From London to Land's End




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, though I were to oblige myself to say
nothing of anything that had been spoken of before.

I intended once to have gone due west this journey; but then I
should have been obliged to crowd 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
sit 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 (noblemen's and
gentlemen's 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 lies on the north bank of the River Thames, about two
small miles from Kingston, and on the road from Staines 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 anywhere, as is
made from the situation of the old abbeys 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 Staines 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 overflowed; 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 cheerful, 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
everything 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 whimsey 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 splendour of its shores, gilded with noble palaces,
strong fortifications, large hospitals, and public buildings; with
the greatest bridge, and the greatest city in the world, made
famous by the opulence of its merchants, the increase 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 through the inland
country I shall speak of it, as it is the channel for conveying an
infinite quantity of provisions from remote counties to London, and
enriching all the counties again that lie 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 to and from London,
though in summer it is 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 Highness's 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, it is 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 mentioned, and its
founder, it is to be mentioned next that it fell to the Crown in
the forfeiture of his Eminence the Cardinal, when the king seized
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
altered, by the late King William, must acknowledge it was a very
complete palace before, and fit for a king; and though 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 showed 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 ordered 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, fixed
upon a building formerly made use of chiefly for landing from the
river, and therefore called the Water Galley, and here, as if she
had been conscious that she had but a few years to enjoy it, she
ordered 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, though 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
compared with their pictures.  Her Majesty had here a fine
apartment, with a set of lodgings for her private retreat only, but
most exquisitely furnished, particularly a fine chintz 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 filled with this china, and every other place where it
could be placed 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 finished 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 ordered everything that was
done.

Here the fine parcel of limes which form the semicircle on the
south front of the house by the iron gates, looking into the park,
were by the dexterous hand of the head gardener removed, after some
of them had been almost thirty years planted in other places,
though not far off.  I know the King of France in the decoration of
the gardens of Versailles had oaks removed, 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 monstrous 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 hindered.  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 fountains and JET-D'EAUX, and particularly
the dimensions of them, and what quantity of water they should cast
up, and increased the number of them after the first design.

The ground on the side of the other front has received some
alterations since the taking down the Water Galley; but not that
part immediately next the lodgings.  The orange-trees and fine
Dutch bays are placed within the arches of the building under the
first floor; so that the lower part of the house was all one as a
greenhouse for sometime.  Here stand 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.  It is hard to say which is the best performance, though
the doing of it was a kind of trial of skill between them; but it
gives us room, without any partiality, to say they were both
masters of their art.

The PARTERRE on that side descends from the terrace-walk by steps,
and on the left a terrace goes down to the water-side, from which
the garden on the eastward front is overlooked, and gives a most
pleasant prospect.

The fine scrolls and BORDURE of these gardens were at first edged
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 seemed to want
screening from the weather or the view of the chapel, and some part
of the old building required to be covered 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 designed, and completely finished, but is perfectly well kept,
and the ESPALIERS filled exactly at bottom, to the very ground, and
are led up to proportioned 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 called, being five
pieces of such paintings as, if you will believe men of nice
judgment and great travelling, are not to be matched 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 surprise, 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 surprise 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 set of men who, he knew, despised all the
world, as thinking themselves able to teach them anything.  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,
though crushed 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.  It is reported, but with what truth I
know not, that the late French king offered 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 rummaged, 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 lived not to see it completely
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 assured that had the peace
continued, and the king lived to enjoy the continuance of it, his
Majesty had resolved to have pulled 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
set 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 repaired to for the despatch 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 Household; so that had the house had two great
squares added, as was designed, there would have been no room to
spare, or that would not have been very well filled.  But the
king's death put an end to all these things.

Since the death of King William, Hampton Court seemed abandoned 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 lived 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 mentioned--namely, the treatment his
royal father met with there--and particularly that the rebel and
murderer of his father, Cromwell, afterwards possessed this palace,
and revelled here in the blood of the royal party, as he had done
in that of his sovereign.  King Charles II. therefore chose
Windsor, and bestowed 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 in the time of King William.

King William (for King James is not to be named as to his choice of
retired palaces, his delight running quite another way)--I say,
King William fixed upon Hampton Court, and it was in his reign that
Hampton Court put on new clothes, and, being dressed 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 obliged to reside where her care of
his health confined 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 it
was called, 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 complete
fabric, as designed by King William, shall be finished, 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 crossed to Chertsey on the Thames, a town I
mentioned before; from whence, crossing the Black Desert, as I
called 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 passed into the great Western Road upon the heath,
somewhat west of Bagshot, at a village called Blackwater, and
entered Hampshire, near Hartleroe.

Before we reach Basingstoke, we get rid of that unpleasant country
which I so often call a desert, 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, garrisoned by a resolute band of old soldiers, was a
great curb to the rebels of the Parliament party almost through
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, demolished but the successor of the family,
the first Duke of Bolton, has erected a very noble fabric 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 outworks, withstood the battery of
cannon in several attacks, and repulsed the Roundheads three or
four times when they attempted to besiege it.  It is incredible
what booty the garrison of this place picked up, lying as they did
just on the great Western Road, where they intercepted the
carriers, plundered the waggons, and suffered 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, though falsely, call Salisbury Plain.  But my resolution
being to take in my view what I had passed by before, I was obliged
to go off to the left hand, to Alresford and Winchester.

Alresford was a flourishing market-town, and remarkable for this--
that though 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 distinguished Alresford from
all her neighbours, was brought to an end in the year -, when by a
sudden and surprising fire the whole town, with both the church and
the market-house, was reduced to a heap of rubbish; and, except a
few poor huts 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, though 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 BATTER D'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 it is
supposed, went on to London, though we nowhere 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, though not large, is a very handsome beautiful palace,
and the gardens not only very exact, but very finely situate, the
prospect and vistas 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 talked
of), but even the whole city has at a distance the face of
venerable, and looks ancient afar 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 ruined 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 defaced more churches,
than all the Roundheads 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 coarse as if the founders had abhorred
ornaments, or that William of Wickham had been a Quaker, or at
least a Quietist.  There is neither statue, nor a niche for a
statue, to be seen on all the outside; no carved work, no spires,
towers, pinnacles, balustrades, or anything; but mere walls,
buttresses, windows, and coigns 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 covered
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 lined with lead were again interred 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 Gothic work in the arched part is very fine, though
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 lifetime; and it
was well it was for if he had ordered it by will, there is reason
to believe it had never been done--that reverend prelate,
notwithstanding he enjoyed so rich a bishopric, scarce leaving
money enough behind him to pay for his coffin.

