CHAPTEE VI. 



What more felicity can fall to creature 

 Than to enjoy delight with liberty ? 



Spenser. 



A WALK THROUGH POETLAND. 



Some jottings of tlie amenities of Portland, which 

 I hastily put down in the course of a pedestrian excur- 

 sion through it, may not be unacceptable to such of 

 my readers as have not had an opportunity of becom- 

 ing acquainted with it ; for it is rather an original 

 little isle, and has some claims of its own to attention. 

 After clearing that city of stone blocks which I have 

 before mentioned, I wound round the foot of the hill, 

 and mounted the steep village of Fortune's Well, with 

 its pretty houses and nice shops, all of stone of course 

 (on the principle of patronising the home manufacture) , 

 and the substantial chm'ch, and neat rectory, where 

 dwells — a blessing to the inhabitants — my venerated 

 friend, the Eev. Mr. Jenour. As I toiled up the preci- 

 pitous road in the summer's sun, it was a relief to 

 turn, at times, and solace my eyes with the almost 

 boundless prospect that expanded behind, every- 

 where indeed, except just in front. The villages of 

 Fortune's Well and Chesil, united into one, lie just 

 beneath ; then stretches away in a line, of which the 

 eye fails to detect the termination, the Chesil Beach 



