1800. ] Pedefirian Excurfion through England and Wales. 
banks of the Avon. ‘The hills that fur- 
round it have a romantic and picturefqne 
effect. The town is ftraggling and indif- 
ferently built, and has all the appearance 
of decay. It has been ina much more 
flourifhing condition, efpecially when the 
celebrated duke and duchefs of Queens- 
borough kept their court at Amefbury 
houfe. The memory of this is tradition- 
ally preferved among the inhabitants, who 
feem to envy the better times of their 
forefathers, and to repine (not without 
fome fhew of juftice) that the rents col- 
lected from the produce of their induftry 
are fpent in diftant neighbourhoods, or 
fwallowed up by the prodigal vices of a 
large city. It would be well for Amef- 
bury, if this were its only calamity. 
There is one of a ftill more defolating na- 
ture, in which it partakes in common with 
the whole furrounding country ; I mean, 
the enormous accumulation of farms. 
There are three or four individuals in this 
neighbourhood, who rent to the amount of 
roool. a year each: that is to fay, fo 
many agricultural canibals, who have de- 
voured their eight or ten families a piece, 
The wages of labour are, of courfe, very 
low; common labourers 6s. per week, and 
no victuals; carters and threfhers 7s. or 
7s. 6d. and a-bufhel of wheat per week, 
if they choofe it, at the reduced price of 
ss. If the family of a common labourer 
is large enough to confume this quantity, 
he has, of courfe, only one fhilling per 
week for houfe-rent, cloathing, drink, fuel, 
and every other neceflary!!! (I fhall by- 
and-by have occafion to compare this ftate- 
ment with facts collected in neighbour- 
hoods where the farms are generally fmall.) 
One happinefs, however, Amefbury pof- 
feffes.. It has no manufactory. ‘The 
children enjoy, accordingly, the infantile 
privilege of bounding and {porting at 
large ; and are reprieved, at lealt for a few 
years, from the yoke of unremitting toil. 
The principal fupport of the town is the 
curiofity of travellers: and fome little 
time ago, when the nunnery was firft 
eftablifhed there, the number of vifitors 
was very confiderable ; and Amefbury had 
a tranfient gleam of reviving profperity. 
But the edge of curiofity is now worn off. 
The nunnery has ceafed to be the rage, 
and the town is again declining. he 
neighbourhood of Stone Henge is its only 
prop; which, though inadequate to up- 
hold its profperity, is fufficient to fecure 
it from diffolution. 
Amefbury-Houfe is a handfome manfion. 
The architecture is fimple and elegant. 
‘The apartments are well proportioned ; 
229 
and the drawing-room and adjoining cham- 
ber, now ufed as a chapel, would challenge 
admiration, if they had not been fpoiled 
by a wafte of injudicious labour in the 
carvings and cornices. The barbarous 
Gothic faces in the former, in particular, 
would have been more in harmony witla 
the architecture of the days of our Tudors 
and Plantagenets. [his Manfion is, at 
prefent, conyerted into a religious houle, 
under the patronage of Lord Arundel 
of Wardour. The pretence for the 
eftablifhment was, ‘that of furnifhing 
a place of refuge for fome emigrant 
nuns expelled by the French revolution. 
Had it been confined to this purpofe, 
humanity might rejoice that religious 
animofities were fo foftened, that catholic 
fanatics could find a refuge in a proteftant 
country,to fpend the remnant of their days 
in the peaceful enjoyment of thofe habits 
and prejudices they were unable to fubdue. 
But it appears that the generality of the 
perfons immured in this nunnery, inftead 
of French emigrants, are Englith maidens, 
moft of whom have been recently initiated, 
and feveral of whom are ftill in their no- 
viciate. This, by the way, is, in more 
points of view than one, an important 
faé&. It fhould feem as if thofe females 
who knew by experience, what it is to 
be confined to a life of monafticifm, con- 
fidered the diffolution of their convents 
rather as an emancipation than as facrilege, 
and that few were dilpofed to feek a fimi- 
lar refuge in a neighbouring country. If 
fo, the greater the criminality of the go- 
vernment that fuffers fuch {nares to be 
{fpread in the way of inexperienced youth. 
Far be it from me to be the advocate of 
intolerance. Every individual ought te 
be at liberty to follow, without reftraint 
-or difqualification, whatever religion or 
opinion he thinks fit. Nay, leave but 
the devotee at liberty to quit her retire- 
ment whenever her mind revolts againtt it, 
and I fee no objection to the building of 
convents in every diftrict. But it is not 
liberty, to give to any fet of peopie the 
means of kidnapping the young, the 
fimple, and inexperienced, into indiffoluble 
bondage. It is not toleration, to fuffer de- 
figning priefts to enchain the confciences 
of their deluded votaries with oaths that 
prohibit the progre{s of inquiry, and infti- 
tutions that annihilate the free agency of 
reafon, and interdict the feelings and uti- 
lities of nature. fay nething about the 
children who are educated in this feminary. 
—The infant mind muft be entrufted to 
fome tutelage or other; and I knosv not 
with whom the right of chafing both the in. 
fiructors 



