400 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



village a man of five hundred a year. The Shakspear 

 of the stone bust is the true Shakspear ; the head, a 

 powerful mass of brain, would require all Chalmers's 

 hat, the forehead is as broad, more erect and of 

 much more general capacity ; and the whole counten- 

 ance is that of a shrewd sagacious man, who could, of 

 course, be poetical when he willed it, rather more so 

 than anybody else, but who mingled wondrous little 

 poetry in his every-day business. The man whom the 

 stone bust represents could have been Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer, and in opening the budget his speech would 

 embody many of the figures of Cocker, judiciously 

 arranged, but not one poetical figure/ 



' Birmingham, Ravenhurst Street, Oct. 5th, 1845. 



' There is still a good deal to interest me within 

 half a day's ride of Birmingham ; I must revisit at least 

 once more the ancient formation in the neighbourhood 

 of Dudley, and see, what are rather famous in this 

 quarter, the Clent-hills, a group of eminences from 

 which Thomson is said to have drawn some of the 

 noblest descriptions in the Seasons. It is, however, no 

 mere love of sight-seeing that detains me in England. 

 Have you ever noticed on the shore what fishermen 

 call " the turn of the tide " ? Often, for the greater part 

 of an hour, it is impossible to say whether the sea is 

 rising or falling along the beach. But then all at once 

 there comes a change ; if it be flood that has com- 

 menced, the little waves come running upwards, bearing 

 on their tops a slight crust of dried sand, and pebble 

 after pebble disappears ; if it be ebb, the waters are 

 drawn off as if by suction, and strip after strip of the 

 damp strand is laid bare. Now, for the last month I 

 have felt, with regard to my health, as if the " tide was 



