Tour to
Wales.

3

Saturday, 9th July.-Breakfasted at Mr. Garrick's 1-Visited Miss Vyse-Miss Seward 3-Went to Dr. Taylor's [at Ashbourn]-I read a little on the road in Tully's Epistles and Martial-Mart. 8th, 44, lino limo*.

pro

Sunday, 10th July.-Morning, at church-Company at dinner.

Monday, 11th July.-At Ilam 5-At Oakover 6 -I was less pleased with Ilam than when I saw it first, but my friends were much delighted.

Tuesday, 12th July.-At Chatsworth-The water willow-The cascade, shot out from many spouts -The fountains-The water tree-The smooth floors in the highest rooms-Atlas, fifteen hands inch and half-River running through the park

practised as a physician from the year 1756, and did not settle at Derby till after his second marriage with Mrs. Pool, in the year 1781. Miss Seward says, that although Dr. Johnson visited Lichfield while Dr. Darwin lived there, they had only one or two interviews, and never afterwards sought each other. Mutual and strong dislike subsisted between them. Dr. Darwin died April 18th, 1802, in the sixty-ninth year of his age.-DUPPA.]

1 ["Peter Garrick, the elder brother of David, strongly resembling him in countenance and voice, but of more sedate and placid manners." See post, 21st March, 1775.-ED. "I think Peter Garrick was an attorney, but he seemed to lead an independent life, and talked all about fishing. Dr. Johnson recommended him to read Walton's Angler, repeating some verses from it."—Piozzi MS.]

2

[A daughter of the Rev. Archdeacon Vyse, of the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry. DUPPA.]

3 ["Dr. Johnson would not suffer me to speak to Miss Seward.”—Piozzi MS. So early was the coolness between them.-ED.]

4 [In the edition of Martial, which he was reading, the last word of the line

66

Defluat, et lento splendescat turbida limo,"

was, no doubt, misprinted lino.-ED.]

5 [See observations on Ilam, post, 24th July, 1774, and 22d September, 1777. -ED.]

6 [Oakover is the seat of a very ancient family of the same name, a few miles from Ilam.-ED.]

I re

7 ["There was a water-work at Chatsworth with a concealed spring, which, upon touching, spouted out streams from every bough of a willow-tree. member Lady Keith (Miss Thrale), then ten years old, was the most amused by it of any of the party."-Piozzi MS.]

8 ["Old oak floors polished by rubbing. Johnson, I suppose, wondered that they should take such pains with the garrets."-Piozzi MS.]

9 [This was a race-horse, which was very handsome and very gentle, and attracted so much of Dr. Johnson's attention, that he said, "of all the duke's possessions, I like Atlas best."-DUPPA.]

Wales.

The porticoes on the sides support two galleries for Tour to the first floor-My friends were not struck with the house — It fell below my ideas of the furniture-The staircase is in the corner of the house-The hall in the corner, the grandest room, though only a room of passage-On the ground-floor, only the chapel and the breakfast-room, and a small library; the rest, servants' rooms and offices-A bad inn.

Wednesday, 13th July.-At Matlock.

3

Thursday, 14th July.-At dinner at Oakover; too deaf to hear, or much converse-Mrs. GellThe chapel at Oakover -The wood of the pews grossly painted-I could not read the epitaph— Would learn the old hands.

Friday, 15th July.-At Ashbourn-Mrs. Dyott* and her daughters came in the morning-Mrs. Dyott dined with us-We visited Mr. Flint.

1

“ Τὸ πρῶτον Μῶρος, τὸ δὲ δεύτερον εἷλεν Ερασμὸς,

Τὸ τριτὸν εκ Μεσῶν στέμμα Μίκυλλος ἔχει 5.”

Saturday, 16th July.-At Dovedale, with Mr.

[Quere, whether these words are not an erroneous repetition of the same words in the preceding line.-ED.]

[This was the second time Johnson had visited Chatsworth. See ante, 26th November, 1772; and his letter to Mrs. Thrale. The friend, mentioned in that extract, was, it appears, from Mrs. Piozzi's MS., Dr. Percy, and the allusion was sarcastic. Mrs. Piozzi writes, "Bishop Percy's lady lived much with us at Brighthelmstone, and used (foolishly enough perhaps) to show us her husband's letters: in one of these he said, I am enjoying the fall of a murmuring stream, but to you who reside close to the roaring ocean such scenery would be insipid. At this Dr. Johnson laughed as a ridiculous affectation, and never forgot it."-Piozzi MS.-ED.]

3 [There is no chapel at Oakover, but a small parish church close to the house, which, however, has no pulpit, and thence perhaps Dr. Johnson calls it a chapel. ED.]

4 [The Dyotts were a respectable and wealthy Staffordshire family. The person who shot Lord Brook, when assaulting St. Chad's cathedral in Lichfield, on St. Chad's day, in 1643, is said to have been a Mr. Dyott.—ED.]

5[" More bore away the first crown of the Muses, Erasmus the second, and Micyllus has the third."-ED.]

[Jacobus Micyllus, whose real name was Melchor, died 1558, aged 55. In the MS. Johnson has introduced gev by the side of say, as if he were doubtful whether that tense ought not to have been adopted. DUPPA. It does not appear whether these verses are Johnson's. Micyllus's real name was Moltzer; see his article in Bayle. His best work was "De re Metrica."-En.]

