Scotland, is said to run near 200 miles in its course, as a river, tho’ not above seventy miles in a line; it is sometimes on occasion of land waters, a very great river, and remains so longer than is usual in other rivers.

The country of Galloway lies due west from Dumfries, and, as, that they call the Upper Galloway, runs out farther than the rest, into the Irish seas; all that bay or sea, on the south side of it may be reckoned part of Solway-Firth, as all on the north side is called the Firth of Clyde, though near 100 miles from the river itself; as all that sea in England, between South Wales, and the north coasts of Devon and Cornwall, is called the Severn sea, even to the Lands End of England, though above 100 miles from the Severn.

The wester Galloway, which is also call’d the shire of Wigtoun, from the town of Wigtoun, its capital, runs out with a peninsula, so far into the sea, that from the utmost shores, you see the coast of Ireland very plain, as you see Calais from Dover; and here is the town of Port Patrick, which is the ordinary place for the ferry or passage to Belfast or other ports in Ireland. It has a tolerable good harbour, and a safe road; but there is very little use for it, for the packet boat, and a few fishing vessels are the sum of the navigation; it is true, the passage or ferry is wide, and the boats very indifferent, without the least convenience or accommodation; and yet, which is strange, they very rarely, if ever miscarry; nay, they told us there, they had never lost one in the memory of the oldest man in the town, except one full of cattle; which, heeling to one side more than ordinary, all the cattle run to that side, and as it were, slid out into the sea; but the loading being out, the boat came to rights again, and was brought safe into the port, and none but the four-footed passengers were drown’d.

Port Patrick has nothing in it to invite our stay, ’tis a mean dirty homely place; and as we had no business here, but to see the coast, we came away very ill satisfied with our accommodations. Upon a hill near the town, we could plainly see Ireland to the west, England, (viz.) the coast of Cumberland to the south, and the Isle of Man to the south west, and the Isle of Isla, and the Mull of Kyntire to the north west.

As we pass’d the peninsula, which is formed by two arms of the sea, one on the north side call’d Lochrain, and the other on the south, call’d the Bay of Glenluce, we stop’d at Stranrawer; in the very neck of land, between both these gulphs, are good roads for ships, and full of fish, but still here is no genius for trade, or for sea affairs of any kind.

But now having said thus much of the stupidity of the people of Galloway, and especially on the sea coast, for not falling into merchandizing, fishing, &c. which would doubtless turn to great account: I must premise two things, that I may not lead the reader into an error.

1. It is not so with all the people on this western coast of Scotland, as we shall soon see in the other countries, upon the coast of Clyde, farther north, up to, and inclusive of Glasgow itself.

2. The people of Galloway itself are not perfectly idle, and neither the country, or the people capable of any thing; if it were so, the place would be uninhabited, and, indeed, unhabitable; whereas, on the contrary, it is very populous, and full of inhabitants, as well of noblemen and gentlemen, as of common people; all, which, I shall explain in few words.

1. It is not so with all the people, they are not all stupid, and without any notions of commerce, navigation, shipping, fishing, &c. that is to say, tho’ in Galloway they are generally so, from the coast, a little west of Dumfries, that is, from the mouth of the River Fleet, yet to the northward, and upon the coast of Air, Kyle, and Cunningham; it is quite another thing, as you shall hear presently.

2. The people of Galloway do not starve; tho’ they do not fish, build ships, trade abroad, &c. yet they have other business, that is to say, they are meer cultivaters of the earth, and in particular, breeders of cattle, such as sheep, the number of which I may say is infinite, that is to say, innumerable; and black cattle, of which they send to England, if fame lies not, 50 or 60,000 every year, the very toll of which before the Union, was a little estate to some gentlemen upon the borders; and particularly the Earl of Carlisle had a very good income by it.

Besides the great number of sheep and runts, as we call them in England, which they breed here; they have the best breed of strong low horses in Britain, if not in Europe, which we call pads, and from whence we call all small truss-strong riding horses Galloways: These horses are remarkable for being good pacers, strong, easy goers, hardy, gentle, well broke, and above all, that they never tire, and they are very much bought up in England on that account.

By these three articles, the country of Galloway is far from being esteemed a poor country; for the wooll, as well as the sheep, is a very great fund of yearly wealth to them, and the black cattle and horses are hardly to be valued: The gentlemen generally take their rents in cattle, and some of them have so great a quantity, that they go to England with their droves, and take the money themselves. It is no uncommon thing for a Galloway nobleman to send 4,000 sheep, and 4,000 head of black cattle to England in a year, and sometimes much more. Going from the lower Galloway hither, we were like all to be driven down the stream of a river, tho’ a countryman went before for our guide, the water swelling upon us as we pass’d, the stream was very strong, so that I was oblig’d to turn my horse’s head to the current, and so sloping over edg’d near the shore by degrees, whereas, if my horse had stood directly cross the stream, he could not have kept his feet.

This part of the country is very mountainous, and some of the hills prodigious high; but all are cover’d with sheep: In a word, the gentlemen here are the greatest sheep-masters in Scotland, (so they call themselves) and the greatest breeders of black cattle and horses.

But I was sick of Galloway, thro’ which the travelling is very rough, as well for the road, as for the entertainment; except, that sometimes we were received by the gentlemen, who are particularly very courteous to strangers, meerly as such, and we received many extraordinary civilities on that only account.

We now enter’d the shire of Air, full north from the mull of Galloway, and as before, we coasted the south Bay or Firth of Solway, parting England from Scotland; now we coasted the Firth or Sea of Clyde, which, for above sixty miles lies on the west side the shore, standing away north east from the point of the mull, or north Point of Galloway: The shire of Air is divided into three parts, Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham.

Carrick is a more fruitful and better cultivated country than Galloway, and not so mountainous; but it is not quite so rich in cattle, and especially, not in sheep, or horses. There is no considerable port in this part of the country, yet, the people begin to trade here, and they are (particularly on the coast) great fishermen, and take abundance of fish, but not merchants to carry it abroad; sometimes they are employed by the merchants at Glasgow, and other places, to catch herrings for them. Balgony is the chief town, but tho’ it stands on the coast, it has no harbour, and is a poor decay’d town; the market is good, because there are many gentlemen in the neighbourhood, and the coast near it is full of people, the houses are mean, and low, and very coarse: The family of Kennedy, Earls of Cassells, are lords of great part of the country, and has a good antient seat farther north, but we did not go to it; the late Earl of Kenmure had some interest here, but, as the family was much sunk in fortune, so, both what was left here, and in Galloway, is gone, and the honour extinct in the last earl, who being beheaded for the late rebellion, Ann. 1716. left nothing behind him worth naming in this country.

Corning to the north bounds of Carrick, we pass’d the River Dun, upon a bridge of one arch, the largest I ever saw, much larger than the Rialto at Venice, or the middle arch of the great bridge at York; we find many such in this country, though, I think none so very wide, except a bridge between Glasgow and Sterling; which, indeed, I did not measure, though we might have done it, there being then no water in the river. But this the people assur’d us, was almost thirty yards in diameter, which, as I take it, is thirteen foot wider than the Rialto.

This bridge led us into the county of Kyle, the second division of the shire of Air; and here I observ’d, that, contrary to what is usual, the farther north we travelled, the better, finer, and richer the country was, whereas, ordinarily the farther north we expect it to be the worse.

Kyle is much better inhabited than Carrick, as Carrick is better than Galloway; and as the soil here is better, and the country plainer and leveller, so on the banks of the river, here are abundance of gentlemen’s seats, some of them well planted, tho’ most of the houses are old built, that is, castle-wise, because of enemies. But now that fear is over they begin to plant, and endose after the manner of England; and the soil is also encouraging, for the land is fruitful.

Our Scotch writers tell us a long story of a great battle in this country, between King Coilus or Kylus a British king, and their Fergus I. where the former was kill’d, and from thence the country took his name; also another bloody battle, Ann. 1263. between King Alexander III. of Scotland, and one Acho King of Norway, who came to the port of Air with a great fleet of ships, and 20,000 men on board, who, after ravaging the country, was routed, and lost both his army and 140 sail of his ships. But these Scots legends I shall say nothing to.

The capital of this country is Air, a sea-port, and as they tell us, was formerly a large city, had a good harbour, and a great trade: I must acknowledge to you, that tho’ I believe it never was a city, yet it has certainly been a good town, and much bigger than it is now: At present like an old beauty, it shews the ruins of a good face; but is also apparently not only decay’d and declin’d, but decaying and declining every day, and from being the fifth town in Scotland, as the townsmen say, is now like a place so saken; the reason of its decay, is, the decay of its trade, so true is it, that commerce is the life of nations, of cities towns, harbours, and of the whole prosperity of a country: What the reason of the decay of trade here was, or when it first began to decay, is hard to determine; nor are the people free to tell, and, perhaps, do not know themselves. There is a good river here, and a handsome stone bridge of four arches.

The town is well situated, has a very large antient church, and has still a very good market for all sorts of provision. But nothing will save it from death, if trade does not revive, which the townsmen say it begins to do since the Union.

From Air, keeping still north, we came to Irwin, upon a river of the same name; there is a port, but barr’d and difficult, and not very good, when you are in; and yet, here is more trade by a great deal than at Air; nay, than at all the ports between it and Dumfries, exclusive of the last; particularly here is a considerable trade for Scots coal, of which they have plenty in the neighbouring hills, and which they carry by sea to Ireland, to Belfast, to Carickfergus, and to Dublin itself, and the commerce occasioned by this navigation between the two countries is very considerable, and much to the advantage of the town of Irwin. They have also of late, as I was told, launch’d into a considerable trade abroad to other countries, and have some share in the fishery: but this I cannot come into the particulars of here. The town is the capital of that division of the shire of Ayre, which they call Cunningham, and is really within the Firth of Clyde, though not actually within the river itself; they stand so advantagiously for the herring fishing, that they cannot but go beyond their neighbours of Greenock, who sometimes cannot come out as the wind may blow, when the fishing-boats of Irwin can both go out and return.

As the town is better employ’d in trade than the other parts I have been speaking of, so it is better built: Here are two handsome streets, a good key, and not only room in the harbour for a great many ships, but a great many ships in it also; and, in a word, a face of thriving appears every where among them.

As is the town, so is the country in which it is situated; for when we came hither, we thought ourselves in England again. Here we saw no more a Galloway, where you have neither hedge or tree, but about the gentlemen’s houses; whereas here you have beautiful enclosures, pleasant pastures, and grass grounds, and consequently store of cattle well fed and provided.

The whole country is rich and fruitful, fill’d with gentlemen’s seats and well-built houses: It is said this enclosing the country was owing to the English soldiers, who were placed here and in Kyle by Oliver Cromwell; for at Ayre he built a citadel, the visible appearances of which remain still, and the English soldiers prompted and encouraged the people to endose and improve their lands, and instructed them in the manner of husbandry practis’d in England, which they have never left off to this day.

A little from Irwin is Kilmarnock castle, the seat of the family of Boy’d, Earl of Kilmarnock; and on the other side the castle of Eglington, the seat of the family of Montgomery, Earl of Eglington, an antient house; and the present Earl is one of the richest peers in Scotland. Just upon the borders of this county, north east, and where it joins to Clydsdale, is the castle of Loudon, the family-seat of the Earl of Loudon, of the family of Campbell, formerly Secretary of State to Queen Anne; it is a noble and beautiful seat.

But I cannot describe houses: they come too thick upon me; besides, in a country, as this is, full of noblemen’s and gentlemen’s seats, I should never travel any farther if I did, I mean in this volume.

With the division of Cunningham I quitted the shire of Ayre, and the pleasantest country in Scotland, without exception: Joining to it north, and bordering on the Clyde itself, I mean the river, lyes the little shire of Renfrew, or rather a barony, or a sheriffdom, call it as you will.

It is a pleasant, rich, and populous, tho’ small country, lying on the south bank of the Clyde; the soil is not thought to be so good as in Cunningham: But that is abundantly supply’d by the many good towns, the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and of the Clyde, and great commerce of both. We kept our rout as near along the coast as we could, from Irwin; so that we saw all the coast of the Firth of Clyde, and the very opening of the Clyde itself, which is just at the west point, or corner of this county, for it comes to a narrow point just in that place. There are some villages and fishing towns within the mouth of the Clyde, which have more business than large port towns in Galloway and Carrick: But the first town of note is call’d Greenock; ’tis not an antient place, but seems to be grown up in later years, only by being a good road for ships, and where the ships ride that come into, and go out from Glasgow, just as the ships for London do in the downs. It has a castle to command the road and the town is well built, and has many rich trading families in it. It is the chief town on the west of Scotland for the herring fishing; and the merchants of Glasgow, who are concern’d in the fishery, employ the Greenock vessels for the catching and curing the fish, and for several parts of their other trades, as well as carrying them afterwards abroad to market.

Their being ready on all hands to go to sea, makes the Glasgow merchants often leave their ships to the care of those Greenock men; and why not? for they are sensible they are “their best seamen; they are also excellent pilots for those difficult seas.

The Abbey of Pasely is famous in history, and to history I refer the enquirer; it lyes on the west side of the Clyde, over against Glasgow, the remains of the building are to be seen, and the town bears still the marks of being fortify’d. When I tell you this was one of the most eminent monasteries in Scotland; that the building was of a vast extent, and the revenue in proportion; you need not ask if the soil was good, the lands rich, the air healthful, and the country pleasant. The priests very seldom fail’d to chuse the best situation, and the richest and most pleasant part of the country wherever they came; witness St. Albans, St. Edmond’s -Bury, Glastenbury, Canterbury; and innumerable other instances in England, and also many in Scotland; as St. Andrew’s, Haly-Rood, Pasely, and others.

The country between Pasely and Glasgow, on the bank of Clyde, I take to be one of the most agreeable places in Scotland, take its situation, its fertility, healthiness, the nearness of Glasgow, the neighbourhood of the sea, and altogether, at least, I may say, I saw none like it.

Glasgow and central Scotland

I am now come to the bank of Clyde: My method here as in England, forbids me wandring north, till I have given you a full view of the south. Two rivers seem to cross Scotland here, as the Trent and the Mersee, cross England in the south, or as the Tyne and the Eden cross it in the north, or as the two Calders cross it in Yorkshire and Lancashire, which rise both out of the same hill, and with a mile of each other, and run one into the German ocean at Hull, and the other entring first into the Ribble, runs into the Irish Sea below Preston.

Thus the Clyde and the Tweed may be said to cross Scotland in the south, their sources being not many miles asunder; and the two firths, from the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth, have not an interval of above twelve or fourteen miles, which, if they were join’d, as might easily be done, they might cross Scotland, as I might say, in the very center.

Nor can I refrain mentioning how easy a work it would be to form a navigation, I mean a navigation of art from the Forth to the Clyde, and so join the two seas, as the King of France has done in a place five times as far, and five hundred times as difficult, namely from Thouloze to Narbonne. What an advantage in commerce would this be, opening the Irish trade to the merchants of Glasgow, making a communication between the west coast of Scotland, and the east coast of England, and even to London itself; nay, several ports of England, on the Irish Sea, from Liverpool northward, would all trade with London by such a canal, it would take up a volume by itself, to lay down the several advantages to the trade of Scotland, that would immediately occur by such a navigation, and then to give a true survey of the ground, the easiness of its being perform’d, and the probable charge of it, all which might be done: But it is too much to undertake here, it must lye till posterity, by the rising greatness of their commerce, shall not only feel the want of it, but find themselves able for the performance.

I mention’d the neighbouring situation of the Clyde, and the Forth in this place, only to observe that I make that line the bound of this circuit, and shall speak of nothing beyond it till my next. Supposing a line drawn from Dunbarton to Sterling, exclusive of the first, and inclusive of the last; or rather suppose it drawn from Glasgow to Sterling, inclusive of both, because both relate to the south or lowland part of Scotland.

I am now cross’d the Clyde to Glasgow, and I went over dry-footed without the bridge; on which occasion I cannot but observe how differing a face the river presented itself in, at those two several times when only I was there; at the first, being in the month of June, the river was so low, that not the horses and carts only pass’d it just above the bridge, but the children and boys playing about, went every where, as if there was no river, only some little spreading brook, or wash, like such as we have at Enfield-Wash, or Chelston-Wash in Middlesex; and, as I told you, we cross’d it dry-foot, that is, the water was scarce over the horses’ hoofs.

As for the bridge, which is a lofty, stately fabrick; it stood out of the water as naked as a skeleton, and look’d somewhat like the bridge over the Mansanares, near Madrid, which I mention’d once before; of which a French ambassador told the people the king should either buy them a river, or sell their bridge, or like the stone-bridge at Chester in the Street, in Northumberland, where the road goes in the river, and the people ride under the bridge in dry weather instead of riding over it. So when I saw such a magnificent bridge at Glasgow, and especially when I saw three of the middle arches so exceeding large and high, beyond all the rest, I could not but wonder, hardly thinking it possible, that where the passage or channel is so exceeding broad, for the bridge consists of eight arches; the river, which in its ordinary channel is so narrow as it is higher up, and at a distance from it, could ever fill up such a height, where it has so grand a space to spread itself as at the bridge.

But my next journey satisfy’d me, when coming into Glasgow from the east side, I found the river not only had fill’d up all the arches of the bridge, but, running about the end of it, had fill’d the streets of all that part of the city next the bridge, to the infinite damage of the inhabitants, besides putting them into the greatest consternation imaginable, for fear of their houses being driven away by the violence of the water, and the whole city was not without apprehensions that their bridge would have given way too, which would have been a terrible loss to them, for ’tis as fine a bridge as most in Scotland.

Glasgow is, indeed, a very fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together. The houses are all of stone, and generally equal and uniform in height, as well as in front; the lower story generally stands on vast square dorick columns, not round pillars, and arches between give passage into the shops, adding to the strength as well as beauty of the building; in a word, ’tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted.

It stands on the side of a hill, sloping to the river, with this exception, that the part next the river is flat, as is said above, for near one third part of the city, and that expos’d it to the water, upon the extraordinary flood mention’d just now.

Where the streets meet, the crossing makes a spacious marketplace by the nature of the thing, because the streets are so large of themselves. As you come down the hill, from the north gate to the said cross, the Tolbooth, with the Stadhouse, or Guild-Hall, make the north east angle, or, in English, the right-hand corner of the street, the building very noble and very strong, ascending by large stone steps, with an iron balustrade. Here the town-council sit, and the magistrates try causes, such as come within their cognizance, and do all their publick business.

On the left-hand of the same street is the university, the building is the best of any in Scotland of the kind; it was founded by Bishop Turnbull, Ann. 1454. but has been much enlarg’d since, and the fabrick almost all new built. It is a very spacious building, contains two large squares, or courts, and the lodgings for the scholars, and for the professors, are very handsome; the whole building is of freestone, very high and very august. Here is a principal, with regents and professors in every science, as there is at Edinburgh, and the scholars wear gowns, which they do not at Edinburgh. Their gowns here are red, but the Masters of Arts, and professors, wear black gowns, with a large cape of velvet to distinguish them.

The cathedral is an antient building, and has a square tower in the middle of the cross, with a very handsome spire upon it, the highest that I saw in Scotland, and, indeed, the only one that is to be call’d high. This, like St. Giles’s at Edinburgh, is divided now, and makes three churches, and, I suppose, there is four or five more in the city, besides a meeting or two: But there are very few of the episcopal dissenters here; and the mob fell upon one of their meetings so often, that they were oblig’d to lay it down, or, if they do meet, ’tis very privately.

The Duke of Montrose has so great an interest here, and in the country round, that he is, in a civil sense, Governor of this city, as he is legally of their university. His fine house at the north end of the city is not finished, so I need not enter upon a description of it. As his Grace’s family is antient, and respected very much in these parts, so is his interest preserv’d in his own person, who is generally as much respected by the people as most, if not as any of the nobility of Scotland.

Glasgow is a city of business; here is the face of trade, as well foreign as home trade; and, I may say, ’tis the only city in Scotland, at this time, that apparently encreases and improves in both. The Union has answer’d its end to them more than to any other part of Scotland, for their trade is new form’d by it; and, as the Union open’d the door to the Scots in our American colonies, the Glasgow merchants presently fell in with the opportunity; and tho’, when the Union was making, the rabble of Glasgow made the most formidable attempt to prevent it, yet, now they know better, for they have the greatest addition to their trade by it imaginable; and I am asssur’d that they send near fifty sail of ships every year to Virginia, New England, and other English colonies in America, and are every year increasing.

Could this city but have a communication with the Firth of Forth, so as to send their tobacco and sugar by water to Alloway, below Sterling, as they might from thence again to London, Holland, Hambrough, and the Baltick, they would, (for ought I know that should hinder it) in a few years double their trade, and send 100 sail, or more.

The share they have in the herring-fishery is very considerable, and they cure their herrings so well, and so much better than is done in any other part of Great Britain; that a Glasgow herring is esteem’d as good as a Dutch herring, which in England they cannot come up to.

As Scotland never enjoy’d a trade to the English plantations till since the Union, so no town in Scotland has yet done any thing considerable in it but Glasgow: the merchants of Edinburgh have attempted it; but they lye so out of the way, and the voyage is not only so much the longer, but so much more hazardous, that the Glasgow men are always sure to outdo them, and must consequently carry away that part of trade from them, as likewise the trade to the south, and to the Mediterranean, whither the ships from Glasgow go and come again with great advantage in the risque, so that even in the insuring there is one per cent, difference, which is a great article in the Business of a merchant.

The towns of Irwin and Dumfries are, as I hinted before, newly stepp’d into this trade too, and will, no question, taste the sweets of it.

The Glasgow merchants have of late suffer’d some scandal in this branch of trade, as if they were addicted to the sin of smuggling; as to that, of others, for want of opportunity, are not in capacity to do the same, let those who are not guilty, or would not, if they had room for it, throw the first stone at them; for my part I accuse none of them.

The Clyde is not navigable for large ships quite up to the town, but they come to a wharf and key at New-Port Glasgow, which is within a very little of it, and there they deliver their cargoes, and either put them on shore there, or bring them up to the city in lighters: the custom-house also is at Port Glasgow, and their ships are repair’d, laid up, fitted out, and the like, either there or at Greenock, where work is done well, and labour cheap.

I have not time here to enlarge upon the home trade of this city, which is very considerable in many things, I shall only touch at some parts of them (viz.)

Here is one or two very handsome sugar-baking houses, carried on by skilful persons, with large stocks, and to a very great degree: I had the curiosity to view one of the houses, and I think it equal to, if not exceeding most in London. Also there is a large distillery for distilling spirits from the molasses drawn from the sugars, and which they call’d Glasgow brandy, and in which they enjoy’d a vast advantage for a time, by a reserv’d article in the Union, freeing them from the English duties, I say for a time.

Here is a manufacture of plaiding, a stuff cross-strip’d with yellow and red, and other mixtures for the plaids or vails, which the ladies in Scotland wear, and which is a habit peculiar to the country.

Here is a manufacture of muslins, and, perhaps the only manufacture of its kind in Britain, if not in Europe; and they make them so good and so fine, that great quantities of them are sent into England, and sold there at a good price; they are generally strip’d, and are very much used for aprons by the ladies, and sometimes in head-clothes by the English women of a meaner sort, and many of them are sent to the British plantations.

Here is also a linnen manufacture; but as that is in common with all parts of Scotland, I do not insist so much upon it here, though they make a very great quantity of it, and send it to the plantations also as a principal merchandise.

Nor are the Scots without a supply of goods for sorting their cargoes to the English colonies, even without sending to England for them, or at least not for many of them; and ’tis needful to mention it here, because it has been objected by some that understood trade too, that the Scots could not send a sortable cargo to America without buying from England; which goods, so bought from, must come through many hands, and by long carriage, and consequently be dear bought, and so the English merchants might undersell them.

But to answer this in the language of merchants, as it is a merchant-like objection: It may be true, that some things cannot be had here so well as from England, so as to make out a sortable cargo, such as the Virginia merchants in London ship off, whose entries at the Custom-house consist sometimes of 200 particulars; and they are at last fain to sum them up thus: certain tin, turnery, millinary, upholdstery, cutlery, and Crooked-Lane wares; that is to say, that they buy something of every thing, either for wearing, or kitchen, or house-furniture, building houses or ships (with every thing else in short) that can be thought of, except eating.

But though the Scots cannot do this, we may reckon up what they can furnish, and what is sufficient, and some of which they can go beyond England in.

They have several woollen manufactures which they send’ of their own making; such as the Sterling serges, Musclebrow stuffs, Aberdeen stockings, Edinburgh shalloons, blankets, &c. So that they are not quite destitute in the woollen manufacture, tho’ that is the principal thing in which England can outdo them.

The trade with England, being open, they have now, all the Manchester wares, Sheffield wares, and Newcastle hard wares; as also the cloths, kerseys, half-thicks, duffels, stockings, and coarse manufactures of the north of England, as cheap brought to them by horse-packs as they can be carried to London; nor is the carriage farther, and, in some articles, not so far by much.

They have linnens of most kinds, especially diapers and table-linnen, damasks, and many other sorts not known in England, cheaper than England, because made at their own doors.

What linnens they want from Holland, or Hamburgh, they import from thence as cheap as can be done in England; and for muslins, their own are very acceptable, and cheaper than in England.

