THE UNIVERSAL FAMILY PAPER FOR INTER-COMMUNICATIONS ON 



NATURAL HISTORY-POPULAR SCIENCE— THINGS IN BEHERAL. 



Conducted by WILLIAM kidd, of Hammersmith,— 



Author of the Familiar and Popular Essays on "Natural History;" "British Song 

 Birds;" " Birds op Passage ; " "Instinct and Eeason;" " The Aviary," &c. 



"the OBJECT OF OUR WORK is to make men WISER, WITHOUT obliging them to turn over folios and 

 QUARTOS.— TO FURNISH MATTER FOR THINKING AS WELL AS READING."— EVELYN. 



No. 23.— 1852. 



SATURDAY, JUNE 5. 



Price l%d. 



Or, in Monthly Parts, Price Id. 



REMINISCENCES OF A VISIT TO BRIGNALL 

 AND ROKEBY. 



PART I.— BRIGNALL. 



BY WILLIAM SPOONER. 



^»And tell of all I felt, and all I saw.— Goldsmith. 



Just about the time that M'Adam sug- 

 gested'' the new and simple process of 

 " mending our ways" by means of pulverised 

 granite, — enabling us to traverse the public 

 roads at a rate of speed then deemed " mira- 

 culous" (being some fourteen miles an hour), 

 it was my good fortune frequently to tra- 

 vel, whilst engaged in commercial pursuits, 

 over the greater portion of Great Britain 

 and Ireland. 



No railways had we then. The roads of 

 iron were not devised ; not even thought of. 

 Had any one been rash enough to predict 

 what would have been the universal mode of 

 travelling, through the agency of railways, 

 in 1852, — that man would have been voted 

 insane. Yet has iron superseded stone and 

 gravel ! 



It is a question, however, with me, and 

 also with many others, whether the disap- 

 pearance of stage-coaches, stage-coachmen, 

 and guards, is not a matter of great regret ; 

 for the advantages gained in accelerated 

 speed are purchased by a total annihilation 

 of the pleasures formerly enjoyed under the 

 old regime of " four in hand." 



Farewell, now, to the well-remembered 

 scenes on our high roads; when the prancing 

 steeds dashed along with all the vigor and 

 enjoyment peculiar to high mettled racers 

 (for most of them were thorough-bred cattle) 

 — seeming to enter into the feelings of those 

 who sat behind them, and expressing the 

 same in all their actions ! No more will 

 future travellers revel in the pleasing excite- 

 ment created by the arrival of a stage-coach 

 in town or village ! No longer will they have 

 any opportunity, unless travelling in their 



own carriages, of observing the interesting 

 varieties of provincial manners or customs ! 

 No longer will they meet with the ever- 

 changing scenery, or experience those ever- 

 varying incidents, that delighted the "tra- 

 veller of other days " when journeying the 

 whole day on a stage-coach ! 



Year after year have I enjoyed with ecstacy 

 the pleasure of sitting by, or behind, the 

 driver of one of these well-appointed coaches, 

 with a team of four spirited horses, spanking 

 along at the rate of thirteen or fourteen 

 miles an hour ! Thus I have sometimes 

 travelled by the far-famed Hirondelle (pro- 

 nounced by the country people, and sup- 

 posed by them to be, the Iron-devil) from 

 Liverpool to Cheltenham ; and more fre- 

 quently by the Wonder and its rival, from 

 Shrewsbury to London. 



It was on one of these journeys (being at 

 Leeds, and within stage coach reach of a part 

 of Yorkshire much endeared tome by many 

 early recollections, though out of the line of 

 my ordinary route), that I determined to re- 

 visit the scenes which I had quitted in my 

 boyhood, but which had often since haunted 

 me in my dreams, and carried me back in 

 thought to what I was more than thirty years 

 agone. My road lay through Ripon ; and 

 here I awaited the arrival of the Glasgow 

 mail from London. It was a beautiful sum- 

 mer's afternoon when I took my seat outside 

 the mail ; intending to stop at the inn at 

 Greta Bridge, on the northern borders of the 

 county. 



The shades of night had set in some hours 

 before I reached my destination ; and, as the 

 coach bowled along at that well-regu- 

 lated pace which was observed by all the 

 Post-office mails, the bright-reflection of the 

 carefully-trimmed lamps brought out from 

 the surrounding darkness into powerful re- 

 lief the rich foliage of the trees and hedges 

 that skirted the sides of the great highway. 

 It was midnight, I remember, when the coach- 

 man pulled up in the extensive court -yard of 

 the George Inn, at Greta Bridge ; and I had 



Vol. I.— New Series. 



