brook runs through the grounds of the house where Dr. Taylor lived, when he was so often visited by his friend and schoolfellow, Dr. Johnson; and where there is a little waterfall, probably the very one mentioned by Boswell, when he represents the great moralist, one sunny morning, poring with placid indolence on the water, and then trying with a pole to tumble a large dead cat over the cascadeon which the biographer reminds us that Esop at play is one of the instructive apologues of antiquity. The Green Man and Black's Head, now kept by Robert Wallis, is the inn where Boswell took his chaise in September, 1777, and where the landlady, Mrs. Killingsley, subjoined to her bill a note in her own handwriting, expressing "her most grateful thanks, and sincerest prayers for his happiness in time and in a blissful eternity."

He and Johnson attended divine service at the church just sixty-eight years before our visit. Johnson was at Dovedale, Ham, and Hawkstone, in July, 1774, when he climbed the high rocky caves called Reynard's Hall and Kitchen, at Dovedale, and bore the fatigue of the day's walk without inconvenience.

He even thought that the heat and exercise mended his hearing, and remarked the pleasant murmuring of the water among the stones. He said the place, though worthy of a visit, did not answer his expectations, especially the "clear, quick brook" instead of a larger river. He thought the pastoral virtues, and nymphs, and swains might find a fit abode at Ham; and that it should be described by Parnell, and the severer scenery of Hawkstone by Milton.

The monument by Banks to Penclope Boothby, in Ashborn Church, is one of those happy works of genius of which any town might be proud. The model may be seen in Sir John Soane's Museum. The lovely child is represented in the calm and sweet expression of tenderness and sleeping ease, though with the effects of suffermg, in a brief interval of pain and weariness; the image of death, soon to end in the reality

"Sweet rose,fair flower, untimely pluck'd,soon faded, Pluck'd in the bud, and faded in the spring! Bright orient pearl, alack! too timely shaded! Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's sharp sting!"

Which lines of Shakspere may have impressed Milton, when, in his seven

tieth year, he composed his "Ode on the Death of a Fair Infant," beginning

"O fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken primrose, fading timelessly, Summer's chief honour if thou hadst outlasted Bleak winter's force that made thy blossom dry; For he being amorous of that lovely dye

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss, But kill'd, alas, and then bewailed his fatal bliss."

But if poetry be not vain to weep such loss, perhaps Coleridge's "Epitaph on an Infant" might be most soothing to the feelings of a parent

"Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to Heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there!"

The Talbot Inn, where Piscator calls for a flagon of ale to welcome Viator to the Peak, has long since disappeared, and on its site a large brick house now stands, formerly occupied by Mr. Langdale, and at present by Mr. Brittlebank, a solicitor. It is on the north-east side of the market-place, and to your right as you go out of Ashborn, with Piscator and Viator to Low Top, mentioned in the dialogue as "the hill out of the town."

From this hill the inclosed green fields of the valley, and the highlands which excited Viator's surprise, present a fine pastoral view. These hills are the same, with the addition of Backmoor, which have been already mentioned as forming the background of the landscape, seen from Spital Hill. "But what pretty river is this we are going into? Why this, sir, is called Bentley Brook, and is full of very good trout and grayling, but so encumbered with wood in many places as is troublesome to an angler." It is a rivulet only, like the others which you cross between Derby and Hanson Toot, about two miles from Ashborn, and still much encumbered with wood. The travellers had to ford it; but it is now crossed by a little bridge of two arches, and runs in a delightful valley, pleasantly decked with trees and hedgerows, to flow into the Dove about a mile westward of Ashborn, and the same distance above the mouth of Henmore Brook.

The road pursued by Piscator and Viator is much less pleasing than the parallel and grassy walk of the right or Derbyshire bank of the Dove, through Dovedale. This is the celebrated pass of the river, about two miles in length, between the picturesque hills, studded, on the east, orDerby

shire side, by a profusion of large whimsical rocks, with as whimsical names, and on the opposite or Staffordshire side by plantations of birch, ash, and pine. The effect is exceedingly beautiful, often curious and romantic, and always interesting. But, like the pleasant scenes described by Cotton, it wants the grandeur of sublimity. The river is but small. Nor do we recollect a single crag or mountain that is truly magnificent; though the gorge at the north end of Dovedale, as you look down the stream, is not altogether destitute of splendour; especially from the Nabs, a sort of mimic Khyber Pass, through which we descended after a day's ramble over the Bailey Hill. However vast the features of the scenery of the district may seem at first sight, you soon perceive that it is but a mountainous country in miniature

"Yet dear to fancy's eye the varied scene

Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between !"

