332 TELFORD'S JOURNEY TO BATH. PART VIII. 



commodious, and these were doubtless the points to which 

 the architect paid most attention. 



His completion of the church at Bridgenorth to 

 the satisfaction of the inhabitants brought Telford a 

 commission, in the following year, to erect a similar 

 edifice at Coalbrookdale. But in the mean time, to en- 

 large his knowledge and increase his acquaintance with 

 the best forms of architecture, he determined to make a 

 journey to London and through some of the principal 

 towns of the south of England. He accordingly visited 

 Gloucester, Worcester, and Bath, remaining several 

 days in the last-mentioned city. He was charmed be- 

 yond expression by his journey through the manufac- 

 turing districts of Gloucestershire. The whole seemed 

 to him a smiling scene of prosperous industry and middle 

 class comfort. But passing out of this " Paradise," as 

 he styles it, another stage brought him into a region 

 the very opposite. " We stopped," says he, " at a little 

 alehouse on the side of a rough hill to water the horses, 

 and lo ! the place was full of drunken blackguards, bel- 

 lowing out ' Church and King ! ' A poor ragged German 

 Jew happened to come up, whom those furious loyalists 

 had set upon and accused of being a Frenchman in dis- 

 guise. He protested that he was only a poor German 

 who 6 cut de corns/ and that all he wanted was to buy a 

 little bread and cheese. Nothing would serve them but 

 that he must be carried before the Justice. The great 

 brawny fellow of a landlord swore he should have 

 nothing in his house, and, being a constable, told him 

 that he would carry him to gaol. I interfered, and 

 endeavoured to pacify the assailants of the poor man ; 

 when suddenly the landlord, snatching up a long knife, 

 sliced off about a pound of raw bacon from a ham which 

 hung overhead, and, presenting it to the Jew, swore 

 that if he did not swallow it down at once he should not 

 be allowed to go. The man was in a worse plight than 



