I came on horse-back 40 miles, slept on the road, and finished my harangue at the end of _twenty-two hours_ from leaving Kensington; and, I cannot help saying, that is pretty well for "_Old_ Cobbett." I am delighted with the people that I have seen at Reading. Their kindness to me is nothing in my estimation compared with the sense and spirit which they appear to possess. It is curious to observe how things have _worked_ with me. That combination, that sort of _instinctive_ union, which has existed for so many years, amongst all the parties, to _keep me down_ generally, and particularly, as the _County-Club_ called it, to keep me out of Parliament "_at any rate_," this combination has led to the present _haranguing_ system, which, in some sort, supplies the place of a seat in Parliament. It may be said, indeed, that I have not the honour to sit in the same room with those great Reformers, Lord John Russell, Sir Ma.s.sey Lopez, and his guest, Sir Francis Burdett; but man"s happiness here below is never perfect; and there may be, besides, people to believe, that a man ought not to break his heart on account of being shut out of such company, especially when he can find such company as I have this day found at Reading.
_10 November._
Went from Reading, through Aldermaston for Burghclere. The rain has been very heavy, and the water was a good deal out. Here, on my way, I got upon Crookham Common again, which is a sort of continuation of the wretched country about Oakingham. From Highclere I looked, one day, over the flat towards Marlborough; and I there saw some such rascally heaths.
So that this villanous tract, extends from East to West, with more or less of exceptions, from Hounslow to Hungerford. From North to South it extends from Binfield (which cannot be far from the borders of Buckinghamshire) to the South Downs of Hampshire, and terminates somewhere between Liphook and Petersfield, after stretching over Hindhead, which is certainly the most villanous spot that G.o.d ever made.
Our ancestors do, indeed, seem to have ascribed its formation to another power; for the most celebrated part of it is called "_the Devil"s Punch Bowl_." In this tract of country there are certainly some very beautiful spots. But these are very few in number, except where the chalk-hills run into the tract. The neighbourhood of G.o.dalming ought hardly to be considered as an exception; for there you are just on the outside of the tract, and begin to enter on the _Wealds_; that is to say, clayey woodlands. All the part of Berkshire, of which I have been recently pa.s.sing over, if I except the tract from Reading to Crookham, is very bad land and a very ugly country.
_11 November._
Uphusband _once more_, and, for the sixth time this year, over the North Hampshire Hills, which, notwithstanding their everlasting flints, I like very much. As you ride along, even in a _green lane_, the horses" feet make a noise like _hammering_. It seems as if you were riding on a ma.s.s of iron. Yet the soil is good, and bears some of the best wheat in England. All these high, and indeed, all chalky lands, are excellent for sheep. But, on the top of some of these hills, there are as fine meadows as I ever saw. Pasture richer, perhaps, than that about Swindon in the North of Wiltshire. And the singularity is, that this pasture is on the _very tops_ of these lofty hills, from which you can see the Isle of Wight. There is a stiff loam, in some places twenty feet deep, on a bottom of chalk. Though the gra.s.s grows so finely, there is no apparent wetness in the land. The wells are more than three hundred feet deep.
The main part of the water, for all uses, comes from the clouds; and, indeed, these are pretty constant companions of these chalk hills, which are very often enveloped in clouds and wet, when it is sunshine down at Burghclere or Uphusband. They manure the land here by digging _wells_ in the fields, and bringing up the chalk, which they spread about on the land; and which, being free-chalk, is reduced to powder by the frosts. A considerable portion of the land is covered with wood; and as, in the clearing of the land, the clearers followed the good soil, without regard to shape of fields, the forms of the woods are of endless variety, which, added to the never-ceasing inequalities of the surface of the whole, makes this, like all the others of the same description, a very pleasant country.
_17 November._
Set off from Uphusband for Hambledon. The first place I had to get to was Whitchurch. On my way, and at a short distance from Uphusband, down the valley, I went through a village called _Bourn_, which takes its name from the water that runs down this valley. A _bourn_, in the language of our forefathers, seems to be a river, which is, part of the year, _without water_. There is one of these bourns down this pretty valley. It has, generally, no water till towards Spring, and then it runs for several months. It is the same at the Candovers, as you go across the downs from Odiham to Winchester.