The sportive exaggerations in the dialogue, as when Viator exclaims of the prospect from Low Top-"Bless me! what mountains are here!-are we not in Wales ?" and further on, after all the pleasantry about the steep but by no means stupendous Hanson Toot, his calling it by the name of Penmen Maur, one of the most remarkable promontories on the north coast of that principality, have led some readers to expect exalted grandeur where the prevailing character is simply elegance and beauty, greensward, the dress of the land, diversified by fantastic and steep rocks, often like large ruinous walls, and swelling into numerous grassy hills, with most of the varying and delightful appearances, save the severe majesty or magnitude, of mountain scenery.

In this frame, the swift, translucent, silver Dove is so gracefully set as to charm the heart of the beholder_ "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." Ascend Thorp Cloud; see the lovely river winding through Bunster Dale, and the verdant meads below; and, as you descend the mountain, look up the bright crystal stream inlaying Dovedale, and say, Amen. And consider your happiness doubled, if time and weather permit you to exclaim, with Shakspeare

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy."

Unlike rivers which rush from mountains by shores of shingle, the banks of the Dove, even in rocky Dovedale, are verdant to the very brink of the water. It is generally rapid, now sweeping quietly and smoothly onwards, ever and anon broken by irregular rocks, and by many a little artificial cascade, often purling and trotting, with ripple and dimple on its way, and occasionally slackening into comparative repose in deeper pools, where, like Allan Ramsay's "Howe Burn""Beneath, as clear as glass,

It kisses wi' easy whirls the bordering grass."

The characteristic swiftness of the Dove is maintained, even at the end of its varied and romantic course, where it glides for it is here too deep to brawl. through the tame, flat, rich meadows, opposite Newton Solney, to join the Trent, about a quarter of a mile from the pretty old church. Even for some distance after the junction, the rapid stream of the Dove is in contact, and yet in singular contrast with the slower and majestic current of the Trent; while the Derwent runs into the Trent twelve or fifteen miles lower down, at Wildon Ferry, without any perceptible difference in the pace of the two streams.

Though so much has been said and sung in praise of rivers, we must notice the beauty of the silent groundswell to be seen hereabouts, and in which this and other large deep streams, as the Shannon, differ from the Dove and such smaller currents. An idle hour, mayhap not idly spent, may be pleasantly passed in watching the eddies rippling and welling up from the depths of the stream, reflecting the varying hues of the atmosphere, and gracefully curving and expanding into the surface, and ever forming and disappearing, like those placid duties of which the succession and pleasure are endless in this life.

The Lathkill, commended by Cotton for the purity and transparency of its stream, and the redness and excellence of its trout, receives the Bradford near Alport, and flows into the Wye in Rowesley meads; and though the two former, as he remarks, are not to be reputed rivers, "being no better than great springs," they are still very full of trout; while it is remarkable that they contain no grayling, save a small stray one or two, near the mouth of the Lathkill, notwithstanding the

Wye abounds with this fish.

The sweet, sequestered valley of the Bradford, with the romantic and precipitous village of Youlgreave on the high north bank of the rivulet, will not soon be forgotten by any one who has lingered with rod and line in this rocky, wooded, quiet, trouty nook. The scenery of the Manifold, too, is very lovely, with its "hill, dale, and shady woods, and liquid lapse of murmuring streams," and Thor's cave, near Wotton, and about four miles south-west from Cotton's "pretty moorland seat of Beresford Hall.

The Wye, which has its source on Axe Edge, near Buxton, Cotton tells us, "becomes very soon a delicate, clear river, and breeds admirable trout and grayling, reputed by those who, by living upon its banks, are partial to it, the best of any." Though wanting the rapidity of the Dove, the Wye has many a charming stream dancing along:

"Like childhood laughing as it went ; Then through the plain in tranquil wandering crept, Reflecting every herb and drooping bud That overhung its quietness."

In its course through Monsal Dale and Taddington Bottom, and from Bakewell by Haddon Hall to its mouth in the Derwent at Rowsley, the Wye is not only beautiful itself, but has so many accessories of beauty in rural footbridges, bold hills, narrow glens, green ravines, " bosky bournes, dingles, and bushy dells," old feudal mansion, and verdant fertile leas, as to rival the scenery of the Dove. The Wye, "wandering at its own sweet will" through the meads, as seen from a hill about a mile eastward of Bakewell, is a finer scene than the meandering of Cotton's river, "like a snake," as he describes it, through the vale near his house.