There are a great many persons of rank buried in this church,
besides the Saxon kings mentioned above, and besides several of the
most eminent bishops of the See.  Just under the altar lies a son
of William the Conqueror, without any monument; and behind the
altar, under a very fine and venerable monument, lies 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 raised 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 inquiring into his story than for
anything 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 passed
between General Monk on one hand, and Mr. Montague and others
entrusted by King Charles II. on the other hand; which he managed
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 musketeer only,
raised himself to the honour of a knight, with the reward of a good
estate from the bounty of the king.

Everybody 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,
lies in the middle of that part which was built at his expense.

He was a courtier before a bishop; and, though 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 acquired
parts, and his skill in politics beyond his ecclesiastic 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) obtained the honour for the Bishops of Winchester of
being always prelates of the Order, as an appendix to the
bishopric; and he himself was the first prelate of the Order, and
the ensigns of that honour are joined 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 centre a very noble chapel; beyond that, in the second
court, are the schools, with a large cloister 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 separate 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
mentioned above, are very good houses, and very handsomely built,
for the prebendaries, canons, and other dignitaries of this church.
The Deanery is a very pleasant dwelling, the gardens very large,
and the river running through them; but the floods in winter
sometimes incommode the gardens very much.

This school has fully answered the end of the founder, who, though
he was no great scholar, resolved to erect a house for the making
the ages to come more learned than those that went before; and it
has, I say, fully answered the end, for many learned and great men
have been raised 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
buried 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 cepit Aqua."


As the city itself 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 uphill every wry; 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 twelve
hundred 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
fib.

Where this castle stood, or whatever else it was (for some say
there was no castle there), the late King Charles II. marked out a
very noble design, which, had he lived, would certainly have made
that part of the country the Newmarket of the ages to come; for the
country hereabout far excels that of Newmarket Heath for all kinds
of sport and diversion fit for a prince, nobody 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 Newmarket.

The plan of this house has received several alterations, and as it
is never like to be finished, it is scarce worth recording the
variety.  The building is begun, and the front next the city
carried up to the roof and covered, but the remainder is not begun.
There was a street of houses designed from the gate of the palace
down to the town, but it was never begun to be built; the park
marked 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
appanage (established by Parliament) upon Prince George of Denmark
for his life, in case he had out-lived the queen; but his Royal
Highness dying before her Majesty, all hope of seeing this design
perfected, or the house finished, is now vanished.

I cannot omit that there are several public 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 monastery undemolished, and which is still preserved to the
religion, being the residence of some private Roman Catholic
gentlemen, where they have an oratory, and, as they say, live still
according to the rules of St. Benedict.  This building is called
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 anybody.

Winchester is a place of no trade other than is naturally
occasioned 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 answered the expense 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-
fashioned way of conversing by assemblies.  I shall do no more than
mention them here; they are pleasant and agreeable to the young
peoples, and sometimes 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 mile distant on the
road to Southampton, is worth notice.  It is said to be founded by
King William Rufus, but was not endowed 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 (whom they call Fellows, but ought to
call Brothers), is now reduced to maintain only fourteen, while the
master lives in a figure equal to the best gentleman in the
country, would be well worth the inquiry of a proper visitor, if
such can be named.  It is a thing worthy of complaint when public
charities, designed for the relief of the poor, are embezzled and
depredated by the rich, and turned to the support of luxury and
pride.

From Winchester is about twenty-five miles, and over the most
charming plains that can anywhere be seen (far, in my opinion,
excelling the plains of Mecca), we come to Salisbury.  The vast
flocks of sheep which one everywhere sees upon these Downs, and the
great number of those flocks, is a sight truly worth observation;
it is ordinary for these flocks to contain from three thousand to
five thousand in a flock, and several private farmers hereabouts
have two or three such flocks.

But it is 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, though otherwise poor barren land, and
never known to our ancestors to be capable of any such thing--nay,
they would perhaps have laughed 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
ploughed lands--those lands which otherwise are barren, and where
the plough 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
(twenty-five miles), from thence to Dorchester (twenty-two miles),
thence to Weymouth (six miles); so that they lie near fifty miles
in length and breadth; they reach also in some places thirty-five
to forty 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 six
hundred thousand sheep fed within six miles of that town, measuring
every way round and the town in the centre.

As we passed 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
anything of the history of the country.  Old Sarum is as remarkable
as any of these, where there is a double entrenchment, with a deep
graff or ditch to either of them; the area about one hundred 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.  Whom 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)
removed 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, though I do
not think it at all the pleasanter for that which they boast so
much of--namely, the water running through the middle of every
street--or that it adds anything 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 placed upon the confluence of two large rivers, the
Avon and the Willy, neither of them considerable rivers, but very
large when joined together, and yet larger when they receive a
third river (viz., the Naddir), which joins them near Clarendon
Park, about three miles below the city; then, with a deep channel
and a current less rapid, they run down to Christchurch, which is
their port.  And where they empty themselves into the sea, from
that town upwards towards Salisbury they are made navigable to
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 clothing trade and the trade
of flannels, druggets, 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, called
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 Close--that is to say,
the circle of ground walled 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
called 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 feet, and yet the walls so exceeding thin that
at the upper part of the spire, upon a view made by the late Sir
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 supposed
to have received some damage by the great storm in the year 1703;
but it was resolved in the negative, and Sir Christopher ordered it
to be so strengthened with bands of iron plates as has effectually
secured 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 used in laying the
first foundation 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 supposed 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 forty 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 melancholy occasion has been now lately
opened again to receive the body of the late Duchess of Somerset,
the happy consort for almost forty years of his Grace the present
Duke, and only daughter and heiress of the ancient and noble family
of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, whose great estate she brought
into the family of Somerset, who now enjoy it.

With her was buried at the same time her Grace's daughter the
Marchioness of Caermarthen (being married to the Marquis of
Caermarthen, son and heir-apparent to the Lord of Leeds), who died
for grief at the loss of the duchess her mother, and was buried
with her; also her second son, the Duke Percy Somerset, who died a
few months before, and had been buried in the Abbey church of
Westminster, but was ordered to be removed 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 it is certain that the present Duke has chosen to have his
family laid here with their ancestors, and to that end has caused
the corpse of his son, the Lord Percy, as above, and one of his
daughters, who had been buried in the Abbey, to be removed and
brought down to this vault, which lies in that they call the Virgin
Mary's Chapel, behind the altar.  There is, as above, a noble
monument for a late Duke and Duchess of Somerset in the place
already, with their portraits at full-length, their heads lying
upon cushions, the whole perfectly well wrought in fine polished
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 murder
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 murder, 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 hanged, his friends desiring to have him
buried at Salisbury, the bishop would not consent that he should be
buried 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 hanged 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 remained in good rank some
time 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 ancient 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 lie, and that is all.

The cloister, and the chapter-house adjoining to the church, are
the finest here of any I have seen in England; the latter is
octagon, or eight-square, and is 150 feet in its circumference; the
roof bearing all upon one small marble pillar in the centre, which
you may shake with your hand; and it is hardly to be imagined it
can be any great support to the roof, which makes it the more
curious (it is not indeed to be matched, I believe, in Europe).