The little village of _Bourn_, therefore, takes its name from its situation. Then there are two _Hurstbourns_, one above and one below this village of Bourn. _Hurst_ means, I believe, a Forest. There were, doubtless, one of those on each side of Bourn; and when they became villages, the one above was called _Up_-hurstbourn, and the one below, _Down_-hurstbourn; which names have become _Uphusband_ and _Downhusband_. The lawyers, therefore, who, to the immortal honour of high-blood and Norman descent, are making such a pretty story out for the Lord Chancellor, relative to a n.o.ble Peer who voted for the Bill against the Queen, ought to leave off calling the seat of the n.o.ble person _Hursperne_; for it is at Downhurstbourn where he lives, and where he was visited by Dr. Bankhead!
Whitchurch is a small town, but famous for being the place where the paper has been made for the _Borough-Bank_! I pa.s.sed by the _mill_ on my way out to get upon the downs to go to Alresford, where I intended to sleep. I hope the time will come, when a monument will be erected where that mill stands, and when on that monument will be inscribed _the curse of England_. This spot ought to be held accursed in all time henceforth and for evermore. It has been the spot from which have sprung more and greater mischiefs than ever plagued mankind before. However, the evils now appear to be fast recoiling on the merciless authors of them; and, therefore, one beholds this scene of paper-making with a less degree of rage than formerly. My blood used to boil when I thought of the wretches who carried on and supported the system. It does not boil now, when I think of them. The curse, which they intended solely for others, is now falling on themselves; and I smile at their sufferings. Blasphemy!
Atheism! Who can be an Atheist, that sees how _justly_ these wretches are treated; with what exact measure they are receiving the evils which they inflicted on others for a time, and which they intended to inflict on them for ever! If, indeed, the monsters had continued to prosper, one might have been an Atheist. The true history of the rise, progress and fall of these monsters, of their _power_, their _crimes_ and their _punishment_, will do more than has been done before to put an end to the doubts of those who have doubts upon this subject.
Quitting Whitchurch, I went off to the left out of the Winchester-road, got out upon the high-lands, took an "observation," as the sailors call it, and off I rode, in a straight line, over hedge and ditch, towards the rising ground between Stratton Park and Micheldever-Wood; but, before I reached this point, I found some wet meadows and some running water in my way in a little valley running up from the turnpike road to a little place called _West Stratton_. I, therefore, turned to my left, went down to the turnpike, went a little way along it, then turned to my left, went along by Stratton Park pales down East Stratton-street, and then on towards the Grange Park. Stratton Park is the seat of Sir Thomas Baring, who has here several thousands of acres of land; who has the living of Micheldever, to which, I think, Northington and Swallowfield are joined. Above all, he has Micheldever Wood, which, they say, contains a thousand acres, and which is one of the finest oak-woods in England. This large and very beautiful estate must have belonged to the Church at the time of Henry the Eighth"s "_reformation_." It was, I believe, given by him to the family of _Russell_; and it was, by them, sold to Sir Francis Baring about twenty years ago. Upon the whole, all things considered, the change is for the better. Sir Thomas Baring would not have moved, nay, he _did not_ move, for the pardon of _Lopez_, while he left Joseph Swann in gaol for _four years and a half_, without so much as hinting at Swann"s case! Yea, verily, I would rather see this estate in the hands of Sir Thomas Baring than in those of Lopez"s friend. Besides, it seems to be acknowledged that any t.i.tle is as good as those derived from the old wife-killer. Castlereagh, when the Whigs talked in a rather rude manner about the sinecure places and pensions, told them, that the t.i.tle of the sinecure man or woman was _as good as the t.i.tles of the Duke of Bedford_! this was _plagiarism_, to the sure; for _Burke_ had begun it. He called the Duke the _Leviathan of grants_; and seemed to hint at the propriety of _over-hauling_ them a little.
When the men of Kent pet.i.tioned for a "_just_ reduction of the National Debt," Lord John Russell, with that wisdom for which he is renowned, reprobated the prayer; but, having done this in terms not sufficiently unqualified and strong, and having made use of a word of equivocal meaning, the man, that cut his own throat at North Cray, pitched on upon him and told him, that the fundholder had as much right to his dividends, as _the Duke of Bedford had to his estates_. Upon this the n.o.ble reformer and advocate for Lopez mended his expressions; and really said what the North Cray philosopher said he ought to say! Come, come: Micheldever Wood is in very proper hands! A little girl, of whom I asked my way down into East Stratton, and who was dressed in a camlet gown, white ap.r.o.n and plaid cloak (it was Sunday), and who had a book in her hand, told me that Lady Baring gave her the clothes, and had her taught to read and to sing hymns and spiritual songs.
