Walks in the Black Country and its Green Border-Land/Chapter 12

by Elihu Burritt

CHAPTER VI.

 

ENVILLE GARDENS: THEIR RELATION AND VALUE TO THE BLACKCOUNTRY—WOLVERHAMPTON: ITS HISTORICAL MONUMENTS AND ASSOCIATIONS AND ITS LEADING MANUFACTURES.

 

IN carrying out the programme of this volume—first, a dip into the Black Country, then one into its Green Border-Land—I commence this chapter with a few notes on a visit to the Enville Gardens, the seat of Lord Stamford, near Stourbridge. On a beautiful afternoon of the last of November, Capern accepted the challenge, and, having measured walking-sticks, we set out to see a segment of the border-land between Stourbridge and Wolverhampton in order to complete the western semicircle of the Black Country. It was one of the shortest days of the year, and at two o'clock the sun had nearly finished the small arc it was describing a little way above the southern horizon; but it was shining its best and loveliest. We only stopped for a hasty lunch at Stourbridge, and staffed on vigorously to Enville Gardens, hoping to see them before the dark set in. While passing through the town a trifling incident illustrated the value and power of photography as a detective agency. Really the sun sets, if not the mark of Cain, at least such a mark of individuality and identification on one as a rogue could no more escape than his shadow. It was the first time that I was ever in the town, and I was in such travelling gear as I had never faced a camera in. Still. I was recognized and spoken to by a person on the side-walk who had seen some photograph of my face somewhere. Let no one fancy that it was a fellow-feeling that made me think of rogues and the difficulties of their pursuit of freedom from arrest, with their faces chasing them up and down the world in such a fashion. It might be an interesting exercise to those given to such economics, to compute how many "special constables" the sun has added to the constabulary forces of Christendom through photography. The road was a good specimen of an English turnpike, the like of which not ten consecutive miles can yet be found in the United States. The country was rolling and wooded picturesquely, making a new and delightful scenery, varying in surface and aspect at every turning. We passed Stourton Castle, the residence of W. O. Foster. Esq., a gentleman who ought to inherit the Iron Crown and wear it on state occasions. He is one of the largest ironmasters in the world, employing about 5,000 men. His uncle, whose fortune he inherits, made it by his own talent and industry, beginning with £500, and ending his life with about £3,000,000. In one year the census-taker found the number of men employed by this Black Prince of the Mines to be 14,000, an army which few German princes could bring into the field. The present crown prince, inheriting such a vast fortune, is increasing it by investing in estates which already have made him a peer in property with the wealthiest noblemen of the country. I am inclined to think that he recently made the largest purchase that has been effected in one private transaction in England for the last fifty years. He bought the Whitmore estate on the Severn, paying £750,000 for it, or about 3,750,000 dollars in American gold. He is now adding to the buildings and expending, in fitting them up for his occupation, a sum which will make, with the purchase money, a total of £1,000,000. And this vast sum does not abstract anything from the capital necessary to carry on his great iron and coal works. It looks well to see men win their way to a peerage by the hammer as well as by the sword. Just before coming to Stourton Castle, we passed one of those old farm-houses of a better sort which you will find here and there in England, and which once constituted the mansions of what might be called the middle-class gentry. It looked like a small quadrangular village of buildings, of which the mansion part constituted the two-story frontage. On coming up abreast of this front, we found it was an inn, and certainly it was capacious enough to accommodate a full company of cavalry, horses and all. It mounted for the insignia of its hospitalities "The Stewponey and Foley Arms;" a sign which might look very appetising to an amateur of the new dietary proposed in Paris, but which, let us hope, will never supersede "the roast beef of Old England" either in supper or song.

