15 
with the friends of his youth. He presented his “Medical Dic- 
tionary” in two vols. to the Keswick Library. 
The riding work was done by men or boys on horseback, and 
the letter bags were conveyed in saddlebags. We remember 
hearing of John, Ben, and Will Brockbank performing this duty 
for years in Mr. I‘Anson’s time. The postman blew a horn to 
announce his approach, and this official is well described by the 
poet Cowper in Zhe Task, Book 4, “The Winter Evening.” 
‘‘ Hark ! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge, 
That with its wearisome but needful length 
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon 
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright ;— 
He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 
With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks ; 
News from all nations lumbering on his back. 
True to his charge, the close-packed load behind, 
Vet careless what he brings, his one concern 
Is to conduct it to the destined inn ; 
And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on. 
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, 
Cold and yet cheerful : messenger of grief 
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ; 
To him indifferent whether grief or joy. 
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, 
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet 
With tears, that trickled down the writer’s cheeks 
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, 
Or charged with am’rous sighs of absent swains, 
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect 
His horse and him, unconscious of them all.” 
Tradition still points to a plantation near Dacre road end, on 
the Penrith ride, where the postman was dismounted by footpads 
and tied to a tree, while the robbers emptied the postbag in 
 pootless search for booty, then decamped and left the poor wretch 
in the cold night till he was delivered by the first passer by in the 
morning. My predecessor once told me, that when he first took 
the office, he could have put all the letters which came to Keswick 
into his breeches pocket ; and we may be sure that of bank notes 
or gold there would be none. 
The remark about breeches pocket reminds me of a story of 
