Harrogate. 273 



it on our way to Wetherby, and we esteemed the 

 vicar happy who had just escaped from it, mitre in 

 hand, to the green orchard alleys of Herefordshire. 

 On we go, past the meadow where the Royal en- 

 camped in '6 1. It was there that the Wetherby 

 Duchesses, with Duchess 77th at their head, won a 

 treble victory and retired on their laurels, that young 

 Nutbourne vanquished old Sir John Barleycorn, as 

 teetotallers never did, that Adam Bede and Overplus 

 were dons in the hunter classes, and that Wainman's 

 Silverhair was such a dainty queen among sows. 



We hardly know Harrogate again, and try in vain 

 to recognise the traces of what it was, when we first 

 saw it in '34, or Touchstone's year. " Old Johnny's 

 Well," or the strong chalybeate, has received the 

 cupola from the Old Sulphur W T ell ; the Tewit, or 

 Iron-water Well, is roofed in at last ; the Tewit, or 

 Iron-water Well on the Moor, seems unchanged ; and 

 the cupola of the Old Sulphur Well, whose waters 

 savour of the scourings of a gun-barrel, has been re- 

 placed by one thrice as large. It was the practice in 

 those days of expensive travelling to meet the fashions 

 half-way, and therefore the moment the London 

 season closed the Bond-street dealers detached a fore- 

 man, with a large amount of unsold goods in a van, to 

 spread his nets in High Harrogate, before the 

 " mothers and daughters" of the North. To some 

 extent they do so still, but the things do not find such 

 favour, now that the metropolis can be reached by 

 rail. The Dragon, the Granby, and the Crown were, 

 at the time we are noting, the only great hotels, and 

 the peerage, the " M.P.'s," and the Lancashire visitors, 

 were supposed to be their patrons respectively. Ad- 

 mission to the Dragon's balls was the object of count- 

 less hopes and fears. It seemed to be for the summer 

 months a very Almacks of Yorkshire. We have heard 

 a Crown president speaking as mysteriously of his 

 diplomacy in a ball-room " difficulty" between the 



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