gentry were regaled' at Buxton, for he was not there till the bathing-season was over, and the bathers had returned to their homes: and he shows also, with equal plainness, that they were not lodged in low wooden sheds. "There is a handsome house built by them [the baths], and a convenient bathing-place, though not very large; but neither the time of the year nor the day of the week being seasonable to bathe in, we contented ourselves with the sight, without any more than a manual immersion into these delicious springs." (ib. p. 35). The handsome house was that in which the bathers lodged:-we shall speak further of it presently. We have preferred, in the first instance, to show that Mr. Macaulay's statement is not borne out, but rather disproved by his authority (the only one he adduces). But a little reflection will convince any one of its extreme improbability, and a passage or two from works of the time referred to, and antecedent to it, will effectually dispose of the question.. These, as far as they will assist us in looking at the history of Buxton (our chief concern), we proceed to give.

Buxton was a watering-place in the sixteenth century. Before the suppression of religious houses, the baths were connected with a shrine, whereon offerings were made by those who sought the benefit of the waters, and the crutches and bandages of the cured bore testimony to its healing properties. One of Thomas Cromwell's Commissioners tells his master how he has taken away all these ignorant offerings, and locked and sealed up the baths, so that none should wash therein till his lordship's pleasure were known. If after that the baths were for awhile neglected, they had in the reign of Elizabeth acquired more celebrity than ever. Camden says in his Britannia' (published in 1586), that "the Most Honourable George Earl of Shrewsbury hath lately adorned Buxton Wells with buildings, upon which they begin to be frequented by great numbers of the nobility and gentry." (Gibson's ed. iii. 76).

Here we see that even in the sixteenth century something better than a wooden shed was, as we might expect from their rank, provided for the visitors. But though Camden is a good authority, his information may have been obtained at second-hand. Another account of the lodgings prepared for the nobility and gentry who repaired to Buxton is desirable: and fortunately it is at hand. In 1572 was published a thin quarto blackletter volume, entitled 'The Benefit of the Ancient Baths of Buckstones, which cureth most grievous Sicknesses, &c., by John Jones, Physician :' wherein the doctor not only lays down the most precise rules for using the waters, but gives a pretty full account of Buxton and all matters connected with the Baths. There were, he says, three chief baths, and "four or five others, though not quite so good." Then, having described the baths and their situation, he goes on to state what accommodation has been provided for those who use them: the "goodly house and buildings of the Earl of Shrewsbury upon the Baths' side," he dwells upon with considerable fondness. * He was there about the middle of September. The season ended in August.

It would not be thought very splendid in these days; but, as will be seen, it was not a low wooden shed: "Joining to the chief spring, between the river and the bath, is a very goodly house, four-square, four stories high, so well compact, with houses of office, beneath and above, and round about, with a great chamber, and other goodly lodgings to the number of thirty, that it is and will be a beauty to behold: and very notable for the honourable and worshipful that shall need to repair thither: as also for other. Yea, the poorest shall have lodgings, and beds hard by for their uses only. The baths also so bravely beautified with seats round about; defended from the ambient air; and chimnies for fire to air your garments in the bath's side, and other necessaries most decent." (fol. 2).':.

This was the "handsome house which Thomas Browne mentions: with one great chamber, and thirty other lodgings, it would afford accommodation, such as was required at that time, for a considerable number. Cotton describes it as "a palace"-"a mansion proud enough for Saxon kings." There are plenty of other allusions to the "building," which seems to have been an object of much admiration, but it would be idle to quote more. In 1670, eight years after Browne was at Buxton, this building gave place to a new and more commodious" one, which was erected by the Duke of Devonshire;—the present 'Old Hall.'

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Had there not been this very exact evidence, it would be hardly conceivable that the nobility and gentry of Derbyshire and the surrounding counties, who, as is evident by the many mansions yet remaining which were standing in the seventeenth century, were accustomed to elegant and stately houses-it would be hardly conceivable that they should have endured the wretched treatment spoken of so broadly.

But now, having so abundantly settled what lodgings they had, let us look at their fare: "Retournons a nos moutons," as Rabelais hath it.

And here again Dr. Jones will assist us. On the subject of diet he is very great. There is no occasion to fast at Buxton, he thinks: he would have a dispensation obtained even from fish days, while using the waters ;-though trout and gurnet, bream and smelts, and some other kinds of fish which he enumerates, he thinks very good at proper times. But as to meat he is very liberal. The patient, he directs, "may use a more large diet at Buxton than at Bath." Still he would have the rule of "not too much" carefully heeded. It is curious to notice the hour he recommends for dinner and supper; what would a Buxton physician say to them now-and what would the patient say if the doctor advised them?

Now for your meats, they will be best at ten or eleven o'clock, if you can fast so long. Your hour of supper shall be about six of the clock: but after that I would have you to use no more meat that night, nor yet drink, if you can abstain." Now observe the bill of fare: "Your flesh shall be most ordinary as fol loweth :-mutton, kid, coney, rabbit, veal, turkey, capon, hen, chicken, pheasant, partridge, rail, curlew,

footed fowls, poached eggs or rere roasted is also right nourishing meats, as is aforesaid."