Gloves they make better and cheaper than in England, for they send great quantities thither.

Another article, which is very considerable here, is servants, and these they have in greater plenty, and upon better terms than the English; without the scandalous art of kidnapping, making drunk, wheedling, betraying, and the like; the poor people offering themselves fast enough, and thinking it their advantage to go; as indeed it is, to those who go with sober resolutions, namely, to serve out their times, and then become diligent planters for themselves; and this would be a much wiser course in England than to turn thieves, and worse, and then be sent over by force, and as a pretence of mercy to save them from the gallows.

This may be given as a reason, and, I believe, is the only reason why so many more of the Scots servants, which go over to Virginia, settle and thrive there, than of the English, which is so certainly true, that if it goes on for many years more. Virginia may be call’d a Scots than an English plantation.

I might go on to many other particulars, but this is sufficient to shew that the Scots merchants are at no loss how to make up sortable cargoes to send with their ships to the plantations, and that if we can outdo them in some things, they are able to outdo us in others; if they are under any disadvantages in the trade I am speaking of, it is that they may perhaps, not have so easy a vent and consumption for the goods they bring back, as the English have, at London, or Bristol, or Liverpool; and that is the reason why they are now, as they say, setting up a wharf and conveniences at Alloway in the Forth, in order to send their tobaccos and sugars thither by land-carriage, and ship them off there for Holland, or Hamburgh, or London, as the market presents.

Now, though this may be some advantage (viz.) carrying the tobacco from fourteen to fifteen miles over land; yet, if on the other hand it be calculated how much sooner the voyage is made from Glasgow to the capes of Virginia, than from London, take it one time with another, the difference will be found in the freight, and in the expence of the ships, and especially in time of war, when the channel is throng’d with privateers, and when the ships wait to go in fleets for fear of enemies; whereas the Glasgow men are no sooner out of the Firth of Clyde, but they stretch away to the north west, are out of the wake of the privateers immediately, and are oftentimes at the capes of Virginia before the London ships get clear of the channel. Nay, even in times of peace, and take the weather to happen in its usual manner, there must always be allow’d, one time with another, at least fourteen to twenty days difference in the voyage, either out or home; which, take it together, is a month to six weeks in the whole voyage, and for wear and tear; victuals and wages, is very considerable in the whole trade.

I went from Glasgow to the palace of Hamilton, or as we should call it in England, to Hamilton-house: It is the palace of Hamilton, and the palace at Hamilton, for the family is according to the Scots dialect, Hamilton of that Ilk, that is of a place or town of the same name, for the town of Hamilton joins to the outhouses, or offices of the house of Hamilton. The house is large as it is, tho’ part of the design is yet unfinish’d; it is now a fair front, with two wings, two wings more there are laid out in the ichnography of the building, but are not attempted; the successor if he thinks fit, may build them.

The front is very magnificent indeed, all of white freestone, with regular ornaments according to the rules of art: The wings are very deep, and when the other wings come to be added, if ever that shall be, the two sides of the house will then be like two large fronts rather than wings; not unlike Beddington House, near Croydon in Surrey, only much larger.

The apartments are very noble, and fit rather for the court of a prince than the palace or house of a subject; the pictures, the furniture, and the decoration of every thing is not to be describ’d, but by saying that every thing is exquisitely fine and suitable to the genius of the great possessors: the late duchess, whose estate it was, was heiress of the family, but marrying a branch of the house of Douglass, oblig’d him to take the name of Hamilton, so to continue the estate in the name; and it has sufficiently answer’d that end. That match being blest with a truly glorious succession of six sons, four of whom were peers by birth, or creation (viz.) the late Duke, or rather Earl of Arran, his mother being alive, the Earls of Orkney, Selkirk, and Ruglen, besides the Lords Basil and Archibald Hamilton. But this by the way.

The situation of the house is fix’d to all the advantage imaginable; it stands in a plain, level country, near enough to the banks of the Clyde to enjoy the prospect of its stream, and yet far enough and high enough to be out of the reach of its torrents and floods, which, as you have heard, are sometimes able to terrify a whole city.

The great park is said to be six miles in circumference, wall’d round with stone, but rough, and not well lay’d; the lesser park is rather a great enclosure than a park, yet they are both extremely well planted with trees, and add to the ornament of the whole. The great park also is well stock’d with deer, and among them some very curious for the kind, whether natives of the place, or of foreign breed, I could not learn. The gardens are finely design’d, but I cannot say they are so finely finish’d, or so nicely kept as those at Drumlanrig, particularly the courtyard; the canals and ponds, design’d with some other gardens laid out in the first plan, are not compleated, and some not so much as begun upon: so that the next heirs have room enough to divert themselves, and dispose of some of their spare treasure, to carry on and compleat the true design of their ancestor.

The misfortune of the late heir, the father of the present duke, happen’d so, as that he never came to the estate, for he was kill’d before the Duchess Dowager died; so that the estate, as I observ’d, being her own, remain’d in her hands till afterward; whether this might not be the better for the present heir, I shall not determine, let others judge of that.

I was here in some doubt, whether I should take the south or the north in the next part of my progress; that is to say, whether to follow up the Clyde, and so into, and through Clydesdale, and then crossing east, view the shire of Peebles, the country on the banks of Tweed and Tivyot, or keeping to the north, go on for the Forth; and after a short debate we concluded on the latter. So we turn’d to the left for Sterling-shire, and passing the Clyde we came to Kilsyth, a good plain country burgh, tolerably well built, but not large; here we rested, and upon a particular occasion went to see the antient seat of Calendar, which seems, as well as that of Kilsyth, to be in its widow’s weeds, those two families, collateral branches both of the name of Livingston, having had their several decays, though on different occasions. The town of Falkirk is near Calendar house, but nothing in it remarkable; but the other old decay’d house of the Earl of Calendar.

Here I must take notice, though, as I have often said, antiquity is not my business, that we saw the remains, and that very plain, of the antient work, which they call Severus’s wall, or Hadrian’s wall, or Graham’s dyke, for it is known by all these: the short of which story is this; that the Romans finding it not only difficult, but useless to them, to conquer the northern Highlands, and impossible to keep them, if conquer’d; contented themselves to draw a line, so we now call it, cross this narrow part of the country, and fortify it with redoubts, and stations of soldiers to confine the Picts and Irish, and those wild nations which were without, and defend the south country from their incursions. This wall reach’d from Dunbriton Firth, so they call’d the Firth of Clyde, to the Forth, and was several times restor’d and repair’d, till the Roman empire’s declining, as is well known in story. Tho’ neither this, or the yet stronger wall at New-castle, call’d the Picts wall, could preserve the country from the invasion of the Picts, and the barbarous nations that came with them.

From Kilsyth we mounted the hills black and frightful as they were, to find the road over the moors and mountains to Sterling, and being directed by our guides, came to the river Carron: The channel of a river appear’d, indeed, and running between horrid precipices of rocks, as if cut by hand, on purpose for the river to make its way; but not a drop of water was to be seen. Great stones, square and form’d, as if cut out by hand, of a prodigious size, some of them at least a ton, or ton and a half in weight, lay scatter’d, and confusedly, as it were, jumbled together in the very course of the river, which the fury of the water, at other times, I doubt not, had hurried down from the mountains, and tumbled them thus over one another: Some of them might, I suppose, have been some ages upon their journey down the stream; for it may not be once in some years that a flood comes with a force sufficient to move such stones as those; and, ’tis probable, ’tis never done, but when a weight of ice, as well as water, may come down upon them together.

Here we pass’d another bridge of one arch, though not quite so large as that we saw in Galloway, yet not much unlike, nor much short of it; ’tis finely built of freestone, but rises so high, the shores being flat, and the walls on either side are so low, that it is not every head can bear to ride over it.

The truth is, there was need to build the bridge but with one arch, for no piers, they could have built in the middle of the channel, ever could have born the shock of those great stones, which sometimes come down this stream.

From hence, descending on the north side, we had a view of Firth, or Forth, on our right, the castle of Sterling on the left; and in going to the latter we pass’d the famous water, for river it is not, of Bannock Bourn, famous in the Scots History for the great battle fought here between King Robert de Bruce and the English Army, commanded by King Edward II. in person, in which the English were utterly overthrown; and that with so terrible a slaughter, that of the greatest army that ever march’d from England into Scotland, very few escap’d; and King Edward II. with much ado, sav’d himself by flight. How, indeed, he should save himself by a little boat, (as Mr Cambden says) that, indeed, I cannot understand, there being no river near that had any boats in it but the Forth, and that had been to make the king fly north; whereas, to be sure, he fled for England with all the speed he could; he might, perhaps, make use of a boat to pass the Tweed; but that was at least thirty or forty miles off.

Whether the Scots magnify this victory, or not, is not my business, that it was a total overthrow of the English Army is certain, and that abundance of the English nobility and gentry lost their lives there; but ’tis as true, that it was the ill conduct of the English at that time, and the unfortunate king that led them on, which were the occasion: His glorious predecessor, Edward I., or Edward III. his more glorious successor, never lost such a battle. But let the fault be where it will, this is certain, that the English lost the day, and were horribly massacred by the Scots, as well after as in the fight, for the animosity was implacable between the two nations, and they gave but little quarter on either side.

Sterling was our next stage, an antient city, or town rather, and an important pass, which, with Dunbarton, is indeed the defence of the Lowlands against the Highlands; and, as one very knowingly said, Dunbarton is the lock of the Highlands, and Sterling-Castle keeps the key. The town is situated as like Edinburgh as almost can be describ’d, being on the ridge of a hill, sloping down on both sides, and the street ascending from the east gradually to the castle, which is at the west end; the street is large and well built, but antient, and the buildings not unlike Edinburgh, either for beauty or sight.

The church is also a very spacious building, but not collegiate; there was formerly a church, or rather chapel, in the castle, but it is now out of use; also a private chapel, or oratory in the palace, for the royal family: But all that is now laid aside too. The castle is not so very difficult of access as Edinburgh; but it is esteem’d equally strong, and particularly the works are capable to mount more cannon, and these cannon are better pointed; particularly there is a battery which commands, or may command the bridge; the command of which is of the utmost importance; nay, it is the main end and purpose for which, as we are told, the castle was built.

They who built the castle, without doubt built it, as the Scots express it, to continue aye, and till somebody else should build another there, which, in our language, would be for ever and a day after: The walls, and all the outer works are firm, and if no force is us’d to demolish them, may continue inconceivably long, at least we have reason to believe they will; for though the other buildings grow old, the castle seems as firm and fair, as if it had been but lately built.

The palace and royal apartments are very magnificent, but all in decay, and must be so: Were the materials of any use, we thought it would be much better to pull them down than to let such noble buildings sink into their own rubbish, by the meer injury of time: But it is at present the fate of all the royal houses in Scotland; Haly-Rood at Edinburgh excepted: It is so at Lithgow, at Falkland, at Dumfermling, and at several other places.

In the park, adjoining to the castle, were formerly large gardens, how fine they were I cannot say; the figure of the walks and grass-plats remains plain to be seen, they are very old fashion’d; but I suppose the gardens might be thought fine, as gardens were then; particularly they had not then the usage of adorning their gardens with ever-greens, trimm’d and shap’d; trees espalier’d into hedges and such-like, as now: They had, indeed, statues and busts, vasa, and fountains, flowers and fruit; but we make gardens fine now many ways, which those ages had no genius for; as by scrouls, embroidery, pavillions, terrasses and slopes, pyramids and high espaliers, and a thousand ornaments, which they had no notion of.

The park here is large and wall’d about, as all the parks in Scotland are, but little or no wood in it. The Earl of Mar, of the name of Ereskin, who claims to be hereditary keeper of the king’s children, as also hereditary keeper of the castle, has a house at the upper end of the town, and very finely situated for prospect, but I cannot say it is so for any thing else, for it is too near the castle; and was the castle ever to suffer a close siege, and be vigorously defended, that house would run great risques of being demolish’d on one side or other; it stands too near the castle also for the site of it to be agreeable.

The Governor’s lady (who was the Countess Dowager of Marr, when we were there, and mother of the late exil’d Earl of Marr), had a very pretty little flower-garden, upon the body of one of the bastions, or towers of the castle, the ambrusiers, serving for a dwarf-wall round the most part of it; and they walk’d to it from her Ladyship’s apartment upon a level, along the castle-wall.

As this little, but very pleasant spot, was on the north side of the castle, we had from thence a most agreeable prospect indeed over the valley and the river; as it is truly beautiful, so it is what the people of Sterling justly boast of, and, indeed seldom forget it, I mean the meanders, or reaches of the River Forth. They are so spacious, and return so near themselves, with so regular and exactly a sweep, that, I think, the like is not to be seen in Britain, if it is in Europe, especially where the river is so large also.

The River Sein, indeed, between Paris and Roan, fetches a sweep something like these some miles longer, but then it is but one; whereas here are three double reaches, which make six returns together, and each of them three long Scots miles, or more in length; and as the bows are almost equal for breadth, as the reaches are for length, it makes the figure compleat. It is an admirable sight indeed, and continues from a little below the great bridge at Sterling to Alloway, the seat of the present, or rather late Earl of Marr, the present Earl being attainted for treason, and so dead, as a peer or earl, though alive in exile. The form of this winding may be conceiv’d of a little by the length of the way, for it is near twenty miles from Sterling to Alloway by water, and hardly four miles by land.

One would think these large sweeps, or windings of the stream, should check the tide very much: But, on the contrary, we found the tide of flood made up very strong under Sterling-bridge, even as strong almost as at London-bridge, but does not flow above seven or eight miles farther: The stream of the river growing narrow apace, and the rapid current of all rivers in that country checking the tide, when it comes into narrow limits; the same is the case in the Tyne at Newcastle, and the Tweed at Berwick; in both which, though the tide flows as strong in at the mouth of the rivers, yet the navigation goes but a very little way up, nothing near what it does in this river.

The bridge at Sterling has but four arches, as I remember, but they are very large, and the channel widens considerably below it; at Alloway ’tis above a mile broad, and deep enough for ships of any burthen. So that the Glasgow merchants cannot but be in the right to settle a ware-house, or ware-houses, or whatever they will call them here, to ship off their goods for the eastern countries.

I was, indeed, curious to enquire into the course of this river, as I had been before into that of the Clyde as to the possibility of their waters being united for an inland navigation; because I had observ’d that the charts and plans of the country brought them almost to meet; but when I came more critically to survey the ground, I found the map-makers greatly mistaken, and that they had not only given the situation and courses of the rivers wrong, but the distances also. However, upon the whole, I brought it to this; that notwithstanding several circumstances which might obstruct it, and cause the workmen to fetch some winding turns out of the way, yet, that in the whole, a canal of about eight miles in length would fairly join the rivers, and make a clear navigation from the Irish to the German Sea; and that this would be done without any considerable obstruction; so that there would not need above four sluices in the whole way, and those only to head a bason, or receptacle, to contain a flash, or flush of water to push on the vessels this way or that, as occasion requir’d, not to stop them to raise or let fall, as in the case of locks in other rivers.

How easy then such a work would be, and how advantagious, not to Scotland only, but even to Ireland and England also, I need not explain, the nature of the thing will explain itself. I could enter upon particular descriptions of the work, and answer the objections rais’d from the great excess of waters in these streams in the winter, and the force and fury of their streams: But ’tis needless, nor have we room for such a work here; besides, all those who are acquainted with such undertakings, know that artificial canals are carefully secur’d from any communication with other waters, except just as their own occasion for the navigating part demands; and that they are so order’d, as to be always in a condition to take in what water they want, and cast off what would be troublesome to them, by proper channels and sluices made for that purpose.

Those gentlemen who have seen the royal canal in Languedoc from Narbon to Thoulouse, as many in Scotland have, will be able to support what I say in this case, and to understand how easily the same thing is to be practis’d here; but I leave it to time, and the fate of Scotland, which, I am perswaded, will one time or other bring it to pass.

There is a very good hospital at the upper end of this town for poor decay’d tradesmen merchants. They told us it was for none but merchants, which presently brought Sir John Morden’s Hospital upon Black-Heath to my thoughts; but I had forgotten where I was: And that in Scotland every country shop-keeper, nay, almost every pether is call’d a merchant; which, when I was put in mind of, I understood the foundation of the hospital better.

There is a very considerable manufacture at Sterling, for what they call Sterling serges, which are in English, shalloons; and they both make them and dye them there very well; nor has the English manufacture of shalloons broke in so much upon them by the late Union, as it was fear’d they would. This manufacture employs the poor very comfortably here, and is a great part of the support of the town as to trade, showing what Scotland might soon be brought to by the help of trade and manufactures; for the people are as willing to work here as in England, if they had the same encouragement, that is, if they could be constantly employ’d and paid for it too, as they are there.

The family of Ereskin is very considerable here; and besides the Earl of Marr and the Earl of Buchan, who are both of that name, there are several gentlemen of quality of the same name; as Sir John Ereskine of Alva, Colonel Ereskine, at that time Governor of the castle; and another Colonel Ereskine, Uncle to the Earl of Buchan, a very worthy and valuable gentleman, who, tho’ he does not live at Sterling, has a considerable interest there, and was at that time Honourary Lord Provost of the town.

We had here a very fine prospect both east and west; eastward we could plainly see the castle of Edinburgh, and the hill call’d Arthur’s Seat, in the Royal Park at Haly-Rood House, also the opening firth presents all the way from Alloway to the Queens-Ferry, mention’d above. North we could see Dumfermling, and the field of battle, call’d Sheriff-muir, between it and Sterling; and some told us we might see Dumbarton castle west; but it was hazy that way, so that we could not see it, the prospect south is confin’d by the hills.

But our business was not to the north yet; still having a part of the border to view, that we might leave nothing behind us to oblige us to come this way again: So we went from Sterling, first east and then south-east., over some of the same hills, which we pass’d at our coming hither, though not by the same road. The Duke of Argyle has a small house, which the family call’d the Low-land House, I suppose in distinction from the many fine seats and strong castles which they were always possess’d of in the Highlands: this seat was formerly belonging to the earls of Sterling, and the country round it, south of the Forth, is call’d Sterlingshire, or Strivelingshire, and sends a member to parliament, as a shire or county. The family of the earls of Sterling is extinct, at least, if there are any of the name, as is alledg’d, they live obscurely in England. They make great complaint at Sterling, which they derive from the Papists, that the old Earl of Marr, who built the family-house under the castle, as I have just now said, was a clergy-man and prior, or abbot of the famous monastery of Cambuskeneth, a religious house, of the Order of the Augustines, which stood not far off.

That upon the Reformation the said abbot turn’d Protestant and married, and was created Earl of Marr: That he was so zealous afterwards for the change of religion, that he set his hand to the demolishing of his own monastery; and that he brought away the stones of it to Sterling, and built this fine house with them; upon which the Romanists branded him with sacrilege and avarice together, and gave him their curse, which is not unusual in Scotland; which curse, they tell you, now fell upon even the house itself, for that the family being hereditary governors of Sterling Castle; and besides, having another house at Alloway, four miles from it, the new built house was never inhabited to this day, at least not by the family to whom it belong’d, and is at last forfeited to the crown.

This clamour, however, did not hinder him from going on with his house, which he finish’d, as you see; but ’tis suppos’d those reproaches occasion’d his setting up several inscriptions, as well without the house as within; some of them are worn out with time, others are legible; whereof this distich in a Scots dialect, I think, points at the case.

Speak forth, and spare nocht,
Consider well, I care nocht.

The words seem to want a paraphrase, which I shall make as short almost as the lines, though not in rhime; I take it to import much like the Duke of Buckingham’s inscription on the frize of his new house in the Park at St. James’s, Spectator fastidiosus sibi molestus: The builder had heard the rumours and reproaches of the people, but bids them speak out plainly, and say their worst; for that, if they consider’d well, and would say nothing but what was true, he had nothing to be concern’d at.

From Sterling, as I said, we came away west, and went directly to Lithgow, or Linlithgow, and from thence to Clydsdale, that is to say, the country upon the banks of the Clyde; in doing which last we pass’d the old Roman work a second time, which I still call Severus’s wall, because we are assur’d Severus was the last that repair’d it, though he might not make it; and more especially, because the men of learning there generally call it so; the remains of it are very plain to be seen.

There is nothing remarkable between Sterling and Lithgow but Bannockbourn, which I have mention’d already, and some private gentlemen’s seats, too many to repeat.

Lithgow is a large town, well built, and antiently famous for the noble palace of the kings of Scotland, where King James VI. and his queen kept their Court in great magnificence. This Court, though decaying with the rest, is yet less decay’d, because much later repair’d than others; for King James repair’d, or rather rebuilt some of it: and his two sons, Prince Henry, and Prince Charles, afterwards King of England, had apartments here; and there are the Prince of Wales’s Arms, over those, call’d the Princes’ Lodgings to this day. Here it was that the good Lord Murray, the Regent, who they call’d good, because he was really so, as he was riding through the town into the palace, was shot most villainously from a window, and the murtherer was discover’d. He dy’d of the wound with the utmost tranquillity and resignation, after having had the satisfaction of being the principal man in settling the Reformation in Scotland in such a manner, as it was not possible for the Popish party to recover themselves again; and after seeing the common people over the whole kingdom embrace the Reformation, almost universally, to his great joy, for he was the most zealous of all the nobility in the cause of the Reformation, and unalterably resolv’d never to give way to the least allowance to the Popish Court, who then began to crave only a toleration for themselves, but could never obtain it; for this reason the Papists mortally hated him, and, at length, murther’d him. But they got little by his death, for the reformers went on with the same zeal, and never left, till they had entirely driven Queen Mary, and all her Popish adherents out of the kingdom, yet we do not find the true murtherer was ever discover’d: But this is matter of history.

At Lithgow there is a very great linnen manufacture, as there is at Glasgow; and the water of the lough, or lake here, is esteem’d with the best in Scotland for bleaching or whitening of linnen cloth: so that a great deal of linnen made in other parts of the country, is brought either to be bleach’d or whiten’d.

This lough is situate on the north west side of the town, just by the palace; and there were formerly fine walks planted on both sides, with bordures and flowers from the house to the water’s edge, which must be very delightful.

The Church of St. Michael makes a part of the royal building, and is the wing on the right hand of the first court, as all the proper offices of the court made the left: But the inner court is the beauty of the building, was very spacious, and, in those days, was thought glorious. There is a large fountain in the middle of the court, which had then abundance of fine things about it, whereof some of the carvings and ornaments remain still.

Here the kings of Scotland, for some ages, kept their Courts on occasion of any extraordinary ceremony. And here King James V. reinstituted, or rather restor’d the Order of the Knights of St. Andrew, as the Order of Knights of the Bath were lately restor’d in England. Here he erected stalls, and a throne for them in St. Michael’s Church, and made it the Chapel of the Order, according to the usage at Windsor: The king himself wore the badges of four orders (viz.) that of the Garter conferred on him by the King of England; that of St. Andrew being his own; that of the Golden Fleece conferr’d on him by the emperor, then King of Spain; and of St. Michael, by which it appears he was a prince very much honour’d in the world.

Also he first order’d the Thistle to be added to the badge of the Order; and the motto, which since is worn about it in the Royal Arms, was of his invention (viz.) Nemo me impune lacessit. The Cordon Verd, or Green Ribband, was then worn by the Knights Companions: but the late King James II. or (as I should say, being in Scotland) the VIIth, chang’d it to the Blue Ribband, as the Knights of the Garter wear it in England.

Queen Anne, however, restor’d the Green Ribband again, and intended to have call’d a Chapter of the Order, and have brought it into its full lustre again: but Her Majesty was taken to heaven before it could be done.

Lithgow is a pleasant, handsome, well built town; the Tolbooth is a good building, and not old, kept in good repair, and the streets clean: The people look here as if they were busy, and had something to do, whereas in many towns we pass’d through they seem’d as if they look’d disconsolate for want of employment: The whole green, fronting the lough or lake, was cover’d with linnen-cloth, it being the bleaching season, and, I believe, a thousand women and children, and not less, tending and managing the bleaching business; the town is serv’d with water by one very large bason, or fountain, to which the water is brought from the same spring which serv’d the Royal Palace.

From Lithgow we turn’d to the right, as I said above, into the shire of Clydesdale: Some business also calling us this way, and following the Clyde upwards, from a little above Hamilton, where we were before, we came to Lanerk, which is about eight miles from it due south.

From Lithgow, by this way to Lanerk, is thirty long miles; and some of the road over the wildest country we had yet seen. Lanerk is the capital indeed of the country, otherwise it is but a very indifferent place; it is eminent for the assembling of the Bothwell-Bridge Rebellion, and several other little disturbances of the Whigs in those days; for Whigs then were all Presbyterians, and Cameronian Presbyterians too, which, at that time, was as much as to say rebels.

A little below Lanerk the River Douglass falls into the Clyde, giving the same kind of usual surname to the lands about it, as I have observ’d other rivers do, namely Douglassdale, as the Clyde does that of Clydesdale, the Tweed that of Tweedale; and so of the rest.

