HISTOBY OF THE ATOMIC THEORY. 65 



as he well could, and having partly entered, my companion 

 called out * oh ! ' with a long continuance. His toes were 

 unfortunately the sufferers. The old man had not yet got 

 settled in his contracted berth before he informed us that he 

 thought the coach a very small one. Indeed, his hat nearly 

 touched the roof when sitting. At Stockport, changed 

 horses, a famous lusty woman having brought them out, her 

 husband (I suppose) having been up late the night before. 

 The old gentleman told us a friend of his travelling in Wales 

 having occasion to call at an inn to breakfast, found the 

 housemaid busy rubbing the irons ; she left them, and took 

 his horse to stable. Where is the hostler, said he, that was 

 here the last time I was this way? ' I was him,' said the girl. 

 The landlord told his guest he never had a better hostler in 

 his life than she was. We got near to Macclesfield, when 

 my opposite companion, who did not know England as well 

 as Ann says she knows Europe, asked his fellow-traveller 

 whether we were in Staffordshire or Warwickshire. ♦ • • 

 At Newcastle our geographer remarked that there were two 

 Newcastles at a great distance from each other ; ' Newcastle- 

 upon-Tyne,' says he, * is that in England or in Scotland?* 

 After a short pause, the maltster says, ' it is in Cumberland, 

 I think.' ' No. In Northumberland,' said my left hand 

 friend. 



I have been here (Birmingham), at one of the show rooms, 

 to see the new lions, since I was last here. There are many 

 good things; amongst other things, they have got new 

 banisters, for stairs. What is it. Mahogany ? No. Lignum 

 vitae ? No. Ebony ? No. No sort of wood, nor metal either, 

 it is glass, cut glass." 



London, May 15th, 1825. 



" I agreed to go with Mr. Lowe, one of the superintendents 

 of the gas works, whom I was previously acquainted with, to 

 spend the night. It is at Highgate, four miles on the Nortli- 

 road; we took a stage at nine, and arrived in about forty 



K 