If the patient would like a little fruit after his 'diet,' the doctor is quite willing that he should take "almonds, raisins, pomegranates, figs," and so forth. Wine he does not actually prohibit but for a poor sick, or as he calls it, crazed' body; at Buxton, some good ale, "neither too new nor too stale, and not overhopped, is the best drink." With these a sick man might make shift pretty well. It is reasonable to suppose that they were obtainable at Buxton, by their being so carefully prescribed by the Buxton doctor.

But then it is possible that Buxton may have become so degenerate in the course of a century that the 'gentry' who repaired thither may have been glad to be "regaled with a viand which the host called mutton, but which the guests strongly suspected to be dog." Of course it is possible, though it is generally stated that the baths continue to grow in fame and favour: let us see whether we cannot find some contemporary notices of Buxton viands. This time the philosopher of Malmesbury shall lend us aid. Just about the time referred to, Hobbes wrote a Latin poem, already mentioned, De Mirabilibus Pecci, published in 1636 and 1666; and again in 1678, with an English version on the opposite page. There he relates the particulars of a visit which he paid to the Buxton Baths. Arriving towards evening, the travellers resolved to bathe, "while turfy fuel does prepare our supper." When they returned to their room, "the spread tables" told that the supper was ready. Now observe with what viands they were regaled: it is not a very stately supper, but there is no suspicion of dog:

"Then in by candle-light our meats convey'd,

Where a small bowl, but not whole baths of broth At our request is plac'd to be supt off: The mutton taken from 't apart is laid; From the same sheep a smoking loin is had, Hot drawn from off the spit; with a young fowl From the demolish'd egg was lately stole, And butter'd pease by spoonfuls. But rich wine In vain we seek; ale in black pots that shine, Good nappy ale we drink. Thus supt, afar We with tobacco drive off sleep and care.”—p. 70. We had collected a good many other notes, but it would be useless to pursue the subject further. Enough for us is it to know that "in the seventeenth century, the gentry of Derbyshire and of the neighbouring counties who repaired to Buxton were not crowded into low wooden sheds, or regaled with oatcake and with a viand which the hosts called mutton, but which the guests strongly suspected to be dog." Enough is it to know that if the viands were not luxurious, they were wholesome and substantial; and that if the lodgings were what we might think rude, they were at any rate comfortable.

We have been thus particular in inquiring into this defamation of poor Buxton, and in clearing off the stain cast on her early character, as in duty bound, being for the nonce her humble servitor. But it is

to question these broad and startling statements. We are rather too apt now-a-days not merely to dwell with complacency on our own comforts and luxuries, but to exaggerate the poor make-shifts and unrefined contrivances of our semi-barbarous great-grandfathers. No doubt we are very much wealthier, and therefore happier and wiser than the poor creatures of that dismal age-but, after all, they were flesh and blood, and did somehow manage to crawl through their pitiable existence; it will be at least generous on our part, therefore, not to expend needless pity upon them, or make them worse off than they were, or their state more deplorable. It is not difficult to guess how it was that Mr. Macaulay fell into this error. A dull man might have taken Master Thomas's lively exaggeration for a grave narrative-as dull men are said to have read the narrative of Captain Gulliver; but Mr. Macaulay could not so have blundered. He has probably trusted to his memory, or to a hasty note made when looking through Wilkins's edition of Sir Thomas Browne's Works (perhaps when he reviewed it), and he had forgotten that Young Browne's Tour was not a substantive work, and so did not turn to it to verify the quotation or reference when sitting down to the history.

Having seen what Buxton was, or was not, let us look a while at what it is. From the seventeenth century downwards, it seems to have maintained and increased its popularity. Many additions and improvements were made at different times; but for those which have stamped on Buxton its general character and appearance, the town is indebted to the late Duke of Devonshire, who almost entirely rebuilt the fashionable or visitor's part of the town. The chief pile of building in Buxton-that which distinguishes the town both close at hand and from a distance the Crescent, was commenced by him "about the year 1789, and completed in seven years afterwards, at a cost of £120,000." For a town of but a few hundred inhabitants it is a structure of uncommon size. It is three stories high; the lower one is rusticated, and forms an arcade, which serves as a covered promenade. "The span of the Crescent is 200 feet, and each wing measures 58 feet, making the whole extent of the front 316 feet." It contains 378 windows. The style is Doric; the architect was Mr. Carr, of York. Among the additions made by the present duke, the new church is the most important and noticeable. It is a large and graceful edifice, in the Tuscan style. From its elevated position, it is a leading feature in every view of the town. Of the additions made to the visitors' means of enjoyment, the laying out and planting the hill in front of the Crescent, and the construction of the Duke's Drive,' are the principal. The former is a considerable improvement to the appearance of the town itself, as well as a grateful boon to the resident, to whom it furnishes-together with the Serpentine Walks' formed down by the side of the Wye-as pleasant and cheerful a variety of home walks as in an inland town he could expect or desire. All are open freely alike to rich or poor.

