100 Life, Genius, and Personal Habits of Bewick. 
and quoted, with great ardour, the whole of Friar Lanrence’s 
speech in Romeo and Juliet, to that effect. In corroboration 
of this, one day, at the mouth of Poole’s Hole, which, on 
account of the chilly damp and dripping of the cavern, he 
declined to enter with me and the young ladies; while we were 
exploring the strange and fantastic formations of calcareous 
tufa therein, the Fitch of Bacon, the Saddle, and Mary Stuart's 
Pillar (which, it is said, she went quite round when a prisoner 
at Chatsworth), I found, on our emerging, he had collected 
his handkerchief full of nettle-tops, which, when boiled, he 
ate in his soup, methought with very keen relish. It was on 
our walk back, for some Joke I cracked, they promised me a 
collection of all his engravings on India paper, which, at the 
time, I thought a joke ‘too ; yet, valuable and expensive as was 
the promise, a in due time, und it faithfully and affectionately 
performed. 
One night he expressed a busy desire to see that tremendous 
and acted cavern, about ten ‘miles from Buxton, called The 
Devil’s Arse 7? th’ Peak; for his healthy mind was disgusted 
with the ridiculous, squeamy, and maw kish affectation of call- 
ing it ** Peak’s Hole,” without, in the least, diluting the slight 
indelicacy of the ancient name, for which the w itty Combine 
ation amply compounds. In éhe morning, I readily ‘engaged a 
vehicle and driver, wherein we comfortably sat, two anol two, 
face to face; and were soon a-gig, by the pretty village of 
Fairfield, jaunting merrily o’er the bare and émooths but 
sunny mountains of Derby shire. This excursion alone would 
afford my pen more anecdotes than all I have recorded, had I 
room to relate; but I (somewhat reluctantly) confine myself 
to such as illustrate the versatile mind of my imaginative and 
merry companion, which I deem far more finely and firmly 
delineated by these trifles, than by church- tables of benefac- 
tions in golden capitals, or glaring lapidary epitaphs of his 
virtues in cold dull marble. ior nae mind, like the sun in his 
annual and diurnal rounds, was continually, and, as it were, 
cunningly catching unthought of objects, and piercing nooks 
and corners unnoticed ; steeping for a moment, with its mel- 
low rays, interior walls and chilly pillars; edges of forest 
elens, and trees in deep groves; marbling a chamber panel 
thr ough a waving willow ; or glowing on some ancient post in 
the eloomy recess of an ald hall: thus not only calling the eye 
to whist it would otherwise miss, but shedding on the most 
common objects, for the time, a soothing and a celestial 
gleam. As we rumbled along by the curious ‘ Dove-holes” of 
that river on one side, and the “ Shiveri ing Rock” of Mam 
Tor on the other, I observed him silent for a short time, with 
