340 



THE TOPOGRAPHY OF WORCESTERSHIRE. 



Borrowed and again conveyed 



From book to book — the shadows of a shade." 



Crabbe. 



There is no jfood History of Worcestershire extant. This assertion 

 we mean to make the text of a long and elaborate discussion. *' No 

 good History of Worcestershire!" we fancy the gentle reader echoes 

 in astonishment ; are there not Nash's ponderous tomes ? surely two such 

 volumes contain all that can be interesting relative to that county. There 

 is, besides. Laird's Topography of Worcestershire, 8vo. ; Cooke's 

 Worcestershire, and the " Family Topographer," recently published, 

 which includes the Oxford Circuit. Of these two last more anon ; Dr. 

 Nash's volumes are indeed worthy of high praise, and contain materials 

 for a valuable history, — they preserve and render accessible many im- 

 portant documents, but can be considered only as a work of reference. 

 Like a sinuous but unnavigable river wandering through a great extent 

 of country, that would form an excellent reservoir to a canal, so the 

 Doctor's work, though itself unreadable, might be made the source of a 

 very interesting volume. With regard to Laird's topography, entertain- 

 ing and useful as it is in some respects, and partly written from personal 

 observation, it only professes to point out the "beauties" of Worces- 

 tershire, and is, consequently, desultory, superficial, and unsatisfactory. 

 We shall presently make a few remarks on Cooke and the " Family 

 Topographer," which will fully prove the axiom with which we set out — 

 that there is no good history of Worcestershire extant.* 



We contemplated at one time the composition of a popular history of 

 Worcestershire, but we soon discovered it was no easy task, and after 

 various lockings up in vaults and churches, where our presence had 

 been unobserved — after risking our neck upon towers and pinnacles, 

 battering our hat and our head in low dark passages, — taken for a spy, 

 and suspected of designs upon the church plate, — we fairly broke down 

 in our antiquarian researches, and abandoned the tomb and the charnel- 

 house for the cheerful light of day and the fragrant flowers of the 

 plain. 



Notwithstanding, however, having thus given Camden and Dean 

 Willis the slip, we have reserved some of our precious MSS., which, if 

 we at present mortify the public by abstaining from publishing, will at 

 least help us to correct the errors of others — and we therefore give this 

 friendly warning, lest any pseudo topographers should attempt to pass 

 muster in ** The Analyst." 



The author or compiler of a topographical work ought to possess 

 a taste for antiquarian investigation, but he should be cautious not to be 

 misled by nicks in old stones, or deceived by visions of Roman cities that 

 never had reality. On the other hand, he ought not to despise 

 evidence, or be wedded to a theory. He should examine all old records 

 he can meet with as bases for his inferences, not for the purpose of 

 intruding these verbose documents wholesale upon his readers, but care- 



* We do not here allude to the admirable lecture of Dr." Hastings on the 

 " Natural History of Worcestershire" — that shines forth a sunbeam among the 

 clouds — and is a model, as far as it goes, which we cordially approve. We here 

 point exclusively to the topography and antiquities of the county. 