As I came through the Strattons, I saw not less than a dozen girls clad in this same way. It is impossible not to believe that this is done with a good motive; but it is possible not to believe that it is productive of good. It must create hypocrites, and hypocrisy is the great sin of the age. Society is in a _queer_ state when the rich think, that they must _educate_ the poor in order to insure their _own safety_: for this, at bottom, is the great motive now at work in pushing on the education scheme, though in this particular case, perhaps, there may be a little enthusiasm at work. When persons are glutted with riches; when they have their fill of them; when they are surfeited of all earthly pursuits, they are very apt to begin to think about the next world; and, the moment they begin to think of that, they begin to look over the _account_ that they shall have to present. Hence the far greater part of what are called "charities." But it is the business of _governments_ to take care that there shall be very little of this _glutting_ with riches, and very little need of "charities."
From Stratton I went on to Northington Down; then round to the South of the Grange Park (Alex. Baring"s), down to Abbotson, and over some pretty little green hills to Alresford, which is a nice little town of itself, but which presents a singularly beautiful view from the last little hill coming from Abbotson. I could not pa.s.s by the Grange Park without thinking of _Lord and Lady Henry Stuart_, whose lives and deaths surpa.s.sed what we read of in the most sentimental romances. Very few things that I have met with in my life ever filled me with sorrow equal to that which I felt at the death of this most virtuous and most amiable pair.
It began raining soon after I got to Alresford, and rained all the evening. I heard here, that a Requisition for a County Meeting was in the course of being signed in different parts of the county. They mean to pet.i.tion for Reform, I hope. At any rate, I intend to go to see what they do. I saw the _parsons_ at the county meeting in 1817. I should like, of all things, to see them at another meeting _now_. These are the persons that I have most steadily in my eye. The war and the debt were for the _t.i.thes_ and the _boroughs_. These must stand or fall together now. I always told the parsons, that they were the greatest fools in the world to put the t.i.thes on board _the same boat_ with the boroughs. I told them so in 1817; and, I fancy, they will soon see all about it.
_November 18._
Came from Alresford to Hambledon, through t.i.tchbourn, Cheriton, Beauworth, Kilmston, and Exton. This is all a high, hard, dry, fox-hunting country. Like that, indeed, over which I came yesterday. At t.i.tchbourn, there is a park, and "great house," as the country-people call it. The place belongs, I believe, to a Sir somebody _t.i.tchbourne_, a family, very likely half as old as the name of the village, which, however, partly takes its name from the _bourn_ that runs down the valley. I thought, as I was riding alongside of this park, that I had heard _good_ of this family of t.i.tchbourne, and, I therefore saw the park _pales_ with sorrow. There is not more than one pale in a yard, and those that remain, and the rails and posts and all, seem tumbling down.
This park-paling is perfectly typical of those of the landlords who are _not tax-eaters_. They are wasting away very fast. The tax-eating landlords think to swim out the gale. They are deceived. They are "deluded" by their own greediness.
Kilmston was my next place after t.i.tchbourn, but I wanted to go to Beauworth, so that I had to go through Cheriton; a little, hard, iron village, where all seems to be as old as the hills that surround it. In coming along you see t.i.tchbourn church away to the right, on the side of the hill, a very pretty little view; and this, though such a hard country, is a pretty country.
At Cheriton I found a grand camp of _Gipsys_, just upon the move towards Alresford. I had met some of the scouts first, and afterwards the advanced guard, and here the main body was getting in motion. One of the scouts that I met was a young woman, who, I am sure, was six feet high.
There were two or three more in the camp of about the same height; and some most strapping fellows of men. It is curious that this race should have preserved their dark skin and coal-black straight and coa.r.s.e hair, very much like that of the American Indians. I mean the hair, for the skin has nothing of the copper-colour as that of the Indians has. It is not, either, of the Mulatto cast; that is to say, there is no yellow in it. It is a black mixed with our English colours of pale, or red, and the features are small, like those of the girls in Suss.e.x, and often singularly pretty. The tall girl that I met at t.i.tchbourn, who had a huckster basket on her arm, had most beautiful features. I pulled up my horse, and said, "Can you tell me my fortune, my dear?" She answered in the negative, giving me a look at the same time, that seemed to say, it was _too late_; and that if I had been thirty years younger she might have seen a little what she could do with me. It is, all circ.u.mstances considered, truly surprising, that this race should have preserved so perfectly all its distinctive marks.
