^0Sb)trft. 221 



the Magna Brifanftia, it is stated, * the wadd, or black lead, 

 is not found in regular veins, but lying in lumps or nodules, 

 in the fissures of the slate-rock, the lumps varying from an 

 ounce to fifty pounds. When the mine is opened,"^ a suffi- 

 cient quantity is procured to answer the demand for several 

 years : the black lead of the best quality is packed in barrels 

 and sent to London by the waggons, — the proprietor of 

 which is bound in a considerable sum for its safe delivery. 

 It is deposited in the cellars under the Unitarian Chapel in 

 Essex Street : and, on the first Monday in every month, there 

 is a sale of it, which the pencil-makers attend in an upper 

 room in a public-house in the neighbourhood.' But whether 

 we purchase artist's pencils or not, at Keswick, by all means 

 let us purchase pencils, which, in a few minutes, the expert 

 workmen will deliver to you, with any name you please cut 

 in them in gold or colours. Nothing delights small folks at 

 home more than such gifts as these ; to see their own names 

 — and better still, their nicknames — engraved on their own 

 property, after this fashion, seems little less than magic, and, 

 if dear papa or mamma present them, the magic of love. 



Thirdly, on a wet day in Keswick, there is the visiting 

 ©tela Kali, once the residence of Robert ^outfjeg. In 

 that little house yonder, (for it is small for a Hall), which you 

 behold from the bridge, he wrote more than a hundred volumes 

 and a hundred and fifty articles — some of them, like that 

 on Nelson, as big as a book — for different Reviews ! Thirty- 

 four years ago, he escaped from the thrall, and is laid in 

 Crosthwaite Church, close by the scene of his studies and 

 labours of love. A visit to the church, and the monument 

 which it contains to his memory would be a fitting close to 

 this short walk. 



* The mine is shut at the present date, and has been so for years. 



