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CHAPTER IX.
Detour. The Leasowes deteriorated wherever the Poet had built, and
improved wherever he had planted. View from the Hanging Wood.
- Stratagem of the Island Screen. - Virgil's Grave. Mound of the
Hales Owen and Birmingham Canal; its sad Interference with Shen-
stone's Poetic Description of the Infancy of the Stour.- Vanished
Cascade and Root-house. Somerville's Urn.-"To all Friends round
the Wrekin."- River Scenery of the Leasowes; their great Variety. -
Peculiar Arts of the Poet; his Vistas, when seen from the wrong end,
Realizations of Hogarth's Caricature. Shenstone the greatest of Land-
scape Gardeners. — Estimate of Johnson. — Goldsmith's History of the
Leasowes; their after History.
-
175
CHAPTER X.
Shenstone's Verses. — The singular Unhappiness of his Paradise. - Eng-
lish Cider.
Scotch and English Dwellings contrasted. The Nailers
of Hales Owen; their Politics a Century ago. Competition of the
Scotch Nailers; unsuccessful, and why.-- Samuel Salt, the Hales Owen
Poet. Village Church. Salt Works at Droitwich; their great Anti-
quity. Appearance of the Village. - Problem furnished by the Salt
Deposits of England; various Theories. - Rock Salt deemed by some a
Volcanic Product; by others the Deposition of an overcharged Sea; by,
yet others the Produce of vast Lagoons.Leland. — The Manufacture
of Salt from Sea-water superseded, even 1 Scotland, by the Rock Salt
of England.
193
CHAPTER XI.
Walk to the Clent Hills. - Incident in a Fruit Shop. - St. Kenelm's
Chapel. Legend of St. Kenelm. - Ancient Village of Clent; its Ap-
derness. Ancient Avenue. -Alcove; Prospect which it commands
as drawn by Cowper. - Col nnade. Rustic Bridge. Scene of the
"Needless Alarm."- The Milk Thistle.
297
CHAPTER XVI.
Yardley Oak; of immense Size and imposing Appearance. - Cowper's
Description singularly illustrative of his complete Mastery over Lan-
guage.- Peasant's Nest. The Poet's Vocation peculiarly one of
Revolution. The School of Pope; supplanted in its unproductive Old
Age by that of Cowper. - Cowper's Coadjutors in the Work. - Econ-
omy of Literary Revolution. The old English Yeoman. - Quit Olney.
- Companions in the Journey. - Incident. - Newport Pagnell. — Mr.
Bull and the French Mystics. - Lady of the Fancy. - Champion of all
England. - Pugilism. - Anecdote..
315.
CHAPTER XVII.
Cowper and the Geologists. — Geology in the Poet's Days in a State of
great Immaturity. - Case different now. - Folly of committing the
Bible to a False Science. Galileo. - Geologists at one in all their
more important Deductions; vast Antiquity of the Earth one of these.
-State of the Question. - Illustration. - Presumed Thickness of the
Fossiliferous Strata. - Peculiar Order of their Organic Contents; of
their Fossil Fish in particular, as ascertained by Agassiz. — The Geo-
logic Races of Animals entirely different froin those which sheltered
with Noah in the Ark.-Alleged Discrepancy between Geologic Fact
and the Mosaic Record not real. Inference based on the opening
Verses of the Book of Genesis. - Parallel Passage adduced to prove
the Inference unsound. — The Supposition that Fossils may have been
created such examined: unworthy of the Divine Wisdom; contrary to
the Principles which regulate Human Belief; subversive of the grand
Argument founded on Design. - The profounder Theologians of the Day
not Anti-Geologists. — Geologic Fact in reality of a kind fitted to per-
form important Work in the two Theologies, Natural and Revealed;
subversive of the "Infinite-Series" Argument of the Atheist; subver-
sive, too, of the Objection drawn by Infidelity from an Astronomical
Analogy.-Counter-objection. - Illustration. .
335
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Penny-a-mile Train and its Passengers. - Aunt Jonathan. - London
by Night. St. Paul's; the City as seen from the Dome. - The Lord
Mayor's Coach. - Westminster Abbey. - The Gothic Architecture a
less exquisite Production of the Human Mind than the Grecian. - Poets'
Corner. The Mission of the Poets. - The Tombs of the Kings. - The
Monument of James Watt. A humble Coffee-house and its Frequent-
ers. The Woes of Genius in London. -Old 110, Thames-street.