In this dull vale stands the antient, paternal estate and castle, which gives name (and title too) to the great family of Douglass. The castle is very ill adapted to the glory of the family; but as it is the antient inheritance, the heads or chief of the name have always endeavour’d to keep up the old mansion, and have consequently, made frequent additions to the building, which have made it a wild, irregular mass; yet there are noble apartments in it, and the house seems, at a distance, rather a little town than one whole fabrick. The park is very large; the garden, or yards, as they call them, not set out with fine plants or greens, or divided into flower-gardens, parters, wildernesses, kitchin-gardens, &c. as is the modern usage. In short ’tis an antient, magnificent pile, great, but not gay; its grandeur, in most parts, consists in its antiquity, and being the mansion of one of the greatest families in Scotland above 1,000 years. The history of the family would take up a volume by itself; and there is a volume in folio extant, written upon this subject only, where the heroes of the name are fully set forth, and all the illustrious actions they have been concern’d in. There are, at this time, not less than six or seven branches of this family, all rank’d in the peerage of Great Britain, namely, the Duke of Douglass, the chief of the whole clan or name, the Duke of Queensberry and Dover, the Earls of Morton, Dunbarton and March; and the Lords Mordingtoun and Forfar; the latter was lately unhappily kill’d at the fight near Dumblane, against the Lord Marr and the Pretender. But I must not run out into families; the head family of this name has been in better circumstances, as to estate, than they are at present: But the young duke does not want merit lo raise himself, when times may come that personal merit may be able to raise families, and make men great.

From Lanerk we left the wild place call’d Crawford Muir on the right, the business that brought us round this way being finish’d, and went away west into the shire of Peebles, and so into Tweedale; the first town we came to of any note upon the Tweed, is the town of Peebles, capital of the country. The town is small, and but indifferently built or inhabited, yet the High Street has some good houses on it. There is a handsome stone-bridge over the Tweed, which is not a great river here, though the current is sometimes indeed very violent.

The country is hilly, as in the rest of Tweedale, and those hills cover’d with sheep, which is, indeed, a principal part of the estates of the gentlemen; and the overplus quantity of the sheep, as also their wool, is mostly sent to England, to the irreparable damage of the poor; who, were they employ’d to manufacture their own wool, would live much better than they do, and find the benefit of the Union in a different manner, from what they have yet clone.

Before the Union this wool, and more with it, brought by stealth out of England, went all away to France, still (as I say) to the great loss of the poor, who, had they but spun it into yarn, and sent the yarn into France, would have had some benefit by it; but the Union bringing with it a prohibition of the exportation, upon the severest penalties, the gentlemen of the southern countries complain’d of the loss, at the time that affair was transacted in parliament; to make them amends for which, a large sum of money was appointed to them as an equivalent, and to encourage them to set the poor to work, as appears by the Act of Union; this money, I say, was appropriated by the Act to be employ’d in setting hands to work in Scotland, to manufacture their own wool by their own people: How much of the money has been so employ’d, I desire not to examine. I leave it to them whose proper business it is.

Here are two monuments in this country, all Scotland not affording the like, of the vanity of worldly glory. The one is in the foundation of a royal palace, or seat of a nobleman, once the first man in Scotland, next the king: It is a prodigious building, too great for a subject, begun by the Earl of Morton, whose head being afterwards lay’d in the dust, his design perish’d; and the building has not been carry’d on, and I suppose never will. The other is in the palace of Traquair, built and finish’d by the late Earl of Traquair, for some years Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, and a person in the highest posts, both of honour and profit in the kingdom, who yet fell from it all, by the adversity of the times; for his conduct under his Majesty King Charles I. being generally censur’d, and himself universally hated, he sunk into the most abject and lowest part of human life, even to want bread, and to take alms, and in that miserable circumstance died, and never saw the turn of the times, I mean the Restoration, which happen’d but a year after his death. The house is noble, the design great, and well finish’d, and no sooner done so but it was confiscated, and the owner turn’d out of it, to seek his bread from a generation of his enemies, who thought they were merciful enough in sparing his life; whether it was so or not, and what his actions were (perhaps none of the best) is not my business; but, I think, it had been a kind of mercy to him, if they had rather taken his head, the condition he was reduc’d to, being doubtless, to a man of any spirit, much worse than death; and, I question whether, if he had been an English man, he would not have put an end to the distress he was in, Brevi manu: Not that I think that is the way any Christian man ought to take to put an end to human misery, be the condition here what it will, but that we find the English less able to bear such distresses than other nations, and apter to fly into lunacies and desperation, that I believe none will dispute.

Bishop Burnet gives an account of this earl as a very mean spirited, abject person, and one that suffered himself to be made the instrument of other men’s mischiefs, and that he therefore fell so much unpity’d: But be that as it will, it is as I say, a remarkable monument of the vanity of human glory; and it is the more remarkable for this, that he was particularly drop’d and despis’d by the party he had serv’d, and who he had too faithfully adher’d to; which is a caution to all that shall come after him, to take heed how they sacrifice themselves for parties, and against the true interest of their country, they are sure to be abandon’d, even of those that employ them, as well as to be hated of those they are employ’d against.

Here we saw the ruins of the once famous Abbey of Mailross, the greatness of which may be a little judg’d of by its vastly extended remains, which are of a very great circuit: The building is not so entirely demolish’d but that we may distinguish many places and parts of it one from another; as particularly the great church or chapel of the monastery, which is as large as some cathedrals, the choir of which is visible, and measures 140 foot in length, besides what may have been pull’d down at the east end; by the thickness of the foundations there must have been a large and strong tower or steeple in the center of the church, but of what form or height, that no guess can be made at: There are several fragments of the house itself, and of the particular offices belonging to it; the court, the cloyster, and other buildings are so visible, as that ’tis easy to know it was a most magnificent place in those days. But the Reformation has triumph’d over all these things, and the pomp and glory of Popery is sunk now into the primitive simplicity of the true Christian profession; nor can any Protestant mourn the loss of these seminaries of superstition, upon any principles that agree, either with his own profession, or with the Christian pattern prescrib’d in the scriptures. So I leave Mailross with a singular satisfaction, at seeing what it now is, much more than that of remembring what it once was. I doubt not, had Traquair House been built with the stones of this abbey, some people would have plac’d all the misfortunes of the unhappy builder to that sacrilege, as is noted in the Earl of Marr’s house at Sterling: But, as it happen’d, they had no room for that.

Following the course of the Tweed, we pass’d by abundance of gentlemen’s seats and antient mansions, whose possessions are large in this country, and who, it is impossible I should, in so short a tract as this, do any more than name: Such as the family of Douglass, of whom one branch is call’d Douglass of Cavers and is hereditary sheriff of the county. The family of Elliot, of whom one is, at present, one of the Lords of Session in Scotland, and is call’d Lord Minto, in virtue of his office, being otherwise no more than Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto. There is also another gentleman of the same name, Sir Gilbert Elliot of Stobbs, both antient families, and formerly eminent, with many others, among the borderers; whether that should be mention’d as a fame to them or not, I am not a judge; the borderers, in former days, being rather known for their courage and boldness in the field, than for the justice of their manner; which being chiefly exerted in mutual excursions and invasions on one side, as well as the other, some have been so free with them, as to esteem them no better than thieves. But be that as you will, with respect to ancestors, the present heads of those families are now (at least some of them) as valuable gentlemen as any in both kingdoms, and as much respected; among these are the families of the name of Kerr, Hamilton, Hume, Swinton, and many other; as on the English side were the families of Piercy, Nevil, Gray, and the like.

The country next this, south east, is call’d Tiviotdale, or otherwise the shire of Roxburgh; and the Duke of Roxburgh has several fine seats in it, as well as a very great estate; indeed most of the country belongs to the family: His house call’d Floors is an antient seat, but begins to wear a new face; and those who view’d it fifteen or sixteen years ago, will scarce know it again, if they should come a few years hence, when the present duke may have finished the additions and embellishments, which he is now making, and has been a considerable time upon. Nor will the very face of the country appear the same, except it be that the River Tweed may, perhaps, run in the same channel: But the land before, lying open and wild, he will find enclos’d, cultivated and improv’d, rows, and even woods of trees covering the champaign country, and the house surrounded with large grown vistas, and well planted avenues, such as were never seen there before.

From hence we came to Kelsoe, a handsome market-town upon the bank of the Tweed. Here is a very large antient church, being built in the place of an old monastery of fryars, the ruins of which are yet to be seen: The church now standing seems to have been the real chapel of the monastery, not a new one erected; only modell’d from the old one; for though it is itself a great building, yet it has certainly been much larger. Its antiquity argues this, for by the building it must have been much antienter than the Reformation.

Kelsoe, as it stands on the Tweed, and so near the English border, is a considerable thorough-fair to England, one of the great roads from Edinburgh to Newcastle lying through this town, and a nearer way by far than the road through Berwick. They only want a good bridge over the Tweed: At present they have a ferry just at the town, and a good ford through the river, a little below it; but, though I call it a good ford, and so it is when the water is low, yet that is too uncertain; and the Tweed is so dangerous a river, and rises sometimes so suddenly, that a man scarce knows, when he goes into the water, how it shall be ere he gets out at the other side; and it is not very strange to them at Kelso, to hear of frequent disasters, in the passage, both to men and cattle.

Here we made a little excursion into England, and it was to satisfy a curiosity of no extraordinary kind neither. By the sight of Cheviot Hills, which we had seen for many miles riding, we thought at Kelso we were very near them, and had a great mind to take as near a view of them as we could; and taking with us an English man, who had been very curious in the same enquiry, and who offer’d to be our guide, we set out for Wooller, a little town lying, as it were, under the hill.

Cheviot Hill or Hills are justly esteem’d the highest in this part of England, and of Scotland also; if I may judge, I think ’tis higher a great deal than the mountain of Mairock in Galloway, which they say is two miles high.

When we came to Wooller we got another guide to lead us to the top of the hill; for, by the way, tho’ there are many hills and reachings for many miles, which are all call’d Cheviot Hills, yet there is one Pico or Master-Hill, higher than all the rest by a great deal, which, at a distance, looks like the Pico-Teneriffe at the Canaries, and is so high, that I remember it is seen plainly from the Rosemary-Top in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which is nearly sixty miles. We prepar’d to clamber up this hill on foot, but our guide laugh’d at us, and told us, we should make a long journey of it that way: But getting a horse himself, told us he would find a way for us to get up on horse-back; so we set out, having five or six country boys and young fellows, who ran on foot, voluntier to go with us; we thought they had only gone for their diversion, as is frequent for boys; but they knew well enough that we should find some occasion to employ them, and so we did, as you shall hear.

Our guide led us very artfully round to a part of the hill, where it was evident in the winter season, not streams of water, but great rivers came pouring down from the hill in several channels, and those (at least some of them) very broad; they were overgrown on either bank with alder-trees, so close and thick, that we rode under them, as in an arbour. In one of these channels we mounted the hill, as the besiegers approach a fortify’d town by trenches, and were gotten a great way up, before we were well aware of it.

But, as we mounted, these channels lessen’d gradually, till at length we had the shelter of the trees no longer; and now we ascended till we began to see some of the high hills, which before we thought very lofty, lying under us, low and humble, as if they were part of the plain below, and yet the main hill seem’d still to be but beginning, or, as if we were but entring upon it.

As we mounted higher we found the hill steeper than at first, also our horses began to complain, and draw their haunches up heavily, so we went very softly: However, we mov’d still, and went on, till the height began to look really frightful, for, I must own, I wish’d myself down again; and now we found use for the young fellows that ran before us; for we began to fear, if our horses should stumble or start, we might roll down the hill together; and we began to talk of alighting, but our guide call’d out and said, No, not yet, by and by you shall; and with that he bid the young fellows take our horses by the head-stalls of the bridles, and lead them. They did so, and we rode up higher still, till at length our hearts fail’d us all together, and we resolv’d to alight; and tho’ our guide mock’d us, yet he could not prevail or persuade us; so we work’d it upon our feet, and with labour enough, and sometimes began to talk of going no farther.

We were the more uneasy about mounting higher, because we all had a notion, that when we came to the top, we should be just as upon a pinnacle, that the hill narrowed to a point, and we should have only room enough to stand, with a precipice every way round us; and with these apprehensions, we all sat down upon the ground, and said we would go no farther.

Our guide did not at first understand what we were apprehensive of; but at last by our discourse he perceived the mistake, and then not mocking our fears, he told us, that indeed if it had been so, we had been in the right, but he assur’d us, there was room enough on the top of the hill to run a race, if we thought fit, and we need not fear any thing of being blown off the precipice, as we had suggested; so he encouraging us we went on, and reach’t the top of the hill in about half an hour more.

I must acknowledge I was agreeably surprized, when coming to the top of the hill, I saw before me a smooth, and with respect to what we expected a most pleasant plain, of at least half a mile in diameter; and in the middle of it a large pond, or little lake of water, and the ground seeming to descend every way from the edges of the summit to the pond, took off the little terror of the first prospect; for when we walkt towards the pond, we could but just see over the edge of the hill; and this little descent inwards, no doubt made the pond, the rain-water all running thither.

One of our company, a good botanist, fell to searching for simples, and, as he said, found some nice plants, which he seem’d mightily pleas’d with: But as that is out of my way, so it is out of the present design. I in particular began to look about me, and to enquire what every place was which I saw more remarkably shewing it self at a distance.

The day happen’d to be very clear, and to our great satisfaction very calm, otherwise the hight we were upon, would not have been without its dangers. We saw plainly here the smoke of the salt-pans at Shields, at the mouth of the Tyne, seven miles below New Castle; and which was south about forty miles. The sea, that is the German ocean, was as if but just at the foot of the hill, and our guide pointed to shew us the Irish Sea: But if he could see it, knowing it in particular, and where exactly to look for it, it was so distant, that I could not say, I was assur’d I saw it. We saw likewise several hills, which he told us were in England, and others in the west of Scotland, but their names were too many for us to remember, and we had no materials there to take minutes. We saw Berwick east, and the hills called Soutra Hills north, which are in sight of Edinburgh. In a word there was a surprizing view of both the united kingdoms, and we were far from repenting the pains we had taken.

Nor were we so afraid now as when we first mounted the sides of the hill, and especially we were made ashamed of those fears, when to our amazement, we saw a clergy-man, and another gentleman, and two ladies, all on horse-back, come up to the top of the hill, with a guide also as we had, and without alighting at all, and only to satisfy their curiosity, which they did it seems. This indeed made us look upon one another with a smile, to think how we were frighted, at our first coming up the hill: And thus it is in most things in nature; fear magnifies the object, and represents things frightful at first sight, which are presently made easy when they grow familiar.

Satisfied with this view, and not at all thinking our time or pains ill bestowed, we came down the hill by the same rout that we went up; with this remark by the way, that whether on horse-back or on foot we found it much more troublesome, and also tiresome to come down than to go up.

When we were down; our guide carry’d us not to the town of Wooller, where we were before, but to a single house, which they call Wooller Haugh-head, and is a very good inn, better indeed than we expected, or than we had met with, except at Kelso, for many days journey. Here we had very good provision, very well dress’d, and excellent wine. The house is in England, but the people that kept it were Scots; yet every thing was very well done, and we were mighty glad of the refreshment we found there.

Here we enquired after the famous story of Cheviot-Chase, which we found the people there have a true notion of, not like what is represented in the ballad of Chevy Chase, which has turn’d the whole story into a fable: But here they told us; what all solid histories confirm, namely that it was an in-road of the Earl of Douglass into England, with a body of an army, to ravage, burn, and plunder the country, as was usual in those days; and that the Earl of Northumberland, who was then a Piercy, gathering his forces, march’d with a like army, and a great many of the gentry and nobility with him, to meet the Scots; and that both the bodies meeting at the foot of Cheviot Hills, fought a bloody battle, wherein both the earls were slain, fighting desperately at the head of their troops; and so many kill’d on both sides; that they that out-liv’d it, went off respectively, neither being able to say which had the victory.

They shew’d us the place of the fight, which was on the side of the hill, if their traditions do not mislead them, on the left hand of the road, the ground uneven and ill enough for the cavalry; ’tis suppos’d most of the Scots were horse, and therefore ’tis said, the English archers placed themselves on the side of a steep ascent, that they might not be broken in upon by the horse. They shew also two stones which, if as I say they are not mistaken, are on the ground where the two earls were slain.

But they shew’d us the same day, a much more famous field of battle than this, and that within about six or seven miles of the same place, namely Floden-field, where James IV. King of Scotland with a great army invading England, in the year 1538, when the King of England was absent in his wars abroad, at the Siege of Tournay, was met with, and fought by the Earl of Surrey, of the ancient family of Howard, and the English army; in which the Scots, tho’ after a very obstinate fight, were totally routed and overthrown, and their king valiantly fighting at the head of his nobility was slain.

The River Till, which our historians call a deep and swift river, and in which many of the Scots were drowned in the pursuit, seem’d to me not to be sufficient to interrupt the flight of a routed army, it being almost every where passable: But, perhaps, it might at that time be swell’d with some sudden rain, which the historians ought to have taken notice of; because the river is else so small that it would seem to make us question the rest of the story.

That there was such a battle, and that this was the place, is out of all doubt; and the field seems to be well chosen for it, for it is a large plain, flank’d on the north side, which must be the Scots right, and the English left, by Flodden-Hills, and on the other side by some distant woods; the River Tul being on the Scots rear, and the Tweed itself not far off.

Having view’d these things, which we had not time for in our passing through Northumberland, we came back to Kelso, and spent the piece of a day that remain’d there, viewing the country, which is very pleasant and very fruitful on both sides the Tweed, for the Tweed there does not part England from Scotland, but you are upon Scots ground for four miles, or thereabouts. on the south side of the Tweed, and the farther west the more the Tweed lies within the limits of the country.

From Kelso we went north, where we pass’d through Lauderdale, a long valley on both sides the little River Lauder, from whence the house of Maitland, earls first, and at last Duke of Lauderdale, took their title.

The country is good here, tho’ fenc’d with hills on both sides; the River Lauder runs in the middle of it, keeping its course north, and the family-seat of Lauder, stands about the middle of the valley: ’Tis an antient house, and not large; nor did it receive any additions from Duke Lauderdale, who found ways to dispose of his fortunes another way.

From hence we kept the great road over a high ridge of mountains, from whence we had a plain view of that part of the country call’d Mid-Lothian, and where we also saw the city of Edinburgh at the distance of about twelve or fourteen miles. We pass’d these mountains at a place which they call Soutra-Hill, and which gives the title of Laird of Soutra to a branch of the family of Maitland, the eider brother of which house was Lieutenant-General Maitland, a gentleman of great merit, and who rais’d himself by the sword: He lost one of his hands at the great battle of Treves in Germany, where the French army, under the Mareschal De Crequi, was defeated by the Germans, commanded by the old Duke of Zell; he supply’d the want of his hand with one of steel, from which he was call’d Handy Maitland. He pass’d thro’ all the degrees of honour that the army usually bestows; and when the Union was transacting we saw him lieutenant-general of the queen’s armies, colonel of a regiment of foot, and governor of Fort-William at Innerlochy, of which in its place.

I could not pass this way to Edinburgh without going off a little to the right, to see two very fine seats, one belonging to the Marquess of Louthian, of the antient name of Ker, a younger branch of the house of Roxburgh, at Newbattle or Newbottle. Tis an old building, but finely situated among the most agreeable walks and rows of trees, all ful-1 grown, and is particularly to be mention’d for the nicest, and best chosen collection of pictures of any house I have seen in Scotland: The particulars are too many to enter into a description of them. The statues and busts are also very fine; and there are the most pictures of particular families and persons, as well of the royal families of France and England, as of Scotland also, that are, I believe, not only in England, but in any palace in Europe.

Not two miles from hence is the Duchess of Bucclugh’s house at Dalkeith, the finest and largest new built house in Scotland; the duchess, relict of the late Duke of Monmouth, has built it, as I may say, from the foundation, or as some say, upon the foundation of the old castle of Dalkeith, which was the estate of the great Earl of Morton, regent of Scotland, who was beheaded by King James VI. that is, of England, James I. the same that brought the engine to behead humane bodies from Hallifax in Yorkshire, and set it up in Scotland, and had his own head cut off with it, the first it was try’d upon.

The palace of Dalkeith is, indeed, a magnificent building, and the inside answerable to the grandeur of the family. It stands on a rising ground on the edge of the River Esk; the side to the river is a precipice, from whence it overlooks the plain with a majesty, like that of Windsor, on the bank of the Thames, with necessary allowance for the difference of the country, and of the two rivers, which bear, indeed, no proportion. The park is very large, and there are fine avenues, some already made and planted, others design’d, but not yet finish’d; also there are to be water-works, Jette D’eaus, and a canal, but these are not yet laid out; nor are the gardens finish’d, or the terrasses, which will be very spacious, if done according to the design. There are many fine paintings, especially of the ladies of the English court, and some royal originals; but we must not speak of pictures where Newbottle is so nigh.

The town of Dalkeith is just without the park, and is a pretty large market-town, and the better market for being so near Edinburgh; for there comes great quantities of provisions hither from the southern countries, which are bought up here to be carried to Edinburgh market again, and sold there. The town is spacious, and well built, and is the better, no doubt, for the neighbourhood of so many noblemen’s and gentlemen’s houses of such eminence in its neighbourhood.

This brought us to the very sight of the city of Edinburgh, where we rested a few days, having thus finished our circuit over the whole south of Scotland, on this side of the River Forth, and on the south side of the Firth of Clyde. So I shall conclude this letter,

And am, &c.

Letter XIII. Containing A Description Of The North Of Scotland

Fife and Perth

SIR,-I am now to enter the true and real Caledonia, for the country on the north of the firth is alone call’d by that name, and was antiently known by no other. As I shall give an account of it as it is, and not as it was; so I shall describe it as I view’d it, not as other people have view’d it; nor shall I confine myself to the division of the country, as the geographers have divided it, or to the shires and counties, as the civil authority has divided it, or into presbyteries and synodical provinces, as the Church has divided it: But noting the shires where I find them needful, I shall give an account of things in the order of my own progress, and as I pass’d thro’, or visited them.

I went over the firth at the Queens-Ferry, a place mention’d before, seven miles west of Edinburgh; and, as he that gives an account of the country of Fife, must necessarily go round the coast, the most considerable places being to be seen on the seaside, or near it; so I took that method, and began at the Queens-Ferry. A mile from hence, or something more, is the burrough of Innerkeithin, an antient wall’d town, with a spacious harbour, opening from the east part of the town into the Firth of Forth; the mouth of the harbour has a good depth of water, and ships of burthen may ride there with safety; but as there is not any great trade here, and consequently no use for shipping of burthen, the harbour has been much neglected: However, small vessels may come up to the key, such as are sufficient for their business.

The town is large, and is still populous, but decay’d, as to what it has formerly been; yet the market for linnen not only remains, but is rather more considerable than formerly, by reason of the increase of that manufacture since the Union. The market for provisions is also very considerable here, the country round being very fruitful, and the families of gentlemen being also numerous in the neighbourhood.

There was a tragical story happen’d in this town, which made it more talk’d of in England, at that time, than it had been before. The Lord Burleigh (a young nobleman, but not then come to his estate, his father being living) had, it seems, had some love affair with a young woman in his father’s family, but could not prevail with her to sacrifice her virtue to him; upon which the affair being made publick she was remov’d out of the family, and he was persuaded to travel, or whether he went into the army, I do not remember; he had declar’d it seems, before he went abroad, that he would marry her at his return; which, however, it seems the young woman declin’d too, as being too much below his quality, and that she would not be a dishonour to the family: But he not only declar’d he would marry her, but, upon that answer of hers, added, that if any one else marry’d her, he would murther them as soon as he came back: This pass’d without much notice, and the young woman was marry’d, before his return, to a schoolmaster in this town of Innerkeithen.

After some time the Young Master (so they call the eldest son of a lord, while his father is living) of Burleigh, returns from his travels, and enquiring for the young woman, and being told she was marry’d, and to whom, retaining his hellish resolution he rides away to the town, and up to the school door, and calling for the schoolmaster, the innocent man came out to him unarm’d in a gown and slippers; when, after asking if he was such a one, and flying out in some hard words upon him, he drew his pistol, and shot the poor man dead upon the spot, riding away in the open day, and no body daring to meddle with him.

But justice pursuing him, and a proclamation being issued, with a reward of 200l . for apprehending him, he was at last taken, and was tried at Edinburgh by the Lords of the Justitiary, and condemned to have his head cut off, and the day of execution appointed. Nor could all the intercession of his family and friends prevail with the queen, after Her Majesty had a true account of the fact laid before her, to pardon or reprieve him: But the day before the execution his friends found means for him to make his escape out of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, disguis’d in his sister’s clothes.

In return for this deliverance he appear’d in the late rebellion, and was in the battle of Dumblain or Sheriffmuir, but got off again; and his estate, which, however, was but small, was forfeited among the rest. But the murtherer is not yet brought to justice.

This tragedy, and its circumstances, I think, merits to be recorded, and the rather, because most of the circumstances came within the verge of my knowledge, and I was upon the spot when it was done; there are many other circumstances in it, but too long to be repeated.

Near Innerkeithin, a little within the land, stands the antient town of Dumfermling, as I may say, in my Lord Rochester’s words, in its full perfection of decay; nay, the decay is threefold.

