navigable, well stored with salmon and other fish; 76 water mills, for the grinding of corn on the aforesaid rivers; 25 coal mines, which yield abundance of fuel for the whole county; 3 forges for the making of iron, and stone enough for the same: and within the same limits as much sport and pleasure for hunting, hawking, fishing, and fowling, as in any place of England besides." This is given as having been the state of things in 1548, in the time of Henry VIII.; and if the account can be relied on, it certainly indicates a condition of notable prosperity within a boundary of such narrow limits.

In 1638, Leeds was called upon to furnish its quota of ship-money; and Clarendon speaks of it, in companionship with Halifax and Bradford, as being about that period "three very populous and rich towns, depending wholly upon clothiers." Leeds had its full share in the struggles between Charles I. and his Parliament; taking uniformly the part of the latter, and changing masters many times. The Royalists under the Marquis of Newcastle took the town in 1642; in the next year, the Parliamentarians under Fairfax reconquered it; again was it taken by the Royalists; and again, after the battle of Marston Moor, did the Parliamentarians resume their possession.

Among the stories which have been associated with this period at Leeds was the following:-When Charles I. was in the hands of the Scots, and was being conveyed by them from Newark to Newcastle, he was lodged in the Red Hall at Leeds, supposed to have been then the best house in the town. During his stay at that place, a maid-servant, feeling compassion for his fallen position, and perhaps acting under the influence of certain royalists in the town, implored him to disguise himself in her dress, as a means of effecting his escape. She declared at the same time, that if he succeeded in the attempt, he would immediately be conducted by a back alley (since known as Land's-lane) to a friend's house, from whence he could proceed to France. Charles, however, either convinced that the project was impracticable, or entertaining fallacious hopes of the intentions of the Scots in his favour, declined the offer made by the woman. As a mark of his gratitude he gave her the Garter (perhaps the only symbol of royalty he then had about him); saying, that if it never should be in his power to reward her, his son, on the sight of that token, would bestow upon her some remuneration. After the Restoration, the woman repaired to Charles II., related the circumstance, and produced the token. The king inquired whence she came; she replied, "From Leeds, in Yorkshire." "Whether she had a husband?" She answered that she had. "What was his calling?" She said, "An under-bailiff." "Then," said the king, " he shall be chief bailiff in Yorkshire."

Whatever may have been the disasters suffered by Leeds during the wars, they were slight compared with those which resulted from the Great Plague of 1665. From the month of March to the month of December in that year, more than fifteen hundred persons died of

the plague in this town; supposed to have been not less than one-fifth of the whole population. All but the very poor sought to avoid the dread pestilence by flight; the grass grew in the deserted streets; the markets were removed to Woodhouse; and the doors of the church were closed.

A period of a century elapsed without any political event of importance having occurred at Leeds; when, in 1745, Marshal Wade's army formed an encampment between Leeds, Sheepscar, and Woodhouse. It is said that this was the last encampment formed on English ground during the time of internal war; and it is also said, that the boundaries of the encampment are still marked by the absence of old wood in the hedge-rows.

The progress of Leeds was so quiet and steady, that it is hardly possible to watch the several stages of its development. Turnpike-roads were introduced in the neighbourhood about 1753: not without great opposition on the part of the lower classes, who regarded tollbars much in the same light as Rebecca" of modern times in Wales has done. The houses of the inhabitants

gradually assumed a more substantial and durable character. The mud and wattled houses, roofed with thatch, which formed the early dwellings of the town, gave place to timber-houses; one of which, named Rockley Hall, the residence of an opulent family, was existing down to the beginning of the present century. When, from change of taste, or scarcity of wood, these timber-houses became obsolete, they were succeeded by another class of houses built of a perishable argillaceous kind of stone found in the neighbourhood. At length, in the reign of Charles I., the first brick-house of Leeds was built; and it retained for nearly two centuries the distinctive appellation of the Red House. A more recent stage was consequent on the introduction of deal timber from Prussia and Livonia, by which the massive and picturesque oak-fittings of earlier days were replaced by slighter, neater, but plainer and more fragile timbers of deal.

With regard to intercourse between Leeds and London, it was of course a momentous affair before the days of good roads and fast coaches. The first Leeds and London stage-coach of which we have read was advertised in 1764; when the travelling public were informed that there was "safe and expeditious travelling, with machines on steel springs, in four days to London, from the Old King's Arms, in Leeds, every Monday and Wednesday." The march of improvement was so rapid that in 1776 a new post-coach was announced to go from Leeds to London in thirtynine hours. Of the steps whereby this mode of travelling was superseded by the vast railway system described in a former page, most modern readers are able to form an opinion.

