seats for them, that he was allowed to take a low rent for seats from strangers, and half of the same rent from any of the men taking seats for themselves and their families; but the whole amount to be kept below that of the officiating Clergyman's stipend, which had at first been borne by the 'Additional Curates' Fund.' It was declared off that Fund directly we began to take money, and the effect of this change in the source of payment has been made to make the Chapel cease to be dependent on the Church of the district, and so become exclusively ours. The amounts given as those of the whole past and of the present annual expenses, are, after adding the stipend, and deducting the rents taken."

The expenses of all the good works in connection with this establishment to December, 1851, are £1,089 and £2,200. The calculated future outlay, £1,105; and all this has been effected out of a salary of £1,000 a-year by the self-denying exertions of one individual. Truly he will have his reward. With that generosity which has marked all his proceedings, Mr. Wilson has refused to receive any part of his past expenditure for himself, and has appro priated it as a fund for the building of a new Chapel. We heartily wish him success, and pray that such funds might be added to his own large offerings, as will allow of a magnificent structure being raised upon the spot, where so many striving for the bread that perisheth may partake of that which endureth for ever.

TALKS ABOUT MANY TOWNS; OR ROSA'S SUMMER WANDERINGS.

CHAPTER VI.

Ir will readily be surmised that we perceived, with sincere regret, the gradual diminishing of the days allotted for our sojourn at Richmond; and that we experienced an unacknowledged sensation of pleasure when a wet and stormy Monday caused the time of our departure to be postponed from the Tuesday to the Wednesday. We spent the last evening with our pleasant and hospitable friends; and, on the succeeding morning, when the Elephant leisurely drew us away from the fair old town where we had tasted so much social recreation, we seemed to feel as though the brightest period of our summer wanderings had been fulfilled, and as if the Lake district, whither we were next bound, would prove but a friendless region to us, who had just left behind such warm welcome, and such cheerful companionship. Our route lay along that same road (through Gilling, and by Hartforth) which we had traversed, only a short eight days before, with so many glowing anti

cipations. Those long-imaged anticipations were now changed into rich memories of vivid realities; and we found ourselves rapidly conveyed past one object of interest after another, till, the last vestige of ancestral association being lost to view, we felt, with heavy hearts, that our joyous visit to Richmond was indeed ended. And then the thought arose,-such thoughts will arise in every time of parting,--should we ever again rejoin these gladsome circles,-ever again re-visit these chosen scenes? It was a question no mortal tongue might answer. For what earthly finger dare indicate the changes which must take place in a human destiny, within even so short a space as the next coming year? It needs but an Almighty fiat to dissolve the cherished happiness of a lifetime: one member more or less in a household, and how broken may be the harmony! And, even should no such potential decree befall, yet so varied are the phases the soul must undergo, in this its state of pilgrimage, that change within itself may almost metamorphose its attributes into the likeness of a diverse creature, ere it be once more permitted to see again a regretted locality. Truly hath the Psalmist declared, “All things come to an end;" for, not only do all things stamped with the impress of time glide from us in the using, but also the very tempers and affections of our mind seem fleeting as a shadow. Where, then, shall perfection be found? In Him, in Him alone, Whose "commandment is exceeding broad," Whose "righteousness is an everlasting righteousness," and Whose "law is the truth." He hath made us partakers of His divine nature, and inheritors of a kingdom which shall not pass away; and if simply now we abide in Him, He will fill us with holy virtues which cannot die, and finally, at the moment when men least expect His Presence, He will be seen walking on the "waves of this troublesome world," saying to the shifting waters of Time, "Hitherto shall ye come, but no further;" and developing those "new heavens," and that “new earth,' where there shall be "no more sea," no more perils of chance or change for ever.

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O! dear children, how earnestly this blessed hope ought to lead us to strive that we may verily continue living members of the SAVIOUR, in Whom we have been baptized! for, should we be pronounced sapless branches at the coming of our LORD, the end of time and change could prove to us but the evoking of the sentence, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still." Think what it would be to find ourselves left in outer darkness, (that "second death," wherein the soul will die to Gon,) when the Church shall enter into the glory of her risen LORD! Think what it would be to have no FATHER, no SAVIOUR, no Comforter! Think what it would be to continue sinful throughout eternity! May grace be granted each and all of us to take heed unto these things, and to "choose the better part."

But to return to the journey. We were soon once again plodding along the dull North Road, where we remarked nothing requiring comment till we reached Greta Bridge and Rokeby. The scenery at Greta Bridge is considered very pretty; and Rokeby has been immortalised by the pen of Sir Walter Scott. Southey gives a graphic and amusing description of a visit he made to Rokeby in 1812. He says, "The grounds are the finest things of the kind I have ever seen, a little in the manner of Downton, more resembling Lowther; but the Greta at Rokeby affords finer scenery than either. There is a summer-house overlooking it, the inside of which was ornamented by Mason the poet; one day he set the whole family to work in cutting out ornaments in coloured paper, from antique designs, directing the whole himself. It is still in good preservation, and will doubtless be preserved as long as a rag remains. This river,* in 1771, rose in the most extraordinary manner, during what is still called the great flood. There is a bridge close by the summer-house, at least sixty feet above the water; against this bridge and its side the river piled up an immense dam of trees and rubbish, which it had swept before it. At length down came a stone, of such a size, that it knocked down Greta Bridge by the way, knocked away the whole mass of trees, carried off the second bridge, and lodged some little way beyond it upon the bank, breaking into three or four pieces. Playfair, the philosopher, estimated the weight of this stone at about seventyeight tons, the most wonderful instance (he said) he had ever heard of the power of water. Before this stone came down, one of the trees had blocked up an old man and his wife, who inhabited a room under the summer-house. The branches broke their windows, and a great bough barred the door. Meantime the water, usually some twenty feet below, was on a level with it. The people of the house came to their relief, and sawed the bough off to let them out; and the windows remain as they were left, a memorial of this most extraordinary flood. Mr. Morritt (the proprietor of Rokeby) has brought down here, from Cumberland, the stone fern, and the Osmunda Regalis. This latter is the largest of the fern tribe, growing to the height of five and six feet, and is a rare plant even in its own districts: the finest specimens are on the river Rotha. Mr. Morritt's father bought the house of Sir Thomas Robinson, well known in his day by the names of Long Robinson and Long Sir Thomas. He was the subject of the epigram,