Here is a decay’d monastery; for before the Reformation here was a very large and famous abbey, but demolish’d at the Revolution; and saving, that part of the church was turn’d into a parochial church, the rest, and greatest part of that also lyes in ruins, and with it the monuments of several kings and queens of Scotland, particularly that of Malcolm III. who founded the monastery, as does also the cloister and apartments for the religious people of the house, great part of which are yet so plain to be seen, as to be distinguish’d one from another.

Here is a decay’d court or royal palace of the kings of Scotland. They do not tell us who built this palace, but we may tell them who suffers it to fall down; for it is now (as it was observ’d before all the royal houses are) sinking into its own ruins; the windows are gone, the roof fallen in, and part of the very walls moulder’d away by the injury of time, and of the times. In this palace almost all King James the VIth’s children were born; as particularly King Charles I. and the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia; and their mother, which was Queen Ann daughter of the Queen of Denmark, made this place her particular residence, which was also settled upon her as her dower or jointure; here she built herself an apartment, consisting of eight rooms over the arch of the great gate, which were her particular retirement, having a gallery reaching from that apartment to the Royal Lodgings.

The figure of the house remains, but as for the lodgings they are all, as I have said, in their decay, and we may now call it the monument of a court.

Here is a decay’d town, and we need go no farther for that part than the decay of the palace, which is irrecoverable; there might be something said here of what was done at this town, upon receiving and crowning King Charles II., by the Covenanters, &c. and which might, perhaps, contribute to entail a disgust upon the house, and even upon the place; and if it did so, I see no reason to blame the king on that account, for the memory of the place could not be pleasant to his majesty for many reasons: But this is matter of history, and besides, it seems to have something in it that is not, perhaps so well to be remember’d as to be forgot.

The church has still a venerable face, and at a distance seems a mighty pile; the building being once vastly large, what is left appears too gross for the present dimensions; the church itself, they tell us, was as long as the cathedral of Carlisle, design’d by the model of that of Glasgow, though, I rather think, that at Glasgow, was design’d by the model of that at Dumfermling, for the last was, by far, the most antient.

The people hereabout are poor, but would be much poorer, if they had not the manufacture of linnen for their support, which is here, and in most of the towns about, carry’d on with more hands than ordinary, especially for diaper, and the better sort of linnen: The Marquess of Tweedale has a good estate in these parts, and is hereditary House-keeper, or Porter of the Royal House, and, in effect, Lord Chamberlain.

From hence, turning east, we see many seats of private gentlemen, and some of noblemen, as particularly one belonging to the said Marquess of Tweedale at Aberdour. It was formerly one of the many noble mansion houses of the great Earl Mortoun, regent; but with his fall the estates found new masters as that of Dalkeith has in the house of Bucclugh, and this of Aberdour in the house of Yester, or Tweedale. The house is old, but magnificent, and the lands about it, as all must do, that come into the managing hands of the family of Tweedale, have been infinitely improv’d by planting and enclosing.

This house of Aberdour fronts the firth to the south, and the grounds belonging to it reach down to the shores of it. From this part of the firth, to the mouth of Innerkeithen harbour, is a very good road for ships, the water being deep and the ground good; but the western part, which they call St. Margaret’s Bay, is a steep shore, and rocky, there being twenty fathom water within a ship’s length of the rocks: So that in case of a south east wind, and if it blow hard, it may be dangerous riding too near. But a south east wind blows so seldom, that the ships often venture it; and I have seen large ships ride there.

He that will view the country of Fife must, as I said before, go round the coast; and yet there are four or five places of note in the middle of the country which are superiour to all the rest, and must not be omitted; I’ll take them as I go, though I did not travel to them in a direct line, the names are as follow. Kinross the house of Sir William Bruce, Lessly, Falkland, Melvil, Balgony, and Cowper; the last a town, the other great houses, and one a royal palace, and once the most in request of all the royal houses in Scotland: And here, since I am upon generals, it may not be improper to mention, as a remark only, that however mean our thoughts in England have been of the Scots Court in those times, the kings of Scotland had more fine palaces than most princes in Europe, and, in particular, many more than the Crown of England has now; for example, we see nothing in England now of any notice but Hampton-Court, Windsor, Kensington, and St James’s .

Greenwich and Nonsuch are demolished.

Richmond quite out of use, and not able to receive a Court.

Winchester never inhabited, or half finished.

Whitehall burnt, and lying in ruins, or, as we may say let out into tenements.

Westminster, long since abandon’d: So that I say nothing remains but, as above, St. James’s, Kensington, Windsor, and Hampton-Court.

Besides lesser seats and hunting-houses, of which King James V. had several; and besides the several palaces of the Earl Mortoun and others, which were forfeited into the king’s hands, and which afterwards became royal.

Having seen Aberdour, I took a turn, at a friend’s invitation, to Lessly; but by the way stopp’d at Kinross, where we had a view of two things worth noting. I. The famous lake or lough, call’d Lough Leven, where, in an island, stands the old castle where Queen Mary, commonly known in England by the name of Queen of Scots, was confin’d by the first reformers, after she had quitted, or been forc’d to quit her favourite Bothwel, and put herself into the hands of her subjects. One would have thought this castle, standing as it were in the middle of the sea, for so it is in its kind, should have been sufficient to have held her, but she made shift to get out of their hands, whether by a silver key, or without a key, I believe is not fully known to this day.

The lough itself is worth seeing; ’tis very large, being above ten miles about, and in some places deep, famous for fish. Formerly it had good salmon, but now chiefly trouts, and other small fish; out of it flows the River Leven, which runs from thence to Lessly.

At the west end of the lake, and the gardens reaching down to the very water’s edge, stands the most beautiful and regular piece of architecture, (for a private gentleman’s seat) in all Scotland, perhaps, in all Britain, I mean the house of Kinross. The town lies at a little distance from it, so as not to annoy the house, and yet so as to make it the more sociable; and at the town is a very good market, and the street tolerably well built. The house is a picture, ’tis all beauty; the stone is white and fine, the order regular, the contrivance elegant, the workmanship exquisite. Dryden’s lines, intended for a compliment on his friend’s poetry, and quoted before, are literally of the house of Kinross.

Strong dorick columns form the base,
Corinthian fills the upper space;
So all below is strength, and all above is grace.

Sir William Bruce, the skilful builder, was the Surveyor-General of the works, as we call it in England, or the Royal Architect, as in Scotland. In a word, he was the Kit Wren of North Britain; and his skill in the perfect decoration of building, has many testimonials left upon record for it; such as the palace of Haly-Rood at Edinburgh; the house of Rothess, and this at Kinross, besides several others.

The situation of this house of Kinross would be disliked by some for its being so very near the water, and that sometimes when the lake is swelled by winter rains and melted snows, the water comes into, or at least unto the very gardens; but as the country round is dry, free from stagnated boggs, and unhealthy marshes; this little mediterranean sea gives them very little inconvenience, if any. Sir William, according to the new and laudable method of all the Scots gentlemen, has planted innumerable numbers of firr-trees upon the estate round his house, and the present possessor Mr. Bruce, is as careful to improve as his predecessor: Posterity will find the sweet of this passion for planting, which is so happily spread among the people of the south-parts of Scotland, and which, if it goes on, will in time make Scotland a second Norway for firr; for the Lowlands, as well as the Highlands, will be overspread with timber.

Nor may it require so many ages as some people imagine, for many of the largest and most considerable improvements are already of fifty to seventy and eighty years standing as at Melvil, Lessly, Yester, Pinkey, Newbattle, and several other places; and others follow apace; so that in forty or fifty years more, as slow a growing wood as firr is, yet there may be a quantity of large grown trees to be found to begin upon, so as to cutt out deal-boards in great numbers, besides sparrs, bauks, poles, oars &c. which the branches will supply.

From Kinross, I came to Lessley, where I had a full view of the palace of Rothess, both inside and outside, as I had before of that of Bruce. The magnificence of the inside at Lessly is unusually great; but what is very particular, is the long gallery, which is the full length of one side of the building, and is fill’d with paintings, but especially (as at Drumlanrig) of the great ancestors of the house of Rothes or Lessly at full lengths, and in their robes of office or habits of ceremony; particularly the late Duke of Rothess, who built the house, and who was Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.

I do not forget that the rooms of state at Kinross are well supply’d with pictures and some very fine and valuable pieces, as particularly those of King Charles I. and Henrietta Maria his queen daughter of France. But almost if not all the full lengths in this gallery of Rothess, are of the family, and the immediate ancestors from whom in a direct line the present earl is descended, having been peers, and in some or other of the greatest offices of trust in Scotland, from the year 1320 to 1725; so that there may well be enough to cloath a gallery, and they are there to be distinguished by their robes and different habits down to the great founder of the house, who was Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament, Lord High Treasurer, and Lord Chancellor; and was created a duke for his own life only, so that his successors are now but earls: But the family are still in the highest esteem, and have gone thro’ divers posts of honour and trust. The house indeed is magnificent, I cannot say the situation is so much to advantage as some other seats; nor is there any large avenue or prospect from the entrance, but it is a prospect in it self; it is situated on the banks of the Leven just where another smaller river joins it, and the park on the south side of the house is very beautiful, six miles in circumference, walled about, and in several parts, little woods of firr-trees planted with vistas reaching to them from the house, which gives a very beautiful prospect. The gardens are at the E. end of the house well planted, and well designed, extending to the angle or point, where the two rivers meet; so that the gardens are as it were watered on the north and on the east side, and on the south side are parted from the park with a wall; the west end of them beginning from the house.

This house was built for the duke mentioned above, in the reign of King Charles II. by that man of art and master of building Sir William Bruce mentioned there also, so that the building is wholly modern. It is a square, and the fronts every way are plain, that is, without wings, and make a square court within: Here it was King James II. lodged, most part of the time,, when he was oblig’d by his brother, King Charles II. to retire into Scotland while he was Duke of York; and his apartments are marked in the house and call’d the Duke of York’s Lodgings to this day. They had a communication with the long gallery, and with the great staircase at the other end.

The town of Lessly is at a small distance west from the house or a little north-west. There is a good market, but otherwise it is not considerable. The house is the glory of the place, and indeed of the whole province of Fife.

From Lessly, we turn’d away south to the coast, and came to Bruntisland; this is a port upon the Firth of Forth, and lies opposite to Leith, so that there is a fair prospect as well of the road of Leith, and the ships riding there, as of the city and castle or Edinburgh. There is a very good harbour which enters as if it had been made by hand into the center of the town; for the town is as it were built round it, and the ships lay their broad sides to the very houses. There is water enough at spring-tides, for ships of good burthen to come into the basin; but at low-water some of the ships lye a-ground: But want of trade renders all this useless; for what is the best harbour in the world without ships? And whence should ships be expected without a commerce to employ them; it is true, the ships of several other towns on the coast frequently put into this harbour, to lay up, as we call it, and to lye by in the winter: But this does not so much better the town as to make it be call’d a trading town; so that, indeed, the place is unhappy, and must decay yet farther, unless the trade revive, which, I confess, I do not yet foresee.

Here is, however, a manufacture of linnen, as there is upon all the coast of Fife, and especially for that they call green-cloth, which is now in great demand in England for the printing-trade, in the room of callicoes, which were lately prohibited.

Next to this is Kinghorn upon the same coast, where, not the sea, but the manufacture upon the land may be said to maintain the place; for here is a thread manufacture, which they make very good, and bleach or whiten it themselves. The women, indeed, chiefly carry on this trade, and the men are generally seamen upon all this coast, as high as the Queens-Ferry. Where I observ’d the men carry’d on an odd kind of trade, or sport rather (viz.) of shooting of porpoises, of which very great numbers are seen almost constantly in the firth; when they catch them thus, they bring them on shore, and boil the fat of them as they do of whales, into train-oil, and the like they do with several other great fish, which sometimes they find in the sea there; and sometimes they have grampusses, finn fish, and several species of the small whale kind which come up there, and which they always make the best of, if they can take them. One year in particular there came several such fish on shore, which they could find no name for; there was eight or nine of them, which I saw lying on the shore of Fife, from Kinghorn to the Easter Weems, some of which were twenty foot long and upward.

But this sort of fishing is but by accident, and the profit’s not certain; the firth affords a much more certain and profitable fishery lower down, of which in its place. The ferry, from Leith to the shore of Fife, is fix’d in this town, though sometimes the boats in distress, and by force of wind and weather, are driven to run into Borunt Island: This constant going and coming of the ferry-boat, and passengers, is also a considerable benefit to the town of Kinghorn, and is a very great article in its commerce.

East of this town is Kirkcaldy, a larger, more populous, and better built town than the other, and indeed than any on this coast. Its situation is in length, in one street running along the shore, from east to west, for a long mile, and very well built, the streets clean and well pav’d; there are some small by streets or lanes, and it has some considerable merchants in it, I mean in the true sense of the word merchant. There are also several good ships belonging to the town: Also as Fife is a good corn country, here are some that deal very largely in corn, and export great quantities both to England and Holland. Here are great quantities of linnen shipp’d off for England; and as these ships return freighted either from England or Holland, they bring all needful supplies of foreign goods; so that the traders in Kirkcaldy have really a very considerable traffick, both at home and abroad.

There are several coal-pits here, not only in the neighbourhood, but even close to the very sea, at the west end of the town, and where, one would think, the tide should make it impossible to work them. At the east end of the town is a convenient yard for building and repairing of ships, and farther east than that several salt-pans for the boyling and making of salt.

Kirkcaldy is a member of the royal burroughs, as are also Bruntisland, Kinghorn, and Dysert, tho’ almost all of them together are not equal to this town: So that here are no less than four royal burroughs in the riding of five miles.

Dysert is next, a town that gives the title of noble or baron to the Lord Dysert, who resides in England, tho’ the property both of the town and the lands adjoining, belong to the Lord Sinclare or St. Clare: but be the estate whose it will, the town, though a royal burgh, is, as I said before of Dumfermling, in the full perfection of decay, and is, indeed, a most lamentable object of a miserable, dying Corporation; the only support which, I think, preserves the name of a town to it, is, that here is, in the lands adjoining, an excellent vein of Scots coal, and the Lord Dysert, the landlord, has a good salt-work in the town; close to the sea there is a small peer or wharf for ships, to come and load both the salt and the coal: And this, I think, may be said to be the whole trade of the town, except some nailers and hardware workers, and they are but few.

I take the decay of all these sea-port towns, which ’tis evident have made a much better figure in former times, to be owing to the removing of the court and nobility of Scotland to England; for it is most certain, when the court was at home, they had a confluence of strangers, residence of foreign ministers, being of armies, &c. and consequently the nobility dwelt at home, spent the income of their estates, and the product of their country among their neighbours. The return of their coal and salt, and corn and fish, brought them in goods from abroad and, perhaps, money; they sent their linnen and other goods to England, and receiv’d the returns in money; they made their own manufactures, and though not so good and cheap as from England, yet they were cheaper to the publick stock, because their own poor were employ’d. Their wool, which they had over and above, went to France, and return’d ready money. Their lead went to Holland, and their cattle and sheep to England, and brought back in that one article above 100,000l. sterling per Ann.

Then it was the sea-port towns had a trade, their Court was magnificent, their nobility built fine houses and palaces which were richly furnish’d, and nobly finish’d within and without. They had infinitely more value went out than came back in goods, and therefore the balance was evidently on their side; whereas, now their Court is gone, their nobility and gentry spend their time, and consequently their estates in England; the Union opens the door to all English manufactures, and suppresses their own, prohibits their wool going abroad, and yet scarcely takes it off at home; if the cattle goes to England, the money is spent there too. The troops rais’d there are in English service, and Scotland receives no premiofor the levies, as she might have done abroad, and as the Swiss and other nations do at this time.

This I take to be the true state of the case; and as this is not foreign to the design of this work, I am the longer upon it. I gave a particular account in my description of Glasgow, Irwin, and Dumfries, to shew you how those places were enrich’d by the increase of their commerce, and how the commerce was encreas’d by the Union of the two kingdoms. I must likewise, in justice, demonstrate how and why these sea-ports, on the east coast, decline and decay by the same occasion, and from the same cause.

It is true, Scotland would have an advantagious trade with England, and not the worst for the Union, were not the Court remov’d, and did not their nobility dwell abroad, and spend their estates abroad: Scotland has a plentiful product for exportation, and were the issue of that product return’d and consum’d at home, Scotland would flourish and grow rich, but as it is, I may venture to say, it is not to be expected. For example; The product of Scotland, I say, is very considerable, I mean that part of it which is exported to foreign parts, for what. is consum’d at home is nothing, that is to say adds nothing to the publick stock of the nation, speaking of Scotland as a nation by herself.

All the product of Scotland which is sent abroad, and exported to foreign countries, and consum’d there, is so much clear gain to the publick stock, excepting only the cost of its manufacturing at home, or curing and sending out; and except so much as is brought back in goods of the growth, and manufacture of foreign countries, and is consum’d in Scotland, which is not reckon’d as gain, because consum’d; if it is exported again, the article goes to the account of publick gain again. Now to state the case briefly between the exportation and importation of goods in Scotland, that the difference, which is the balance of the trade, may appear.

And what then, would not such an annual wealth in specie do for Scotland in a year, if there was not a gulph, into which it all runs as into a sink?

I know this is abundantly answer’d, by saying that Scotland is now establish’d in a lasting tranquillity; the wars between the nations are at an end, the wastings and plunderings, the ravages and blood are all over; the lands in Scotland will now be improv’d, their estates doubled, the charges of defending her abroad and at home lies upon England; the taxes are easy and ascertain’d, and the West-India trade abundantly pours in wealth upon her; and this is all true; and, in the end, I am still of opinion Scotland will be gainer: But I must add, that her own nobility, would they be true patriots, should then put their helping hand to the rising advantages of their own country, and spend some of the large sums they get in England in applying to the improvement of their country, erecting manufactures, employing the poor, and propagating the trade at home, which they may see plainly has made their united neighbours of England so rich.

Why might not the wool, which they send to England, be manufactur’d in Scotland? If they say they know not how to make the goods, or how to dispose of them when made, my answer is short; I know ’tis not the work of gentlemen to turn manufacturers and merchants: And I know also a number of projectors, that is to say, thieves and cheats, have teas’d and hang’d about them, to draw them into manufacturing, only to bubble them of their wool and money.

But here is a plain scheme, let the Scots gentlemen set but their stewards to work to employ the poor people to spin the wool into yarn, and send the yarn into England; ’tis an easy manufacture, and what the Scots are very handy at, and this could never be difficult. They may have patterns of the yarn given them here, a price agreed on, and good security for payment: This can have no difficulty; the Irish are fallen into this way, to such a degree, that 40,000 packs of wool and worsted yarn are brought into England now every year, and sold here, where, about thirty years ago, not a pound of it was imported ready spun.

This, and many such advantages in trade, Scotland might find in her own bounds, her gentlemen assisting the poor only with their stocks of wool; by which means the poverty and sloth of the meaner people would be remov’d, and Scotland enrich’d: But I have done my part, and have not room to enlarge; nature will dictate enough to the gentlemen to go to work upon it, if they have any design to do their country good, and if a narrow and selfish spirit does not continue to prevail among them.

The decay’d burghs being pass’d, we came to a village call’d the Weems, or by way of distinction, the Wester Weems, or Wemys. This is a small town, and no burrough, belonging to the Earl of Weemys, whose house stands a little farther east, on the top of a high cliff, looking down upon the sea, as Dover Castle looks down upon the strait, between it and Calais, tho’ not so high.

The account given lately of this noble castle of the Weemys is very romantick, and must necessarily be laugh’d at by the family itself who know the house. It is a very good house, and has one large front to the sea, but without any Windsor-like terrass between the house and it, as is represented. At the west end, upon the same cliff, is a small plain, where had been a bowling-green, and where the late earl, being admiral, had some small field-pieces planted to answer salutes. Behind the house is a small and irregular court-yard, with two wings of building, being offices to the house on one side, and stables on the other. Nor is there any gardens, or room for any, much less a spacious park, on the north side of the house; but the road from the Wester Weemys to the Easter passing between, there is a large, well planted orchard, and it is no other, nor otherwise intended; and as to a spacious park, there is nothing like it. There is a piece of wast ground planted with firr-trees, at the east end of the house, but they do not thrive; nor would any man call it a park, especially for a nobleman too, that had seen what a park means in England; but, indeed, in Scotland they call all enclos’d grounds parks, whether for grass or corn: And so they call all gardens yards; as St. Ann’s Yards, at the palace of Haly-Rood House, and the like in other places.

From hence you pass through the East Weemys to another village, call’d Buckhaven, inhabited chiefly, if not only, by fishermen, whose business is wholly to catch fresh fish every day in the firth, and carry them to Leith and Edinburgh markets. And though this town be a miserable row of cottage-like buildings, and people altogether meer fishermen, as I have said, yet there is scarce a poor man in the town, and in general the town is rich.

Here we saw the shore of the sea cover’d with shrimps, like the ground cover’d with a thin snow; and as you rode among them they would rise like a kind of dust, being scar’d by the footing of the horse, and hopping like grasshoppers.

The fishermen of this town have a great many boats of all sorts and sizes, and some larger, which lye upon the beach unrigg’d, which every year they fit out for the herring season, in which they have a very great share.

Beyond this is the Methuel, a little town, but a very safe and good harbour, firmly built of stone, almost like the Cobb at Lime, though not wholly projecting into the sea, but standing within the land, and built out with two heads, and walls of thick strong stone: It stands a little on the west side of the mouth of the River Leven; the salmon of this river are esteem’d the best in this part of Scotland.

Here my Lord Weemys brings his coal, which he digs above two miles off, on the banks of the River Leven, and here it is sold or shipp’d off; as also what salt he can make, which is not a great deal. Nor is the estate his lordship makes from the said coal-works equal to what it has been, the water having, after an immense charge to throw it off, broken in upon the works, and hinder’d their going on, at least to any considerable advantage. The people who work in the coal mines in this country, what with the dejected countenances of the men, occasion’d by their poverty and hard labour, and what with the colour or discolouring, which comes from the coal, both to their clothes and complexions, are well describ’d by their own countryman Samuel Colvil, in his famous macaronick poem, call’d, Polemo Midinia; thus,

Cole-hewersNigri, Girnantes more Divelli. Pol. Mid.

They are, indeed, frightful fellows at first sight: But I return to my progress from the Methuel; we have several small towns on the coast, as Criel or Crail, Pitten-Ween, Anstruther, or Anster, as ’tis usually call’d: these are all Royal Burghs, and send members to parliament, even still upon the new establishment, in consequence only that now they join three or four towns together to choose one or two members, whereas they chose every town for itself.

Over against this shore, and in the mouth of the Forth, opposite to the Isle of the Bass, lyes the Isle of May, known to mariners by having a light-house upon it; the only constant inhabitant; is said to be the man maintain’d there by the Government, to take care of the fire in the light-house.

Here (you may observe) the French fleet lay with some assurance, when the Pretender was on board: And here the English four-a-clock-gun, on board their approaching squadron, unhappily gave them the alarm; so that they immediately weigh’d, got under sail, and made the best of their way, the English pursuing them in vain, except only that they took the Salisbury, which was a considerable way behind the fleet, and could not come up with the rest; the story is well known, so I need not repeat it.

The shore of the firth or frith ends here, and the aestuarium or mouth opening, the land of Fife falls off to the north, making a promontory of land, which the seamen call Fife-Ness, looking east to the German ocean, after which the coast trends away north, and the first town we saw there was St Andrew’s, an antient city, the seat of an archbishop, and an university.

As you must expect a great deal of antiquity in this country of Fife, so you must expect to find all those antient pieces mourning their own decay, and drooping and sinking in ashes. Here it was, that old limb of St. Lucifer, Cardinal Beaton, massacred and murther’d that famous sufferer and martyr of the Scots Church, Mr. William Wishart, whom he caus’d to be burnt in the parade of the castle, he himself sitting in his balcony to feed and glut his eyes with the sight of it.

The old church here was a noble structure; it was longer than St. Paul’s in London, by a considerable deal, I think, by six yards, or by twenty-five foot. This building is now sunk into a simple parish church, though there are many plain discoveries of what it has been, and a great deal of project and fancy may be employ’d to find out the antient shape of it.

The city is not large, nor is it contemptibly small; there are some very good buildings in it, and the remains of many more: The colleges are handsome buildings, and well supply’d with men of learning in all sciences, and who govern the youth they instruct with reputation; the students wear gowns here of a scarlet-like colour, but not in grain, and are very numerous: The university is very ancient as well as the city; the foundation was settled, and the publick buildings appointed in the beginning of the fifteenth century by King James I. ’Tis true, they tell us here were private schools set up many ages before that, even as far back as 937; but I see no evidence of the fact, and so do not propose it for your belief, though ’tis very likely there was some beginnings made before the king came to encourage them, so far as to form an university.

There are three colleges in all; the most antient, and which, they say, was the publick school so long before, is call’d St. Salvadore. How it was made to speak Portuguese, I know not, unless it might be that some Portuguese clergymen came over hither as the first professors or teachers; in English it is St. Saviour’s, in Spanish it would be call’d Nostra Seigniora, or Our Lord; and so St. Mary’s would be call’d Nostra Dame de St. Andrew, or Our Lady of St. Andrew’s. This college of St. Mary’s is call’d the New College, and the middle-most (for age) is call’d St. Leonard’s College.