We overtook, half-way up a long hill, one of the great farm wagons of this country, loaded heavily with clay and drawn by three splendid gray horses, each with a hoof that would not go into a peck measure. The whole turn-out looked as if it belonged to a first-class farmer; wagon, horses, and harnesses were of the highest order of perfection. But I was peculiarly struck with that strange economy of forces which distinguishes English farmers, by such marked contrasts, from those of America. Of course it is natural, and perhaps inevitable, that the farmers of all countries should be the most conservative as to traditional habits; that they should cling with the most tenacious adhesion to systems for which they can give no better and no other reason than that their fathers and ancestors did the same before them. Although English farmers are so stoutly conservative in this respect, they show the greatest leaning toward the masses; and they seemingly endeavour to make the masses as solid and as heavy as possible. They have the best roads and the heaviest wagons in the world. You may frequently see in New England a two-story frame house drawn up and down hills on four wheels, not a whit more heavy and solid than those of the average one-horse carts of the English farmer. As for one of the great four-wheeled wagons used here, thilled instead of poled, an American farmer would hardly think of dragging it up a hill empty with a single horse. But it is not so much in the solidity and weight of their carts and wagons that this peculiar economy of tractor forces, inherited and perpetuated here, may be seen most strikingly illustrated. It is in their application to the masses to be moved. Here before us was an example of the system. I asked the driver to let his three magnificent gray horses straighten their trace chains. I then paced the distance from the collar of the leader to the forward axle of the wagon, and found it a little over two rods! Nearly half the length of one horse was lost in the connexion between them. Indeed, as nearly as I could measure it with my walking-stick, it was full six feet between a perpendicular line from the hip of one horse to the collar ring of the one behind him to which he was attached. And still the owner of that noble team must have been a farmer of the first classdoubtless a man of general intelligence, but who had not yet learned to give a reason to himself or others for this strange use of horse-power. You seldom ever see farm-horses used in England in any other way. Whether on plough, cart, or wagon they are nearly always strung together in "Indian file," with spaces from four to six feet between each couple. I do not now recollect ever having seen a four-wheeled farm-wagon in England with a pole to it. However long and large, it is fitted with a pair of shafts, into which the thill-horse is put. Then frequently, perhaps, even if not generally, you will see the traces of the forward horse hooked into the hame ring of the one behind, instead of into his drawing chain. This makes another waste, for a great deal of drawing force is lost in the uneven sway and movement of the hindermost horse, and a considerable portion of his weight has to be added to the loaded cart, to make it more solid and heavy. It would be almost amusing to an American teamster to watch the manure-wagons climbing over the hills from Birmingham. He would sometimes sec a long procession of horses mounting the crown of the eminence seemingly detached from any load. On looking again he would see a huge long wagon looming up so far behind the leader that one would hardly fancy there was any connexion between the two. Sometimes this economy is varied in a unique way. The stoutest horse is put into the shafts, and two spans are attached to him, with not only the long, wasting space between him and them and between each other longitudinally, but laterally; so that if the two horses thus spanned walk evenly abreast, they frequently walk four feet apart, or nearly enough asunder to admit a passing phaeton between them. In travelling through different parts of England I have noticed with much attention as well as curiosity this remarkable characteristic—this hereditary and voluntary service and adhesion to solidity. And I think any careful observer will come to the conclusion which I have formed, that the farmers of England waste full one-third of their horse-power; or one-sixth in the superfluous weight of their wagons, carts, and ploughs, and one-sixth in its application to them or to the load to be drawn. Often while watching one of these long, straggling string of horses drawing a wagon up a hill, with the leader full three rods from the forward axle. I have wished that the owner were obliged to take a few rudimental lessons in dynamics, that he might learn to be more merciful to his beasts. I hope it was not wrong to wish him such an exercise for example as this: to undertake to draw a fifty-six pound weight up a hill at the end of a string forty feet long. Having tried this little experiment in tractorial forces two or three times, he would be quite likely to hitch his horses nearer to the load thereafter. Apparently no modern improvements have impaired this homage and tribute to solidity. I doubt if the road-wagons of English farmers of to-day weigh a single pound less than they did before Macadam was born, or when the highways of the country were made of its own clay or sand.