The baths are numerous, and fitted up with every possible regard for convenience and comfort. The temperature of the water is somewhat higher than that of Matlock, but inferior to that of Bath. The Buxton water is applied both internally and externally in a great many disorders; and if it were the custom now as of yore to make votive offerings, St. Anne's shrine would display now, as it did when the Commissioners demolished it, a goodly collection of "shirts and shifts and crutches." There are several places for drinking as well as bathing: but now, as three centuries ago, the principal fount is "St. Anne's Well," which is situated close by the hotel of the same name. The spring is covered by a neat little Grecian building. The water in St. Anne's Well has a temperature of 81°. A little distance from it rises another spring, the water of which is quite cold. These springs formed one of the Wonders of the Peak, and are duly celebrated in the poems so entitled. "It was pretty to observe," says Master Thomas Browne, "the hissing of the cold and hot springs, so nigh one another, that by putting my hand into the water I conceived one finger to freeze till the other could not endure the heat of the boiling spring just by it." Buxton had in 1841 a population of 1500. There is accommodation in the hotels and boarding-houses for about the same number of strangers. The average visitors to Buxton during the season is between 14,000 and 15,000.

Mr. Rhodes has in a few words described the appearance of the town: "The upper part of Buxton is truly a Derbyshire village; the lower, in the elegance of its buildings, its show, and its parade, approximates to Bath." The fashionable part, with its stately buildings, its gardens and promenades filled with welldressed company moving to and fro while the band is performing popular melodies, is, in the height of the season, a gay place, and will be looked upon with pleasure and the contrast is certainly striking between it and the upper part-but we confess to having a liking for the latter, and by no means agree with Mr. Rhodes' description of it as miserable, mean, and povertystricken. We like it for not being smooth, and formal, and Bath-like. Buxton presents no very remarkable appearance from the surrounding country. It is perhaps seen to most advantage from the higher grounds about Fairfield. (Cut, No. 7.)

There are charming walks and drives around Buxton: but we have no room left to speak of them. The Valley of the Wye by Shirbrook Dell, Ashwood Dale, and Lover's Leap, is very fine; and there are splendid views from the heights which border it. On the other side is the bare bleak mountain, Axe Edge, from which there is a range of prospects of marvellous extent. During the Ordnance Survey, the station on Axe Edge was connected with others on the tower of Lincoln Cathedral and the summit of Snowdon-the reflector placed on the latter was distinctly visible, though ninety miles distant. On the slopes of Axe Edge four of the rivers of Derbyshire take their rise: the Goit, the Dane, the

Dove, and the Wye. The source of the Wye is just out of the Macclesfield road, about a mile from Buxton, in a spot which gives no promise of the future beauty of the river. The Dove rises high up the mountainside, some distance above the village of Dove Head, and is a pretty streamlet from the first. We must mention Pool's Hole, which was once reckoned among the wonders of the Peak; and boasts of having been visited by Mary Queen of Scots while she was a resident at Buxton for the benefit of the waters. It is inferior to the Castleton caverns, yet worth visiting. The other notabilia of Buxton must go unnamed.

DOVE DALE.

From Buxton, Dove Dale is some sixteen miles distant. The upper part of the river is pretty in parts, and a resolute pedestrian would prefer following loosely its guidance to Dove Dale to taking the road. If that be not done, it is advisable, if time permits, to join the river at Hartington, for the sake of visiting the scenery of the Second Part of the Complete Angler.' Just where the broad meadows begin to contract, is the little fishing-house built by Charles Cotton, and by him dedicated to fishermen, and which all fishermen and all lovers of the gentle craft regard with peculiar interest. The little house is still perfect as when Cotton owned, and, in the person of Viator, so pleasantly described it; and Izaak Walton added to it and to the surrounding scene the crowning charm by declaring, that though some part of the fishing-house has been described, the pleasantness of the river, mountains, and meadows cannot; unless Sir Philip Sidney, or Mr. Cotton's father, were again alive to do it."

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Just beyond the fishing-house the Dove has forced a way through a rocky glen, which, though short, is nearly as fine in its way as anything along the river. The dale is richly wooded, the rocks are bold, and the river full and rapid. A large piece of rock, which rises out of the bed of the river, and is quite detached from the parent cliff, has given the name of Pike Pool to part of the dell. Cotton's notice of it is worth quoting. "Viator. What have we got here? a rock springing up in the middle of the river? this is one of the oddest sights that ever I saw. Piscator. Why, sir, from that pike, that you see standing up there distant from the rock, this is called Pike Pool: and young Mr. Izaak Walton was so pleased with it, as to draw it in landscape in black and white." This drawing is lost, but there is a sketch of it in black and white by old Mr. Izaak Walton, which he added by way of note to the above passage. "It is a rock in the fashion of a spiresteeple, and almost as big. It stands in the midst of the river Dove; and not far from Mr. Cotton's house, below which place this delicate river takes a swift career betwixt many mighty rocks, much higher and bigger than St. Paul's church before it was burnt." How characteristic a touch is that of the excellent old linendraper of Fleet Street!

On passing from this spot, you have, if you follow the stream, to traverse a "long, narrow, and desolate