NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 15 



understand that he should take me through a beautiful country, 

 by a new road which was then making in the direction of his 

 father's house. About three o'clock then we were under weigh 

 he on a hack which his servant had ridden after the carriage, 

 and myself on a Newcastle hack, that was deserving of a better 

 fate ; and after sauntering at our ease through one of the most 

 picturesque, well-wooded, and well-watered valleys I ever beheld 

 in my life, passing Axwell-park, the seat of Sir Thomas Claver- 

 ing, Bart, and Gibsicle, one of the seats of Mr. Bowes, of sporting 

 celebrity, and one of the representatives of the county of Durham, 

 v/e arrived at Hamsterley just in the nick of time, that is to say, 

 at the first clap of the dressing-bell. 



Who and what Mr. Surtees of Hamsterley is I shall have 

 great pleasure in once more informing my numerous readers ; 

 and having had ocular demonstration of his domicile I shall 

 avoid a mistake which I fell into in my Yorkshire Tour, of con- 

 founding it with that of his late accomplished relation, Mr. 

 Surtees, of Mainsforth Hall, near Sedgefield, author of the 

 " History of Durliam? considered a standard work. Now the 

 Squire of Hamsterley is net, to my knowledge, an author, but 

 " every inch of him " a sportsman ; yet who more proper than 

 himself to write on the antiquities of any country ? he being a 

 most religious observer of the remains of ancient times, in the 

 unbounded hospitality of his house and table ; one who it might 

 be imagined had himself existed in those ancient times when 

 men had high notions of the rights of hospitality, and not merely 

 the rules of civility ; when, as Homer says, strangers were 

 received as guests from heaven ; one who thinks with me that 

 the over-refinements of polished life are but a mask for insin- 

 cerity and heartlessness, in short, a true sample of the old 

 English Squire, and as good a judge of a horse, a hound, a bottle 

 of port wine, and an oak-tree, as any man in England, or any- 

 where else. Such, reader, is the well-lvnown Anthony Surtees of 

 Hamsterley, who commanded not invited me to his house, 

 when on my Yorkshire Tour ; who receives under the shadow of 

 his roof, not only his friends themselves, but their servants, their 

 horses, their hounds in short, anything they may favour him 

 with, that contributes to their amusement and comfort. He has, 

 however, an excellent house to stow them in, and perhaps one of 

 the best timbered estates in the county of Durham, in the 

 management of which, as regards the growth and arrangement 

 of the timber, he is said to have few equals, the result of atten- 

 tive experience. 



By the way, the allusion to this gentleman's timber reminds 

 me of a fact respecting the larch-tree, which it may not be amiss 