The bridge across the Dove as you go from Hanson Toot to Alstonfield, and which Viator thought was "6 certainly made for nothing else than a wheelbarrow," is now of stone, with two arches, and four feet broad. Had he not been so terrified with the descent to it from the hill, "as steep as a penthouse," he might have seen Alstonfield Church, with its tower and cheering evidence of his not being " a stage or two beyond Christendom," before he crossed over to Staffordshire.

Beresford Hall "stands prettily,"

as Viator remarks, on an eminence near the river. "Here's wood about it too, but so young, as appears to be of your own planting." To which Piscator replies, "It is so." It is a plain, stone house, occupied for farming purposes; and its oldest part is in a ruinous state. There is still a large wains coated room, with Cotton's arms in the window; and a smaller adjoining room with the Beresford arms emblazoned in like manner. These rooms are in the front, commanding a fine view of Narrowdale Hill. We saw in the house some oak, carved with Cotton's arms, and the date 1656, and a similar carving in his pew at Alstonfield Church.

"The brink of the hill" mentioned by Piscator, the same which he and Viator climb, and from its top go directly into the house to dine, is between it and the river, and has a narrow passage, just large enough to admit a man, through the rock into a chamber called "Cotton's Cave," and of which they have a tradition, that he used to hide himself therein from his creditors. The bowling-green was on this hill, between the house and the Dove. He seems to have liked the amusement of bowling, and remarked"To give you the moral of it, it is the emblem of the world, or the world's ambition, where most are short, over, wide, or wrong biassed, and some few jostle to the mistress, Fortune! And here it is as in the court, where the nearest are the most spighted, and all bowls aim at the other.' But "The Complete Gamester," second edition, 12mo, London, 1676, in which this passage occurs, has not Cotton's name, though attributed to him in the catalogue of the library at the British Museum.

The little foot-bridge, which the interlocutors saw from the fishing-house, no longer exists; and the path under the rock, where Piscator tells Viator to take heed of slipping into the water, has been made broad and good. There are beautiful streams between the hills and rocks below the fishing-house; and about two hundred yards from it is a wooden foot-bridge, just above which are "the slippery cobblingstones," by which Viator crossed to the "fine stream at the head of this great pool." And about fifteen yards lower down is Pike Pool, with which, Cotton says, "young Mr. Isaac Walton was

so pleased, as to draw it in landscape, in black and white, in a blank book I have at home." The Pike is a grotesque, spire-like rock, rising from the middle of the dark deep pool, where the river passes between and through the cliffs.

About three hundred yards above the hall is the fishing-house. It is of stone, and situated where the delicate, clear river, bending by the little peninsula mentioned by Viator, becomes deep and sluggish. Cotton fondly alludes to it in his " Epistle to J. Bradshaw, Esq."

"My river still through the same channel glides,
Clear from the tumult, salt, and dirt of tides;
And my poor fishing-house, my seat's best grace,
Stands firm and faithful in the self same place
I left it four months since; and ten to one
I go a fishing ere two days are gone."

The motto, "Piscatoribus Sacrum," and the cypher of the intertwisted initial letters of Walton's and Cotton's names, are perfect over the doorway, or at least were so in the autumn of 1845, to which period the observations in the present paper refer. Within the house there is a bluish circular stone table, flagged floor, and plain whitewashed wall- no longer "finely wainscotted," as Viator noticed in admiring the exceeding neatness of the interior. This pretty and interesting building is in much better preservation than Cotton's " moorland seat." In front of the fishinghouse are two lime-trees, and on its sides some firs or other allied conifers and as these were all probably planted by Cotton, according to his remark in the second chapter, it is to be hoped that they will be carefully preserved. That he was fond of arboriculture may be supposed from his " Planter's Manual," an octavo volume, published in London in 1675.

How he delighted in the place during the angling season, may be gathered from the dialogue, and more especially from his poetry :

"O, my beloved nymph, fair Dove,
Princess of rivers, how I love

Upon thy flowery banks to lie,
And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a summer's beam!

