CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



so it continues for thirteen miles, all the way 

 from Birmingham to Wolverhampton.' Pursuing 

 his journey, our author continues: 'The country 

 appeared more and more rural as I pursued my 

 north-westerly route ; the sound of distant chimes 

 came floating on the breeze, and the very air 

 seemed glad with the music of larks. . . . The 

 view, made up of broad rolling fields, and a glimpse 

 of blue uplands in the distance between the trees, 

 feasts the eye with verdure and good cultivation ; 

 and though not at all romantic, holds a charm in 

 its pretty lanes and inviting footpaths, and sooth- 

 ing quietness. . . . Then there were the timbered 

 houses, relics of the olden time, that seem impreg- 

 nate with domestic histories of the days of the 

 Shropshire worthies Baxter, Wycherley, and 

 stout old Benbow, or, peradventure, with reminis- 

 cences of the civil wars. If outward signs may 

 be trusted, that one with pretty spires to the 

 dormer windows, and with such a wealth of 

 roses, sweet brier, and hollyhocks in the front 

 garden, such magnificent lilies and peonies, is the 

 happiest of all. Another, partly overhung with 

 ivy, has checkered panels, black and white being 

 the prevailing style. . . . Not a mile of the 

 way but shews signs of prosperity, and fertility 

 is manifest by the timber as well as by the 

 crops. . . . Then more sycamores and large 

 oaks, and clumps of walnuts, and more gray 

 gables and thatched roofs ; then a lane, along 

 which runs a green strip between the wheel- 

 tracks, where the hedges, furlong after furlong, 

 are a maze of ferns, roses, and honeysuckle; where 

 the oak branches meet overhead, and ivy enwraps 

 the stems ; where from time to time a half-con- 

 cealed pool almost startles you by its sunken 

 shadows, and there seems something mysterious 

 in the bird that darts suddenly from the covert, 

 and flits silently across the sleeping water.' 



A noteworthy and harmonious feature of English 

 scenery is the country town, replete with historic 

 association as it often is. 'The narrow declivi- 

 tous thoroughfare of Water Lane,' says Mr White, 

 describing Shrewsbury, ' shews us where the par- 

 liamentary troops were secretly admitted while 

 besieging the town in 1644-45. The Butter Cross 

 suggests an earlier time, for it stands on the place 

 where David of Wales was tortured to death by 

 order of Edward I. ; and where certain noble and 

 knightly prisoners, captured at the battle of 

 Shrewsbury, lost their heads. Under the graceful 

 spire of St Alkmunds, or Stalkmuns, as the natives 

 have it, we are reminded of Ethelfleda, who built 

 a church on the spot in the tenth century of the 

 stately edifice that followed, which the parishioners 

 pulled down in a panic because St Chads fell ; in 

 which church, as the chronicler tells, writing in 

 I 533> " This yere upon twelffe daye in Shrousbury, 

 the Dyvyll appearyd in Saint Alkmonds' Churche 

 there, when the preest was at high masse, with 

 great tempeste and darknesse, so that as he passyd 

 through he mountyd up the steeple in the sayde 

 churche, tering the wyers of the clocke, and put 

 the print of his clawes upon the 4th bell, and took 

 one of the pynnacles awaye with hym, and for the 

 tyme stayed all the bells in the churches within 

 the sayde towne that they could neyther toll nor 

 ringe." And so,' continues Mr White, ' while 

 passing hither and thither, our thought flits to and 

 fro among the centuries. The castle grounds, 

 approached by a lofty arched gateway, contain 



230 



vestiges of our old acquaintance Roger de Mont- 

 gomery's stronghold, and the keep and round 

 towers built by Edward I. We can imagine its- 

 history from the glimpses we have had of the 

 olden time in our wanderings through the country. 

 Near the bridge stand a few houses of the reiga 

 of Henry VII. At Ludlow, we saw the lodgings 

 of the two young princes ; at Bridgenorth, we were 

 not far from the place where the Duke of Buck- 

 ingham, riding one day in a discontented mood, 

 met by accident the Lady Margaret, Countess of 

 Richmond, and, as he relates, ''communed with 

 her a little concernynge her sonne ; " and here we 

 are in the streets through which the Earl of 

 Richmond marched on his way from Milford- 

 Haven, to victory and vengeance at Bosworth 

 Field.' These extracts, we think, convey forcibly 

 and truly a sense of the poetic spirit of English 

 landscape tame and uninteresting it will doubtless 

 seem to many, who can fully appreciate the awful 

 grandeur of Glencoe. Its peculiar charm for 

 charm to some it certainly has lies, it seems to 

 us, in the blending of august historic association 

 of a sense of the warfare and long-spent fury of 

 bygone ages with a feeling of the wealth, activity,, 

 security, and peace of the present. 



ANTIQUITIES, ETC. 



Perhaps the earliest objects of antiquity in Eng- 

 land are the barrows or tumuli with which the- 

 Britons, like so many other uncivilised nations, 

 were accustomed to cover the remains of the dead. 

 Several specimens of these still exist, but many 

 more have been destroyed and levelled with the 

 soil. Their construction, contents, and other 

 peculiarities are noticed under ARCHEOLOGY. 



With tumuli may be classed the dolmen (Celt- 

 daul) a table ; maen, a stone table-stone) which con- 

 sists of a large slab of stone placed flatwise, or in a 

 sloping position, upon two upright ones. These 

 structures were at one time believed to be altars 

 for human sacrifices ; but numerous excavations 

 have demonstrated them to be sepulchral monu- 

 ments. Cromlechs, or stone circles, are more com- 

 plicated. They usually consist of circles of huge 

 stones placed on end, with, in some instances, 

 connected lines or rows of similar stones, the 

 whole forming objects at once rude and imposing. 

 From a once prevalent belief that they were the 

 temples of the Druids, they are often called 

 Druidical circles. The most remarkable Druidical 

 circle is that of Abury, six miles from Marl- 

 borough, in Wiltshire. While the diameter of the 

 outer circle of stones at Stonehenge is about 100 

 feet, that of Abury is nearly 1300. The position, 

 of 650 stones at Abury has been ascertained, but 

 not above 20 of these are now standing. With a- 

 deplorable Vandalism, the rest have been broken, 

 up to build the modern village, which stands 

 within the inclosure. The structure of Abury 

 was in some respects peculiar. The whole was 

 surrounded by a huge rampart, and, inside of it, 

 a deep ditch ; the slope from the bottom of the 

 ditch to the top of the mound measures even yet, 

 in some places, from 70 to 80 feet. The circular 

 area thus inclosed contains upwards of 28 acres. 

 Around the edge of this area stood a hundred 

 massive unhewn pillars, 27 feet apart, and from 

 14 to 17 feet high. Within this outer circle were 

 two other smaller circles, standing side by side * 