From hence directing my course to the seaside 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 ancient house and seat of
Clarendon, the mansion of the ancient 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 fixed, 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, though
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 satisfied with
a total omission of it.

I have mentioned 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 desired to observe these
hills and plains are most beautifully intersected and cut through
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 interspersed 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 through the streets of the city--the Nadder and
the Willy and the Avon--and the course of these three lead us
through the whole mountainous part of the county.  The two first
join their waters at Wilton, the shiretown, though a place of no
great notice now; and these are the waters which run through 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 anything 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 ancient
trophy of a great family, not the noble situation, 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.  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 virtue, 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 exalted genius is the instructor, a glorious example the
guide, and a gentle well-directed hand the governor and law-giver
to the whole; and the family, like a well-governed city, appears
happy, flourishing, and regular, groaning under no grievance,
pleased with what they enjoy, and enjoying everything which they
ought to be pleased 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 lies parallel with the road, and
receives into it the whole river Willy, 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 courtyards 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 anything like this, which,
as they told me, is two-and-thirty feet 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 showed 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 opened with two folding-doors, like a coach-house, a large
equestrian statue of one of the ancestors of the family in complete
armour, as also another of a Roman Emperor in brass.  But the last
time I had the curiosity to see this house, I missed that part; so
that I supposed they were removed.

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 excellences of art, as also of nature;
insomuch that Wilton House is now a mere museum or a chamber of
rarities, and we meet with several things there which are to be
found nowhere else in the world.

As his lordship is a great collector of fine paintings, so I know
no nobleman's house in England so prepared, as if built on purpose,
to receive them; the largest and the finest pieces that can be
imagined 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 completely filled that I see no room for any new piece 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
displaced, 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 show you in one of
the first rooms you go into, must be spoken of by everybody that
has any knowledge of painting, and is an admirable piece indeed.

You ascend the great staircase at the upper end of the hall, which
is very large; at the foot of the staircase you have a Bacchus as
large as life, done in fine Peloponnesian marble, carrying a young
Bacchus on his arm, the young one eating grapes, and letting you
see by his countenance that he is pleased with the taste 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, it is an affection which is as much seen in the
countenance, perhaps more than any other.  One ought to stop every
two steps of this staircase, 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 apartments, such variety seizes you every
way that you scarce know to which hand to turn yourself.  First on
one side you see several rooms filled with paintings as before, all
so curious, and the variety such, that it is with reluctance that
you can turn from them; while looking another way you are called
off by a vast collection of busts 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 anything like what appears here, except in the chamber of
rarities at Munich in Bavaria.

Passing these, you come into several large rooms, as if contrived
for the reception of the beautiful guests that take them up; one of
these is near seventy feet long, and the ceiling twenty-six feet
high, with another adjoining of the same height and breadth, but
not so long.  Those together might be called the Great Gallery of
Wilton, and might vie for paintings with the Gallery of Luxembourg,
in the Faubourg of Paris.

These two rooms are filled with the family pieces of the house of
Herbert, most of them by Lilly or Vandyke; and one in particular
outdoes all that I ever met with, either at home or abroad; it is
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 Whitehall 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
mentioned; 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 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, married to the elder Lord Herbert, their
eldest son.  It is enough to say of this piece, it is worth the
labour of any lover of art to go five hundred miles to see it; and
I am informed 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 surprise, you have three
or four rooms still upon the same floor, filled 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, though not like the
other.  However, not a hand's-breadth is left to crowd a picture in
of the smallest size; and even the upper rooms, which might be
called 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 public.

The gardens are on the south of the house, and extend themselves
beyond the river, a branch of which runs through 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 called, by way of distinction, Salisbury
Plain, and leads from the city of Salisbury to Shaftesbury.  Here
also his lordship has a hare-warren, as it is called, though
improperly.  It has, indeed, been a sanctuary for the hares for
many years; but the gentlemen complain that it mars their game, for
that as soon as they put up a hare for their sport, if it be
anywhere within two or three miles, away she runs for the warren,
and there is an end of their pursuit; 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 day's work I returned to
Clarendon, and the next day took another short tour to the hills to
see that celebrated piece of antiquity, the wonderful Stonehenge,
being six miles from Salisbury, north, and upon the side of the
River Avon, near the town of Amesbury.  It is needless that I
should enter here into any part of the dispute about which our
learned antiquaries have so puzzled themselves that several books
(and one of them in folio) have been published about it; some
alleging 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. Aubrey, and the like.
Again, some will have it be British, some Danish, some Saxon, some
Roman, and some, before them all, Phoenician.

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 carried a basket of
bread and laid a loaf upon every stone, and yet never could make
out the same number twice, this I take as a mere country fiction,
and a ridiculous one too.  The reason why they cannot easily be
told is that many of them lie half or part buried 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 joined
underground to one another; otherwise, as to those which appear,
they are easy 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 seventy-two in all; but then this was
counting every piece of a stone of bulk which appeared 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 itself.

The form of this monument is not only described but delineated in
most authors, and, indeed, it is 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 joined on the top by cross-stones,
laid from one to another, and fastened with vast mortises and
tenons.  Length of time has so decayed 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 that part of England near it)
is still the mystery, 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 Solomon's workmen build the battlement or
additional wall to support the precipice of Mount Moriah, on which
the Temple was built, which was all built of 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 feet and a half of our measure (as the learned agree to do),
was one hundred feet long, thirty-five feet broad, and twenty feet
thick?

These stones at Stonehenge, as Mr. Camden describes them, and in
which others agree, were very large, though not so large--the
upright stones twenty-four feet high, seven feet broad, sixteen
feet round, and weigh twelve tons each; and the cross-stones on the
top, which he calls coronets, were six or seven tons.  But this
does not seem equal; for if the cross-stones weighed six or seven
tons, the others, as they appear now, were at least five or six
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 sixteen tons or thereabouts (supposing them to stand a
great way into the earth, as it is not doubted but they do), and
the coronets or cross-stones at about two tons, 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 ancient that no history has
handed down to us the original.  As we find it, then, uncertain, we
must leave it so.  It is indeed a reverend piece of antiquity, and
it is 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 lots 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 lies 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 ancient 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, Tanesbury, Frippsbury,
Southbury Hill, Amesbury, Great Bodwin, 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
ancients 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 Marlborough 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
Henry II. held at Clarendon, where I am now writing, and another
intended to be held there in Richard II.'s time, but prevented by
the barons, being then up in arms against the king.

