And spent all night in the open field, fires round about them shined,
As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,
And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows
Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust themselves up for shows,
And even the lowly valleys joy, to glitter in their sight,
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the shepherd’s heart.
[16] At which last–named place there is now also (1882) a railway station.
[17] It may be permitted here to note that when on Jackson Edge we are close to the home of the accomplished authoress of the well–known and always welcome letters “From the Lyme hills.”
[18] In his very interesting “Reminiscences of a Lifetime in Marple and the Neighbourhood,” 1882, a contribution to our local literature which in the accuracy and variety of its entertaining details does the author genuine credit.
[19] All needful particulars will be found in the little “Guide to Hayfield and Kinder Scout,” purchasable at Hayfield and at Bowden Bridge.
[20] In indicating the share, unacknowledged and unrewarded, which Townley had in the compilation of the “Guide,” we merely wish to give honour where honour is due, neither on the one hand suppressing truth, nor on the other saying a word that shall look like unfair disparagement. It is but just to the memory of a worthy man, now no more, that the living should know what they owe to him.
[21] While such is the original and proper sense of the word, the application, as in the case of Wessenden Clough [(p. 150)], naturally passed on to similar defiles destitute of trees. Not fewer probably than a third of the cloughs mentioned in the present volume are of the latter character.
[22] Mrs. Taylor, we are very sorry to say, died, though apparently of supreme vigour, in the spring of 1877, and the cottage is now occupied by a totally different family. Mere Clough, too, is not what it was. Though spared the desecrations of Boggart–hole, the grove of fine trees that once filled the bottom has disappeared. The best of the wild–flowers have also disappeared, or nearly so; and the brook is less often limpid than impure. Similar changes have overtaken everything public in the neighbourhood.
[23] On account of their correspondence with others, geologically the same, very extensively present in the portion of Central and Eastern Russia called Perm.
[24] The following pages were originally printed in the Manchester Weekly Times of July 10th, 1858. It gave me great pleasure to see that the article was made the subject of comment and lengthy extract in Chambers’s Journal of the following October 16th, a recognition of the general interest of the matter dealt with that seems to me quite to justify a reprint almost verbatim, with corrections that bring it up to the present date.