COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



dependent upon previous wet weather, increase or lessen the 

 capricious flow of the streamlets. On the Wolds above Grimsby 

 is one of these, known as Welbeck, which Denzil Holies had 

 intended to divert to the moats of a great house projected by 

 him in the neighbourhood. He died, however, in 1590, before 

 he could carry out his schemes, the regularly-planted oak trees 

 round the house's site and the still-bubbling well-head only 

 remaining to tell the story. It was of such an intermittent 

 spring that a farmer roundly accused his parson, who had lately 

 come with some new ecclesiastical ideas into the parish, of 

 being the cause that the water had not burst for many months : 

 "'Twasn't likely it should run when thou comedst with thy 

 Puseyism ! " We have known people on their deathbeds long, 

 after the touching fashion of David with the well of Bethlehem, 

 for a draught from the sparkling spring of Welbeck ; and no 

 better water-cresses can be found in the country-side than 

 those which grow in the wide basin under the spring when -it 

 does condescend to run. 



The Wold, then, being the hilly as opposed to the Fen 

 country, and having gained the name from its wild, wooded 

 nature, we purpose to take our readers through some of its 

 scenery. With its northern portion is associated a book so 

 curious in itself that it deserves mention, though we shall not 

 dare to emulate its euphuistic English. It is almost incredible 

 that little more than fifty years ago such a magnificently- 

 pompous style could have found favour with book-buyers. 

 The book, which is now scarce, is by a Miss Hatfield, who 

 seems to have been a governess, and its pages represent the 

 fashionable superfine diction which in those benighted days of 

 education was taught to children."* "Dear Frederick" is 

 never suffered to hear the commonest object named in other 



* " The Terra Incognita of Lincolnshire ; with Observations, Moral, 

 Descriptive, and Historical, in Original Letters written purposely for the 

 Improvement of Youth, 1816." 