Near this place, at Farlo, was the birthplace of the late Sir
Stephen Fox, and where the town, sharing in his good fortune, shows
several marks of his bounty, as particularly the building a new
church from the foundation, and getting an Act of Parliament passed
for making it parochial, it being but a chapel-of-ease before to an
adjoining parish.  Also Sir Stephen built and endowed an almshouse
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 meantime I
went on to Langborough, a fine seat of my Lord Colerain, which is
very well kept, though 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 seaside I came to New Forest, of which
I have said something already with relation to the great extent of
ground which lies waste, and in which there is so great a quantity
of large timber, as I have spoken of already.

This waste and wild part of the country was, as some record, laid
open and waste for a forest and for game by that violent tyrant
William the Conqueror, and for which purpose he unpeopled the
country, pulled 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, changed his course, and struck the
king full on the breast and killed 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 killed is certain, and they show the tree on which the arrow
glanced to this day.  In King Charles II.'s time it was ordered to
be surrounded with a pale; but as great part of the paling is down
with age, whether the tree be really so old or not is to me a great
question, the action being near seven hundred years 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 concerned at that time in bringing over--or, rather,
providing for when they were come over--the poor inhabitants of the
Palatinate, a thing in itself commendable, but, as it was managed,
made scandalous to England and miserable to those poor people.

Some persons being ordered by that noble lord above mentioned 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 public, 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
inquired what employments those poor people were brought up to.  It
was answered there were husbandmen and artificers of all sorts,
upon which the proposal was as follows.  New Forest, in Hampshire,
was singled out to be the place:-

Here it was proposed to draw a great square line containing four
thousand acres of land, marking out two large highways or roads
through the centre, crossing both ways, so that there should be a
thousand acres in each division, exclusive of the land contained in
the said cross-roads.

Then it was proposed to since 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 parcelled 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 50 pounds a year to the queen--
that is to say, to the Crown.

To each of these families, whom I would now call farmers, it was
proposed to advance 200 pounds 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 inclose, 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 supplied 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 supposed 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 answered 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
twenty thousand more in number than they were, and that without
being any burden 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 marked out, the farmers put in possession
of it, and the money given them, they should be obliged 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 required to fence and part off the land, and clear
it of the timber or bushes, or whatever else was upon it which
required to be removed.  The first thing, therefore, which the
farmer 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 could not answer the preparations they would be obliged
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
cured, fenced-off, ploughed, and sowed as should yield them a
sufficiency of corn and kitchen 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 allowed 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, ploughs, harrows,
wheel-barrows, hurdles, and all such necessary utensils 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 twenty 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 one hundred and thirty-two persons, besides the head-
farmers, who at five also to each family are one hundred more; in
all, two hundred and thirty-two.

For the necessary supply of these with provisions, clothes,
household 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 increase 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 tailors, three weavers of woollen and three
weavers of linen, two basket-makers, 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 grave-digger,
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 4,000
pounds 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 increasing and money circulating, this town should
increase in a very little time.

It was proposed 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 centre 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 mentioned to be laid out for
streets, as near the centre 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 day-men 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 increase there 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 increase so much advantage would accrue to the
public 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 obliged by a law to teach
all their children both to speak, read, and write the English
language.

Upon their increase they would also want barbers and glaziers,
painters also, and plumbers; a windmill 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
dyeing 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
ironwork of ploughs, 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 public-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
maintained, and the nation evidently be bettered by it.  As to the
money to be advanced, which in the case of twenty such settlements,
at 1,000 pounds each, would be 80,000 pounds, two things were
answered to it:-

1.  That the annual rent to be received for all those lands after
twenty years would abundantly pay the public for the first
disburses on the scheme above, that rent being then to amount to
40,000 pounds per annum.

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 inquire.

I reserved this account for this place, because I passed in this
journey over the very spot where the design was laid out--namely,
near Lyndhurst, in the road from Rumsey to Lymington, whither I now
directed my course.

Lymington is a little but populous seaport standing opposite to the
Isle of Wight, in the narrow part of the strait which ships
sometimes pass through in fair weather, called the Needles; and
right against an ancient town of that island called Yarmouth, and
which, in distinction from the great town of Yarmouth in Norfolk,
is called South Yarmouth.  This town of Lymington is chiefly noted
for making fine salt, which is indeed excellent good; and from
whence all these south parts of England are supplied, as well by
water as by land carriage; and sometimes, though 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.  Lymington sends two members to
Parliament, and this and her salt trade is all I can say to her;
for though 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 smuggling 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, though
there are several considerable rivers empty themselves into the
sea; nor are there any harbours or seaports of any note except
Poole.  As for Christchurch, though 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 stepped up into the country north-west, to see the
ancient town of Wimborne, or Wimborneminster; 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 lies 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 famed for piety and religion,
and, according to the zeal of these times, was esteemed 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 preserved, and has been carefully
repaired, 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 Manos
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 23rd 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 enjoyed that honour; as also of John de
Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and his wife, grandmother 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 enlarged and had a new
benefactress in Queen Elizabeth, who has enlarged the stipend and
annexed it to the foundation.  The famous Cardinal Pole 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 Poole, a considerable seaport, 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 Poole 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, entering at one narrow mouth, opens to a very great breadth
within the entrance, and comes up to the very shore of this town;
it runs also west up almost to the town of Wareham, a little below
which it receives the rivers Frome 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 Poole pretend to be famous for
pickling; and they are barrelled up here, and sent not only to
London, but to the West Indies, and to Spain and Italy, and other
parts.  It is observed more pearls are found in the Poole 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, called Branksey, which, lying the very month
of the passage, divides it into two, and where there is an old
castle, called 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 Poole itself; it shows the ruins of a large town, and, it is
apparent, has had eight churches, of which they have three
remaining.

South of Wareham, and between the bay I have mentioned and the sea,
lies a large tract of land which, being surrounded by the sea
except on one side, is called an island, though it is really what
should be called 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 carried on there
also; it is called the Isle of Purbeck, and has in the middle of it
a large market-town, called Corfe, and from the famous castle there
the whole town is now called Corfe Castle; it is a corporation,
sending members to Parliament.

This part of the country is eminent for vast quarries of stone,
which is cut out flat, and used in London in great quantities for
paving courtyards, alleys, avenues to houses, kitchens, 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 22 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 extreme.

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
expense 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 covered, the trees not being grown, and
men were still at work improving and enlarging and planting on the
adjoining heath or common.  Near the decoy-keeper's house were some
places where young decoy ducks were hatched, 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 hanged up for show.

While the decoy-man was busy showing the new works, he was alarmed
with a great cry about this house for "Help!  help!" and away he
ran like the wind, guessing, as we supposed, that something was
catched in the trap.

It was a good big boy, about thirteen or fourteen years old, that
cried out, for coming to the place he found a great fowl caught 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 manservant 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 the matter, and found a monstrous eagle caught by the leg in
the trap, and killed by the fellow's cudgel, as above.

