TJie General Aspect of the Country. 291 



from the fish and wild fowl, the horses draw their loads over 

 the soft stoneless soil unshod. 



Turning once again to the southern counties, the reader 

 might in a similar fashion trace out the route of Watling 

 Street. Starting amidst the Kentish orchards, whose cherry- 

 trees invaded England with Julius Caesar,^ he leaves on his left 

 that " seagift " of rich pasturage called Romney Marsh, and 

 skirting the choice fruit gardens of Tenham recently planted 

 by Richard Harris, Henry VIII.'s gardener, he might wander 

 onward over the fertile Thames valley through the western 

 suburbs of London to St. Alban's, and so on past Dunstable, 

 Shakespeare's birthplace, and the "Wrekin into Wales. 



Abandoning now the great main routes, let us examine 

 those parts of the country interesting, on account of some 

 special feature, to the student of Landed history. There were 

 localities devoted to now extinct industries ; and there were 

 others whose landed proprietors little dreamed of the mineral 

 wealth lying hid beneath their feet. An example of the latter 

 case was Lancashire, most of whose world-famed seams of coal 

 were as yet intact. That part of the county adjoining Cumber- 

 land was wholly devoted to agriculture. Its plains bore mighty 

 crops of barley and wheat ; its hill skirts yielded oats ; its 

 inhabitants were "faire and beautiful," and their kine " well- 

 proportioned, with goodly heads and faire spread homes." 

 About the upper reaches of the Mersey were situated the mer- 

 cantile towns ; lower down lay the moss grounds, out of which 

 men frequently dug huge trees which served for fuel. The 

 river, when just about to join the sea, opens out into a wide 

 pool which has furnished a derivation for the town's name 

 at its mouth, even then a frequented port for Irish com- 

 merce. But though the coal lay undisturbed in this county, 

 up away in Northumberland towards the mouth of the Tyne 

 " those stones called sea coles were dug in great plenty to the 

 great gaine of the inhabitants and commodity of others." 

 The mineral was no doubt the more valued from the fact that 

 in this region of the Marches agriculture could be practised 

 with dififtculty, for all the land was " rough and hard," and of 



1 A.D. 48. 



