THE QUANTOCKS. 235 



cannot these worthy citizens ride about till the unaccustomed 

 exercise renders the saddle uncomfortable ? Can they then not 

 lunch till two P.M., and toast " staghunting " till three ? After 

 this, a race or two along the heath road in which pleasant 

 sport a most practical instance of the inability of speed, as 

 produced by single horse power, to overcome an inert mass as 

 represented by a gigful of screaming women, come vividly 

 under notice. Then a return to the commissariat department 

 to recruit exhausted nature ; and the worthy burgesses are 

 ready for anything. 



But, over and above the opportunity for the study of human 

 nature under its freest and liveliest aspect, the Quantocks 

 have another compensating virtue, in the shape of scenery 

 wondrously beautiful. Descriptions of scenery at least from 

 an ordinary pen, of necessity read dull and flat if ever they 

 are read at all. For my part I generally skip them ; and I 

 expect my readers to treat me in the same way. But the 

 salient points of the landscape are often necessary to the argu- 

 ment of the play ; and, with no regard to scenic effect, must 

 yet be sketched in broad outline. On the topmost ridge, then, 

 there is a double view east and west. Each picture has the 

 same immediate foreground knots of horsemen, and men off 

 their horses, round well occupied and well-victualled carriages. 

 The eastern view gives the lovely fertile vale of Bridge water 

 flanked by the waters of the Channel in the distance black 

 under lowering rainclouds, nearer in, red as rusty iron with the 

 silting of the hills from the late storms. West and south-west 

 lies the similarly beautiful vale of Taunton the half-gathered 

 corn crops now wasting under the continued rain, while 

 the square of bright green turnips revel in the invigorating 

 moisture. (Weather cannot suit all his products, or Farmer 

 Giles might be left without his grievance.) The heights of 

 Brendon and the lofty head of Dunkerry to-day were lost in the 

 sooty vapour, that swept across them and hurried over the dark 

 water to join the banks of clouds on the Welsh hills. But the 

 hunting grounds of Hawkcombe, and Cloutsham, and all the 



