1801.) 
was prefumed that the author of that 
work meditated a tranflation of the whole ; 
but I am well affured that Mr. Walker 
has no fuch intention: he is at prefent 
totally occupied by the Italian drama. 
I remain, Si, 
Your's, &c. 
Exeter, 
a 
Now. 1, 1800. 
mete 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
A PEDESTRIAN EXCURSION through fe- 
veral PARTSOf ENGLAND and WALES, 
during the sUMMER of 1797. 
(Continued from Vol. IX. p. 23%.) 
TS ROM Winterton Stoke, our road con- 
ducted us to the neighbourhood of 
“an ancient camp of confiderable extent. 
The form of it is {quare, with rounded 
corners ; and the mounds and double fofs 
remain tolerably entire. As we could 
affociate it in our minds with no hiftori- 
cal records, and were neitherof us any 
adepts in the art military, it furnifhed us 
but little delight, and we paffed on to the 
‘ obfcure village of 
Deptford Batch. In point of fituation 
it was fomewhat inviting at this feafon. 
A. little ftream {pread fertility through 
the furrounding meadows, from which the 
jolly ruftics were mowing one of the fineft 
crops of hay I ever beheld. All was fer- 
tility ; and the reader need not be inform- 
ed of the gaiety that this occupation dif- 
fufes over the paftoral fcene. The prin- 
cipal farms, we were informed, confifted of 
about five hundred acres. The wages 
from feven to eight fhillings per week. 
‘Fhis inadequate reward of labour, toge- 
ther with the information we obtained 
upon the fubje& of /pinning, convinced us 
that, notwithftanding the temporary cheer- 
fulnefs diffufed ‘ by the tann’d haycock 
on the mead,”’ the condition of the inha- 
bitants was, as in other places, on the de- 
cline. Formerly there ufed to be much 
employment of this defcription—the wheel 
might be heard whirling its cheer fu! round 
beneath every roof, or feen at every cot- 
tage-door, But Deptford Batch had tei¢ 
of late years, like every other village, the 
confequences of that manufacturing pro- 
fperity, that progreffive wealth and inge- 
nuity which throws the whole family of 
the poor cottager, with all the weight of 
their neceffities, on his individual exer- 
tions. If we would appreciate with juf- 
tice the advantages of extenfive commerce, 
we muft not only tum our eyes upon the 
palaces of the merchant, but infpeét alfo 
the cottages of the peafant. 
The clack of a corn-mill welcomed fs 
into Milly, which lies upon the. fertile 
A Pedeftrian Excurfion through England and Wales . 
123 
banks of the river of that name, over 
which it has abridge that we croficd, but 
not without paufing awhile to mark: the 
filent lapfe of the ftream, and admire the 
luxuriancy that {miled around us. . The 
village is large, and, to outward appear- 
ance at leaft, comparatively comfortable. 
It is moftly built of ftone, and the genera- 
lity of the cottages have a bit of garden. 
A fwarm of children ** rufhing out of 
{chool”” informed us that we were in a 
neighbourliood of fome population; and 
the range of villages {cattered along the 
valley, that opens in long perfpective to 
the right, agreeably confirmed the impref- 
fion, The hour was favourable to the 
emotions thefe objeéts were calculated to 
in{pire—it approximated towards evening 
-——the light was foftened, and the fhadows 
were lengthening: circumftances that che- 
rifh a penfive ferenity, and pre-difpofe the 
heart to the focial fympathies of our na- 
ture. We contrafted with pleafure the . 
living fcene before us to the inhofpitable 
waltes over which we had purfued our 
way. Mott of the farms about this vil- 
lage are large, though there are allo fome 
{maller ones of one hundred, of feventy, 
and of fixty acres. There was but one 
cottager, we found, in the neighbourhood 
that kept a cow, and he happened to be 
the owner of a bit of land on which he 
kept it ; the commonage, or, as the peo- 
ple in thefe parts call it, *¢ the cow-iand?’ 
being all dettroyed. 
The greateft curiofity we met with in 
this villacse was a human being who had 
the focial {pirit of communication in him: 
and this, in the country we were now tra- 
velling, was a curiofity indeed : for nothing 
could furpafs the jealous caution with 
which ouvf inquiries feemed to be anfwer~ 
ed or evaded by almoft every being with 
whom we attempted to enter into conver= 
fation. The rencounter with this fociable 
houfe painter (for fuch was his profeffion) 
was, therefore, fo much the more accept 
able, and particularly as he appeared to be 
aman of confiderable threwdnefs and in- 
telligence. From him I learned that at 
Baverftock, in the parifh of Burford, in 
this fame county, there are about twenty 
cottages. About feventy or eighty years 
ago, when all the lands in. that parith were 
divided into fmall or moderate farms, 
there was but one of thefe cottages that 
had not a bit of land attached to it; al- 
mott every cottager then kept a cow, and 
fome of them two: at which time fuch 
was the flourifhing ftate of the parifh, that 
the inhabitants found it expedient to foli- 
sit the old man who lived in the only cot- 
R 2 | tage 
\ 