I came on to Beauworth to inquire after the family of a worthy old farmer, whom I knew there some years ago, and of whose death I had heard at Alresford. A bridle road over some fields and through a coppice took me to Kilmston, formerly a large village, but now mouldered into two farms, and a few miserable tumble-down houses for the labourers. Here is a house, that was formerly the residence of the landlord of the place, but is now occupied by one of the farmers. This is a fine country for fox-hunting, and Kilmston belonged to a Mr. Ridge who was a famous fox-hunter, and who is accused of having spent his fortune in that way.
But what do people mean? He had a right to spend his _income_, as his fathers had done before him. It was the Pitt-system, and not the fox-hunting, that took away the princ.i.p.al. The place now belongs to a Mr. Long, whose origin I cannot find out.
From Kilmston I went right over the downs to the top of a hill called _Beacon Hill_, which is one of the loftiest hills in the country. Here you can see the Isle of Wight in detail, a fine sweep of the sea; also away into Suss.e.x, and over the New Forest into Dorsetshire. Just below you, to the East, you look down upon the village of Exton; and you can see up this valley (which is called a _Bourn_ too) as far as West Meon, and down it as far as Soberton. Corhampton, Warnford, Meon-Stoke and Droxford come within these two points; so that here are six villages on this bourn within the s.p.a.ce of about five miles. On the other side of the main valley down which the bourn runs, and opposite Beacon Hill, is another such a hill, which they call _Old Winchester Hill_. On the top of this hill there was once a camp, or, rather fortress; and the ramparts are now pretty nearly as visible as ever. The same is to be seen on the Beacon Hill at Highclere. These ramparts had nothing of the principles of modern fortification in their formation. You see no signs of salliant angles. It was a _ditch_ and _a bank_, and that appears to have been all. I had, I think, a full mile to go down from the top of Beacon Hill to Exton. This is the village where that _Parson Baines_ lives who, as described by me in 1817, bawled in Lord Cochrane"s ear at Winchester in the month of March of that year. Parson _Poulter_ lives at Meon-Stoke, which is not a mile further down. So that this valley has something in it besides picturesque views! I asked some countrymen how Poulter and Baines did; but their answer contained too much of _irreverence_ for me to give it here.
At Exton I crossed the Gosport turnpike road, came up the cross valley under the South side of Old Winchester Hill, over Stoke down, then over West-End down, and then to my friend"s house at West-End in the parish of Hambledon.
Thus have I crossed nearly the whole of this country from the North-West to the South-East, without going five hundred yards on a turnpike road, and, as nearly as I could do it, in a straight line.
The whole country that I have crossed is loam and flints, upon a bottom of chalk. At Alresford there are some watered meadows, which are the beginning of a chain of meadows that goes all the way down to Winchester, and hence to Southampton; but even these meadows have, at Alresford, chalk under them. The water that supplies them comes out of _a pond_, called Alresford Pond, which is fed from the high hills in the neighbourhood. These counties are purely agricultural; and they have suffered most cruelly from the accursed Pitt-system. Their hilliness, bleakness, roughness of roads, render them unpleasant to the luxurious, effeminate, tax-eating crew, who never come near them, and who have pared them down to the very bone. The villages are all in a state of _decay_. The farm-buildings dropping down, bit by bit. The produce is, by a few great farmers, dragged to a few spots, and all the rest is falling into decay. If this infernal system could go on for forty years longer, it would make all the labourers as much slaves as the negroes are, and subject to the same sort of discipline and management.
_November 19 to 23._
At West End. Hambledon is a long, straggling village, lying in a little valley formed by some very pretty but not lofty hills. The environs are much prettier than the village itself, which is not far from the North side of Portsdown Hill. This must have once been a considerable place; for here is a church pretty nearly as large as that at Farnham in Surrey, which is quite sufficient for a large town. The means of living has been drawn away from these villages, and the people follow the means. Cheriton and Kilmston and Hambledon and the like have been beggared for the purpose of giving tax-eaters the means of making "_vast improvements, Ma"am_," on the villanous spewy gravel of Windsor Forest!