The annals of Leeds for the last hundred years are simply the annals of commercial progress; and it may, therefore, suffice for us now to see what kind of town Leeds has become, and what are the relations which it bears to its busy neighbours.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE TOWN. First, then, we have to draw a distinction between the town, the borough, and the parish of Leeds. The town claims its ninety or hundred thousand inhabitants; while the borough approaches much nearer to two hundred thousand. When the Parliamentary Reform Commissioners came to mark the boundaries of the borough of Leeds, they found the parish limits so extensive and comprehensive, that it was deemed sufficient to apply the same limits to the borough. The parish is a large one, or (since the recent changes in the ecclesiastical divisions of the parish) we may perhaps better say that the borough is a large one. It comprises not only the town of Leeds, but also the townships and chapelries of Armley, Beeston, Bramley, Farnley, Holbeck, Hunslet, Chapel Allerton, Headingley, Burley, Wortley, and Potter Newton-extending between seven and eight miles from east to west, about the same from north to south, and thirty in circumference.

These townships or outlying suburbs are connected with Leeds not only in an electoral sense, but commercially and socially. The cloth-workers of the townships look up to Leeds as their great prop and support; while the "well-to-do" inhabitants of Leeds -the gentry and the principal manufacturers-have their private residences between and among those townships, where smoke and steam have yet left a few green fields and green trees untouched. Beginning northward of Leeds, and making a circuit around it, we first find the township or village of Headingley, becoming more and more an integral portion of Leeds, by the progress of building along the pleasant road which connects the two. Beyond this is the West Wood, with the 'lodge,' the hall,' the 'cottage,' the 'mill,' &c., to which it gives name. The road through Headingley leads onward to Otley. Next to this, on the west, is the road through Kirkstall towards Horsforth; and here we find the ruins of the venerable Abbey which has given such celebrity to the place. Between the two roads lie Flower Bank, Kirkstall Grange, Hawksworth Park, Cookridge Wood, and other open spots-some cultivated as private pleasure-grounds, and some in the state of woods and commons. A little to the west of the Kirkstall road lies the valley through which the river Aire, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and the Leeds and Bradford Railway run-a curious example, and one which is exhibited in many parts of England, of the eagerness with which engineers seek to follow the lines marked out for them by Nature in the courses of rivers. In immediate contiguity with these are the Bramley stone quarries. Next we come to the high-road to Bradford, surmounting a hill which has been shunned by the river, the canal, and the railway. In this quarter are the villages of Armley, Bramley, and Stanningley, and a few private residences. A further progress to the south-west brings us to the road leading to Tong and other clothing villages in that direction, over a very undulating country; here we meet with Wortley, Farnley village and park, and

a sprinkling of private residences, with country farms. Then we come to the turnpike-road, towards Halifax and Birstall, with Farnley Wood lying between them. South of Leeds lies Holbeck, now so closely connected with the town, that there is no visible division between them, except that furnished by the river Aire. Beyond Holbeck, in the same direction, lies Beeston; and in and around the intervening district are many private residences and pleasant fields. Beginning now to bend to the south-east of Leeds, and crossing the North Midland Railway, we come first to Hunslet, almost as much incorporated with the great town as Holbeck. But here we notice a remarkable feature, which has been before adverted to, and which will again come under our observation further on, that eastward of Leeds scarcely a trace of a clothing village can be seen: the roads to Wakefield, to Pontefract, to Selby, all have farm-houses and private residences in their vicinity, but not such a knot of busy little suburbs as those hitherto named. Crossing the Leeds and Selby Railway, and approaching the division north-east of Leeds, we find Sheepscar, Gledhow Wood and Quarry, and a number of farms near the road to York and Tadcaster. Lastly, on the north, following the line of road to Harrogate and its vicinity, we find Woodhouse, Potter Newton, and Chapel Allerton, interspersed, like the others, with mansions, parks, and farms.

It must be admitted that there are very few fine prospects to be obtained among this belt of townships and villages; the hills are neither numerous enough nor picturesque enough to form a good background to the scene. But where the man of commerce is busy, the man of landscapes must not be disappointed if the materials at his disposal are somewhat scanty. There can be no mistake as to the character of Leeds as a town, in whatever direction it may be approached : there is a dark and sooty tell-tale hovering over it, which speaks of factories and steam-engines and chimneys among the mass of houses beneath. Whatever we may say of its environs, most certain it is that Leeds cannot lay claim to the character of a picturesque town. Situated on the banks of the river Aire, it presents two different aspects, according to the point of view. On the one side of the river it lies on a slope of considerable acclivity, underlaid by a series of coalmeasures; while on the other side, constituting the districts or townships of Hunslet and Holbeck, is an extensive flat, traversed by the Hunslet and Holbeck brooks. The river Aire and its wharfs furnish us with the scene given in Cut, No. 2.

The general arrangement of the streets and alleys in the older parts of the town is pretty much the same as in all old towns: narrowness and crookedness are prevailing features. The main artery from north to south, however, called the Briggate, is of considerable width; arising, as it is said, from the old custom of having gardens in front of the houses in this street, the removal of which gardens has had the effect of giving a respectable amplitude to the Briggate. The streets more recently formed have the modern property of being