The Tower. The Thames Tunnel. - Longings of the True Londoner
for Rural Life and the Country; their Influence on Literature. - The
British Museum; its splendid Collection of Fossil Remains. — Human
Skeleton of Guadaloupe. - The Egyptian Room. -Domesticities of the
Ancient Egyptians. -Cycle of Reproduction. - The Mummies. . 366
--
CHAPTER XIX.
Harrow-on-the-Hill.- Descent through the Formations from the Tertiary
to the Coal Measures. - Journey of a Hundred and Twenty Miles North-
wards identical, geologically, with a journey of a Mile and a Quarter
Downwards. - English very unlike Scottish Landscape in its Geologic
Framework. Birmingham Fair. - Credulity of the Rural English;
striking Contrast which they furnish, in this Respect, to their Country-
men of the Knowing Type. - The English Grades of Intellectual Char-
pearance and Character. - View from the Clent Hills. - Mr. Thomas
Moss.-Geologic Peculiarities of the Landscape; Illustration. - The
Scotch Drift. Boulders; these transported by the Agency of Ice Floes.
-Evidence of the Former Existence of a broad Ocean Channel. - The
Geography of the Geologist. — Aspect of the Earth ever Changing. —
Geography of the Paleozoic Period; of the Secondary; of the Ter-
tiary. Ocean the great Agent of Change and Dilapidation.
209
CHAPTER XII.
Geological Coloring of the Landscape. - Close Proximity in this Neigh
borhood of the various Geologic Systems. The Oolite; its Medicinal
Springs; how formed. - Cheltenham. - Strathpeffer. The Saliferous
System; its Organic Remains and Foot-prints. Record of Curious
Passages in the History of the Earlier Reptiles. Salt Deposits. -
Theory. — The Abstraction of Salt from the Sea on a large Scale prob-
ably necessary to the continued Existence of its Denizens. - Lower
New Red Sandstone. Great Geologic Revolution. - Elevation of the
Trap. Hills of Clent; Era of the Elevation. - Coal Measures; their
three Forests in the Neighborhood of Wolverhampton. Comparatively
small Area of the Birmingham Coal-field. - Vast Coal-fields of the
United States. Berkeley's Prophecy. - Old Red Sandstone. -Silurian
System.
Blank.
229
CHAPTER XIII.
Birmingham; incessant Clamor of the Place. - Toy-shop of Britain; Se-
rious Character of the Games in which its Toys are chiefly employed
- Museum. — Liberality of the Scientific English. - Musical Genius
of Birmingham. Theory. Controversy with the Yorkers. - Anec-
dote. The English Language spoken very variously by the English;
in most cases spoken very ill. - English Type of Person. - Attend a
Puseyite Chapel. — Puseyism a feeble Imitation of Popery. — Popish
Cathedral. - Popery the true Resting-place of the Puseyite. - Sketch
of the Rise and Progress of the Puseyite Principle; its purposed Object
not attained; Hostility to Science. - English Funerals.
252
CHAPTER XIV.
Drive from Birmingham to Stratford rather tame. — Ancient Building in
a modern-looking Street; of rude and humble Appearance. "The Im-
mortal Shakspeare born in this House."- Description of the Interior.
The Walls and Ceiling covered with Names.- Albums. - Shakspeare,
Scott, Dickens; greatly different in their Intellectual Stature, but yet
all of one Family.- Principle by which to take their Measure. - No
Dramatist ever draws an Intellect taller than his own. - Imitative Fac-
ulty. The Reports of Dickens.- Learning of Shakspeare. - New
Place. The Rev. Francis Gastrall. - Stratford Church. The Poet's
Grave; his Bust; far superior to the idealized Representations.
Avon.
Worship.
The
The Jubilee, and Cowper's Description of it. The true Hero
Quit Stratford for Olney.-Get into bad Company by the
way. Gentlemen of the Fancy. - Adventure.
276
CHAPTER XV.
Cowper; his singular Magnanimity of Character; Argument furnished by
his latter Religious History against the Selfish Phi.osophy. — Valley
of the Ouse. Approach to Olney. - Appearance of the Town. - Cow-
per's House; Parlor; Garden - Pippin-tree planted by the Poet.
Summer-house written within and without. John Tawell. - Delightful
Old Woman. - Weston-Underwood. Thomas Scott's House. - The
Park of the Throckmortons. - Walk described in "The Task."- Wil-