The old college, as I have said, though it was a school, as they affirm, above 200 years before, was turn’d into a college, or founded as such by James Kennedy, the son of the Lord Kennedy by Mary, daughter of King Robert III. This James Kennedy was a clergyman of great fame in those days, and rose by the reputation of his wisdom, prudence, and beneficence to all mankind, to the highest posts of honour in the state and dignity in the Church; for he was Lord Chancellor of Scotland under James II. and archbishop of this See of St. Andrew’s . He was a great lover of learning, and of learned men; and was the first who encourag’d men of learning from abroad, to come there and take upon them the governing and instructing the youth in the great school, which, as I say above, had been there so long, as that it was then call’d the antient school of St. Andrew. These learned men put him upon founding and endowing a college, or rather turning the school into a college or academy, which he did.

The building is antient, but appears to have been very magnificent considering the times it was erected in, which was 1456. The gate is large, and has a handsome spire over it all of stone. In the first court, on the right side as you go in, is the chapel of the college, not extraordinary large, but sufficient. There is an antient monument of the archbishop the founder, who lyes buried in the church of his own building. Beyond the chapel is the cloister, after the antient manner, not unlike that in Canterbury, but not so large. Opposite to this are offices, and proper buildings for the necessary use of the colleges. In the second court are the schools of the college, on the same spot where stood the antient grammar school, mention’d above, if that part is to be depended upon. Over these schools is a very large hall for the publick exercises, as is usual in other universities; but this is a most spacious building, and far larger than there is any occasion for.

In the same court are the apartments for the masters, professors, and regents, which (as our fellows) are in sallary, and are tutors and governors to the several students; were this college supported by additional bounties and donations, as has been the case in England; and were sufficient funds appointed to repair and keep up the buildings, there would few colleges in England go beyond it for magnificence: But want of this, and other encouragements, causes the whole building to seem as if it was in its declining state, and looking into its grave: The truth is, the college wants nothing but a good fund to be honestly apply’d for the repair of the building, finishing the first design, and encouraging the scholars. Dr. Skeen, principal of this college, shew’d the way to posterity to do this, and laid out great sums in repairs, especially of the churches, and founded a library for the use of the house.

They tell you a story here of nine maces found under the archbishop’s tomb, after the restoration of King Charles II. But to me the story does not tell well at all. First, it does not appear of what use, or to what purpose so many maces were made and kept there, the like not being known to be us’d in any cathedral or college in other countries: And in the next place how came they to rummage the good founder’s grave, and that in King Charles the IId’s time too; if it had been in Oliver Cromwell’s domination, it would have seem’d rational to expect it; but after the Restoration to ravage the monuments of the dead, is something extraordinary: But be that as it will, there are three maces kept in the college; whether they were found in the king’s tomb or not, that I leave to tradition, as I find it. One of these maces is of very fine workmanship, all of silver, gilt, and very heavy, of fine imagery, and curious workmanship, made at Paris by the archbishop’s special directions, as appears by an inscription on a plate, fasten’d to the mace by a little chain, and preserv’d with it.

The story of St. Andrew and of his bones being buried here; of the first stone of the cathedral church being laid upon one of St. Andrew’s legs or thigh-bone, and of those bones being brought from Patras in the Morea, near the Gulph of Lepanto; these things are too antient, and sound too much of the legend for me to meddle with.

In the second college, which is call’d St. Leonard’s, is a principal, who must be a Doctor of Divinity by the foundation; but the present Church Government insisting upon the parity of the clergy, are pleas’d to dispense with that part: There are also four Professors of Philosophy, to whom the late Sir John Scot, a bountiful benefactor to this college, has added a Professor of Philology, and has settled a very handsome stipend upon the professor: Also the same gentleman augmented the college library with several valuable books to a very considerable sum. And since that Sir John Wedderburn, a gentleman of a very antient family, and a great lover of learning, has given a whole library, being a great and choice collection of books, to be added to the library of this college.

The revenue of this college is larger than that of the old college; it has also more students. It was founded and endow’d by the Earl of Lenox, being before that a religious house, of the Order of St. Benedict, as appears by the register and Charter of the Foundation.

It is not so large and magnificent as St. Salvador originally was; but ’tis kept in much better repair. It has but one court or square, but it is very large. The old building of the monastery remains entire, and makes the south side, and the old cells of the monks make now the chambers for the students: The chapel takes up the north side, and a large side of more modern apartments on the west, which are nevertheless old enough to be falling down; but they are now repairing them, and adding a great pile of building to compleat the square, and join that side to the north where the chapel stands.

This college has large yards, as they call them, that is to say gardens, or rather orchards, well planted, and good walks in them as well as good fruit.

This college has many benefactors, which makes it flourish much behond the first; and they talk of a large gift yet to come from a noble family, which, if it falls, will enable them to put the whole house in compleat repair.

The new college, call’d St. Mary’s, was founded by Cardinal Beaton Archbishop of St. Andrew’s, and is very singular in its reserv’d and limited laws. Here are no scholars at all; but all those scholars who have pass’d their first studies, and gone through a course of philosophy in any of the other colleges, may enter themselves here to study Hebrew and the mathematicks, history, or other parts of science.

It was in this college King Charles I. held a parliament; the place is call’d the Parliament Room to this day, and is a very large, spacious room, able to receive 400 people, plac’d on seats to sit down; the form is reserv’d very plain, and the place, where the tables for the clarks and other officers were set, is to be seen. There is a library also to this college, but not very valuable, or so well furnish’d as that of St. Leonard’s . Here are, however, two Professors of Divinity; one is call’d the Principal Professor of Theology, and the other barely the Professor of Theology: To these was afterwards added a Professor of the Mathematicks; and he that was the first who enjoy’d the place, viz. Dr. Gregory, obtain’d an observatory to be erected, and gave them abundance of mathematical and astronomical instruments: But it is not now made use of, for what reason I know not.

In the new church in this city lyes the body of the late Archbishop Sharp, who was assassinated upon a moor or heath, as he was coming in his coach home to this city from the Court. There is a fine monument of marble over his grave, with his statue kneeling on the upper part, and the manner of his murther is cut in bass relief below. This murther is matter of history, but is so foolishly, or so partially, or so imperfectly related by all that have yet written of it, that posterity will lose both the fact and the cause of it in a few years more. It would require too large a space in this work to give a fresh and impartial account of it, and for that reason I cannot enter upon it, though I have the most exact account that, I believe, is left in the world, which I had from the mouth of one of the actors, and have since had it confirm’d from several others, thoroughly acquainted with the particulars of it.

I shall only say here, that the archbishop had been a furious and merciless persecutor, and, indeed, murtherer of many of the innocent people, merely for their keeping up their field-meetings, and was charg’d in particular with two actions; which, if true will, though not justify, yet take off much of the black part, which the very murther itself leaves on the memory of the actors.

The keeping back the reprieve, which was sent down by King Charles IId’s express order, and which was actually receiv’d for stopping the execution of twelve persons, under sentence of death; I say keeping it back in his pocket till they were executed. I know Bishop Burnet charges this upon another hand; but these men were assur’d the archbishop was the man, perhaps, the other might be consenting.

The shipping 200 poor men on board a vessel, on pretence of transportation to the English colonies in the West-Indies; but ordering the ship to be run on shore and lost. I say it is said to be order’d, and generally so believ’d, because, when the ship was bulg’d upon the rocks, the master and seamen, and the officers, appointed to confine the banish’d people, all got on shore, but lock’d all the rest down under the hatches, and would not suffer one of them to come out, by which means they every one perish’d.

These two things they charg’d directly on the archbishop, besides many other cruelties, which they call’d murthers; and if they were acted, as is related by others as well as they, I must acknowledge they could be no other.

Now ’tis as certain that these men knew nothing of meeting with the archbishop at that time; but being themselves outlaw’d men, whom any man that met might kill, and who (if taken) would have been put to death: They always went arm’d, and were, at that time, looking for another man, when unexpectedly they saw the bishop coming towards them in his coach, when one of them says to the other, we have not found the person we look’d for; but lo, God has deliver’d our enemy, and the murtherer of our brethren into our hands, against whom we cannot obtain justice by the law, which is perverted: But remember the words of the text, If ye let him go, thy life shall be required for his life.

In a word, they immediately resolv’d to fall upon him, and cut him in pieces; I say they resolv’d, all but one (viz.) Hackston of Rathellet, who was not willing to have his hand in the blood, though he acknowledg’d he deserv’d to die: So that when they attack’d the bishop, Hackston went off, and stood at a distance: nor did he hold their horses, as one has ignorantly publish’d; for they attack’d him all mounted; nor could they well have stopp’d a coach and six horses, if they had been on foot. I mention this part, because, however providence order’d it, so it was, that none of the murtherers ever fell into the hands of justice, but this Hackston of Rathellet, who was most cruelly tortur’d, and afterwards had his hands cut off, and was then executed at Edinburgh.

I have not time to give the rest of this story, though the particulars are very well worth relating, but it is remote from my purpose, and I must proceed. The city of St. Andrew’s is, notwithstanding its many disasters; such as the ruin of the great church, the demolishing its castle, and the archbishop’s palace, and Oliver Cromwell’s citadel; yet, I say, it is still a handsome city, and well built, the streets straight and large, being three streets parallel to one another, all opening to the sea.

They shew among other remains of antiquity the apartments of the palace where Cardinal Beaton stood, or sat in state to see the martyrdom of Mr. Wishart, who, at the stake, call’d aloud to him, and cited him to appear at the bar of God’s justice within such a certain time, within which time he was murther’d by the famous Norman Lessley, thrown into the square of the court, and his body dragged to the very spot where the good man was burn’d at the stake, and also they shew us the window where they threw him out; which particular part of the building seems to have been spar’d, as if on purpose to commemorate the fact, of which, no doubt, divine justice had the principal direction.

The truth is, Cardinal Beaton was another Sharp, and A. B. Sharp was a second Beaton, alike persecutors for religion, alike merciless in their prosperity, and alike miserable in their fall, for they were both murther’d, or kill’d by assassination.

From St. Andrew’s we came to Cowper, the shire town, (as it would be call’d in England) where the publick business of the country is all done. Here are two very agreeable seats belonging to the present Earl of Leven; one is call’d Melvile, and the other Balgony. Melvil is a regular and beautiful building, after the model of Sir William Bruce’s house at Kinross, describ’d before. Balgony is an antient seat, formerly belong’d to the family of Lessly, and if not built, was enlarg’d and repair’d by the great General Lessly, who was so fam’d in Germany, serving under the glorious king of soldiers Gustavus Adolphus.

The River Leven runs just under the walls, as I may say, of the house, and makes the situation very pleasant; the park is large, but not well planted, nor do the avenues that are planted thrive, for the very reason which I have mention’d already.

From hence we went north to Cowper above-nam’d, and where, as I said, the Sheriff keeps his Court. The Earl of Rothess is hereditary sheriff of the shire of Fife, and the Duke of Athol was chancellor of the university of St. Andrew’s, in the times of the Episcopal Government; but that dignity seems now to be laid aside.

We now went away to the north east part of the county, to see the ruins of the famous monastery of Balmerinoch, of which Mr. Cambden takes notice; but we saw nothing worth our trouble, the very ruins being almost eaten up by time: the Lord Balmerinoch, of the family of Elphingston, takes his title from the place, the land being also in his possession; the monastery was founded by Queen Ermengred, wife of King William of Scotland.

Hence we came to the bank of another firth or frith, call’d the Firth of Tay, which, opening to a large breadth at its entrance, as the Firth of Edinburgh does, draws in afterwards as that does at the Queens-Ferry, and makes a ferry over at the breadth of two miles to the town of Dundee; and then the firth widening again just as that of the Forth does also, continues its breadth as four to six miles, till it comes almost to Perth, as the other does to Sterling.

This River Tay is, without exception, the greatest river in Scotland, and of the longest course, for its rises out of the mountains, on the edge of Argyle Shire; and running first north into the shire of Bradalbin, there receiving many other rivers, it spreads itself into a large lake, which is call’d Lough Tay, extending for forty miles in length, and traversing the very heart of Scotland, comes into the sea near this place: Now, as I design to keep in this part of my work to the east coast of the country, I must for the present quit the Tay itself, keeping a little on the hither side of it, and go back to that part of the country which lies to the south, and yet east of Dunbarton and Lenox shires; so drawing an imaginary line from Sterling Bridge, due north, through the heart of the country to Inverness, which I take to lye almost due north and south.

In this course then I mov’d from the ferry, mention’d above, to Perth, lying upon the same River Tay, but on the hither bank. It was formerly call’d St. Johnston, or St. Johns Town, from an old church, dedicated to the evangelist, St. John, part of which is still remaining, and is yet big enough to make two parochial churches, and serve the whole town for their publick worship.

The chief business of this town is the linnen manufacture; and it is so considerable here, all the neighbouring country being employ’d in it, that it is a wealth to the whole place. The Tay is navigable up to the town for ships of good burthen; and they ship off here so great a quantity of linnen, (all for England) that all the rest of Scotland is said not to ship off so much more.

This town was unhappily for some time, the seat of the late rebellion; but I cannot say it was unhappy for the town: For the townsmen got so much money by both parties, that they are evidently enrich’d by it; and it appears not only by the particular families and persons in the town, but by their publick and private buildings which they have rais’d since that; as particularly a new Tolbooth or Town-hall.

The salmon taken here, and all over the Tay, is extremely good, and the quantity prodigious. They carry it to Edinburgh, and to all the towns where they have no salmon, and they barrel up a great quantity for exportation: The merchants of this town have also a considerable trade to the Baltick, to Norway, and especially, since as above, they were enrich’d by the late rebellion.

It seems a little enigmatick to us in the south, how a rebellion should enrich any place; but a few words will explain it. First, I must premise, that the Pretender and his troops lay near, or in this place a considerable time; now the bare consumption of victuals and drink, is a very considerable advantage in Scotland, and therefore ’tis frequent in Scotland for towns to petition the government to have regiments of soldiers quarter’d upon them, which in England would look monstrous, nothing being more terrible and uneasy to our towns in England.

Again, as the Pretender and his troops lay in the neighbourhood, namely at Scone, so a very great confluence of the nobility, clergy, and gentry, however fatally, as to themselves, gather’d about him, and appear’d here also; making their court to him in person, and waiting the issue of his fortunes, till they found the storm gathering from the south, and no probable means to resist it, all relief from abroad being every where disappointed, and then they shifted off as they could.

While they resided here, their expence of money was exceeding great; lodgings in the town of Perth let for such a rate, as was never known in the place before; trade was in a kind of a hurry, provision dear: In a word, the people, not of the town only, but of all the country round, were enrich’d; and had it lasted two or three months longer, it would have made all the towns rich.

When this cloud was dispers’d, and all the party fled and gone, the victors enter’d, the general officers and the loyal gentlemen succeeded the abdicated and routed party; but here was still the head quarters, and afterwards the Dutch troops continued here most part of the winter; all this while the money flow’d in, and the town made their market on both sides; for they gain’d, by the Royal Army’s being on that side of the country, and by the foreigners being quarter’d there, almost as much, tho’ not in so little time as by the other.

The town was well built before, but now has almost a new face; (for as I said) here are abundance of new houses, and more of old houses new fitted and repair’d, which look like new. The linnen trade too, which is their main business, has mightily increas’d since the late Act of Parliament in England, for the suppressing the use and wearing of printed callicoes; so that the manufacture is greatly increased here, especially of that kind of cloth which they buy here and send to England to be printed, and which is so much us’d in England in the room of the callicoes, that the worsted and silk weavers in London seem to have very little benefit by the Bill, but that the linnen of Scotland and Ireland are, as it were, constituted in the room of the callicoes.

From Perth I went south to that part of the province of Fife, which they call Clackmanan, lying west from Dumfermling, and extending itself towards Sterling and Dumblain, all which part I had not gone over before, and which was antiently accounted to be part of Fife.

From Perth to Sterling there lyes a vale which they call Strathmore, and which is a fine level country, though surrounded with hills, and is esteem’d the most fruitful in corn of all that part of the country: It lies extended on both sides the Tay, and is said to reach to Brechin north east, and almost to Sterling south west. Here are, as in all such pleasant soils you will find, a great many gentlemen’s seats; though on the north side of the Tay, and here in particular is the noble palace of Glames, the hereditary seat of the family of Lyon, Earls of Strathmore; and as the heir in reversion now enjoys the title and estate, so it very narrowly escap’d being forfeited; for the eider brother, Earl of Strathmore, having entertain’d the Pretender magnificently in this fine palace, and join’d his forces in person, and with all his interest, lost his life in that service, being kill’d at the battle of Sheriff-Moor; by his fall, the estate being entail’d, descended to the second son, or younger brother, who is now Earl of Strathmore.

Glames is, indeed, one of the finest old built palaces in Scotland, and by far the largest; and this makes me speak of it here, because I am naming the Pretender and his affairs, though a little out of place; when you see it at a distance it is so full of turrets and lofty buildings, spires and towers, some plain, others shining with gilded tops, that it looks not like a town, but a city; and the noble appearance seen through the long vistas of the park are so differing, that it does not appear like the same place any two ways together.

The great avenue is a full half mile, planted on either side with several rows of trees; when you come to the outer gate you are surpriz’d with the beauty and the variety of the statues, busts, some of stone, some of brass, some gilded, some plain. The statues in brass are four, one of King James VI. one of King Charles I. booted and spurr’d, as if going to take horse at the head of his army; one of Charles II. habited ? la hEro, which the world knows he had nothing of about him; and one of King James VIL after the pattern of that at Whitehall.

When the Pretender lodg’d here, for the Earl of Strathmore entertain’d him in his first passage to Perth with great magnificence: There were told three and forty furnish’d rooms on the first floor of the house; some beds, perhaps, were put up for the occasion, for they made eighty beds for them, and the whole retinue of the Pretender was receiv’d, the house being able to receive the court of a real reigning prince.

It would be endless to go about to describe the magnificent furniture, the family pictures, the gallery, the fine collection of original paintings, and the nobly painted ceilings of the chapel, where is an organ for the service after the manner of the Church of England. In a word, the house is as nobly furnish’d as most palaces in Scotland; but, as I said, it was at the brink of destruction; for had the earl not been kill’d, ’tis odds but it had been gutted by the army, which presently spread all the country; but it was enough, the earl lost his life, and the present earl enjoys it peaceably.

From hence I came away south west, and crossing the Tay below Perth, but above Dundee, came to Dumblain, a name made famous by the late battle fought between the army of King George, under the command of the Duke of Argyle, and the Pretender’s forces under the Earl of Marr, which was fought on Sheriff-Moor, between Sterling and Dumblain: The town is pleasantly situated, and tolerably well built, but out of all manner of trade; so that there is neither present prosperity upon it, or prospect of future.

Going from hence we took a full view of the field of battle, call’d Sheriff-Muir, and had time to contemplate how it was possible, that a rabble of Highlanders arm’d in haste, appearing in rebellion, and headed by a person never in arms before, nor of the least experience, should come so near to the overthrowing an army of regular, disciplin’d troops, and led on by experienc’d officers, and so great a general: But when the mistake appear’d also, we bless’d the good Protector of Great Britain, who, under a piece of the most mistaken conduct in the world, to say no worse of it, gave that important victory to King George’s troops, and prevented the ruin of Scotland from an army of Highlanders.

From this place of reflection I came forward in sight of Sterling bridge, but leaving it on the right hand, turn’d away east to Alloway, where the Earl of Marr has a noble seat, I should have said had a noble seat, and where the navigation of the Firth of Forth begins. This is, as I hinted before, within four miles of Sterling by land, and scarcely within twenty by water, occasion’d by those uncommon meanders and reaches in the river, which gives so beautiful a prospect from the castle of Sterling.

This fine seat was formerly call’d the castle of Alloway, but is now so beautify’d, the buildings, and especially the gardens, so compleat and compleatly modern, that no appearance of a castle can be said to remain. There is a harbour for shipping, and ships of burthen may come safely up to it: And this is the place where the Glasgow merchants are, as I am told, erecting magazines or warehouses, to which they propose to bring their tobacco and sugars by land, and then to ship them for Holland or Hamburgh, or the Baltick, or England, as they find opportunity, or a market; and I doubt not but they will find their advantage in it.

The gardens of Alloway House, indeed, well deserve a description; they are, by much, the finest in Scotland, and not outdone by many in England; the gardens, singly describ’d, take up above forty acres of ground, and the adjoining wood, which is adapted to the house in avenues and vistas, above three times as much.

It would be lessening the place to attempt the description, unless I had room to do it compleatly; ’tis enough to say it requires a book, not a page or two: There is, in a word, every thing that nature and art can do, brought to perfection.

The town is pleasant, well built, and full of trade; for the whole country has some business or other with them, and they have a better navigation than most of the towns on the Firth, for a ship of 300 ton may lye also at the very wharf; so that at Alloway a merchant may trade to all parts of the world, as well as at Leith or at Glasgow.

The High Street of Alloway reaches down to this harbour, and is a very spacious, well built street, with rows of trees finely planted all the way. Here are several testimonies of the goodness of their trade, as particularly a large deal-yard, or place for laying up all sorts of Norway goods, which shews they have a commerce thither. They have large warehouses of naval stores; such as pitch, tar, hemp, flax, two saw milis for cutting or slitting of deals, and a rope-walk for making all sorts of ropes and cables for rigging and fitting of ships, with several other things, which convinces us they are no strangers to other trades, as well by sea as by land.

It is a strange testimony of the power of envy and ambition, that mankind, bless’d with such advantages, for an easy and happy retreat in the world, should hazard it all in faction and party, and throw it all away in view, and even without a view of getting more: But I must not phylosophize, any more than launch out into other excesses; my business is with the present state of the place, and to that I confine myself as near as I can.

From Alloway, east, the country is call’d the Shire of Clackmannan, and is known for yielding the best of coal, and the greatest quantity of it of any country in Scotland; so that it is carry’d, not to Edinburgh only, but to England, to Holland, and to France; and they tell us of new pits, or mines of coal now discover’d, which will yield such quantities, and to easy to come at, as are never to be exhausted; tho’ such great quantities should be sent to England, as the York-Buildings company boast of, namely, twenty thousand ton a year; which, however, I take it as it is, for a boast, or rather a pretence to persuade the world they have a demand for such a quantity; whereas, while the freight from Scotland is, as we know, so dear, and the tax in England continues so heavy, the price of these coals will always be so high at London, as will not fail to restrain the consumption; nor is it the interest of Scotland to send away so great a quantity of coal as shall either make a scarcity, or raise the price of them at home.

On this shore of the firth, farther down, stands the town of Culross, a neat and agreeable town, lying in length by the water side, like Kirkcaldy, and being likewise a trading town, as trade must be understood in Scotland. Here is a pretty market, a plentiful country behind it, and the navigable firth before it; the coal and the linnen manufacture, and plenty of corn, such exportations will always keep something of trade alive upon this whole coast.

Here is a very noble seat belonging to the Bruces, Earls of Kincairn, and is worth description; but that I have nam’d so many fine houses, and have yet so many to go over before I go through the whole tour of Scotland, that it is impossible to give every fine house a place here, nor would it do any thing but tire the reader, rather than inform him; as I have done therefore in England I must be content to name them, unless I should make my journey a meer visit to great houses, as if Scotland had nothing else worth notice.

This calling at Culross, call’d vulgarly Cooris, finishes my observations upon the province of Fife. They told me of mines of copper, and of lead, lately discover’d in Fife, and of silver also: But I could not learn that any of them were actually wrought, or, as they call it in Darbyshire, at work. It is, however, not improbable, but that there are such mines, the country seeming very likely for it by many particular tokens.

The two Lomons in this province are two remarkable mountains, which particularly seem to promise metal in their bowels, if they were thoroughly search’d. They rise up like two sugar-loaves in the middle of a plain country, not far from Falkland, and give a view of the Firth of Edinburgh South, and the Firth of Tay North, and are seen from Edinburgh very plain.

Having made this little excursion to the south from Perth, you may suppose me now return’d northward again; and having give you my account of Perth, and its present circumstances, I now proceed that way, taking things as well in their ordinary situation as I can; we could not be at Perth and not have a desire to see that antient seat of royal ceremony, for the Scots kings, I mean of Scone, where all the kings of Scotland were crown’d.

Scone lyes on the other side of the Tay, about a mile north west from Perth; it was famous for the old chair in which the kings of Scotland were crown’d, and which Edward I. King of England, having pierc’d through the whole kingdom, and nothing being able to withstand him, brought away with him. It is now deposited in Westminster, and the kings of Scotland are still crown’d in it, according to an old Scots prophecy, which they say, (mark it, I do but tell you they say so) was cut in the stone, which is enclos’d in the lower part of the wooden chair in which the kings are crown’d.

Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum
Inveniunt Lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.

Englished thus;

Or Fates deceived, and Heaven decrees in vain,
Or where this Stone is found, the Scots shall reign.

This palace was in those days a great monastery, and famous on occasion of this stone in the chair; the monks appropriating to themselves not the custom only, but the right of having all the kings crown’d on it, as if it had been a sacred right, and instituted in heaven; and that the kings would not prosper if they were crown’d any where else.