When the master came to know what it was, and that his man had
killed 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.  It is probable this eagle had flown over the sea
from France, either there or at the Isle of Wight, 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 turned up to Dorchester, the county town, though not
the largest town in the county.  Dorchester is indeed a pleasant
agreeable town to live in, and where I thought the people seemed
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 politics, yet they did not seem to
separate with so much animosity as in other places.  Here I saw the
Church of England clergyman, and the Dissenting minister or
preacher drinking tea together, and conversing with civility and
good neighbourhood, like Catholic Christians and men of a Catholic
and extensive charity.  The town is populous, though 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 six hundred 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,
the ewes generally bringing two lambs, and they are for that reason
bought by all the farmers through the east part of England, who
come to Burford Fair in this country to buy them, and carry them
into Kent and Surrey eastward, and into Buckinghamshire and
Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire north; even our Banstead Downs in
Surrey, so famed for good mutton, is supplied from this place.  The
grass or herbage of these downs is full of the sweetest and the
most aromatic plants, such as nourish the sheep to a strange
degree; and the sheep's dung, again, nourishes that herbage to a
strange degree; so that the valleys are rendered extremely 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 pounds a year per acre for the grass only.
This I inquired particularly after at the place, and was assured by
the inhabitants, as one man, that the fact was true, and was showed
the meadows.  The grass which grew on them was such as grew to the
length of ten or twelve feet, 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, though no other land thereabouts
had such a kind of grass, yet all other meadows and low grounds of
the valley were extremely rich in proportion.

There are abundance of good families, and of very ancient lines in
the neighbourhood of this town of Dorchester, as the Napiers, the
Courtneys, Strangeways, Seymours, Banks, Tregonells, Sydenhams, 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 seaside south, and the ocean
in view almost all the way.  The first town you come to is
Weymouth, or Weymouth and Melcombe, 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 though
small harbour, and they are joined by a wooden bridge; so that
nothing but the harbour parts them; yet they are separate
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; it is 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, called 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
called Portland Road.  While I was here once, there came a
merchant-ship into that road called 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 in 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, fired 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 topmasts; 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 secured the ship.  It is 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 12 pounds
for the use of the anchor, cable, and boat, besides some gratuities
to the men.  But they saved 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 freestone comes, with which the Cathedral of St. Paul's,
the Monument, and all the public edifices in the City of London are
chiefly built; and it is 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
freestone, and the height of the land is such that from this island
they see in clear weather above half over the Channel to France,
though 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 sets 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 embayed 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 lighthouses on the two
points of that island; and they had not been many months set up,
with the directions given to the public for their bearings, but we
found three outward-bound East India ships which were in distress
in the night, in a hard extreme 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, though seemingly miserable, and thinly inhabited, yet
the inhabitants being almost all stone-cutters, we found there were
no very poor people among them, and when they collected money for
the re-building St. Paul's, they got more in this island than in
the great town of Dorchester, as we were told.

Though Portland stands a league off from the mainland of Britain,
yet it is almost joined by a prodigious riff 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 stone's-throw over; and the
said riff 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 embayed 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 mainland.  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 re-pass 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 fowl:
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 7,000 or 8,000.  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 riff 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 joins 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, though without a harbour.  Here we saw boats all
the way on the shore, fishing for mackerel, 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, veering 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, hauling 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
inquire 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 ordered to prevent the country farmers buying
the mackerel 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 the mackerel, the finest and largest I ever saw,
were sold at the seaside a hundred for a penny.

From Bridport (a town in which we see nothing remarkable) we came
to Lyme, the town particularly made famous by the landing of the
Duke of Monmouth and his unfortunate troops 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 Straits; and though they have neither creek
or bay, road or river, they have a good harbour, but it is 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, raised at first with all the methods that skill and art
could devise, but maintained now with very little difficulty.  The
walls are raised 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
warehouses 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
pier or harbour, and ride there as secure as in a millpond or as in
a wet dock.

The townspeople 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 repaired
again.

This work is called 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 strengthened 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 pilchard-fishing,
though not to so considerable a degree as they do farther west--the
pilchards seldom coming up so high eastward as Portland, and not
very often so high as Lyme.

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 resolved 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 received 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 stayed here some time viewing this town and coast, we had
opportunity to observe the pleasant way of conversation as it is
managed 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 described as it is really to be admired;
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
gaming and horse-racing gentry in some parts of England to be so
much known among them any otherwise than to be abhorred; 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
matchmaking, or half-pay officers to run away with their daughters,
which the meetings called assemblies in some other parts of England
are recommended for.  Here is 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 intrigue; and
yet I observed 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 superior in reputation.  In a word,
their reputation seems here to be better kept, guarded by better
conduct, and managed with more prudence; and yet the Dorsetshire
ladies, I assure you, are not nuns; they do not go veiled about
streets, or hide themselves when visited; but a general freedom of
conversation--agreeable, mannerly, kind, and good--runs through the
whole body of the gentry of both sexes, mixed with the best of
behaviour, and yet governed by prudence and modesty such as I
nowhere see better in all my observation through 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 bone-lace in England, and where they showed 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 30 pounds
sterling a yard; but I suppose there was not much of this to be
had.  But it is 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 called Strabridge.
The town and the country around is employed in the manufacture of
stockings, and which was once famous for making the finest, best,
and highest-prize knit stocking in England; but that trade now is
much decayed by the increase of the knitting-stocking engine or
frame, which has destroyed the hand-knitting trade for fine
stockings through the whole kingdom, of which I shall speak more in
its place.

From hence I came to Sherborne, 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, though it is
neither the county-town, nor does it send members to Parliament.
The church is still a reverend pile, and shows the face of great
antiquity.  Here begins the Wiltshire medley clothing (though this
town be in Dorsetshire), of which I shall speak at large in its
place, and therefore I omit any discourse of it here.

Shaftesbury is also on the edge of this county, adjoining to
Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, being fourteen miles from Salisbury,
over that fine down or carpet ground which they call particularly
or properly Salisbury Plain.  It has neither house nor town in view
all the way; and the road, which often lies very broad and branches
off insensibly, might easily cause a traveller to lose 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
everywhere 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 Shaftesbury is now a sorry town upon the top of a high hill,
which closes the plain or downs, and whence Nature presents you a
new scene or prospect--viz., of Somerset and Wiltshire--where it is
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 clothing, as well the
medley or mixed 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 through the west and north part of
Wiltshire in the latter part of this work.

In my return to my western progress, I passed some little part of
Somersetshire, as through 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
carried 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 called the
"brogue" upon the tongue, so here it is called "jouring;" and it is
certain that though the tongue be all mere 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 relation's 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 inquiry 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 mere boy) moving from side to side as the lines reached
cross the columns of the book.  His lesson was in the Canticles, v.
3 of chap. v.  The words these:- "I have put off my coat.  How
shall I put it on?  I have washed 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 washed my
veet.  How shall I moil 'em?"

