“As such an opportunity might never occur again, we determined upon setting out the next morning.”
At Chester he had time to see the cathedral:—
“I do not know whether, as this was Easter Sunday, a better choir of singers than usual had been provided, but I never heard any singing which pleased me so much. The organ, a fine-toned instrument, was played with great skill. I cannot better describe the effect of this heavenly harmony than by a quotation from the beautiful poem of ‘The Sabbath.’”[59]
From Liverpool they walked out to the village of Bootle, where they looked about for an inn in which to pass the night:—
“The only inn in the village is ‘The Bootle Hotel.’ We were afraid of that word ‘hotel,’ and, learning that there was another inn to be found a little further on, we proceeded; but this we found as much too mean as the other was too grand for us. We went on, therefore, and soon came to a third inn; but here we were more frightened than before, for the sign was ‘The Royal Waterloo Hotel.’”
On the way home he passed a night at Shrewsbury, at the house of his father’s sister:—
“In the evening my aunt showed us four or five letters addressed by John Howard to an uncle of my father’s, Mr. Symonds, a dissenting minister of Bedford. Mr. Howard was, at one time of his life, a member of his congregation. In one of these letters he mentions the pleasure he received, when at Rome, in seeing the monuments of ancient art. Foster, in his essay on ‘Decision of Character,’ mentions, as an instance of Howard’s unremitting perseverance in the attainment of one object, that he went to Rome without visiting its public buildings. I am not sorry that the author was mistaken. If Howard had done so, I think it would have been mere affectation.
“At about four or five miles beyond Salop, we passed near to a curious old wall, which stands in a field to the right of the road. From the materials of which it is built, we judged it to be Roman masonry. We were all ignorant as to what building it belonged.”[60]
He and his friend were out seven days, travelled 273 miles, and spent twenty-nine shillings each. Nevertheless he thought that these trips stood in need of justification, for his next entry is as follows:—
“In reading these memoirs hereafter, I may perhaps think that I was extravagant in taking so many journeys; but it is necessary to my health. Without a journey about once a year, I never should be able to go through the business that I do. Towards the end of the half-year I always get thin and pale, and my headache (which for the last two years, with the exception of the holidays, has been almost constant,) generally is worse at that time, which makes it necessary for me to take some recreation, to get up a stock of health for the next half-year; this is the most lucrative mode of proceeding. Lately an application was made to me to undertake to give three lessons per week, of two hours each, to a young man, an old scholar of ours. As I had already plenty to do, I was undetermined whether to undertake it or not; but I argued with myself thus: If I undertake this business, I shall receive about thirty pounds per annum for it. I shall certainly injure my health by such close application; but I shall be able to afford to take a journey oftener than before, which will put all straight again. Besides, this is the most pleasant way of proceeding to me; for if I am to be at work, the more constantly I am employed the better, and when the holidays come, the more perfect the holiday the better. I like either to have no business at all to do, or to be fully employed. The headache has become so habitual to me, that unless it is very bad, I am seldom aware that anything is the matter with me, unless my attention is called to it, as by some one inquiring whether I am better.”