Process of time rais’d it from a monastery to a royal palace, in honour of the ceremony, and of King Kenneth, who, having fought a bloody battle there with the Picts, and given them a great overthrow, sat down to rest him upon this stone, after he had been tir’d with the slaughter of the enemy, upon which his nobles came round about him to congratulate his success, and, in honour to his valour, crown’d him with a garland of victory; after which he dedicated the stone to the ceremony, and appointed, that all the kings of Scotland should be crown’d sitting upon it as he had done, and that then they should be victorious over all their enemies.

But enough of fable, for this, I suppose, to be no other; yet, be it how it will, this is no fable, that here all the kings of Scotland were crown’d, and all the kings of Great Britain have been since crown’d on it, or in the chair, or near it ever since.

The palace of Scoon, though antient, is not so much decay’d as those I have already spoken of; and the Pretender found it very well in repair for his use: Here he liv’d and kept his court, a fatal court to the nobility and gentry of Scotland, who were deluded to appear for him; here I say, he kept his court in all the state and appearance of a sovereign, and receiv’d honours as such; so that he might say he reign’d in Scotland, though not over Scotland, for a few days: But it was but a few (about twenty) till he and all his adherents were oblig’d to quit, not the place only, but the island, and that without fighting, though the royal army was not above ten thousand men.

The building is very large, the front above 200 foot in breadth, and has two extraordinary fine square courts, besides others, which contain the offices, out-houses, &c. The royal apartments are spacious and large, but the building, the wainscotting, the chimney-pieces, &c. all after the old fashion.

Among the pictures there, the Pretender had the satisfaction to see his mother’s picture, an original, done in Italy, when she was Princess of Modena only, and was marry’d by proxy, in the name of King James VII. then Duke of York, represented by the Earl of Peterborough. Here is the longest gallery in Scotland, and the ceiling painted, but the painting exceeding old.

From Scoon to Dunkel is so little a way we desir’d to see it, being the place where the first skirmish was fought between the forces of King William, after the Revolution, and the Laird of Claverhouse, after call’d Viscount Dundee, and where the brave Lieutenant-Colonel Cleeland was kill’d: but Dundee’s men, tho’ 5,000, were gallantly repuls’d by a handful, even of new rais’d men.

The Duke of Athol has an old house here, and it was in one of the courts of that house that part of the action was; and the gentleman above-nam’d was shot from out of a window, as he was ordering and encouraging his men; we were almost tempted to go on this way, to see the field of battle, between the same Dundee and the great Leiutenant-General Mac-Kay, wherein the latter, though with regular troops, was really defeated by the Highlanders: But Dundee being kill’d by an accidental shot after the fight, they could not improve the victory, and the resistance ended soon after; whereas, indeed, had not that accident happen’d, Dundee, who was a bold enterprising man, had certainly march’d southward, and bid fair to have given King William a journey into the north, instead of a voyage to Ireland; but providence had better things in store for Great Britain.

But our determin’d rout lay up the eastern shore, and through the shires, adjacent on that side, as particularly Angus, Mearns, Marr, Aberdeen, Buchan or Bucquhan, &c. So as I laid it out before to Inverness.

Mr Cambden tells us, that the Firth of Tay was the utmost bounds of the Roman Empire in Britain. That Julius Agricola, the best of generals under the worst of emperors, Domitian, though he pierc’d farther, and travers’d by land into the heart of the Highlands, yet seeing no end of the barbarous country, and no advantage by the conquest of a few Barbarian mountaineers, withdrew and fix’d the Roman eagles here; and that he frequently harass’d the Picts by excursions and inroads, and destroy’d the country, laying it waste, to starve them out of the fertilest part of it, but always return’d to his post, making the Tay his frontier.

But our English Caesars have outgone the Romans; for Edward I. as is said, pass’d the Tay, for he rifled the Abbey at Scoon; and, if we may believe history, penetrated into the remotest parts, which, however, I take to be only the remotest parts of what was then known to the English; for as to the Highlands, the mountains of Loquhaber, Ross, Murray, Sutherland, and Caithness, we read nothing of them: And from these retreats the Scots always return’d, Antæus like, with double strength after every defeat, till in the next reign they overthrew his successor Edward II. at Bannockbourn, and drove the English out of the whole country; nay, and follow’d them over Tweed into England, ravaging the countries of Northumberland and Cumberland, and paying them in their own kind of interest.

Oliver Cromwell, indeed (according to the motto of a noble house in Scotland, viz. Ride through), rode through; he penetrated to the remotest part of the island, and that he might rule them with a rod of iron in the very letter of it, he built citadels and forts in all the angles and extremes, where he found it needful to place his stationary legions, just as the Romans did; as at Leith, at St. Andrew’s, at Inverness, Irwin, Innerlochy, and several other places: and just now we find King George’s forces marching to the remotest corners, nay, ferrying over into the western, and north-western islands; but then this is not as a foreigner and conqueror, but as a sovereign, a lawful governor and father of the country, to deliver from, not entangle her in the chains of tyranny and usurpation.

But where armies have march’d, private travellers may certainly pass; and with that assurance we chearfully pass’d the Tay, trusting very much to that natural, known civility, which the Scots, in the remotest parts, always shew to strangers.

Dundee, Aberdeen and the Highlands

We left Strathern therefore, with the little country of Menteith, for our return, and went down into Angus, on the northern banks of Tay to Dundee, a pleasant, large, populous city, and well deserves the title of Bonny Dundee, so often given it in discourse, as well as in song (bonny, in Scots, signifying beautiful).

As it stands well for trade, so it is one of the best trading towns in Scotland, and that as well as foreign business as in manufacture and home trade. It has but an indifferent harbour, but the Tay is a large, safe, and good road, and there is deep water and very good anchor-hold almost all over it.

It is exceedingly populous, full of stately houses, and large handsome streets; particularly it has four very good streets, with a large market-place in the middle, the largest and fairest in Scotland, except only that of Aberdeen. The Tolbooth, or Town-Hall is an old, but large and convenient building.

The inhabitants here appear like gentlemen, as well as men of business, and yet are real merchants too, and make good what we see so eminently in England, that true bred merchants are the best of gentlemen. They have a very good and large correspondence here with England, and ship off a great deal of linnen thither, also a great quantity of corn is sent from hence, as well to England as to Holland. They have likewise a good share of the Norway trade; and as they are concern’d in the herring-fishery, they consequently have some east country trade, viz. to Dantzick, Koningsberg, Riga, and the neighbouring parts. They send ships also to Sweden, and import iron, copper, tar, pitch, deals, &c. from the several trading ports of that kingdom.

These several trades occasion a concourse of shipping at the port; and there are not a few ships belonging to the place. The country behind them call’d the Carse, or the Carse of Gowry, with the vale mention’d above of Strathmoor; for Strath, in their dialect, signifies a vale, or level country; I say, all that country abounds in corn, and the port of Dundee ships off great quantities, when a plentiful crop allows it, to the great advantage of the gentlemen as well as farmers; for as the gentlemen receive all their rents in kind, they would find a great difficulty sometimes to dispose of it, if the merchant here did not ship it off, either for London or Amsterdam.

The town of Dundee stands at a little distance from the Tay, but they are join’d by a causeway or walk, well pav’d with flat freestone, such as the side-ways in Cheapside and Cornhil, and rows of trees are planted on either side the walk, which makes it very agreeable. On one part of this walk are very good warehouses for merchandises, especially for heavy goods; and also granaries for corn, of which sometimes they have a vast quantity laid up here; and these being near the harbour are convenient, as well for the housing of goods, when landed, as for the easy shipping off what lies for exportation.

The great church was formerly collegiate, being the cathedral of the place, and was a very large building; but part of it was demolish’d in the Civil War; the remainder is divided, like as others are at Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c. into three churches for the present use of the citizens.

They have also a meeting-house or two for the episcopal worship; for you are to take it once for all, that north by Tay, there are far more of the episcopal perswasion than are to be found in the south; and the farther north, the more so, as we shall see in its order.

The tower upon the great church here is a handsome square building, large, and antient, but very high, and is a good ornament to the city; it resembles the great tower upon the cathedral of Canterbury, but not quite so high. There is a fine and well endow’d hospital for decay’d townsmen of Dundee, where they are well taken care of, and provided for. The Pretender was in this city soon after his landing, and staid here some time before he advanc’d to Scoon; the Laird of Claverhouse of the name of Graham, who was kill’d, as has been said, at the Battle of Gillecranky, was made Viscount of Dundee by King James VII; but enjoy’d it not long. His seat of Claverhouse is not far off, and he had the estate annex’d to the Constabulary of Dundee, given him with the title, but ’tis now in the Duke of Douglass.

It is twenty Scots miles from Dundee to Montrose, the way pleasant, the country fruitful and bespangl’d, as the sky in a clear night with stars of the biggest magnitude, with gentlemen’s houses, thick as they can be suppos’d to stand with pleasure and conveniency. Among these is the noble palace of Penmure, forfeited in the late rebellion by the unfortunate Earl of Penmure, who was himself wounded in the fight near Dumblain, and with that action ruin’d a noble and antient family, and a fine estate. The surname of the family is Maul, and Maulsburgh, a small port near Montrose, bears the name still to posterity.

The town and port of Montrose, vulgarly, but ignorantly, call’d Montross, was our next stage, standing upon the eastmost shore of Angus, open to the German, or, if you please now, the Caledonian ocean, and at the mouth of the little River South Esk, which makes the harbour.

We did not find so kind a reception among the common people of Angus, and the other shires on this side the country, as the Scots usually give to strangers: But we found it was because we were English men; and we found that their aversion did not lye so much against us on account of the late successes at, and after the rebellion, and the forfeiture of the many noblemen’s and gentlemen’s estates among them as fell on that occasion, though that might add to the disgust: But it was on account of the Union, which they almost universally exclaim’d against tho’ sometimes against all manner of just reasoning.

This town of Montrose is a sea-port, and, in proportion to its number of inhabitants, has a considerable trade, and is tolerably well built, and capable of being made strong, only that it extends too far in length.

The French fleet made land at this port, when they had the Pretender on board, in the reign of Queen Ann, having overshot the mouth of the firth so far, whither they had first design’d: But this mistake, which some thought a misfortune, was certainly a deliverance to them; for as this mistake gave time to the English fleet to come up with them, before they could enter the firth, so it left them time and room also to make their escape, which, if they had been gone up the firth, they could never have done, but must inevitably have been all burnt and destroy’d, or taken by the British fleet under Sir George Bing, which was superior to them in force.

From Montrose the shore lies due north to Aberdeen: by the way is the castle of Dunnoter, a strong fortification, upon a high precipice of a rock, looking down on the sea, as on a thing infinitely below it. The castle is wall’d about with invincible walls, said the honest Scots man that shew’d us the road to it, having towers at proper distances, after the old way of fortifying towns.

This was chiefly made use of as a prison for State-prisoners; and I have seen a black account of the cruel usage the unhappy prisoners have met with there; but those times are over with Scotland. The Earl Marshal, of the name of Keith, was the lord of this castle, as also of a good house near it, but not a great estate, and what he had is now gone; for being in the late rebellion his estate is forfeited; and we are told his Lordship, making his escape, is now in the service of Spain, where he commands an Irish regiment of foot.

From hence there is nothing remarkable till we come to Aberdeen, a place so eminent, that it commands some stay upon it; yet, I shall contract its description as much as possible, the compass of my work being so great, and the room I have for it so small.

Aberdeen is divided into two towns or cities, and stands at the mouth of two rivers; the towns are the new and the old Aberdeen, about a mile distant from one another, one situate on the River Don or Dune, the other on the River Dee, from whence it is suppos’d to take its name; for Aber, in the old British language, signifies a mouth, or opening of a river, the same which in Scotland is understood by a frith or firth: So that both these towns are describ’d in the name, (viz.) Aberdee, the mouth of the River Dee, and Aberdeen, the mouth of the River Don. So in the south-west part of the shores of Britain, and in Wales, we have Aberconway, the mouth of the River Conway, Aberistwith, and several others.

The old Aberdeen, on the bank of the Don, must, without doubt, be very antient; for they tell us the new Aberdeen is suppos’d to be upwards of 1200 years old. Nor do any of their registers tell us the particular time of its being built, or by whom. The cities are equally situated for trade, being upon the very edge of the sea; and ’tis the common opinion, that part of the old city was wash’d down by the sea; so that it obliged the citizens to build farther off: This part was that they call’d the monastery, and this may give rise to that opinion, that thereupon they went and built the New Aberdeen upon the bank of the other river, and which, ’tis evident, is built upon a piece of hilly ground, or upon three hills: But this is all conjecture, and has only probability to support it, not any thing of history.

Old Aberdeen is also on one side the county, and new Aberdeen on another, though both in that which is call’d in general the county of Marr. The extraordinaries of Aberdeen, take both the cities together, are

The cathedral.

The two colleges.

The great market-place.

The bridges, particularly that of one arch.

The commerce.

The fishery.

The cathedral dedicated to St. Machar, tho’ none knows who that Saint was, is a large and antient building; the building majestick, rather than curious, and yet not without its beauty in architecture; it appears to have been built at several times, and, perhaps, at the distance of many years, one part from another. The columns on which the great steeple stands are very artful, and the contrivance shews great judgement in the builder or director of the work. This church has been divided into several parts since the abolishing of episcopacy, as a government in the Church; (for it is not abolished in Aberdeen, as a principle, to this day) abundance of the people are still episcopal in their opinion; and they have, by the gentle government they live under, so much liberty still, as that they have a chapel for the publick exercise of their worship, after the manner of the Church of England, besides several meetings for the episcopal dissenters, which are not so publick.

The two colleges; one of these are in the old city, and the other in the new.

That in the old city is also the oldest college, being founded Anno 1500. by the famous bishop Elphingstone, who lies buried in the chapel or college church, under a very magnificent and curious monument. The steeple of this church was the most artificial that I have seen in Scotland, and very beautiful, according to the draught of its old building: But it is much more so now, having been injur’d, if not quite broken down by a furious tempest Anno 1361; but rebuilt after the first model by the care, and at the expence of the bishop Dr. Forbes, as also of Dr. Gordon, M.D. and several considerable benefactors. I have not room to go through the particular account of this foundation, take it in short in its original, that it consists of A Principal or master, or head, call it as you please, with a Sub-Principal, which is not usual, who is also a Professor of Philosophy.

A Professor of Divinity.
Three Professors of the Civil Law, now reduced to but one.
Three Professors of Philosophy, who are call’d Regents, besides the Sub-Principal.
One Professor of the Oriental Tongues.
One Professor of the Mathematicks.
One Professor of Physick.

There were formerly an organist, five choristers, and ten other fellows, as we may call them, but who were call’d also professors. In those days also they had a chancellor, who was always the bishop, and they conferr’d the degrees of Doctor of Divinity, which they do not now, except on extraordinary occasions. King James IV. was the patron of this college, but its settlement was from Pope Alexander VI. with large privileges, equal to that of Paris and of Bononia, the Bull for which is still extant; and from this, that king thus espousing the house, it obtain’d the name of King’s College, though the bishop was the founder, as is said above.

The founder also gave a library, and many other costly things; but they, it seems, suffer’d in the change of times very much.

The new college, which is in the new city of Aberdeen, and is call’d the Marshallian or Marshal’s College, because founded by Keith Earl Marshal, in the year 1593. And though it was a magnificent building at first, and well endow’d, yet the citizens have much beautify’d and enlarg’d it, and adjoin’d to it a noble library well stock’d with books, as well by the citizens as by the benefactions of gentlemen, and lovers of learning; as also with the finest and best mathematical instruments.

This college likewise consists of

A Principal.
A Professor of Divinity.
Four Professors of Philosophy, call’d Regents.
A Professor of the Mathematicks.
A Professor of Physick.

Also a Humanity School with a Master and three Ushers, and a Musick School; the Humanity School was founded by Dr Dune.

Those two colleges form the university, and are so call’d, but they are independent on one another; they are fam’d for having bred many men of learning; but that is not to my purpose here.

The third article is the great market-place, which, indeed, is very beautiful and spacious; and the streets adjoining are very handsome and well built, the houses lofty and high; but not so as to be inconvenient, as in Edinburgh; or low, to be contemptible as in most other places. But the generality of the citizens’ houses are built of stone four story high, handsome sash-windows, and are very well furnish’d within, the citizens here being as gay, as genteel, and, perhaps, as rich, as in any city in Scotland.

The bridges; particularly that at Old Aberdeen, over the Don: It consists of one immense arch of stone, sprung from two rocks, one on each side, which serve as a buttment to the arch, so that it may be said to have no foundation, nor to need any. The workmanship is artful, and so firm, that it may possibly end with the conflagration only. The other bridge is upon the River Dee, about a mile west above New Aberdeen, and has seven very stately fine arches. There are several other buildings which should be describ’d, if our work was to dwell here, as the almshouses, hospitals, the great church of St. Nicholas, divided into three, with the steeple, and the two vast bells in it; the custom-house, the wharf, the port; all which, considering what part of the world they are in, are really extraordinary, and that brings me to the fifth and sixth articles, which are, indeed, of the same kind, viz.

5. and 6. The commerce and the fishery.

The fishery is very particular; the salmon is a surprising thing, the quantity that is taken in both rivers, but especially in the Dee, is a kind of prodigy; the fishing, or property, is erected into a company, and divided into shares, and no person can enjoy above one share at a time; the profits are very considerable, for the quantity of fish taken is exceeding great, and they are sent abroad into several parts of the world, particularly into France, England, the Baltick, and several other parts.

The herring-fishing is a common blessing to all this shore of Scotland, and is like the Indies at their door; the merchants of Aberdeen cannot omit the benefit, and with this they are able to carry on their trade to Dantzick and Koningsberg, Riga and Narva, Wybourgh and Stockholm, to the more advantage.

They have a very good manufacture of linnen, and also of worsted stockings, which they send to England in great quantities, and of which they make some so fine, that I have seen them sold for fourteen, and twenty shillings a pair. They alsa send them over to Holland, and into the north and east seas in large quantities.

They have also a particular export here of pork, pickl’d and pack’d up in barrels, which they chiefly sell to the Dutch for the victualling their East-India ships and their men of war, the Aberdeen pork having the reputation of being the best cur’d, for keeping on very long voyages, of any in Europe.

They export also corn and meal, but they generally bring it from the Firth of Murray, or Cromarty, the corn coming from about Inverness where they have great quantities.

In a word, the people of Aberdeen are universal merchants, so far as the trade of the northern part of the world will extend. They drive a very great trade to Holland, to France, to Hambrough, to Norway, to Gottenburgh, and to the Baltick; and it may, in a word, be esteem’d as the third city in Scotland, that is to say, next after Edinburgh and Glasgow.

From Aberdeen the coast goes on to a point of land, which is the farthest north-east part of Britain, and is call’d by the sailors Buchanness, being in the shire or county of Buchan. It was to this point the French squadron, with the Pretender on board, in the reign of Queen Ann, kept their flight in sight of the shore, being thus far pursued by Sir George Bing with the English fleet: But from hence steering away north-east, as if for the Norway coast, and the English admiral seeing no probability of coming up with them, gave over the chase, when they, altering their course in the night, stood away south, and came back to Dunkirk where they set out.

Upon this part are several good towns; as particularly Peter-Head; a good market-town, and a port with a small harbour for fishing vessels, but no considerable trade, Aberdeen being so near.

This country, however remote, is full of nobility and gentry, and their seats are seen even to the extremest shores: The family of Frazer carrys its name to Fraserburgh, on the very norther-most point of the county. Ereskines, Earls of Marr, have their family seat at Kildrummy, in the county of Marr, a little south of this part of the country, where the late unhappy earl first set up his standard of the Pretender. The Hayes, Earls of Errol, are in Buchan; and the family of Forbes, Lord Forbes, and Forbes Lord Pitsligo, are still farther, and the latter on the very shore of the Caledonian Ocean.

Nor does the remote situation hinder, but these gentlemen have the politest and brightest education and genius of any people so far north, perhaps, in the world, being always bred in travel abroad, and in the universities at home. The Lord Pitsligo, just mention’d, though unhappily drawn into the snare of the late insurrection, and forfeiting his estate with the rest, yet carries abroad with him, where-ever he goes, a bright genius, a head as full of learning and sound judgment, and a behaviour as polite, courtly, and full of all the good qualities that adorn a noble birth, as most persons of quality I ever saw.

Mr. Cambden relates, that on the coast of this country a great piece of amber was driven on shore by the force of the sea, as big, to use his own words, as a horse. I shall add nothing to the story, because ’tis hard to give credit to it; it is enough that I name my author, for I could not learn from the inhabitants that they ever saw any more of it.

From hence, the east shore of Scotland being at an end, the land trends away due west; and the shire of Bamf beginning, you see the towns of Bamf, Elgin, and the famous monastery of Kinloss, where the murther’d body of King Duff was, after many years, dug up, and discovered to be the same by some tokens, which, it seems, were undoubted.

From this point of the land, I mean Buchan-Ness, the ships take their distances, or accounts, for their several voyages; and what they call their departure: As in England, they do from Winterton-Ness, on the north-east part of Norfolk, or in the Downs for the voyages to the Southward.

From Fifeness, which is the northermost point, or head land on the mouth of Edinburgh Firth, being the southermost land of Fife, to this point of Buchan-Ness, the land lyes due north and south, and the shore is the eastermost land of Scotland; the distance between them is thirty-three leagues one mile, that is just 100 miles; though the mariners say that measuring by the sea it is but twenty-eight; and from Winterton-Ness, near Yarmouth, to this point call’d Buchan-Ness, is just 300 miles.

The river, or Firth of Tay, opens into the sea, about four leagues north from Fife-Ness; and as there is a light-house on the Isle of May, in the mouth of the Firth of Forth of Edinburgh, a little south of this point call’d Fife-Ness; so there are two light-houses at the entrance of the Firth of Tay, being for the directions of the sailors, when they are bound into that river; and particularly for their avoiding and sailing between two sands or shoals, which lye off from the south side of the entrance.

This point of land, call’d Buchan-Ness, is generally the first land of Great Britain, which the ships make in their voyages home from Arch-Angel in Russia, or from their whale-fishing-voyages to Greenland and Spits-Berghen in the north seas; and near this point, namely, at Pitsligo, a great ship was cast away in Queen Elizabeth’s time, bound home from Arch-Angel, in which was the first ambassador, which the great Duke of Muscovy sent to any of the Christian princes of Europe, and who was commission’d to treat with Queen Elizabeth for a league of peace and commerce; and on board which was a most valuable present to the queen of rich and costly furrs; such as sables, errnine, black fox skins, and such like, being in those days esteem’d inestimable. The ambassadors, it seems, were sav’d and brought on shore by the help of the people of Pitsligo; but the ship and all the goods, and among them the rich furrs, intended for the queen, were all lost, to her Majesty’s great disappointment; for the queen valued such fine things exceedingly.

At the town of Peter-Head there is a small harbour with two small piers; but it is all dry at low-water: So that the smallest ships lye a-ground, and can only go in and out at high-water, and then only small vessels.

From this point of easterly land all that great bay, or inlet of the sea, reaching quite to the north of Scotland, is call’d Murray Firth; and the northermost point is Dungsby Head, which is the east point of Caithness, and opens to Pentland Firth. By Pentland Firth you are to understand the passage of the sea beyond Caithness, that is to say between Scotland and the Isles of Orkney. This bay, call’d Murray-Firth, is not in the nature of a firth, as that of Edinburgh or Tay, being the mouths of rivers; as the Humber, or the mouth of Thames in England: but it is an open gulph or bay in the sea; as the Bay of Biscay, or the Gulph of Mexico are, and such-like: and though it may receive several rivers into it, as indeed it does, and as those bays do; yet itself is an open sea, and reaches from, as I have said, Peter-Head to Dungsby Head, opposite to the Orkneys; the distance upon the sea twenty-six leagues one mile, or seventy-nine miles; but it is almost twice as far by land, because of the depth of that bay, which obliges us to travel from Pitsligo, west, near seventy miles, till we come to Inverness.

This country of Buchan, is, indeed, more to be taken notice of from what is to be seen on the sea-shore than in the land; for the country is mountainous, poor, and more barren than its neighbours; but as we coasted along west, we came into a much better country, particularly the shires of Bamff, Elgin, and the country of Murray, from whence the bay, I just now mention’d, is called Murray Firth.

Murray is, indeed, a pleasant country, the soil fruitful, water’d with fine rivers, and full of good towns, but especially of gentlemen’s seats, more and more remarkable than could, indeed, be expected by a stranger in so remote a part of the country. The River Spey, which even Mr. Cambden himself calls a noble river, passes through the middle of the country. Upon the bank of this river the Duke of Gordon has a noble seat call’d after his name, Castle-Gordon. It is, indeed, a noble, large, and antient seat; as a castle much is not to be said of it, for old fortifications are of a small import, as the world goes now: But as a dwelling or palace for a nobleman, it is a very noble, spacious, and royal building; ’tis only too large, and appears rather as a great town than as a house.

The present duke has been embroil’d a little in the late unhappy affair of the Pretender; but he got off without a forfeiture, having prudently kept himself at a distance from them til he might see the effect of things. The duke has several other seats in this part of the country; and, which is still better, has a very great estate.