How the dexterous dunce could form his month 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, though some years ago.

There lived 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 happened 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 were very large
pieces.  It is also to be observed 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 happened at last, as with most thieves it does, that the inn-
keeper was too cunning for him, and the poor dog was nabbed, 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-humoured 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 chopped off his tail.  And having thus effectually
dishonoured the poor cur among his neighbours, he tied 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 honoured 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 "jouring"
speech even upon their monuments and grave-stones; as, for example,
even in some of the churchyards 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 Yeovil 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 paved with small pebbles that on
either side 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 called) just at their own door, and this so much finer,
so much pleasanter, and agreeable to look on than 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 esteemed 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 employed in trade and
manufactures, that not only it cannot be equalled in England, but
perhaps not in Europe.

In my travel through Dorsetshire I ought to have observed that the
biggest towns in that county sent no members to Parliament, and
that the smallest did--that is to say that Sherborne, Blandford,
Wimborneminster, Stourminster, and several other towns choose no
members; whereas Weymouth, Melcombe, 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 Bideford is one, Crediton or Kirton
another, Ilfracombe 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
landscape in the world--a mere picture--and I do not remember the
like in any one place in England.  It is observable that the market
of this town was kept originally on the Sunday, till it was changed
by the direction of King John.

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 lies that
part of the county which they call the South Hams, and which is
famous for the best cider in that part of England; also the town of
St.-Mary-Ottery, commonly called St. Mary Autree.  They tell us the
name is derived 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 twenty thousand hogsheads of cider 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 reputation of the London vintners.  But
that by-the-bye.

From hence we came to Exeter, a city famous for two things which we
seldom find unite in the same town--viz., that it is 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 stranger's
seeing, and next to the Brigg Market at Leeds, in Yorkshire, is the
greatest in England.  The people assured me that at this market is
generally sold from sixty to seventy to eighty, and sometimes a
hundred, thousand pounds value in serges in a week.  I think it is
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 called Topsham.  But now by the application, and at the
expense, of the citizens the channel of the river is so widened,
deepened, and cleansed 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 their woollen manufactures especially to Holland, the
Dutch giving very large commissions here for the buying of serges
perpetuans, and such goods; which are made not only in and about
Exeter, but at Crediton, Honiton, Culliton, St.-Mary-Ottery, Newton
Bushel, Ashburton, and especially at Tiverton, Cullompton, 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 called well subsisted and employed by
it.

Exeter 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 sieges and attacks of towns is such now, and so altered
from what it was in those days, that Exeter 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 resided for some time,
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 ancient 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 mere copying
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 vellum, 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 learned Dr. Wake (now Archbishop of
Canterbury, and author of the Additions to Mr. Camden) says was
Secretary of State and Privy Councillor to King Henry VIII., Edward
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 called,
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, Richard Hooker, author of the
"Ecclesiastical Polity," and of several other valuable pieces.

6.  Of Dr. Arthur Duck, a famed 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 parishioners the
Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments in the English tongue,
and reading them so publicly 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 Henry VI., was famous for being the first that read
Aristotle publicly 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 twenty-two miles from Exeter we go to Totnes, 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 ten or
twelve feet 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-tail, or floor for the water below the wheels, is wharfed up
on either side with stone above high-water mark, and for above
twenty or thirty feet 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 wires 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 a half of water.
We were carried hither at low water, where we saw about fifty or
sixty small salmon, about seventeen to twenty 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 fixed at one end of the place, they put in a dog (who was
taught his trade beforehand) 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 asked a
shilling (viz., twopence a-piece); and for such fish, not at all
bigger, and not so fresh, I have seen six-and-sixpence each given
at a London fish-market, whither they are sometimes 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 Totnes 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 observed
some small fish to skip and play upon the surface of the water,
upon which I asked 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 bewitched, cries out as loud as he
could bawl, "A school! a school!"  The word was taken to the shore
as hastily as it would have been on land if he had cried "Fire!"
And by that time we reached the quays the town was all in a kind of
an uproar.

The matter was that a great shoal--or, as they call it, a "school"-
-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 surprise which he would have been very glad of if he
could but have had a day or two's warning, for he might have taken
200 tons of them.  And the like was the case of other merchants in
town; for, in short, nobody 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 hauls took about forty thousand of
them.  We sent our servant to the quay to buy some, who for a
halfpenny 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 broiled 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 dined--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 itself.  But
for our food we really dined 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 inquire, 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 porpoises, which, as they told us,
pursued the pilchards, and, it is probable, drove them into the
harbour, as above.  The school, it seems, drove up the river a
great way, even as high as Totnes Bridge, as we heard afterwards;
so that the country people who had boats and nets catched as many
as they knew what to do with, and perhaps lived upon pilchards for
several days.  But as to the merchants and trade, their coming was
so sudden that it was no advantage to them.

Round the west side of this basin or harbour, in a kind of a
semicircle, lies the town of Dartmouth, a very large and populous
town, though but meanly built, and standing on the side of a steep
hill; yet the quay 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 Tor Bay, of which I know nothing proper to my observation,
more than that it is a very good road for ships, though sometimes
(especially with a southerly or south-east wind) ships have been
obliged 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 Tor Bay 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 caused such a breach among those people
at Exeter 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,
though blessed with the like privilege of sending members to the
Parliament, of which I have little more to say but that from thence
the road lies to Plymouth, distance about six miles.

Plymouth is indeed a town of consideration, and of great importance
to the public.  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
compassed on every side with hills, and the shore generally steep
and rocky, though the anchorage is good, and it is pretty safe
riding.  In the entrance to this bay lies a large and most
dangerous rock, which at high-water is covered, but at low-tide
lies bare, where many a good ship has been lost, even in the view
of safety, and many a ship's crew drowned in the night, before help
could be had for them.

Upon this rock (which was called the Eddystone, from its situation)
the famous Mr. Winstanley undertook to build a lighthouse 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. Winstanley 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 desired 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 happened at last to be in it once too often--namely, when
that dreadful tempest blew, November 27, 1703.  This tempest began
on the Wednesday before, and blew with such violence, and shook the
lighthouse so much, that, as they told me there, Mr. Winstanley
would fain have been on shore, and made signals for help; but no
boats durst go off to him; and, to finish the tragedy, on the
Friday, November 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 lighthouse being gone;
in which Mr. Winstanley and all that were with him perished, 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 called 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 itself, 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 happened at the same time in the Sound and in
the roads about Plymouth is not my business; they are also
published in other books, to which I refer.

One thing which I was a witness to 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,
seemed 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 laden 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 rejoicing 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 lighthouse on the
Eddystone).  About mid-night the noise, indeed, was very dreadful,
what with the rearing 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 dashed in pieces.  In a
word, all the fleet except three, or thereabouts, were dashed to
pieces against the rocks and sunk in the sea, most of the men being
drowned.  Those three who were saved, received so much damage that
their lading was almost all spoiled.  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, saved from
shipwreck, and the lives of her crew were saved also.

