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LETTER XXXV.

Man killed at Worcester by a Sword-fish.Teignton Squash.-Grafting.-Ned of the Toddin.-Worcester China.-Cathedral.-St. Wulstan.-K. John's Grave. -Journey to Birmingham.

Tuesday, July 6.

WERE I an epicure, I should wish to dine every fast day at Worcester. The Severn runs through the town, and supplies it with salmon in abundance, the most delicious of all fish. You would hardly suppose that there could be any danger from sea-monsters in bathing at such a distance from the mouth of the river, which is at least five-and-twenty leagues by the course of the stream; yet about thirty years ago a man here actually received his

death wound in the water from a swordfish. The fish was caught immediately afterwards, so that the fact was ascertained beyond a doubt.

Perry is the liquor of this country: a cyder made from pears instead of apples. The common sort when drawn from the cask is inferior to the apple juice, but generous perry is truly an excellent beverage. It sparkles in the glass like Champaign, and the people here assure me that it has not unfrequently been sold as such in London. I am told a circumstance concerning the particular species of pear from which this of the finer quality is made, which would stagger my belief, if I did not recollect that in such cases incredulity is often the characteristic of ignorance. This species is called the Teignton squash —(admire, I pray you, this specimen of English euphony!)-all the trees have been grafted from the same original stocks at Teignton; those stocks are now in the last stage of decay, and all their grafts are

decaying at the same time. They who have made the physiology of plants their study, (and in no other country has this science ever been so successfully pursued as here,) assert that with grafted trees this always is the case; that the graft, being part of an old tree, is not renovated by the new stock into which it is innoculated, but brings with it the diseases and the age of that from which it has been taken, and dies at the same time of natural* decay. The tree raised from seed is the progeny of its parent, and itself a separate individual; it begins a new lease of life. That which is produced from a graft obtains, like a dismembered polypus, a separate existence; but its life, like that of the fabled Hama

* Hudibras might have added this illustration to his well known simile of the new noses: but the experiments of Taliacotius have been verified in modern times; and this may teach us not too hastily to disbelieve an assertion which certainly appears improbable.-TR.

dryads, ends with that of the trunk from which it sprung.

The adjoining province of Herefordshire with its immediate vicinity is the great cyder country; more and of better quality being made here than in the West of England. Particular attention is now paid here by scientific men to the culture of the apple, which they raise from seed, in conformity to the theory just explained; they choose the seed carefully, and even assert that the pips from the southern chambers of the apple are preferable to those in the other side. In many parts of England cyder is supposed to be an unwholesome liquor; experience here disproves the opinion. It is the common drink the people drink it freely at all times, and in harvest times profusely: a physician of the country says that any other liquor taken. so profusely would be hurtful, but that no ill effects are produced by this. Madness is said to be frequent in this province; and those persons, who, when they find two

things coexistent, however unconnected, immediately suppose them to be cause and effect, attribute it to the use of cyder. If the fact be true, the solution is obvious; madness is an hereditary disease: in former tines families were more stationary than they are now, intermarriages took place within a narrow sphere, and the inhabitants of a whole province would, in not many generations, be all of the same blood.

A generation ago there certainly were in these parts many poor madmen or idiots, who being quite harmless were permitted to wander whither they would, and received charity at every house in their regular rounds. Of one of these, his name was Ned of the Toddin, I have just heard a tale which has thrilled every nerve in me from head to foot. He lived with his mother, and there was no other in family :—it is remarked that idiots are always particularly beloved by their mothers, doubtless because they always continue in a state