All the country, on the west side of the Spey, is surprisingly agreeable, being a flat, level country, the land rich and fruitful, well peopled, and full of gentlemen’s seats. This country is a testimony how much the situation of the land is concern’d in the goodness of the climate; for here the land being level and plain, for between twenty and thirty miles together, the soil is not only fruitful and rich, but the temperature of the air is soften’d, and made mild and suitable to the fruitfulness of the earth; for the harvest in this country, and in the vale of Strath-Bogy, and all the country to Inverness, is not only forward and early, as well as rich and strong; but ’tis more early than in Northumberland, nay, than it is in Darbyshire, and even than in some parts of the most southerly counties in England; as particularly in the east of Kent.

As a confirmation of this, I affirm that I have seen the new wheat of this country and Innerness brought to market to Edinburgh, before the wheat at Edinburgh has been fit to reap; and yet the harvest about Edinburgh is thought to be as forward as in most parts, even of England itself. In a word, it is usual for them to begin their harvest, in Murray and the country about it, in the month of July, and it is not very unusual to have new corn fully ripe and thresh’d out, shipp’d off, and brought to Edinburgh to sale, within the month of August.

Nor is the forwardness of the season the only testimony of the goodness of the soil here; but the crops are large, the straw strong and tall, and the ear full; and that which is still more the grain, and that particularly of the wheat, is as full, and the kind as fine, as any I have seen in England.

In this rich country is the city, or town rather, of Elgin; I say city, because in antient time the monks claim’d it for a city; and the cathedral shews, by its ruins, that it was a place of great magnificence. Nor must it be wonder’d at, if in so pleasant, so rich, and so agreeable a part of the country, all the rest being so differing from it, the clergy should seat themselves in a proportion’d number, seeing we must do them the justice to say, that if there is any place richer and more fruitful, and pleasant than another, they seldom fail to find it out.

As the country is rich and pleasant, so here are a great many rich inhabitants, and in the town of Elgin in particular; for the gentlemen, as if this was the Edinburgh, or the court, for this part of the island, leave their Highland habitations in the winter and come and live here for the diversion of the place and plenty of provisions; and there is, on this account, a great variety of gentlemen for society, and that of all parties and of all opinions. This makes Elgin a very agreeable place to live in, notwithstanding its distance, being above 450 measur’d miles from London, and more, if we must go by Edinburgh.

This rich country continues with very little intermission, till we come to Strath-Nairn, that is the valley of Nairn, where it extends a little farther in breadth towards the mountains. Nor is Strath-Nairn behind any of the other in fruitfulness: From the western part of this country you may observe that the land goes away again to the north; and, as if you were to enter into another island beyond Britain, you find a large lake or inlet from the Sea of Murray, mention’d above, going on west, as if it were to cut through the island, for we could see no end of it; nor could some of the country people tell us how far it went, but that it reach’d to Loquabre: so that we thought, till our maps and farther inquiries inform’d us, it had join’d to the western ocean.

After we had travell’d about twelve miles, and descended from a rising ground, which we were then upon, we perceived the lake contracted in one particular place to the ordinary size of a river, as if design’d by nature to give passage to the inhabitants to converse with the northern part; and then, as if that part had been sufficiently perform’d, it open’d again to its former breadth, and continued in the form of a large lake, as before, for many more miles than we could see; being in the whole, according to Mr. Cambden, twenty-three miles long; but if it be taken on both sides the pass, ’tis above thirty-five miles in length.

This situation must necessarily make the narrow part be a most important pass, from the south part of Scotland to the northern countries, which are beyond it. We have been told the Romans never conquer’d thus far; and those that magnify the conquests of Oliver Cromwell in Scotland to a height beyond what was done by the Romans, insist much upon it, that the Romans never came into this part of the country: But, if what Mr. Cambden records, and what is confirm’d by other accounts from the men of learning and of observation, this must be a mistake; for Mr. Cambden says, that near Bean-Castle in the county of Nairn, there was found, in the year 1460, a fine marble vessel finely carv’d, which was full of Roman coins of several sorts; also several old forts or mounts have been seen here, which, by their remains, evidently shew’d themselves to be Roman: But that enquiry is none of my work.

In the narrow pass (mention’d above over the lake) stands the town and fortress of Inner-Ness, that is a town on the inner bank of the River Ness. The situation of it, as I have said before, intimates that it is a place of strength; and accordingly it has a castle, founded in antient times to command the pass: And some authors write that it was antiently a royal house for the kings of Scotland. Be that as it will, Oliver Cromwell thought it a place of such importance, that he built a strong citadel here, and kept a stated garrison always in it, and sometimes more than a garrison, finding it needful to have a large body of his old veteran troops posted here to preserve the peace of the country, and keep the Highlands in awe, which they did effectually ail his time.

Here it is observ’d, that at the end of those troublesome days, when the troops on all sides came to be disbanded, and the men dispers’d, abundance of the English soldiers settled in this fruitful and cheap part of the country, and two things are observ’d from it as the consequence.

That the English falling to husbandry, and cultivation of the earth after their own manner, were instrumental, with the help of a rich and fruitful soil, to bring all that part of the country into so good a method and management, as is observ’d to outdo all the rest of Scotland to this day; and this not a little contributes to the harvest being so early, and the corn so good, as is said above; for as they reap early, so they sow early, and manure and help the soil by all the regular arts of husbandry, as is practis’d in England, and which, as they learnt it from England, and by English men, so they preserve the knowledge of it, and also the industry attending it, and requir’d for it to this day.

As Cromwell’s soldiers initiated them thus into the arts and industry of the husbandman, so they left them the English accent upon their tongues, and they preserve it also to this day; for they speak perfect English, even much better than in the most southerly provinces of Scotland; nay, some will say that they speak it as well as at London; though I do not grant that neither. It is certain they keep the southern accent very well, and speak very good English.

They have also much of the English way of living among them, as well in their manner of dress and customs, as also of their eating and drinking, and even of their dressing and cookery, which we found here much more agreeable to English stomachs than in other parts of Scotland; all which, and several other usages and customs, they retain from the settling of three regiments of English soldiers here, after they were disbanded, and who had, at least many of them, their wives and children with them.

The fort, which was then built, and since demolish’d, has been restor’d since the revolution; and a garrison was always kept here by King William, for the better regulating the Highlands; and this post was of singular importance in the time of the late insurrection of the Lord Marr for the Pretender; when, though his party took it, they were driven out again by the country, with the assistance of the Earl of Sutherland, and several other of the nobility and gentry, who stood fast to the king’s interest.

Here is a stately stone bridge of seven large arches over the River Ness, where, as I said above, it grows narrow between the sea and the lake; small vessels may come up to the town, but larger ships, when such come thither, as they often do for corn, lye at some distance east from the town.

When you are over this bridge you enter that which we truly call the north of Scotland, and others the north Highlands; in which are several distinct shires, but cannot call for a distinct description, because it is all one undistinguish’d range of mountains and woods, overspread with vast, and almost uninhabited rocks and steeps fill’d with deer innumerable, and of a great many kinds; among which are some of those the antients call’d harts and roebucks, with vast overgrown stags and hinds of the red deer kind, and with fallow-deer also.

And here, before I describe this frightful country, it is needful to observe that Scotland may be thus divided into four districts, or distinct quarters, which, however, I have not seen any of our geographers do before me, yet, I believe, may not be an improper measurement for such as would form a due idea of the whole in their minds, as follows:

The South Land, or that part of Scotland south of the River Tay, drawing a line from the Tay, about Perth, to Loch-Lomond, and down again to Dumbarton, and the bank of Clyde.

The Middle, or Midland, being all the country from the Tay and the Lough-Lomon, north to the Lake of Ness and the Aber, including a long slope to the south, taking in the western Highlands of Argyle and Lorn, and the isles of Isla and Jura.

The North Land, being all the country beyond Innerness and the Lough, or River Ness, north, drawing the line over the narrow space of Glengary, between the Ness and the Aber, and bounded by them both from the eastern to the western sea.

The islands, being all the western and northern islands (viz.) the Hebrides, the Skye, the Orkneys, and the Isles of Shetland.

Upon the foot of this division I am now, having pass’d the bridge over the Ness, enter’d upon the third division of Scotland. call’d the North Land; and it is of this country that, as I am saying, the mountains are so full of deer, harts, roe-bucks, &c.

Here are also a great number of eagles which breed in the woods, and which prey upon the young fawns when they first fall. Some of these eagles are of a mighty large kind, such as are not to be seen again in those parts of the world.

Here are also the best hawks of all the kinds for sport which are in the kingdom, and which the nobility and gentry of Scotland make great use of; for not this part of Scotland only, but all the rest of the country abounds with wild-fowl.

The rivers and lakes also in all this country are prodigiously full of salmon; it is hardly credible what the people relate of the quantity of salmon taken in these rivers, especially in the Spey, the Nairn, the Ness, and other rivers thereabout. The several countries beyond the Ness are:

Ross; Sutherland; Caithness; Strathnaver;
And beyond those the islands of Orkney and Shetland.

The Earl of Sutherland has a castle beyond Innerness, call’d Dunrobin, situate on the eastern shore, which his lordship was sent down by sea to take an early possession of in the late rebellion; and which, if he had not done, would soon have fallen into the hands of the late Earl of Marr’s party; but by his coming timely thither it was prevented, and the country on that side kept from joining the troops of the Pretender, at least for that time.

Innerness is a pleasant, clean, and well built town: There are some merchants in it, and some good share of trade. It consists of two parishes, and two large, handsome streets, but no publick buildings of any note, except as above, the old castle and the bridge.

North of the mouth of this river is the famous Cromarty Bay, or Cromarty Firth, noted for being the finest harbour, with the least business, of, perhaps, any in Britain; ’tis, doubtless, a harbour or port, able to receive the Royal Navy of Great Britain, and, like Milford-Haven in Wales, both the going in and out safe and secure: But as there is very little shipping employ’d in these parts, and little or no trade, except for corn, and in the season of it some fishing, so this noble harbour is left intirely useless in the world.

Our geographers seem to be almost as much at a loss in the description of this north part of Scotland, as the Romans were to conquer it; and they are oblig’d to fill it up with hills and mountains, as they do the inner parts of Africa, with lyons and elephants, for want of knowing what else to place there. Yet this country is not of such difficult access, as to be pass’d undescrib’d, as if it were impenetrable; here being on the coast Dornoch a Royal Burgh, situate upon the sea, opposite to that which they call Tarbat Bay, eminent for the prodigious quantity of herrings taken, or, which rather might be taken here in their season. There is a castle here belonging also to the Earl of Sutherland, and it was the seat of a bishop; but the cathedral, which is but mean, is now otherwise employ’d.

All the country beyond this river, and the Loch flowing into it, is call’d Caithness, and extends to the northermost land in Scotland.

Some people tell us they have both lead, copper, and iron in this part of Scotland, and I am very much inclin’d to believe it: but it seems reserv’d for a future, and more industrious age to search into; which, if it should happen to appear, especially the iron, they would no more have occasion to say, that nature furnish’d them with so much timber, and woods of such vast extent to no purpose, seeing it may be all little enough to supply the forges for working up the iron stone, and improving that useful product: And should a time come when these hidden treasures of the earth should be discover’d and improv’d, this part of Scotland may no longer be call’d poor, for such a production would soon change the face of things, bring wealth and people, and commerce to it; fill their harbours full of ships, their towns full of people; and, by consuming the provisions, bring the soil to be cultivated, its fish cur’d, and its cattle consum’d at home, and so a visible prosperity would shew itself among them.

Nor are the inhabitants so wild and barbarous as, perhaps, they were in those times, or as our writers have pretended. We see every day the gentlemen born here; such as the Mackenzies, McLeans, Dundonalds, Gordons, McKays, and others, who are nam’d among the clans as if they were barbarians, appear at court, and in our camps and armies, as polite, and as finish’d gentlemen as any from other countries, or even among our own; and, if I should say, outdoing our own in many things, especially in arms and gallantry, as well abroad as at home. But I am not writing panegyricks or satyrs here, my business is with the country. There is no room to doubt, but in this remote part of the island the country is more wild and uncultivated, as it is mountainous, and (in some parts) thinner of inhabitants, than in the more southern parts of the island.

Here are few towns, but the people live dispers’d, the gentry leading the commons or vassals, as they are call’d, to dwell within the respective bounds of their several clans, where they are, as we may say, little monarchs, reigning in their own dominions; nor do the people know any other sovereign, at least many of them do not.

This occasions the people to live dispers’d among the hills without any settled towns. Their employment is chiefly hunting, which is, as we may say, for their food; though they do also breed large quantities of black cattle, with which they pay their lairds or leaders the rent of the lands: And these are the cattle which, even from the remotest parts, as well as from other in the west and south, are driven annually to England to be sold, and are brought up even to London, especially into the countries of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex.

Having thus, as I say, few or no towns to describe north of Innerness, it must suffice that I thus give a just description of the country in general: For example, it is surrounded with the sea, and those two great inlets of water, mention’d above, call’d the Ness and the Abre: So that except a small part, or neck of land, reaching from one to the other, and which is not above six miles, I mean that country which Mr. Cambden calls the Garrow, or Glengarrough, others Glengary; I say, this neck of land excepted, the whole division, as form’d above under the head of the North Land, would be a distinct island, separated from all the rest of Great Britain, as effectually as the Orkneys or the Isle of Skey is separated from this.

In a word, the great Northern Ocean surrounds this whole part of Scotland; that part of it to the east, mention’d just now, lyes open to the sea without any cover; the west and north parts are, as it were, surround-ed with out-works as defences, to break off the raging ocean from the north; for the western islands on one side, and the Orkneys on the other, lye as so many advanc’d fortifications or redoubts, to combat that enemy at a distance. I shall view them in their course.

From Dunrobin Castle, which, I mention’d before, you have nothing of note offers itself, either by sea or land; but an extended shore lying north and south without towns and without harbours, and indeed, as there are none of the first, so there are wanting none of the last; for, as I said Cromarty Bay, there is a noble harbour without ships or trade; so here nature, as if providentially foreseeing there was no room for trade, forbore giving herself the trouble to form harbours and creeks where they should be useless, and without people.

The land thus extended as above, lyes north and south to Dungsby-Head, which is the utmost extent of the land on the east side of Britain, north, and is distant from Cromarty eighteen leagues north. This point of Dingsby, or Dungsby-Head, is in the north part, as I observ’d of Buchan and Winterton before; ’tis the place from whence the sailors take their distances, and keep their accounts in their going farther north; as for example; From this point of Dingsby-Head to the Fair Isle, which is the first of Shetland, or the last of the Orkneys, call it which we will, for it lyes between both, is 25 leagues, 75 miles.

From the same Dingsby-Head to Sumburgh-Head, that is to Shetland, is 32 leagues, 96 miles, and to Lerwick Fort in Shetland no miles.

Thus from Buchan-Ness to Sumburgh-Head in Shetland, is 47 leagues.

And from Winterton Ness near Yarmouth, on the coast of Norfolk, to Buchan Ness, on the coast of Aberdeen, is just 100 leagues. So from Winterton to Shetland is 147 leagues, 441 miles.

But this is the proper business of the mariners. I am now to observe that we are here at the extreme end or point of the island of Great Britain; and that here the land bears away west, leaving a large strait or sea, which they call Pentland Firth, and which divides, between the island of Great Britain, and the isles of the Orkneys; a passage broad and fair, for ’tis not less than five leagues over, and with a great depth of water; so that any ships, or fleets of ships may go thro’ it: But the tides are so fierce, so uncertain, and the gusts and suddain squalls of wind so frequent, that very few merchants-ships care to venture thro’ it; and the Dutch East-India ships, which come north about, (as ’tis call’d) in their return from India, keep all farther off, and choose to come by Fair Isle, that is to say, in the passage between the islands of Orkney and Shetland. And here the Dutch send their squadron of men of war generally to meet them, because, as if it were in a narrow lane, they are sure to meet with them there.

Here the passage is not only broader; for it is at least nine leagues from north Ranalsha, the farthest island of the Orkneys, to Fair Isle, and five more from Fair Isle to Shetland: So that they have a passage of fourteen leagues between the Orkneys and Shetland, with only a small island in the way, which has nothing dangerous about it; also the mountainous country being now all out of reach; the sea is open and calm, as in other places; nor is there any dangerous current or shoals to disturb them.

In the passage, between the lands end of Britain and the Orkneys, is a small island, which our mariners call Stroma, Mr. Cambden and others Sowna; ’tis spoken much of as dangerous for ships: But I see no room to record any thing of that kind any more than that there are witches and spirits haunting it, which draw ships on shore to their misfortunes. Such things I leave to the people who are of the opinion the Devil has such retreats for doing mischief; for my own part I believe him employ’d in business of more moment.

As Dingsby-Head is the most northerly land of Great Britain, ’tis worth observing to you that here, in the month of June, we had so clear an uninterrupted day, that, though indeed the sun does set, that is to say, the horizon covers its whole body for some hours, yet you might see to read the smallest print, and to write distinctly, without the help of a candle, or any other light, and that all night long.

No wonder the antient mariners, be they Phœnician or Carthaginian, or what else you please, who in those days knew nothing of the motion of the heavenly bodies, when they were driven thus far, were surpris’d at finding they had lost the steady rotation of day and night, which they thought had spread over the whole globe.

No wonder they talked much of their Ultima Thule, and that the Elysian fields must lye this way; when they found that they were already come to everlasting day, they could no longer doubt but heaven lay that way, or at least that this was the high way to it; and accordingly, when they came home, and were to give an account of these things among their neighbours, they fill’d them with astonishment; and ’twas wonderful they did not really fit out ships for the disco very; for who would ever have gone so near heaven, and not ventur’d a little farther to see whether they could find it or no?

From hence west we go along the shore of the firth or passage, which they call Pentland; and here is the house so famous, call’d John a Grot’s house, where we set our horses’ feet into the sea, on the most northerly land, as the people say, of Britain, though, I think, Dungsby-Head is as far north. Tis certain, however, the difference is but very small, being either of them in the latitude of 591/6 north, and Shetland reaching above two degrees farther. The dominions of Great Britain are extended from the Isle of Wight, in the latitude of 50 degrees, to the Isles of Unsta in Shetland, in the latitude of 61 degrees, 30 minutes, being ten degrees, or full 600 miles in length; which island of Unsta being the most remote of the Isles of Shetland to the north east, lyes 167 leagues from Winterton Ness in Norfolk.

Here we found, however mountainous and wild the country appear’d, the people were extremely well furnish’d with provisions; and especially they had four sorts of provisions in great plenty; and with a supply of which ’tis reasonable to say they could suffer no dangerous want.

Very good bread, as well oat bread as wheat, though the last not so cheap as the first.

Venison exceeding plentiful, and at all seasons, young or old, which they kill with their guns wherever they find it; for there is no restraint, but ’tis every man’s own that can kill it. By which means the Highlanders not only have all of them fire-arms, but they are all excellent marksmen.

Salmon in such plenty as is scarce credible, and so cheap, that to those who have any substance to buy with, it is not worth their while to catch it themselves. This they eat fresh in the season, and for other times they cure it by drying it in the sun, by which they preserve it all the year.

They have no want of cows and sheep, but the latter are so wild, that sometimes were they not, by their own disposition, used to flock together, they would be much harder to kill than the deer.

From hence to the west point of the passage to Orkney is near twenty miles, being what may be call’d the end of the island of Britain; and this part faces directly to the North Pole; the land, as it were, looking forward just against the Pole Star, and the Pole so elevated, that the tail of the Ursa Major, or the Great Bear, is seen just in the zenith, or over your head; and the day is said to be eighteen hours long, that is to say, the sun is so long above the horizon: But the rest of the light is so far beyond a twilight, by reason of the smallness of the arch of that circle, which the sun makes beneath the horizon, that it is clear and perfect day almost all the time; not forgetting withal, that the dark nights take their turn with them in their season, and it is just as long night in the winter.

Yet it is observable here, that they have more temperate winters here generally speaking, than we have to the most southerly part of the island, and particularly the water in some of the rivers as in the Ness, for example, never freezes, nor are their frosts ordinarily so lasting as they are in the most southerly climates, which is accounted for from the nearness of the sea, which filling the air with moist vapours, thickens the fluids and causes that they are not so easily penetrated by the severity of the cold.

On this account the snows also are not so deep, neither do they lie so long upon the ground, as in other places, except it be on some of the high hills, in the upper and innermost part of the country, where the tops, or summits of the hills are continually cover’d with snow, and perhaps have been so for many ages, so that here if in any place of the world they may justly add to the description of their country,

— vast wat’ry lakes, which spread below,
And mountains cover’d with eternal snow.

On the most inland parts of this country, especially in the shire of Ross, they have vast woods of firr trees, not planted and set by men’s hands, as I have described in the southern part of Scotland, but growing wild and undirected, otherwise than as nature planted and nourished them up, by the additional help of time, nay of ages. Here are woods reaching from ten, to fifteen, and twenty miles in length, and proportioned in breadth, in which there are firrs, if we may believe the inhabitants, large enough to make masts for the biggest ships in the Navy Royal, and which are rendered of no use, meerly for want of convenience of water carriage to bring them away; also they assure us there are a sufficient quantity of other timber for a supply to all Britain.

How far this may be true, that is to say, as to the quantity, that I do not undertake to determine: But I must add a needful memorandum to the Scots noblemen, &c. in whose estates these woods grow, that if they can not be made useful one way, they may be made so another, and if they cannot fell the timber, and cut it into masts and deals, and other useful things for bringing away, having no navigation; they may yet burn it, and draw from it vast quantities of pitch, tar, rosin, turpentine, &c. which is of easier carriage, and may be carried on horses to the water’s edge, and then ship’d for the use of the merchant, and this way their woods may be made profitable, whatever they might be before.

We find no manufactures among the people here, except it be that the women call their thrift, namely, spinning of woollen, or linnen for their own uses, and indeed not much of that; perhaps, the time may come, when they may be better and more profitably employ’d that way; for if as I have observ’d, they should once come to work the mines, which there is reason to believe are to be found there, and to search the bowels of the earth, for iron and copper, the people would soon learn to stay at home, and the women would find work as well as the men; but this must be left to time and posterity.

We were now in the particular county called Strathnaver, or the Vale on the Naver, the remotest part of all the island, though not the most barren or unfruitful; for here as well as on the eastern shore is good corn produced, and sufficient of it at least for the inhabitants; perhaps they do not send much abroad, though sometimes also they send it over to the Orkneys, and also to Shetland. This county belongs to the Earl of Sutherland whose eldest son bears the title of Lord Strathnaver.

And now leaving the northern prospect we pass the opposite point west from Dingsby-head, and which the people call Farro-head, tho’ Mr. Camden (by what authority, or from what originals I know not) gives it a long account of, and calls these two points by two opposite names:

The east point, or Dingsby-head, he calls Virvedrum Promontorium .
The west point, or Farro-head, he calls Saruedrum Promontorium .

From hence the vast western ocean appears, what name to give it the geographers themselves do not seem to agree, but it certainly makes a part of the great Atlantick Sea, and is to be called by no other name, for it has no land or country to derive from.

And now we were to turn our faces S. for the islands of this sea, which make the fourth division of Scotland as mentioned before. I may if I have room give as just a description of them as I can from authentick relations; for being on horse-back and no convenience of shipping presenting itself here, I am to own that we did not go over to those islands personally, neither was it likely any person whose business was meer curiosity and diversion, should either be at the expence, or run the risque of such a hazardous passage where there was so little worth observation to be found.

We therefore turned our faces to the south, and with great satisfaction after so long and fateaguing a journey; and unless we had been assisted by the gentlemen of the country, and with very good guides, it had been next to an impossibility to have pass’d over this part of the country. I do confess if I was to recommend to any men whose curiosity tempted them to travel over this country, the best method for their journeying, it should be neither to seek towns, for it would be impossible to find such in proper stages for their journey; nor to make themselves always burthensome to the Highland chiefs, tho’ there I can assure them they would always meet with good treatment, and great hospitality.

But I would propose travelling with some company, and carrying tents with them, and so encamping every night as if they were an army.

It is true they would do well to have the countenance of the gentlemen, and chiefs as above, and to be recommended to them from their friends from one to another, as well for guides as for safety, otherwise I would not answer for what might happen: But if they are first well recommended as strangers, and have letters from one gentleman to another, they would want neither guides nor guards, nor indeed would any man touch them; but rather protect them if there was occasion in all places; and by this method they might in the summer time lodge, when, and wherever they pleased, with safety and pleasure; travelling no farther at a time, than they thought fit; and as for their provisions, they might supply themselves by their guns, with very great plenty of wild fowl, and their attendants and guides would find convenient places to furnish other things sufficient to carry with them.

It would be no unpleasant account to relate a journey which five, two Scots and three English gentlemen, took in this manner for their diversion, in order to visit the late Duke of Gordon, but it would be too long for this place: It would be very diverting to shew how they lodg’d every night. How two Highlanders who attended them, and who had been in the army, went before every evening and pitch’d their little camp. How they furnish’d themselves with provisions, carry’d some with them, and dress’d and prepared what they kill’d with their guns; and how very easily they travelled over all the mountains and wasts, without troubling themselves with houses or lodgings; but as I say the particulars are too long for this place.