This was a melancholy morning indeed.  Nothing was to be seen but
wrecks of the ships and a foaming, furious sea in 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 shore, 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, their 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 saved 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 lies in the bottom of this Sound, in the centre
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 Hamoaze, 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 imprisoned for life, and lived 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 seen 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 lies sloping on
the side of it, towards the east--the inlet of the sea which is
called 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 quay
and all other conveniences for bringing in vessels for loading and
unloading; nor is the trade carried on here inconsiderable in
itself, 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 called Hamoaze, 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 ordered a wet dock--with yards,
dry docks, launches, and conveniences 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 king's yards, to dwell in.  It is, in short, now
become as complete an arsenal or yard for building and fitting men-
of-war as any the Government are masters of, and perhaps much more
convenient than some of them, though 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 itself.

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 shopkeepers, 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 merely 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 set foot on in the county of
Cornwall.  The Tamar here is very wide, and the ferry-boats bad; so
that I thought myself well escaped 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 governed 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 observed 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 watched him, when, to their great
surprise, they found that the poor charitable creature carried what
he so got to an old decrepit 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 holidays, when he found
they made good cheer in the house where he lived, 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 drowned 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 increased
since the number of the inhabitants are increased at the new town,
as I mentioned as near the dock at the mouth of Hamoaze, for those
people choose rather to go to Saltash to market by water than 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 anything considerable they do in it.  There is no other
considerable town up the Tamar till we come to Launceston, the
county town, which I shall take in my return; so I turned west,
keeping the south shore of the county to the Land's End.

From Saltash I went to Liskeard, about seven 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 called Stannary Towns--that is to say, where
the blocks of tin are brought to the coinage; of which, by itself,
this coinage of tin is an article very much to the advantage of the
towns where it is settled, though the money paid goes another way.

This town of Liskeard was once eminent, had a good castle, and a
large house, where the ancient Dukes of Cornwall kept their court
in those days; also it enjoyed 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 raised 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 decayed that
there are now scarce any of the ruins of the castle or of the
prince's court remaining.

The only public 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 ancient 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 assured 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,
breaches, &c.; and some spinning of late years is set up here,
encouraged by the woollen manufacturers of Devonshire.

Between these two towns of Saltash and Liskeard is St. Germans, now
a village, decayed, and without any market, but the largest parish
in the whole county--in the bounds of which is contained, as they
report, seventeen villages, and the town of Saltash among them; for
Saltash has no parish church, it seems, of itself, but as a chapel-
of-ease to St. Germans.  In the neighbourhood of these towns are
many pleasant seats of the Cornish gentry, who are indeed very
numerous, though 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 all together.

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 another's houses), so they generally intermarry 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 raised, viz., "That all the Cornish gentlemen
are cousins."

On the hills north of Liskeard, and in the way between Liskeard and
Launceston, there are many tin-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, carried to Liskeard to be coined.

From Liskeard, in our course west, we are necessarily carried to
the sea-coast, because of the River Fowey or Fowath, which empties
itself 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 Bodmin 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 came to Foy or Fowey, an ancient town, and
formerly very large--nay, not large only, but powerful and potent;
for the Foyens, as they were then called, were able to fit out
large fleets, not only for merchants' 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 Ports men, who in
those days were thought very powerful.

Mr. Camden 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 carried 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
enriched 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 caused two forts to be built at the public 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 proclaimed, 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 recovered or attempted to
recover their strength at sea.  However, Foy at this time is a very
fair town; it lies 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
hereabouts.  In this town is also a coinage for the tin, 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 Lostwithiel--an
ancient and once a flourishing but now a decayed town; and as to
trade and navigation, quite destitute; which is occasioned by the
river being filled up with sands, which, some say, the tides drive
up in stormy weather from the sea; others say it is by sands washed
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 townspeople from falling
into the river.  But that the sea has choked 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 Lostwithiel 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 freeholders of this town and manor,
by themselves or their deputies, did there assemble; amongst whom
one (as it fell to his lot by turn), bravely apparelled, gallantly
mounted, with a crown on his head, a sceptre in his hand, and a
sword borne before him, and dutifully attended by all the rest
(also on horseback), rode through 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 table's-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 derived from so many descents of ages that the cause and
author outreach the remembrance.  Howbeit, these circumstances
afford a conjecture that it should betoken royalties appertaining
to the honour of Cornwall."

Behind Foy and nearer to the coast, at the mouth of a small river
which some call Lowe, though without any authority, there stand two
towns opposite to one another bearing the name of the River Looe--
that is to say, distinguished by the addition of East Looe and West
Looe.  These are both good trading towns, and especially fishing
towns; and, which is very particular, are (like Weymouth and
Melcombe, in Dorsetshire) separated only by the creek or river, and
yet each of them sends members to Parliament.  These towns are
joined together by a very beautiful and stately stone bridge having
fifteen arches.

East Looe was the ancienter corporation of the two, and for some
ages ago the greater and more considerable town; but now they tell
us West Looe 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 merchandise, and the towns are not
despisable.  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 whom, is none of my
business to inquire.

Passing from hence, and ferrying over Foy River or the River Foweth
(call it as you 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 tin-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 lies very broad, above ten
miles within the country, which passing at Trewardreth (a town of
no great note, though 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, whether be considered the depth of water for above twenty
miles within land; the safety of riding, sheltered 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
nowhere 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. Maws, 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 itself 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. Maws and Pendennis are two fortifications placed at the points
or entrance of this haven, opposite to one another, though not with
a communication or view; they are very strong--the first
principally by sea, having a good platform of guns pointing athwart
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. Maws, otherwise called St. Mary's, has a town annexed to the
castle, and is a borough sending members to the Parliament.
Pendennis is a mere fortress, though there are some habitations in
it, too, and some at a small distance near the seaside, but not of
any great consideration.

The town of Falmouth is by much the richest and best trading town
in this county, though not so ancient as its neighbour town of
Truro; and indeed is in some things obliged to acknowledge the
seigniority--namely, that in the corporation of Truro the person
whom they choose to be their Mayor of Truro is also Mayor of
Falmouth of course.  How the jurisdiction is managed is an account
too long for this place.  The Truro-men also receive several duties
collected in Falmouth, particularly wharfage for the merchandises
landed or shipped 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 quays, 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 quay, and so good a depth of water at it.  The merchants of
Truro formerly used it for the place of lading and unlading their
ships, as the merchants of Exeter 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 the shipping off of block tin and copper ore, the latter
being lately found in large quantities in some of the mountains
between Truro and St. Michael's, and which is much improved since
the several mills are erected at Bristol and other parts for the
manufactures of battery ware, as it is called (brass), or which is
made out of English copper, most of it duct in these parts--the ore
itself ago 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 increasing
trade.  I say "increasing," 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 conveyed them on shore, as it
is 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
stopped.  But the Falmouth merchants, having by this means gotten a
taste of the Portuguese trade, have maintained 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 carrier
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 packet-boats for account of the
merchants at London, and that it was attended with a guard of
twelve horsemen well armed, for which the said carrier had half per
cent. for his hazard.

