354 THE ELLESMERE CANAL. TART VIII. 



occupied the evening at his inn in composing some 

 stanzas, entitled ' An Address to the River Avon.' 

 And when on his way back to Shrewsbury, while 

 resting for the night at Bridgenorth, he amused him- 

 self with revising and copying out the verses for the 

 perusal of Andrew Little. " There are worse employ- 

 ments," he said, " when one has an hour to spare from 

 business ;" and he asked his friend's opinion of the com- 

 position. It seems to have been no more favourable 

 than the verses deserved ; for, in his next letter, Telford 

 says, " I think your observations respecting the verses 

 to the Avon are correct. It is but seldom I have time 

 to versify ; but it is to me something like what a fiddle 

 is to others. I apply to it in order to relieve my 

 mind, after being much fatigued with close attention to 

 business." 



It is very pleasant to see the engineer relaxing him- 

 self in this way, and submitting cheerfully to unfavour- 

 able criticism, which is so trying to even the best of 

 tempers. The time, however, thus taken from his regular 

 work was not loss, but gain. Taking the character 

 of his occupation into account, it was probably the best 

 kind of relaxation he could have indulged in. With 

 his head full of bridges and viaducts, he thus kept his 

 , heart open to the influences of beauty in life and nature ; 

 and, at all events, the writing of verses, indifferent though 

 they might have been, proved of this value to him 

 that it cultivated in him the art of writing better prose. 



