

CHAPTER XVII. 



PRESTON AND SOUTHPORT WAY. 



The Bridegroom Sea 



Is toying with his wedded spouse, the shore. 

 He decorates her tawny brow with shells, 

 Retires a space, to see how fair she looks, 

 Then, proud, runs up to kiss her. 



ALEXANDER SMITH. 



AMDEN, in his famous seventeenth century 

 tour, says that he approached Lancashire 

 from Yorkshire, "that part of the country 

 lying beyond the mountains towards the 

 western ocean," with "a kind of dread," but 

 trusted to Divine Providence, which, he 

 said, "had gone with him hitherto," to help him in the 

 attempt. His apprehensions arose, no doubt, partly 

 upon the immense difficulties which in those days 

 attended travelling; but Lancashire west of the Riving- 

 ton range was, in its rural portions, at the same period 

 almost as rude and cheerless as Connemara. Towards 

 the sea there were vast expanses of moor and marsh, and 

 even the inland parts were cold and inhospitable. How 