This is a specimen of the Portugal trade, and how considerable it
is in itself, 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 Avon, in the middle between the conflux of two
rivers, which, though not of any long course, have a very good
appearance for a port, and make it large wharf between them in the
front of the town.  And the water here makes a good port for small
ships, though 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
tin.  The town is well built, but shows 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 Dissenters' meeting-house that I could
hear of.

Tregony is upon the same water north-east from Falmouth--distance
about fifteen miles from it--but is a town of very little trade;
nor, indeed, have any of the towns, so far within the shore,
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 Grampound, a market-town; and
Burro', about four miles farther up the water.  This place, indeed,
has a claim to antiquity, and is an appendix to the Duchy of
Cornwall, of which it holds at a fee farm rent and pays to the
Prince of Wales as duke 10 pounds 11s. 1d. per annum.  It has no
parish church, but only a chapel-of-ease to an adjacent parish.

Penryn is up the same branch of the Avon 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 itself.  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 cell to Kirton); but they are all demolished, and scarce the
ruins of them distinguishable enough to know one part from another.

Quitting Falmouth Haven from Penryn West, we came to Helston, about
seven 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 tin, and several of the ships called
tin-ships are laden 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, though of no resort for
trade, called Market Jew.  It lies, indeed, on the seaside, 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 tin-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 November 27, 1703, a ship laden with
tin was blown out to sea and driven to the Isle of Wight in seven
hours, having on board only one man and two boys.  The story is as
follows:-

"The beginning of the storm there lay a ship laden with tin in
Helford Haven, about two leagues and a half west of Falmouth.  The
tin was taken on board at a place called 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 eight o'clock in the evening the commander, whose name was
Anthony Jenkins, went on board with his mate to see that everything
was safe, and to give orders, but went both on shore 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 nine o'clock, the wind beginning to blow harder, they
carried out the anchor, according to the master's order; but the
wind increasing about ten, the ship began to drive, so they carried
out their best bower, which, having a good new cable, brought the
ship up.  The storm still increasing, they let go the kedge anchor;
so that they then rode by four anchors ahead, which were all they
had.

"But between eleven and twelve o'clock the wind came about west and
by south, and blew in so violent and terrible a manner that, though
they rode 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 lie on either side the harbour's mouth, and which they
performed pretty well.  Then, seeing no remedy, they consulted what
to do next.  They could carry no sail at first--no, not a knot; nor
do anything 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 called the Dead Man's Head, which lies 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 lowered 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 broke
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 Wight; so
that now they were in a terrible consternation, and driving still
at a prodigious rate.  By seven o'clock they found themselves
broadside of the Isle of Wight.

"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 Wight,
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 desired 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 steered 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, staved and
sunk, but the man and the two youths jumped ashore and were safe;
and the lading, being tin, was afterwards secured.

"N.B.--The merchants very well rewarded the three sailors,
especially the lad that ran her into that place."

Penzance is the farthest town of any note west, being 254 miles
from London, and within about ten miles of the promontory called
the Land's End; so that this promontory is from London 264 miles,
or thereabouts.  This town of Penzance 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, though in this utmost angle
of the nation; and, which is yet more strange, the veins of lead,
tin, and copper ore 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,
though they are supposed to be so poor, because so very remote from
London, which is the centre 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 twelve feet 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 learned of them is that here they are.  The parish where
they stand is called Boscawone, from whence the ancient and
honourable family of Boscawen derive their names.

Near Penzance, but open to the sea, is that gulf they call Mount's
Bay; named 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 fortified, though 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 Penzance
be a place of good resort.

A little up in the county towards the north-west is Godolchan,
which though 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 called Lord Royalton during the
life of his father.  This place also is infinitely rich in tin-
mines.

I am now at my journey's end.  As to the islands of Scilly, which
lie beyond the Land's End, I shall say something of them presently.
I must now return SUR MES PAS, as the French call it; though 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 another letter.



APPENDIX TO LAND'S END.



I have ended this account at the utmost extent of the island of
Great Britain west, without visiting those excrescences 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 dashed in pieces there, and
how many brave lives lost, in spite of the mariners' best skill, or
the lighthouses' and other sea-marks' best notice.

These islands lie 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 called 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 ashore" 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
called, or the rocks of Scilly, without letting fall a tear to the
memory of Sir Cloudesley Shovel and all the gallant spirits that
were with him, at one blow and without a moment's warning dashed
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 saved.  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 covered with country people running to and
fro to see if the sea had cast up anything 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 everything
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 charged 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
rooks 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 alleged they were assured there were great
quantities of money; and strange unprecedented ways were used by
them to come at it:  some, I say, with one kind of engine, and some
another; and though we thought several of them very strange
impracticable methods, yet I was assured 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 seemed 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
southern-most 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 meantime took the two merchant-ships and went off with
them.  As to the picaroon 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 observed that the English
captains managed their fight so well, and their seamen behaved so
briskly, that in about three hours both the Frenchmen stood off,
and, being sufficiently banged, 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 mentioned above, make the two angles--or horns, as
they are called--from whence it is supposed this county received
its first name of Cornwall, or, as Mr. Camden 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 formed 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 thronged 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 (though not so far west) than
the other, which is more properly called the Land's End; but if we
may credit our mariners, it is more frequently first discovered
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 observed 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 anything out of order, so that they care not to keep the sea;
or (secondly) stand away for the Ram Head and Plymouth Sound; or
(thirdly) 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 fortified 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 washed away
long ago.

First, there are the islands of Scilly and the rocks about them;
these are placed like out-works to resist the first assaults of
this enemy, and so break the force of it, as the piles (or
starlings, as they are called) are placed before the solid
stonework of London Bridge to fence off the force either of the
water or ice, or anything 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 lie with an
infinite weight and force upon the land.  It is observed that these
rocks lie 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, out-works, as
I call them, to resist it; how high the waves come rolling 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 ore of tin 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 soldered together, lest the force of the sea should separate and
disjoint 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
tin, copper, and lead also placed by the Great Director of Nature
in these very remote angles (and, as I have said above, the ore is
found upon the very surface of the rocks a good way into the sea);
and that it does not only lie, 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 mixed 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 anything it finds about the house that is not
too heavy, though not fit for its food--as knives, forks, spoons,
and linen 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 Chersonese or Neck Land, called the Land's End, in
which there lies 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.