23 
worth’s ‘“‘Waggoner,” who also built Greta Hall and Greta Lodge, 
and was the genial landlord of Southey and Coleridge. Museum 
House was built for a carrier’s inn, and an archway (now walled 
up) received his six-horse waggon for a few years, Licence was 
never applied for it as an inn, for he met with a tenant for the rest 
of the building in Mr. Peter Crosthwaite, who had just then 
commenced a museum for the entertainment of tourists. He 
began the museum on the opposite side of the Square in 1780, 
and removed to the opposite side in 1784. Mr. Atkinson, during 
the greater part of his postmastership, conducted the office opposite 
the museum, and he continued to do so till 1846, when he retired. 
It may amuse you to mention some of Mr. Atkinson’s subordin- 
ates in postal duties. Southey* thus mentions the letter carrier in 
writing to Grosvenor C. Bedford, Esq., on Dec. 28th, 1828 :— 
**Tt is not likely that you should recollect a poor, harmless, honest old man, 
who used to deliver the letters when you were at Keswick ; Joseph Littledale 
is his name, and, if you remember him, it will be bya chronic, husky cough, 
which generally announced his approach. Poor Littledale has this day 
explained the cause of our late rains, which have prevailed for the last five 
weeks, by a theory which will probably be as new to you as it istome, ‘I 
__ have observed,’ he says, ‘that when the moon is turned upward, we have fine 
_ weather after it; but if it is turned down, then we have a wet season. And 
the reason I think is, that when it is turned down it holds no water, like a 
bason, you know, and then down it all comes.’ 
“*There, Grosvenor, it will be a long while before the march of intellect shall 
produce a theory as original as this, which I find upon enquiry to be the popular 
_ opinion here.” 
Many still living will remember, as I do, old Joe Littledale. He 
was the town bellman, and always ended his announcements with 
the loyal peroration :— 
‘*God save the King, 
His noble Consort the Queen, and 
All the Royal Family !” 
He died in 1836, aged eighty-six years. 
Many will remember a successor as town letter-carrier. Peggy 
_ Hartley for many years filled the office, and she was a general 
* Life and Correspondence, by Rey, C, C, Southey, Vol, v., p. 341. 