The thing, however, must go _back_. Revolution here or revolution there: bawl, bellow, alarm, as long as the tax-eaters like, _back_ the thing must go. Back, indeed, _it is going_ in some quarters. Those scenes of glorious loyalty, the sea-port places, are beginning to be deserted. How many villages has that scene of all that is wicked and odious, Portsmouth, Gosport, and Portsea; how many villages has that h.e.l.lish a.s.semblage beggared! It is now being scattered _itself_! Houses which there let for forty or fifty pounds a-year each, now let for three or four shillings a-week each; and thousands, perhaps, cannot be let at all to any body capable of paying rent. There is an absolute tumbling down taking place, where, so lately, there were such "vast improvements, Ma"am!" Does Monsieur de Snip call those improvements, then? Does he insist, that those houses form "an addition to the national capital?" Is it any wonder that a country should be miserable when such notions prevail? And when they can, even in the Parliament, be received with cheering?
_Nov. 24, Sunday._
Set off from Hambledon to go to Thursley in Surrey, about five miles from G.o.dalming. Here I am at Thursley, after as interesting a day as I ever spent in all my life. They say that "_variety_ is charming," and this day I have had of scenes and of soils a variety indeed!
To go to Thursley from Hambledon the plain way was up the downs to Petersfield, and then along the turnpike-road through Liphook, and over Hindhead, at the north-east foot of which Thursley lies. But, I had been over that sweet Hindhead, and had seen too much of turnpike-road and of heath, to think of taking another so large a dose of them. The map of Hampshire (and we had none of Surrey) showed me the way to Headley, which lies on the West of Hindhead, down upon the flat. I knew it was but about five miles from Headley to Thursley; and I, therefore, resolved to go to Headley, in spite of all the remonstrances of friends, who represented to me the danger of breaking my neck at Hawkley and of getting buried in the bogs of Woolmer Forest. My route was through East-Meon, Froxfield, Hawkley, Greatham, and then over Woolmer Forest (a _heath_ if you please), to Headley.
Off we set over the downs (crossing the bottom sweep of Old Winchester Hill) from West-End to East-Meon. We came down a long and steep hill that led us winding round into the village, which lies in a valley that runs in a direction nearly east and west, and that has a rivulet that comes out of the hills towards Petersfield. If I had not seen anything further to-day, I should have dwelt long on the beauties of this place.
Here is a very fine valley, in nearly an eliptical form, sheltered by high hills sloping gradually from it; and not far from the middle of this valley there is a hill nearly in the form of a goblet-gla.s.s with the foot and stem broken off and turned upside down. And this is clapped down upon the level of the valley, just as you would put such goblet upon a table. The hill is lofty, partly covered with wood, and it gives an air of great singularity to the scene. I am sure that East-Meon has been a _large place_. The church has a _Saxon Tower_, pretty nearly equal, as far as I recollect, to that of the Cathedral at Winchester.
The rest of the church has been rebuilt, and, perhaps, several times; but the _tower_ is complete; it has had _a steeple_ put upon it; but it retains all its beauty, and it shows that the church (which is still large) must, at first, have been a very large building. Let those, who talk so glibly of the increase of the population in England, go over the country from Highclere to Hambledon. Let them look at the size of the churches, and let them observe those numerous small enclosures on every side of every village, which had, to a certainty, _each its house_ in former times. But let them go to East-Meon, and account for that church.
Where did the hands come from to make it? Look, however, at the downs, the many square miles of downs near this village, all bearing the _marks of the plough_, and all out of tillage for many many years; yet, not one single inch of them but what is vastly superior in quality to any of those great "improvements" on the miserable heaths of Hounslow, Bagshot, and Windsor Forest. It is the destructive, the murderous paper-system, that has transferred the fruit of the labour, and the people along with it, from the different parts of the country to the neighbourhood of the all-devouring _Wen_. I do not believe one word of what is said of the increase of the population. All observation and all reason is against the fact; and, as to the _parliamentary returns_, what need we more than this: that _they_ a.s.sert, that the population of Great Britain has increased from ten to fourteen millions in the last _twenty years_! That is enough! A man that can suck that in will believe, literally believe, that the moon is made of green cheese. Such a thing is too monstrous to be swallowed by any body but Englishmen, and by any Englishman not brutified by a Pitt-system.
TO MR. CANNING.
_Worth (Suss.e.x), 10 December, 1822._
SIR,
The agreeable news from France, relative to the intended invasion of Spain, compelled me to break off, in my last Letter, in the middle of my _Rural Ride_ of Sunday, the 24th of November. Before I mount again, which I shall do in this Letter, pray let me ask you what _sort of apology_ is to be offered to the nation, if the French Bourbons be permitted to take quiet possession of Cadiz and of the Spanish naval force? Perhaps you may be disposed to answer, when you have taken time to reflect; and, therefore, leaving you to _muse_ on the matter, I will resume my ride.