Tour to Langley1 and Mr. Flint. It is a place that deserves

Wales.

a visit; but did not answer my expectation. The river is small, the rocks are grand. Reynard's Hall is a cave very high in the rock; it goes backward several yards, perhaps eight. To the left is a small opening, through which I crept, and found another cavern, perhaps four yards square; at the back was a breach yet smaller, which I could not easily have entered, and, wanting light, did not inspect. I was in a cave yet higher, called Reynard's Kitchen. There is a rock called the Church, in which I saw no resemblance that could justify the name. Dovedale is about two miles long. We walked towards the head of the Dove, which is said to rise about five miles above two caves called the Dogholes, at the foot of Dovedale. In one place, where the rocks approached, I proposed to build an arch from rock to rock over the stream, with a summer-house upon it. The water murmured pleasantly among the stones.

I thought that the heat and exercise mended my hearing. I bore the fatigue of the walk, which was very laborious, without inconvenience.

3

There were with us Gilpin and Parker. Having heard of this place before, I had formed some imperfect idea, to which it did not answer. Brown5 says he was disappointed. I certainly expected a large river where I found only a clear quick brook.

[The Rev. Mr. Langley was master of the grammar school at Ashbourn. A near neighbour of Dr. Taylor's, but not always on friendly terms with him, which used sometimes to perplex their mutual friend Johnson.-ED.]

2 [This rock is supposed rudely to resemble a tower; hence, it has been called the Church.-DUPPA. It rather, according to the Editor's recollection, resembles a gothic spire or steeple.-ED.]

3["Mr. Gilpin was an accomplished youth, at this time an under-graduate at Oxford. His father was an old silversmith near Lincoln's-inn-fields."Piozzi MS.

4 [John Parker, of Brownsholme, in Lancashire, esq.-DUPPA.]

5 [Mrs. Piozzi" rather thought" that this was Capability Browne, whose opinion on a point of landscape, probably gathered from Gilpin or Parker, Johnson thought worth recording. ED.]

Wales.

I believe I had imaged a valley enclosed by rocks, Tour to and terminated by a broad expanse of water. He that has seen Dovedale has no need to visit the Highlands'.

In the afternoon we visited old Mrs. Dale.

Sunday, 17th July.-Sunday morning, at church -Ka93-Afternoon, at Mr. Dyott's.

Monday, 18th July.-Dined at Mr. Gell's*.

5

Tuesday, 19th July.-We went to Kedleston to see Lord Scardale's new house, which is very costly, but ill contrived-The hall is very stately, lighted by three skylights; it has two rows of marble pillars, dug, as I hear from Langley, in a quarry of Northamptonshire; the pillars are very large and massy, and take up too much room; they were better away. Behind the hall is a circular saloon, useless, and therefore ill contrived-The corridors that join the wings to the body are mere passages through segments of circles-The state bedchamber was very richly furnished-The dining parlour was more splendid with gilt plate than any that I have seenThere were many pictures-The grandeur was all below-The bedchambers were small, low, dark, and fitter for a prison than a house of splendour-The kitchen has an opening into the gallery, by which its heat and its fumes are dispersed over the house-There seemed in the whole more cost than judgment.

We went then to the silk mill at Derby, where I

1 ["Dovedale and the Highlands are surely as dissimilar as any places can be." Piozzi MS.]

2 [Mrs. Dale was at this time ninety-three years of age.-DUPPA.]

3 [Kádagois. —Throughout this Diary, when Johnson is obliged to turn his thoughts to the state of his health, he always puts his private memoranda in the learned languages as if to throw a slight veil over those ills which he would willingly have hid from himself.-DUPPA.]

4 [Mr. Gell, of Hopton Hall, a short distance from Carsington, in Derbyshire; the father of Sir William Gell, well known for his topography of Troy, and other literary works, who was born 1775. "July 12, 1775, Mr. Gell is now rejoicing, at fifty-seven, for the birth of an heir-male."-Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale.-DUPPA.]

5 [See post, 15th Sept. 1777.-ED.]

VOL. III.

K

Wales.

Tour to remarked a particular manner of propagating motion from a horizontal to a vertical wheel-We were desired to leave the men only two shillings-Mr. Thrale's bill at the inn for dinner was eighteen shillings and tenpence.

At night I went to Mr. Langley's, Mrs. Wood's, Captain Astle, &c.

Wednesday, 20th July.-We left Ashbourn1 and went to Buxton-Thence to Pool's Hole, which is narrow at first, but then rises into a high arch; but is so obstructed with crags, that it is difficult to walk in it-There are two ways to the end, which is, they say, six hundred and fifty yards from the mouth-They take passengers up the higher way, and bring them back the lower-The higher way was so difficult and dangerous, that, having tried it, I desisted-I found no level part.

At night we came to Macclesfield, a very large town in Cheshire, little known-It has a silk mill: it has a handsome church, which, however, is but a chapel, for the town belongs to some parish of another name2, as Stourbridge lately did to Old SwinfordMacclesfield has a town-hall, and is, I suppose, a corporate town.

[Thursday, 21st July.]-We came to Congleton, where there is likewise a silk mill-Then to Middlewich, a mean old town, without any manufacture, but, I think, a corporation-Thence we proceeded to Namptwich, an old town: from the inn, I saw scarcely any but black timber houses-I tasted the brine water, which contains much more salt than the sea water-By slow evaporation, they make large crystals of salt; by quick boiling, small granu

1 [It would seem, that from the 9th to the 20th, the head-quarters of the party were at Ashbourn, whence they had made the several excursions noted.-ED.] [The parish of Prestbury.-Duppa.]

2