76 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



This find was very all right up to a certain point, 

 as I went well with Maro Antony Lower, a 

 real authority on the county and all its works, 

 went strong indeed, and was as one should be 

 at Rosherville, doing a Happy Day, till I came 

 to his playing William Cobbett, who is made 

 responsible for calling this the town of pretty 

 girls and clean windows, in, as I think, his 

 (Cobbett's) ''Rural Rides." That led to my 

 downfall. I like to verify my references (or, 

 better still, get them verified for me). Accord- 

 ingly, remembering where a collector of Cobbet- 

 tiana had recently located himself in the place, 

 I looked his establishment up, and we together 

 looked up — or rather, after — the " Rural Rides " 

 for hours and hours in a small cupboard sort of 

 box-room and an atmosphere richly impregnated 

 with that pungent, nose-tickling dust begotten 

 of closely-packed old books. One of us had to 

 hold the candle and the other cope in its dim 

 light with books packed in piles which slid, books 

 stacked in rows v^^hich toppled over on the least 

 provocation, little books wedged under big 

 weighty ones, and great tomes that cast them- 

 selves at you if you meddled in the least with 

 their foundations. 



We found Cobbett galore : — '' Paper against 

 Gold," ''Advice to Young Men," "Advice to 

 Young Women," "Cottage Gardener," "Cobbett's 

 Sermons," " Legacy to Parsons," also, " Legacy to 

 Labourers," each with a lovely dedication about 

 1 80 deg. in the shade ; " History of the Reforma- 

 tion" (a sweet book that), "Ann Cobbett's Cookery 

 Book " (dear old Ann's cuisine wanted a cask of 

 brandy and a two-quart jug of cream always on 

 tap in the larder, if you were to follow her recipes), 



