ing all the more beautiful from the ugliness of the furrounding buildings, ftands to the left. The deep

arcading and bold mouldings of the weft end are perfectly charming.

It is the fashion, I believe, to fay that Gothic architecture culminated in the Decorated period, but to me, judging merely by the light of nature without any pretenfion to deep learning on the fubject, there seems a poetry, a feeling in the Early English which the style of no other period approaches.

Bal

Here I was ftruck by a name which appeared over the door of a wretched public-houfe. It was Norman Snoxell. What on earth could have brought Norman Snoxell to Dunstable to retail beer and tobacco? zac used to perambulate the streets of Paris for days looking over the doors of the shops for appropriate names for his characters. Here would have been quite a godfend for any novelist who wanted to name his Norse smuggler or pirate. But, indeed, the names of the English peasantry are sometimes very curious. I remember, in Norfolk, a fervant-maid named Phebe Blanchflower. You would never expect fuch a name out of a novel; but it was a real name nevertheless; for her father, old Blanchflower, drove the Ipfwich mail for many years.

I reached Leighton Buzzard, on the borders of

Bucks, at about fix; but I was determined, if poffible, to fleep at Winslow where I heard there was a very comfortable country inn, and fo pushed on; but both Stornoway and I were tired, and the last five miles feemed interminable. However, at Winflow we arrived at about ten o'clock, and put up at the " Bell," having accomplished a journey of forty-fix miles fince breakfast.

Next morning, being the 2nd of September, I started from Winflow at a little after nine, purposing, if poffible, to reach Edgehill the fame night. Edgehill is within twelve miles of Stratford, and I thought that by fleeping there, I might ride into Stratford next morning at my leifure, and thus have the advantage of seeing the end and object of my pilgrimage by daylight.

The first town I reached was Buckingham, seven miles from Winflow. It is a nice, pretty country town, in the valley of the Stour. Between this and Brackley I paffed one of the lodges of Stowe, and then the scenery changed. I am no great geologist, but the stone appeared to me to be a reddish green limestone. It lies in regular ftrata, and comes out of the earth in nice rectangular pieces, well adapted for building. Accordingly the houses and fences are all built of stone, the latter having no mortar; but

great art is apparently employed in making the ftones fit nicely into each other, and fome of the walls have quite a Cyclopean or Etrufcan character. I was particularly ftruck with the village of Middleton-Cheney. Here the houses feem very old, and the brown and greenish ftone of which they are built has become covered with lichens, which add much to the beauty of the colouring. Their shingled roofs, of high pitch, are very picturesque. Yet here, where Nature and the practice of former generations would feem to have plainly indicated the right forms and materials, the people are actually building fome new almfhouses of flaming red brick and blue flate. Red brick may be made a very beautiful material, and is proper for London or Effex, where there is no ftone; but to import it into a place where there is already a beautiful material provided by Nature, shows a wonderful amount of bad tafte in the builders.

Banbury is a handsome town, and the principal inn extremely comfortable. I could not defcry the Cross, to which, when I was a baby, I was invited to "ride a cock-horse;" but I ate a Banbury cake out of curiofity. It is a villainous invention, being a "roll-up," to use Miss Evans' expreffion, of rich pastry, enveloping currants.

From Banbury I started at a little after fix, and,

after paffing some gentlemen's places--Colonel North's amongst the rest-got upon fome high table-land, with wild country, as far as I could fee in the rapidly clofing-in evening, on either fide. Smoker as well as I feemed to feel the loneliness of the road, for instead of foraging about as usual, and enjoying the pleasure of finding out what everything he passed smelt of, he kept close to Stornoway's heels. At laft I saw a twinkling light, which I afterwards found proceeded from the house of a Mr. Fitzgerald, and defcried two keepers under the trees. This was quite a relief. Presently I came to an almost ruinous toll-bar, and in a few minutes more reached the lonely road-fide inn. This was Edgehill, where the first blood was drawn in the Civil War. I knocked at the door with my whip, and was answered by a scared maid, who, however, foon made me comfortable; and I went to bed in a great, wild chamber, and dreamt of battles between Cavaliers and Roundheads, the latter being worsted by a welldirected fire of Enfield rifles, in which I took part.

CHAPTER II.

NEXT morning I found that the inn at which I had slept was called the "Sun Rifing." It bears on its walls the old proverb, "Good wine needs no bush,” yet betrays its unbelief in the adage by difplaying over the door a huge bunch of grapes.

It is built on the very edge of a steep hill, hence probably called Edgehill, and commands a fine view of at least thirty miles in extent, bounded by the Malvern Hills. To the right is the village of Kyneton, or Kington, where the Parliamentary army was pofted on the eve of the battle of Edgehill; and close under the hill is Battle Farm, where the first battle was fought in the quarrel between the Sovereign and the Parliament,

"When hard words, jealoufies, and fears
Set folks together by the ears."

But what was more to my prefent purpose, mine host pointed out to me a little rifing ground in the middle of the vaft plain which was fpread out before me,