_November 24._
(Sunday.) From Hambledon to Thursley (continued).
From East-Meon, I did not go on to Froxfield church, but turned off to the left to a place (a couple of houses) called _Bower_. Near this I stopped at a friend"s house, which is in about as lonely a situation as I ever saw. A very pleasant place however. The lands dry, a nice mixture of woods and fields, and a great variety of hill and dell.
Before I came to East-Meon, the soil of the hills was a shallow loam with flints, on a bottom of chalk; but on this side of the valley of East-Meon; that is to say, on the north side, the soil on the hills is a deep, stiff loam, on a bed of a sort of gravel mixed with chalk; and the stones, instead of being grey on the outside and blue on the inside, are yellow on the outside and whitish on the inside. In coming on further to the North, I found, that the bottom was sometimes gravel and sometime chalk. Here, at the time when _whatever it was_ that formed these hills and valleys, the stuff of which Hindhead is composed seems to have run down and mixed itself with the stuff of which _Old Winchester Hill_ is composed. Free chalk (which is the sort found here) is excellent manure for stiff land, and it produces a complete change in the nature of _clays_. It is, therefore, dug here, on the North of East-Meon, about in the fields, where it happens to be found, and is laid out upon the surface, where it is crumbled to powder by the frost, and thus gets incorporated with the loam.
At Bower I got instructions to go to Hawkley, but accompanied with most earnest advice not to go that way, for that it was impossible to get along. The roads were represented as so bad; the floods so much out; the hills and bogs so dangerous; that, really, I began to _doubt_; and, if I had not been brought up amongst the clays of the Holt Forest and the bogs of the neighbouring heaths, I should certainly have turned off to my right, to go over Hindhead, great as was my objection to going that way. "Well, then," said my friend at Bower, "if you _will_ go that way, by G--, you must go down _Hawkley Hanger_;" of which he then gave me _such_ a description! But, even this I found to fall short of the reality. I inquired simply, whether _people were in the habit_ of going down it; and, the answer being in the affirmative, on I went through green lanes and bridle-ways till I came to the turnpike-road from Petersfield to Winchester, which I crossed, going into a narrow and almost untrodden green lane, on the side of which I found a cottage.
Upon my asking the way to _Hawkley_, the woman at the cottage said, "Right up the lane, Sir: you"ll come to a _hanger_ presently: you must take care, Sir: you can"t ride down: will your horses _go alone_?"
On we trotted up this pretty green lane; and indeed, we had been coming gently and generally up hill for a good while. The lane was between highish banks and pretty high stuff growing on the banks, so that we could see no distance from us, and could receive not the smallest hint of what was so near at hand. The lane had a little turn towards the end; so that, out we came, all in a moment, at the very edge of the hanger! And never, in all my life, was I so surprised and so delighted!
I pulled up my horse, and sat and looked; and it was like looking from the top of a castle down into the sea, except that the valley was land and not water. I looked at my servant, to see what effect this unexpected sight had upon him. His surprise was as great as mine, though he had been bred amongst the North Hampshire hills. Those who had so strenuously dwelt on the dirt and dangers of this route, had said not a word about beauties, the matchless beauties of the scenery. These hangers are woods on the sides of very steep hills. The trees and underwood _hang_, in some sort, to the ground, instead of _standing on_ it. Hence these places are called _Hangers_. From the summit of that which I had now to descend, I looked down upon the villages of Hawkley, Greatham, Selborne and some others.
From the south-east, round, southward, to the north-west, the main valley has cross-valleys running out of it, the hills on the sides of which are very steep, and, in many parts, covered with wood. The hills that form these cross-valleys run out into the main valley, like piers into the sea. Two of these promontories, of great height, are on the west side of the main valley, and were the first objects that struck my sight when I came to the edge of the hanger, which was on the south. The ends of these promontories are nearly perpendicular, and their tops so high in the air, that you cannot look at the village below without something like a feeling of apprehension. The leaves are all off, the hop-poles are in stack, the fields have little verdure; but, while the spot is beautiful beyond description even now, I must leave to imagination to suppose what it is, when the trees and hangers and hedges are in leaf, the corn waving, the meadows bright, and the hops upon the poles!