THE PLEASURES OF RAMBLES. 
251 
that never failed and was always to be relied upon. They 
made no pretence, and showed their worst at first ; but by 
walking about much among them, and seeing them at home, 
one soon got behind their barrier of distrust, recognized their 
sterling qualities, and became an admirer of the land and the 
people. 
Above all people that could anywhere be met with they 
seemed to me to show best the characters thus set forth b) 
the poet : — 
“ Stern o’er each bosom reason holds her slate. 
With daring aims irregularly great ; 
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, 
I see the lords of human kind pass by ; 
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band. 
By forms unfashioned, fresh from Nature’s hand ; 
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul ; 
True to iin.agined right, above control ; 
While even the peasant boasts those rights to scan. 
And learns to venerate himself a man.” 
That they gained the repute herein stated from one who 
was not a bit in harmony with them is, surely, much to 
their credit. Their critic went among them as to a land of 
exile ; the characteristics of the people and their land were in 
entire disaccord with what he had been wont to admire, or even 
to tolerate ; the hard stone walls in place of hedges, the absence 
of fields, the tall chimneys, the factory oil, and the concomitants 
of a manufacturing district everywhere to be found : these things 
were all entirely alien to his tastes ; and what he had everywhere 
heard of the people had led him to expect something very 
different from what he found. 
Of the natives of the district that he had most to do with, 
John Wesley said they were the wildest he had ever known ; 
and Wesley was, one would think, a good judge of wildness in 
districts or people. Yet they conquered all these repugnances ; 
turned the loathing into a liking, which soon deepened into a 
genuine affection for the people and their land ; and made 
the critic at last leave their district with a profound regret, 
carrying away with him as the most delightful of all his 
recollections of rambles, those which he had enjoyed over the 
moorlands that lie along the backbone of England. 
W. J. C. Miller. 
RicJtmotid-on-T hames. 
