I cannot quit Shrewsbury without expressing the great satisfaction that I derived from my visit to that place. It is the only town into which I have gone, in all England, without knowing, beforehand, something of some person in it. I could find out no person that took the Register; and could discover but one person who took the Advice to Young Men. The number of my auditors was expected to be so small, that I doubled the price of admission, in order to pay the expense of the room. To my great surprise, I had a room full of gentlemen, at the request of some of whom I repeated the dose the next night; and if my audience were as well pleased with me as I was with them, their pleasure must have been great indeed. I saw not one single person in the place that I had ever seen before; yet I never had more cordial shakes by the hand; in proportion to their numbers, not more at Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Halifax, Leeds, or Nottingham, or even Hull. I was particularly pleased with the conduct of the young gentlemen at Shrewsbury, and especially when I asked them, whether they were prepared to act upon the insolent doctrine of Huskisson, and quietly submit to this state of things “during the present generation”?
TOUR IN THE WEST.
3rd July, 1830.
Just as I was closing my third Lecture (on Saturday night), at Bristol, to a numerous and most respectable audience, the news of the above event [the death of George IV.] arrived. I had advertised, and made all the preparations, for lecturing at Bath on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; but, under the circumstances, I thought it would not be proper to proceed thither, for that purpose, until after the burial of the King. When that has taken place, I shall, as soon as may be, return to Bath, taking Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire in my way; from Bath, through Somerset, Devon, and into Cornwall; and back through Dorset, South Wilts, Hants, Sussex, Kent, and then go into Essex, and, last of all, into my native county of Surrey. I shall then have seen all England with my own eyes, except Rutland, Westmoreland, Durham, Cumberland, and Northumberland; and these, if I have life and health till next spring, I shall see, in my way to Scotland. But never shall I see another place to interest me, and so pleasing to me, as Bristol and its environs, taking the whole together. A good and solid and wealthy city: a people of plain and good manners; private virtue and public spirit united; no empty noise, no insolence, no flattery; men very much like the Yorkers and Lancastrians. And as to the seat of the city and its environs, it surpasses all that I ever saw. A great commercial city in the midst of corn-fields, meadows and woods, and the ships coming into the centre of it, miles from anything like sea, up a narrow river, and passing between two clefts of a rock probably a hundred feet high; so that from the top of these clefts, you look down upon the main-top gallant masts of lofty ships that are gliding along!
PROGRESS IN THE NORTH.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 23rd September, 1832.
From Bolton, in Lancashire, I came, through Bury and Rochdale, to Todmorden, on the evening of Tuesday, the 18th September. I have formerly described the valley of Todmorden as the most curious and romantic that was ever seen, and where the water and the coal seemed to be engaged in a struggle for getting foremost in point of utility to man. On the 19th I staid all day at Todmorden to write and to sleep. On the 20th I set off for Leeds by the stage coach, through Halifax and Bradford; and as to agriculture, certainly the poorest country that I have ever set my eyes on, except that miserable Nova Scotia, where there are the townships of Horton and of Wilmot, and whither the sensible suckling statesman, Lord Howick, is wanting to send English country girls, lest they should breed if they stay in England! This country, from Todmorden to Leeds, is, however, covered over with population, and the two towns of Halifax and Bradford are exceedingly populous. There appears to be nothing produced by the earth but the natural grass of the country, which, however, is not bad. The soil is a sort of yellow-looking, stiffish stuff, lying about a foot thick, upon a bed of rocky stone, lying upon solid rock beneath. The grass does not seem to burn here; nor is it bad in quality; and all the grass appears to be wanted to rear milk for this immense population, that absolutely covers the whole face of the country. The only grain crops that I saw were those of very miserable oats; some of which were cut and carried; some standing in shock, the sheaves not being more than about a foot and a half long; some still standing, and some yet nearly green. The land is very high from Halifax to Bradford, and proportionably cold. Here are some of those “Yorkshire Hills” that they see from Lancashire and Cheshire.