Indeed in our attempt to come down to the southward by the coast of Tain, and the shire of Ross, we should have been extreamly disappointed, and perhaps have been obliged to get a ship or bark, to have carry’d us round the Isle of Skye into Loquhaber, had it not been for the extraordinary courtesie of some of the gentlemen of the country.

On the other hand we unexpectedly met here some English men, who were employ’d by merchants in the S. (whether at London or Edinburgh I do not now remember) to take and cure a large quantity of white fish, and afterwards herrings, on account of trade. Here we had not only the civility of their assistance and accommodation in our journey, but we had the pleasure of seeing what progress they made in their undertaking. As for herrings indeed the quantity was prodigious, and we had the pleasure of seeing something of the prodigy, for I can call it no other; the shoal was as I might say beginning to come, or had sent their vant-couriers before them, when we first came to the head of Pentland Firth, and in a fortnight’s time more, the body of their numberless armies began to appear; but before we left the coast you would have ventur’d to say of the sea, as they do of the River Tibiscus, or Theisse in Hungary, that it was one third water, and two thirds fish; the operation of taking them, could hardly be call’d fishing, for they did little more than dip for them into the water and take them up.

As to the quantity, I make no scruple to say, that if there had been ten thousand ships there to have loaded with them, they might all have been filled and none of them mist; nor did the fish seem to stay, but pass’d on to the south, that they might supply other parts, and make way also for those innumerable shoals which were to come after.

Had the quantity of white fish been any way proportion’d to the undertaking as the herring was, there would no doubt have been such encouragement to the merchant, that they would never have given it over, but they found it would not fully answer: Not but there were great quantities of cod, and the fish very sizeable and good, but not so great a quantity as to make that dispatch in taking them (as they are taken with hook and line) sufficient for loading of ships, or laying up a large quantity in the season; and this I doubt discouraged the undertaking, the merchants finding the expence to exceed the return.

Here we found the town of Tain, and some other villages tollerably well inhabited, and some trade also, occasioned principally by the communication with the western islands, and also by the herring fishing, the fishing boats from other parts often putting into these ports; for all their coast is full of loughs and rivers, and other openings which make very good harbours of shipping; and that which is remarkable, some of those loughs, are infinitely full of herrings, even where, as they tell us, they have no communication with the sea, so that they must have in all probability been put into them alive by some particular hands, and have multiplied there as we find at this time.

We could understand nothing on this side of what the people said, any more than if we had been in Morocco; and all the remedy we had was, that we found most of the gentlemen spoke Frenen, and some few spoke broad Scots; we found it also much for our convenience to make the common people believe we were French.

Should we go about here to give you an account of the religion of the people in this country, it would be an unpleasant work, and perhaps scarce seem to deserve credit; you would hardly believe that in a Christian island, as this is said to be, there should be people found who know so little of religion, or of the custom of Christians, as not to know a Sunday, or Sabbath, from a working day, or the worship of God from an ordinary meeting, for conversation: I do not affirm that it is so, and I shall say no more of it here, because I would not publish what it is to be hoped may in time find redress; but I cannot but say that his Majesty’s gift of 1,000l . annually to the Assembly of Scotland, for sending ministers and missionaries for the propagating Christian knowledge in the Highlands, is certainly one of the most needful charities that could have been thought of, worthy of a king, and well suited to that occasion; and if prudently apply’d, as there is reason to believe it will be, may in time break in upon this horrible ignorance, that has so far spread over this unhappy part of the country.

On the other hand, what shall we say to the neglect, which for so many years past has been the occasion of this surprizing darkness among the people, when the poor abandon’d creatures have not so much as had the common instruction of Christianity, so much as to know whether there was any such thing as a God or no, much less how to worship him; and if at any time any glympse of light had been infus’d into them, and they had been taught any knowledge of superior things, it has been by the diligence of the Popish clergy, who to do them justice, have shewn more charity, and taken more pains that way, than some whose work it had been, and who it might much more have been expected from?

But the state of religion is not my present subject; ’tis certain the people have the Bible in their own language, the Irs, and the missionaries now are oblig’d to preach to them, and examine or catechise their children in the Irs language, so that we are not to despair of having this county as well instructed in time, as other parts of Britain; the rest must be left to his hand, that over rules the minds of men, and causes them to know, even in spite of the defects of common teaching.

On this coast is the Isle of Skye, lying from the west north west, to the east south east, and bearing upon the main island, only separated by a narrow strait of water; something like as the Isle of Weight is separated from the county of Southampton. We left this on our right, and crossing the mountains, came with as little stay as we could to the lough of Abre, that is, the water which as I said above, assists with Lough Ness, or Loch Ness, to separate the north land of Scotland from the middle part.

This is a long and narrow inlet of the sea, which opening from the Irish Sea S. west, meets the River Abre, or as the Scots much more properly express it, the Water of Abre, for it is rather a large lake or loch, than a river, and receives innumerable small rivers into it; it begins or rises in the mountains of Ross, or of Glengary, within five or six miles from the shore of the Loch Ness, or the Water of Ness, which is a long and narrow lake like itself, and as the Ness runs away east to Innerness, and so into the great gulph called Murray Firth, so the Abre becoming presently a loch or lake, also goes away more to the southward, and sloping south west, runs into the Irish Sea as above.

From this river or water of Abre, all that mountainous barren and frightful country, which lies south of the water of Abre is call’d Loquabre, or the country bordering on Loch Abre. It is indeed a frightful country full of hidious desart mountains and unpassable, except to the Highlanders who possess the precipices. Here in spight of the most vigorous pursuit, the Highland robbers, such as the famous Rob Roy in the late disturbances, find such retreats as none can pretend to follow them into, nor could he be ever taken.

On this water of Abre, just at the entrance of the loch, was anciently a fort built, to curb the Highlanders, on either side; it was so situated, that tho’ it might indeed be block’d up by land and be distress’d by a siege, the troops besieging being masters of the field, yet as it was open to the sea, it might always receive supplies by shipping, the government being supposed to be always master of the sea, or at least ’tis very probable they will be so.

this fort the late King William caused to be rebuilt, or rather a new fort to be erected; where there was always a good garrison kept for curbing the Highlanders, which fort was for several years commanded by Lieutenant General Maitland, an old experienc’d general, who had signalized himself upon many occasions abroad, particularly at the great battle of Treves, where he serv’d under the French, and where he lost one of his hands.

I name this gentleman, not to pay any compliment to him, for he is long ago in his grave, but to intimate that this wise commander did more to gain the Highlanders and keep them in peace, and in a due subjection to the British Government, by his winning and obliging behaviour, and yet by strict observance of his orders, and the duty of a governour, than any other before him had been able to do by force, and the sword; and this particularly appear’d in the time of the Union, when endeavours were every where made use of, to bring those hot people to break out into rebellion, if possible to prevent the carrying on the treaty.

At this place we take our leave of the third division, which I call the north land of Scotland, for this fort being on the south side of the Loch Abre is therefore called inner Lochy, as the other for the like reason was called inner Ness.

We have nothing now remaining for a full survey of Scotland, but the western part, of the middle part, or division of Scotland, and this though a large country, yet affords not an equal variety with the eastern part of the same division.

To traverse the remaining part of this country, I must begin upon the upper Tay, as we may justly call it, where I left off when I turn’d away east; and here we have in especial manner the country of Brechin, the Blair as ’tis called of Athol, and the country of Bradalbin: This is a hilly country indeed, but as it is water’d by the Tay, and many other pleasant rivers which fall into it, there are also several fruitful valleys, intersperst among the hills; nor are even the Highlands themselves, or the Highlanders the inhabitants any thing so wild, untaught, or untractable, as those whom I have been a describing in the north-land division, that is to say, in Strath-Naver, Ross, Tain, &c.

The Duke of Athol is lord, I was almost going to say king of this country, and has the greatest interest, or if you please, the greatest share of vassalage of any nobleman in this part of Scotland; if I had said in all Scotland, I believe I should have been supported by others that know both his person and his interest as well as most people do.

His Grace was always an opposer of the Union in the Parliament holden at Edinburgh, for passing it into an Act; but he did not carry his opposition to the height of tumult and rebellion; if he had, as some were forward to have had done, he would have possibly bid fair, to have prevented the conclusion of it, at least at that time: But the hour was come, when the calamities of war, which had for so many hundred years vext the two nations, were to have an end; and tho’ the government was never weaker in power than at that time, I mean in Scotland, yet the affair was carry’d thro’ with a high hand, all the little tumults and disorders of the rabble as well at Edinburgh as at Glasgow, and other places, being timely supprest, and others by prudent management prevented.

The duke has several fine seats in this country; as first at Dunkeld, upon the Tay which I mentioned before, and where there was a fight, between the regular troops and the Highlanders, in the reign of King William, another at Huntingtour, in the Strathearn, or Valley of Earn, where the duke has a fine park, and great store of deer; and it may indeed be called his hunting seat, whither he sometimes retires meerly for sport. But his ordinary residence, and where I say he keeps his court like a prince, is at the castle of Blair, farther N. and beyond the Tay, on the edge of Bradalbin upon the banks of a clear and fine river which falls into the Tay, a few miles lower.

As I have said something of this country of Bradalbin, it will be needfull to say something more, seeing some other authors have said so much: It is seated as near the center of Scotland, as any part of it can be well fixt, and that which is particular, is, that it is alledg’d, it is the highest ground of all Scotland, for that the rivers which rise here, are said to run every way from this part, some into the eastern, and some into the western seas.

The Grampian mountains, which are here said to cut through Scotland, as the Muscovites say of their Riphæan hills, that they are the girdle of the world. As is the country, so are the inhabitants, a fierce fighting and furious kind of men; but I must add that they are much chang’d, and civiliz’d from what they were formerly, if Mr. Cambden’s account of them is just. I mean of the Highlanders of Bradalbin only; tho’ I include the country of Loquhabre, and Athol, as adjoyning to it.

It is indeed a very bitter character, and possibly they might deserve it in those days; but I must insist that they are quite another people now: And tho’ the country is the same, and the mountains as wild and desolate as ever, yet the people, by the good conduct of their chiefs and heads of clans, are much more civilized than they were in former times.

As the men have the same vigour and spirit; but are under a better regulation of their manners, and more under government; so they make excellent soldiers, when they come abroad, or are listed in regular and disciplin’d troops.

The Duke of Athol, though he has not an estate equal to some of the nobility, yet he is master of more of these superiorities, as they are called there, than many of those who have twice his estate; and I have been told, that he can bring a body of above 6,000 men together in arms at very little warning.

The pomp and state in which this noble person lives, is not to be imitated in Great Britain; for he is served like a prince, and maintains a greater equipage and retinue than five times his estate would support in another country.

The duke has also another seat in Strathearn, which is called Tullibardin, and which gives title at this time to the eldest son of the House of Athol, for the time being. At the lower part of this country, the River Earn falls into Tay, and greatly increases its waters. This river rises far west, on the frontiers of the western Highlands near Glengyl, and running through that pleasant country called Strathearn, falls into Tay, below St. Johnstons.

Soon after its first coming out from the mountains, the Earn spreads itselfe into a loch, as most of those rivers do; this is called Loch Earn, soon after which it runs by Duplin Castle, the seat of the Earl of Kinnowl, whose eldest son is known in England, by the title of Lord Duplin, taking it from the name of this castle. The late Earl of Kinnowl’s son, the Lord Duplin, was marry’d to the daughter of the late Earl of Oxford, then Lord High Treasurer of England, and who was on that occasion made a peer of Great Britain.

This castle of Duplin, is a very beautiful seat, and the heads of the families having been pretty much used to live at home, the house has been adorned at several times, according to the genius, and particular inclination of the persons, who then lived there; the present earl is not much in Scotland; being created a peer of Great Britain, in the reign of the late Queen Anne, and marry’d, as above, into the family of Oxford.

This ancient seat is situated in a good soil, and a pleasant country, near the banks of the River Earn, and the earl has a very good estate; but not loaded with vassals, and highland superiorities, as the Duke of Athol is said to be.

The house is now under a new decoration, two new wings being lately added for offices as well as ornament.

The old building is spacious, the rooms are large, and the ceilings lofty, and which is more than all the appearance of the buildings, ’tis all magnificently finished, and furnished within; there are also abundance of very fine paintings, and some of great value, especially court pieces, and family pieces, of which it would take up a book to write the particulars; but I must not omit the fine picture of King Charles the First, with a letter in his hand, which he holds out to his son the Duke of York, afterwards King James the Second, which they say he was to carry to France; also a statue in brass of the same King Charles the First on horse-back; there are also two pictures of a contrary sort, namely, one of Oliver Cromwell, and one of the then General Monk, both from the life.

Also there is a whole length of that Earl of Kinnoul, who was Lord Chancellor of Scotland, in the reign of King James the Sixth, with several other peices of Italian masters of great value.

From this place we went to Brechin, an ancient town with a castle finely situate; but the ancient grandour of it not supported; the family of Penmure, to whom it belong’d, having been in no extraordinary circumstances for some time past, and now their misfortunes being finished, it is under forfeiture, and sold among the spoils of the late rebellion.

We were now as it were landed again, being after a long mountain-ramble, come down to the low lands, and into a pleasant and agreeable country; but as we had yet another journey to take west, we had a like prospect of a rude and wild part of Scotland to go through.

The Highlands of Scotland are divided into two parts, and known so as two separate countries, (viz.) the West Highlands, and the North Highlands; the last, of which I have spoken at large, contain the countries or provinces of:

Bradalbin,
Athol,
Lochaber,
Buchan,
Mar,
Sutherland,
Ross,
Strathnaver,
Caithness,
together with the Isle of Skye.

The West Highlands contain the shires or counties of:

Dunbritton or
Lenox,
Bute,
Dunbarton,
Argyle,
Lorn and Cantyre.

On the bank of this River Earn lies a very pleasant vale, which continues from the Tay, where it receives the river quite up to the Highlands; this is called according to the usage of Scotland Strath Earn, or the Strath or Vale of Earn, ’tis an agreeable country, and has many gentlemen’s seats on both sides the river; but it is near the Highlands, and has often suffered by the depredations of those wild folk in former times.

The family of Montrose, whose chief was sacrificed for the interest of King Charles the First, had a strong castle here called Kincardin; but it was ruin’d and demolished in those wars, and is not rebuilt. The castle of Drummond is almost in the same condition, or at least is like soon to be so, the Earl of Perth, to whom it belongs, being in exile, as his father was before him, by their adhering to the late King James the Seventh, and to the present Pretender. King James the Seventh made the father a duke, and Knight of the Garter, and governor to his son the Pretender. His eldest son who should have succeeded to the honours and titles dy’d in France, and three other sons still remaining are all abroad, either following the ruin’d fortunes of the Pretender, or in other service in foreign courts; where, we know not, nor is it material to our present purpose.

The Western Highlands are the only remaining part of Scotland, which as yet I have not toucht upon. This is that particular country, which a late great man in King James the Second’s time, called the kingdom of Argyle; and upon which occasion it was a compliment upon King James, that he had conquer’d two kings, when he suppress’d the rebellion of the Whigs; namely, the Duke of Monmouth, whom in derision they called the little king of Lime, and the Earl of Argyle whom they called with much more propriety, the great king of the Highlands.

It is true that the greatest part of these Western Highlands, may be said to be subject, or in some respect to belong to the House of Argyle, or to speak more properly, to the family or clan of the Campbells, of whom the Duke of Argyle is the chief; but then it should be noted too, that those western gentlemen are not so blindly to be led, or guided by their chiefs as those in the north; nor when led on, are they so apt for mischief and violence. But as many of them are toucht with the Cameronian Whig, or at least the English Whig principles, they would venture to enquire what they were to do, and whom to fight against, at least before they dipt far in any hazardous undertaking.

Though the people of these countries are something more civilized than those of their bretheren mountaineers in the north, yet the countries seem to be so near a kin that no strangers could know them asunder, nor is there any breach in the similitude that I could observe, except it be that in the north Highlands, there are such great woods of fir-trees, which I have taken notice of there, and which we do not see the like of here: Nor did we see so many or so large eagles in these western mountains as in the north, tho’ the people assure us there are such too.

The quantity of deer are much the same, and the kinds too, and the black cattle are of the same kind, and rather more numerous; the people also dress after the same manner, in the Plaid and the Trouse, go naked from below the knee to the mid thighs, wear the durk and the pistol at their girdle, and the targ or target at their shoulder.

Some reckon the shire of Braidalbin to belong to these Western Highlands, not that it is west in its situation, for it is rather north, and as I have mention’d, is said to be the center of Scotland; and the highest land, being in the very body of those they call the Grampian mountains; all the reason that I could find they give for reckoning this country among the Western Highlands, is because they say one part of it is inhabited by the Campbells, whose clan, as I have observed, generally possesses all the West Highlands.

But if they will claim the country, they must claim the people too, who are, if I may give my opinion, some of the worst, most barbarous, and ill governed of all the Highlands of Scotland; they are desperate in fight, cruel in victory, fierce even in conversation, apt to quarrel, mischievous, and even murderers in their passion.

At the fight which happen’d at Gillekranky, in this part of Scotland, they tell us a story of a combate between an English soldier press’d hard by a Highlander, the regiment being in disorder, for the English had the worst of it; the English soldier was singl’d out in the pursuit by one particular Highlander, and found himself in great danger, he defended himself with the club of his musquet as long as he was able, his shot being spent before, after which they came to their swords, the English man understood the backsword very well, but the Scots man receiv’d all the blows upon his targe; so that the English man could not come in with him, and at the same time he lay’d hard at the English man with his broadsword, and had cut him in two or three places, at which the English man enrag’d, rather than discourag’d, cry’d out to him, you dog says he; come out from behind the door and fight like a man, meaning from behind his great target; but the Scots man tho’ as brave as the other, knew better things than that, and laying hard at him had cut him down, and was just going to kill him, when some of the regiment that saw him distrest, came up to him and rescu’d him, and took the Highlander prisoner.

It is hard to distinguish too among those Highland men, who are the best soldiers. Foreigners give it to the northern men as the more hardy and the larger bodies; but I will not undertake to decide this controversie, either of them make very good soldiers, and all the world are fond of them; nor are they equall’d in any part of the world that I have met with, if they are regimented by themselves, unmixt with other nations.

And here I must take an opportunity to rectify a mistake which has grown up to a vulgar error, and is an injury to the Scots, in some respect, at least it is robbing them of part of that honour, which is their due. The case is this;

We have frequent occasions to hear of the fame of the Irish batallions abroad, how well they behave, and what good troops they are, how they acted in such a battle, and such; how in particular they beat the Germans out of Cremona, after they had got possession of the town, and had taken the French general, the Mareshall Villeroy prisoner: How the Irish batallions in the Scots service behav’d in Sicily, and so on many extraordinary occasions. Now though it is true that these are called Irish, because they were originally such; yet ’tis as true the men are all or most of them Scots Highlanders, who upon all occasions getting over into France, always list in the Irish troops; nay in the late wars it was frequent to raise whole regiments of Highlanders for the service, but when they came over, they would take the first occasion to desert, and go over to the French, so to list in the Irish batallions, for they all speak Irish, and some have affirm’d, that they have first listed with that resolution, being generally adicted to the interest of King James the Seventh; but be that so or not, this I am well assur’d of (viz.) that most of those they call Irish in the armies of France and Spain, and to whom so many glorious actions have been justly ascrib’d, are to this day Scots Highlanders, or at least most of them are so, but this by the way.

I am now to return to our progress. Leaving the country of Brechin, and the low lands of Strathearn, we went away west; but were presently interrupted by a vast inland sea, rather than a lake called Loch Lomond. It is indeed a sea, and look’d like it from the hills from whence we first descry’d it; and its being a tempestuous day, I assure you it appear’d all in a breach, rough and raging, like the sea in a storm. There are several islands in it, which from the hills we could plainly perceive were islands, but that they are a-drift, and float about the lake, that I take as I find it, for a story, namely, a story call’d a F— as I do also that of the water of this loch, turning wood into stone.

This lake or loch is, without comparison, the greatest in Scotland, no other can be call’d half so big; for it is more than twenty miles long, and generally eight miles in breadth, though at the north end of it, ’tis not so broad by far. It receives many rivers into it, but empties itself into the Firth of Clyde, at one mouth;;near the entrance of it into Clyde, stands the famous Dunbarton Castle, the most antient, as well as the most important castle in .‘Scotland; and the gate, as ’tis call’d, of the Highlands. It is now not much regarded, the whole country being, as it were, buried in peace, yet there is a garrison maintain’d in it; and the pass would be still of great import, were there any occasion of arms in time to come; ’tis exceeding strong by situation, being secur’d by the river on one side, the Firth of Clyde on the other, by an unpassable morass on the third side, and the fourth is a precipice.

Passing from Dunbarton castle, we enter the territory of Argyle. As to the county of Lenox, the paternal estate and property of the Stuarts, it lyes extended from both sides the Levin, that is, the river, which (as I said before) empties the Loch-Lomon into the Clyde. On this side, or eastward, Lenox joins the Monteith, and runs up for some length on the east side of the loch, and on the west side it extends to the edge of the Loch-Loing, and a great way north, almost to the mountains of Loquhabre.

All our writers of the description of Lenox enlarge upon the family of Stuarts, who proceeded, as by the mother, from the Royal line of Scotland: So by the father, from Henry Lord Darnley, marry’d to Mary Queen of Scots, and afterwards basely murther’d by her, or by her order and direction.

By this Lord Darnley, who was son and heir apparent to Matthew, Earl of Lenox, this whole estate, with the title, devolv’d at last upon King Charles II., who gave the title to one of his natural sons, with the addition of duke.

Beyond this Loch-Loing begins the large extended country of Argyle, or the Western Highlands, whose extent takes in the shire or county of Lorn to the north, and Cantyre to the south, all possess’d by the Campbells, and vulgarly understood by the country of Argyle; for as for Cantyre, which is a chersonese, or peninsula, it belongs mostly, if not wholly to the Campbells; and as to Lorn, ’tis the title of the eldest son of the House of Argyle to this day.

The west side of this country lyes extended along the Irish Sea for a very great length, at least eighty miles (viz.) from the Mull of Cantyre to Dunstaffnage, and the Isle of Stackar and Listnoc, in the water of Loquhaber. On all this shore there is no town eminent for trade, no port or harbour, at least none made use of for shipping; nor are there any ships to require them, except fishing-barks and boats, which are in the season employ’d for catching herrings, of which the shoals that are found upon this coast in the season are incredible, especially in the Clyde, in Loch-Finn, and about the Isle of Arran, which lyes in the mouth of Clyde.

From the Mull of Cantyre they see Ireland very plain, it being not above fifteen or sixteen miles from the point of land, which they call the Mull to the Fair Foreland, on the coast of Colrain, on the north of Ireland. In the mouth of this sea of Clyde lyes a rock, somewhat like the Bass in the Firth of Forth, or of Edinburgh, not for shape, but for this particular, that here, as at the Bass, the Soland geese are pleas’d to come in the season of the fishery, and to breed and inhabit as they do at the Bass, and to go away and come again just at the same seasons, as at the Bass; this island is call’d the Ailze. Here are also the islands of Arran and of Bute; the first giving title of earl to the family of Hamilton, and the other the title of Duke of Rothsay to the eldest son of the Crown of Scotland, who is call’d Duke of Rothsay, from the castle of Rothsay in this island; nor is there any thing else considerable to be said of either of the islands; for as for their present condition, which is what is my particular business in this book, they have nothing considerable in or about them, except it be a tumultuous and dangerous sea for sailors, especially when a south-west wind blows hard, which brings the sea rowling in upon them in a frightful manner. However, there is one good harbour on the north side of the island, call’d Lamlach, which is their safety in such cases.

Off of the western shore of Argyle and Lorn there are abundance of islands, which all belong to the family of Argyle, or at least to its jurisdiction; as Isla, Jura, Tyrry, Mull, Lysmore, Coll, and several others of less note.

THE END

Footnotes

[1] Camd., Brit. Fol. 353.

[2] Familiar Letters, vol. x., p. 9.

[3] Familiar Letters, Vol. I, p. 7. He says, An infinite number of knights daughters from Norfolk, Cambridge, and Suffolk, come here to market; intimating that they come to be bought, or to buy.

[4] The cobles are open boats, which come from the north, from Scarbro’, Whitby, &c., and come to Yarmouth to let themselves out to fish for the merchants during the fair-time.

[5] Note, a last is ten barrels, each barrel containing a thousand herrings.

[6] The barks come from the coast of Kent and Sussex, as from Foulkston, Dover, and Rye in Kent, and from Brithelmston in Sussex, and let themselves out to fish for the merchants during the said fair, as the cobles do from the north.

[7] The statue faces the broad place before White-Hall, where the king was beheaded.

[8] The gibet, where the regicides were executed, stood just where the statue now stands.

[9] Present and to come.

[10] Or public stock

[11] Devotion here does not mean piety but charity .

[12] A place of peace or sanctuary.

[13] Every cheat or fraud.

[14] The church hatch.

[15] Be his fault what it will.

[16] His horses and cattle shall not be seized.

[17] Some think this word frod mortel extended to murther.

[18] None of the king’s officers.

[19] Snapsack.

[20] Or that no man may dare to contradict it.

[21] A trave is a shock, or twelve sheaves of corn in the car.

[22] Beverley is in the East Riding of Yorkshire.