And in it all thy wanton fry,
Playing at liberty;

And with my angle upon them,
The all of treachery

I ever learn'd, industriously to try !" But the situation of Beresford Hall, at a distance from any town or village, in a bleak moorland district, where stone walls replace the cheerful hedgerows, must have been very dreary in the dead months; and, considering Cotton's love of society, sufficiently distressing to his feelings at that time. As justly remarked by Sir William Temple, "The restless humour so general and so natural to mankind, is a weed that grows in all soils and under all climates, but is raised easier by the more sprightly wits and livelier imaginations, than by grosser and duller conceptions; and the more ingenious men are, they are the more How apt to trouble themselves." Cotton was led to trouble himself, and to exhibit his petulance, has been made rather too well known, and with but little allowance for the manner of the times, and the refinement and irritability of his temperament; while a just and liberal estimate of his poetry, and a generous biography of him, are yet required. He died in St. James's parish, London; and though all that is mortal of him is said to have been laid in the burial-ground at Piccadilly, we have in vain sought for his grave about that great tide of human existence, notwithstanding his death_occurred two or three years after Wren had completed the church. But it is to his own quiet rural scenes that his beautiful touches of nature carry our minds. And let all who truly love "to angle for a trout or grayling in a clear stream," join in the ejaculation, ascribed by Walton to Sir Henry Wotton, and by Sir Egerton Bridges to Sir Walter Raleigh

"Bless'd silent groves, oh, may you be For ever mirth's best nursery!

May pure contents

For ever pitch their tents

Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains,

And peace still slumber by these purling fountains;

Which we may every year

Meet, when we come a fishing here."

HAD this modest volume nothing to recommend it beyond its literary merit, it would, no doubt, have won the favour of the public, and gained, as it has already done, the rapid honours of a third edition; but it must be confessed that it comes forward with some adventitious aids, and certain positive advantages of an important character. It has the prestige of being written by the author of a wellestablished favourite, the "Visits to the Monasterics of the Levant." It appears at a moment when there is an eager feeling for information on the subject of the countries to which it refers; and, above anything, it is enabled, from the position and experience of Mr. Curzon, to touch upon topics connected with our actual war and possible peace, with an emphasis which cannot but prove impressive, and, we are persuaded, most highly useful.

The mountainous region of Armenia has been for ages a prey to border feuds. The great exploit of the Anabasis of Xenophon, was his march through this country, not only because of its physical difficulties, but on account of the same robber-tribes which haunt it to the present day; and the language of Tacitus paints its people as they are. "That nation," he says, "has been, from days of old, unsettled, from the character of its people and its position." The Turkish Koords are for ever making inroads upon Persia, and the Persians are as active and as unrelenting in their forays. "The invading party," says Mr. Curzon, "always on horseback, and with a number of led horses, which could travel one hundred miles without flagging, manage to arrive in the neighbourhood of the devoted village one hour before sunrise. The barking of the village curs is the first notice to the sleeping inhabitants that the enemy was literally at the door. The houses are fired in every direction; the people

awake from sleep, and, trying in confusion to escape, are speared on their thresholds by their invaders. The place is plundered of everything worth taking, and one hour after sunrise the invading bands are in full retreat, driving before them the flocks and herds of their victims, and the children and girls of the village bound on the led horses, to be sold, or brought up as slaves, the rest having-young and old, men and women-been killed, without mercy, to prevent their giving the alarm; their victors frequently coming down upon them from a distance of from one hundred to three hundred miles." Such is the tableau vivant of Armenia-such its traditional histories and native traits. There was in consequence no travelling in the country, and but little commerce. The Turkish and Persian governments, slowly awaking to a perception of their own losses, made application to Russia and England to draw up a definitive treaty, and fix the boundaries between the two empires. A commission therefore directed to proceed to Erzeroom, consisting of a Persian, a Turkish, a Russian, and an English plenipotentiary; and Mr. Curzon, who had been for some years private secretary to the distinguished personage who was then, and happily is now, our ambassador at Constantinople, was the commissioner for England. This was in 1842; but the discussions between the Governments were protracted, and it was not until 1847 that the treaty was signed, and the border questions adjusted. As, however, the places named had never been surveyed, and were only known from ancient maps, it was considered advisable to verify them in a scientific manner, and for this purpose a new commission was appointed. This, on which Colonel Williams of the Royal Artillery acted on the part of England, left Bagdad in 1848, and, surveying that rude region inhabited by Koordish and

was

ii. c. 56.

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLIX.

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