She was ready to answer all their inquiries with great good-humour; and taking out a book of pocket-maps, said, I will show you the route I have been. We set out, you know, from Berkshire. We went through Oxfordshire, stopped at Oxford, and there, Miss Lydia, saw your brother, who shewed us the university, and entertained us with great politeness.
We likewise passed through Woodstock; and I have brought each of you a pair of gloves; a manufacture for which you know Woodstock is famous.
We then proceeded through Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Northumberland, where Fanny, your father’s business was.
As we returned, we came by Durham, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Huntingdonshire, and Hertfordshire.
I have brought my little niece and Fanny a set of doll’s plates and dishes, from Staffordshire, and a piece of muslin dimity, for gowns for my elder cousins, from Manchester, in Lancashire; where we stopped a whole day, to see the very great manufacture that is carrying on there, of cottons, dimities, muslins, &c.
While we were in Lancashire, we went to Ancliff near Wigan, to see the famous burning well.
The water of this well is cold, and has no smell, yet there is so strong a vapour of sulphur issuing out with the stream, that upon applying a light to it, the top of the water is covered with a flame, like that of burning spirits, which lasts several hours, and emits so fierce a heat, that meat may be boiled over it. The fluid itself will not burn when taken out of the well.
In Cumberland we saw the black-lead mine, from whence your pencils, young gentlemen, are furnished, which have assisted you in adorning my dressing-room with such handsome drawings.
While we staid in Northumberland, we went to see the coal-pits, from whence we who live in the southern countries are supplied: the cargoes are shipped from Newcastle upon Tyne, which is also famous for its fishery of Salmon.
The young gentlemen, I hope, will accept of a pair of shoe-buckles from Birmingham, in Warwickshire, and the ladies of a pair of scissors from Sheffield, in Yorkshire; both places are famous for the manufacture of hard-ware.