314 REV. MR. WARNER. to promote those deeds of charity, which subserve essentially the happiness and comfort of the inferior classes of mankind. Such a conduct is worthy of the Christian Pastor, and congenial to the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am, dear Sir, Yours, &c.* *My friend Mr. W. L. Taylor is now, alas! no more. He and his amiable partner were cut off in the bloom of life, leaving behind two sons and a daughter to inherit their virtues. He was an attorney of the first respectability, one of the Corporation of Bath, and a valuable member of the community. He died January, 1816, deeply regretted by all who had the felicity of being acquainted with him. From the pleasure he always took in conversing upon theological subjects, I cannot help remarking that his superior intellect and serious turn of mind seemed to have destined him for the Christian ministry. His father was a pious and benevolent clergyman; and one of the grandsons is now, under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Spry, of Birmingham, educating for the Established Church. FINE EVENING; CALNE; COUNCIL; MARLBOROUGH; THE DOWNS; CURIOUS EFFECTS OF A FOG; NEWBURY; DEATH OF LORD FALKLAND; READING ; CAT'S-GROVE HILL; MAIDENHEAD; VICAR OF BRAY; WINDSOR; ITS CASTLE AND TERRACE; PORTRAIT OF OUR SAVIOUR; ETON; ITS SCHOOL; GRAY THE POET; HERSCHEL BEACONSFIELD; EDMUND BURKE; WALLER; ST. GILES CHALFONT; MILTON; UXBRIDGE; HARROW ON THE HILL; PADDINGTON; TYBURN; ISLINGTON. DEAR SIR, LEAVING Bath in the afternoon, the evening came on so gently, characterised by its stillness, that I amused myself by fixing my eye on the firmament, till it was in a glow from one end to the other with the brightest of the constellations! Orion with his belt shone with its usual splendor. How magnificent are the works of nature! How worthy of our serious contemplation— When the bright orb of ruddy eve is sunk, That first dares penetrate its flimsy skirt, Refin'd to nothing, brighter and brighter glows; HURDIS. We passed through Calne, Marlborough, Hungerford, and Newbury, to Reading, but each of these places must receive a description. Calne is a town of antiquity, and sends two members to parliament. It has near 3000 inhabitants, and manufactories of broad cloth, serges, &c. In the year 977, a grand council was held here, relating to the celibacy of the clergy; a subject which had excited, between the monks and the priests, a violent controversy. In the vicinity of Calne the Marquis of Lansdown has a seat, of the name of Bowood, with whom Dr. Priestley lived for seven years, in the capacity of librarian to his late Lordship, and his house is pointed out to persons visiting this part of the country. Bowood is a beautiful mansion with a spacious park, where land and water constitute the most picturesque scenery. My brother, the Rev. Caleb Evans, now of Calne, when curate of Heddington, in its vicinity, shewed me in the church a COFFIN suspended from the ceiling-not horizontally by the magnetic power of a loadstone, as is said to be the case of that of Mahomet-but perpendicularly by an iron screw fastened in a rafter of the building! Here it has hung for time immemorial-with various stories for its explanation. I once mentioned it to the present intelligent Marquis of Lansdown, but he knew nothing of it, saying, however, he should inquire after it upon his return into the country. The COFFIN is empty. Some indeed say that it came from London, and that a great man in debt thus attempted to get rid of his creditors by persuading them that he had paid the debt of Nature-the coffin however, carrying into the church, fell, by its immense weight, off the men's shoulders, and burst into pieces, when it was found to be full of stones! The parishioners have thus avenged the imposition by exposing it to the gaze and scorn of posterity! Marlborough is a large town, consisting of one broad street. The shops being supported in front by columns, forming piazzas, make a singular appearance. It is governed by a mayor, twelve aldermen, &c. Anciently the freemen, on their admission, presented the mayor two grey-hounds, two white capons, and a white bull, to which the arms of the corporation bear an allusion. Here is little trade and few manufactories; but its market is supplied with corn and cheese of an excellent quality. The Marlborough Downs, dotted with sheep, and disfigured by mounds of earth, stretch themselves for many a mile (not unlike to Salisbury-Plain), remarkable only for their extent and dreariness.— In Britain where the hills and fertile plains, N. BLOOMFIELD. Near these Downs is seen from afar the figure of a WHITE HORSE, cut in the side of a clayey hill: the traveller passing and repassing amuses himself with its gradual approach and as gradual evanishment. Hungerford is a small pleasant town, with a new. church, so neat as to seem like a toy cut in ivory! The adjacent almshouses, close to the road side, make a respectable figure at Froxfield. 318 DEATH OF LORD FALKLAND. Newbury, the next town we came to, is large and populous; it rose out of the ruins of the village of Speen; hence part of it still has the name of Speenham Land. It was once noticed for its woollen manufactory, which is now removed to the western parts of the kingdom. This town was the scene of two battles, fought in the civil wars of Charles the First, at no great distance of time from each other. Here perished the virtuous and accomplished Falkland, whose loss was a serious injury to the royal cause. He had done every thing in his power to prevent hostilities between the King and the Parliament. Even after the rupture we are told, that when there was an overture of peace, he was very solicitous to promote it; and sitting among his friends, he often, after a deep silence and frequent sighing, would, with a shrill and sad accent, repeat the word peace! peace! passionately professing, that the agony of war, and the view of the calamities the nation did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would break his heart. On the morning of the battle he seems to have had a presentiment of his death; for calling for a clean shirt, and being asked the reason of it, he replied, "that if he was slain in the battle, they should not find his body in foul linen." And being dissuaded also by his friends from going into the fight, as he was no military officer, he said, "He was weary of the times, foresaw much misery to his own country, and did believe he should be out of it before night!" He fell in the thirty-fourth year of his age; having, says his biographer, "so much dispatched the true business |