Unlike to Robinson shall be my song,

It shall be witty, and it shan't be long.'

"Long Sir Thomas found a portrait of Richardson in the house;

* This Greta flows into the Tees, and is no relation to the Cumberland Greta.-Rosa.

thinking Mr. Richardson a very unfit personage to be suspended in effigy among lords, ladies, and baronets, he ordered the painter to put on him the star and blue riband, and then named the picture 'Sir Robert Walpole.' But the most extraordinary picture in the room is a delineation of Sir Thomas's intended improvements, representing the river, which now flows over one of the finest rocky beds imaginable, metamorphosed by four dams into a piece of water as smooth and still as a canal! There is much beautiful needlework in the house, the performance of an aunt of Mr. Morritt, who taught Miss Linwood." Wordsworth thought her pictures quite as good as Miss Linwood's. In one respect they must be better; for she made her stitches athwart and across exactly as the strokes of the original pictures, whilst Miss Linwood made her stitches all in one way. Mr. Morritt's aunt had great difficulty about her worsted, and could only suit herself by buying damaged quantities; thus obtaining shades which would else have been unobtainable. Her colours flying, in order to preserve them, prints were fitted in the frames, to serve as screens. The art cost her her life, though at an advanced age; it brought on a dead palsy, occasioned by holding her hands so continually in an elevated position, working at the canvas. Her last picture is hardly finished; the needle literally dropped from her hands. Death had been creeping on her for twelve years."+

Just beyond Greta Bridge the road parts into two branches; that on the right hand leads to Barnard Castle. On this road there is (I have been told) a romantic wooded pass, through which the Greta flows. That on the left (which we followed) conducts, over Stainmoor, to Brough. The road begins gradually to rise, and for some distance skirts the county of Durham so closely, that we could plainly discern the town of Barnard Castle in the valley beneath. A long and tedious ascent brought us to the miserable village of Bowes, which Camden supposes to be the ancient Lavatra. I have heard that Bowes was formerly famed for schools of "Do-the-boys-hall" species, and that Brough also enjoyed similar enviable celebrity. These kind of schools (formerly numerous in Yorkshire) are now happily extinct. I am sure banishment to such a cheerless locality must, of itself, have been enough to break a boy's heart; for Bowes is a most dreary out-of-the-world place, and the country for miles around is bleak and desolate in the highest degree: so that the entire village wears an uncomfortable aspect, and the houses have a deserted air. There is a crumbling old ruin near the top of the one street; but whether it once formed part of a castle, or what other history may be attached to it, I could not ascertain.

It is a long and dreary ride from Bowes to Brough, across Stainmoor. One can scarcely conceive a more desolate region than this * Southey's Life and Correspondence.

elevated tract of barren moorland; a few rude huts form the only vestiges of human dwelling-places amid these interminable wastes, over which great flocks of Yorkshire geese tramp at will; now encamping lazily on the yielding turf, or anon, with due martial solemnity, forming into rank and file, to startle the solitude with defiant gestures, accompanied by a chorus of shrill cackles. Here, amongst boggy morasses, peopled (one may believe) with the phantom light that lures mortals to their doom,

Travellers "forlorn and lost may tread,
With fainting steps and slow,
Where wilds, immeasurably spread,
Seem lengthening as they go."

For, even after gaining the altitude whence the remainder of the stage is a descending route, so endless seem the ups and downs, and so many the mazy evolutions of the tortuous road, that limbsore wayfarers begin to fancy themselves fated to be tantalized by seeing the distant tower of Brough, without possessing the capacity of ever reaching it; and thus could fain invoke the spirit of an anchorite of the fens (were such holy being nigh) with the adjuration,

"Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,
And guide our lonely way

To where yon taper cheers the vale,
With hospitable ray."+

Brough, the Verterae of the Romans, is divided into Church Brough and Market Brough, separated from each other by a brawling stream called Hellebeck. The name of the town was formerly written "Burgh," a Teutonic term for any habitation; the Saxons applied the appellation to various fortified places in England, and all their privileged towns were called "boroughs." The Church of Brough (dedicated to S. Michael) is a daughter-Church of Kirkby Stephen, and its pulpit is said to be cut out of one entire stone. At Market Brough, also, there was formerly a chapel (founded in 1506) for two Priests, the one to teach grammar, the other to instruct children in singing. At the Dissolution, the singing Priest was removed, but the grammarian was continued. Opposite the cross in this town was a well, anciently much resorted to. Near the Church, on a hill, are the ruins of a castle, (belonging to the Earl of Thanet,) which appears to have been built in the time of the Romans. Brough has the forlorn look of a town of." other days;" it is situated about two miles from the river Eden, and is seated at the foot of a range of peaked mountains, promiscuously dotted with many shrubs. Wildmore, or Wild boar Fell, the giant