But not only horseflesh is so burdened and wasted by this "terrible tractoration," but human bone, blood, and muscle are fearfully sacrificed to this the most exacting of Penates Anglicani. From the cradle to the grave the English agricultural labourer bears the heavy burden of this homage. Should this book go to another edition. I intend it shall present, among its illustrations, not only English and American wagons, carts, ploughs, scythes, rakes, and axes, but also the farm-labourers' shoes of the two countries, in comparison. Those worn by the majority of the agricultural labourers here are veritable clogs to locomotion, in weight half leather and half iron. Indeed the latter must often preponderate. When on my walk from London to Land's End, I stepped into a blacksmith's shop to see the smith shoe a donkey. Near the anvil was a pair of leather shoes brought in to be shod. The number and size of the nails driven into the soles and heels were perfectly wonderful. I am sure they would weigh as much as the four iron shoes the smith was nailing to the donkey's hoofs. The effect of wearing such heavy shoes from youth up is as perceptible in the labourer's gait as the wearing of heavy iron armour must have been in the walk and carriage of the knights of old. In the first place, there is no spring or elasticity to a pair of shoes thus bottomed with iron. They do not shed mud by the motion of the foot. Then, being so thick and broad soled, they inevitably interfere with each other if lifted perpendicularly. So the wearer at every step describes the segment of a circle with his foot. This motion brings his knees together, like the joints of a pair of compasses. And the habit becomes a second nature to him, and he wears it all his life long. You will not see one English farm-labourer in ten lift his foot and set it down perpendicularly, or in a direct line with his knee. So you may always recognize him, though walking many rods before you, by this peculiar swinging gait. Adding to such shoes the heavy agricultural implements he wields, he has to run the race of labour with our American farming-men so heavily-weighted that it is a wonder he can accomplish as much as he does. After a short talk with the driver of these splendid grays, in which he looked surprised at certain questions I put to him, we resumed our walk to Enville. The road passed for a considerable distance under the shadow of a kind of primeval forest of lofty Scotch firs, which spread a thick roofage, by their trunk columns full sixty feet in height. Like the eternal song of the shell, the ceaseless murmur of their solemn music fills these fir temples of Nature day and night, summer and winter. The sun had poured out its parting flood upon the wooded hills, and the evening twilight had set in, before we reached the Earl of Stamford's seat, so we were obliged to postpone our visit to the gardens till the next day. We found very comfortable quarters at the only inn of the village, and, what made them all the more enjoyable, a very intelligent and affable landlord, who could not only answer all the questions we put to him but also volunteer interesting information without asking. He had resided there for more than thirty years, and could tell us of changes in the habits of the people of the village and neighbourhood which will be referred to hereafter.

The next morning we found the beautiful weather of the preceding day had changed, and it was now raining and chill, with a strong wind. Our landlord, however, fitted us out with waterproofs and umbrellas, and we sallied forth to see from under them the beauty and glory of the Enville Gardens rather veiled in mist. The gardener-in-chief took us over them with the greatest cordiality, and passed by no part of them without notice, though the wind reefed our umbrellas in spite of us several times while facing the beating rain. The grounds far exceeded our conception for extent and artistic embellishment, though we had heard glowing accounts of them. They must surprise even a visitor who has seen many of the ornamental parks of English noblemen. It is comparatively cheap and easy to plant and group trees of various foliage over a square mile of variegated surface, grazed by sheep and cattle. But to make acres of exquisite lawn, brooched with a thousand flower-beds and belted with choicest shrubbery, is a work of greater taste, genius, and expense. It is this peculiar feature that distinguishes Lord Stamford's grounds from any I have yet seen, and which makes them surpass even Lady Rolle's at Bicton. His flower gardens contain seventy-three acres, laid out in the most picturesque manner, with little lakes, fountains, and bouquets of trees, well supplied with rustic seats. All the flowers of all the zones are here in their glory, worked into the embroidery of miles of walks, skirted by walls of rhododendrons all aglow in May with their gossamer blossoms. Four hundred thousand pots of geraniums supply only one of the contingents of beauty which the floral world contributes, under subsidy, to this little earthly elysium. All were now gone except the evergreen borders, but acres of undulating lawn were dotted or globed with flower-beds leafless and bare, looking like mammalia of Nature, which had nursed each its floral offspring to the full beauty of its sweet-breathing bloom. The grand trees, standing singly or in groups, seemed to cling with loving attachment to the soft, green surface beneath which mirrored their out-spreading glory; for while their heads towered up into the sky with proud aspiration, all their arms drooped towards the earth, as if essaying to lift it upward to show it to the sun. This was a remarkable characteristic of them all, and I never saw the like before. They all clung to the green sward in this way—not only the purple beeches, limes, and elms, but the stout and gnarly oak, which seldom yields to the influences that affect other trees of more supple nerve and muscle. Here it also droops its brawny arms, and its great strong hands feel the face of the lawn for many yards round, as a giant father would feel the face of his sleeping infant. Had a discussion with Capern on this matter in which we reversed positions. He argued as a practical man and I as a poet, a novel change of parts. He maintained that all these various trees followed the proclivity of the mining rod, by which people used to detect the existence of minerals under the surface of the earth; that as the hazel wand tips downward in the open palm of the holder to indicate where minerals lie concealed, so the branches of all these great trees point downwards to show that metals are stored away for man far below the surface of the ground they shade. I stuck to the doctrine of "passional affinities," and urged that such high-bred trees never would have tended their aristocratic hands to common ploughed fields in that way, even if a thousand acres of coal or iron ore lay beneath the red furrows.

Although we missed the most brilliant and gorgeous half of the glory and beauty of this little garden world, or the flower show, the other half was more admirable still for the season. We saw what Nature can be assisted and taught to do in the chills, frosts, and fogs of an English November. After visiting the conservatory, which is a crystal palace of most symmetrical proportions, in the arabesque or mosque style, we passed through a half a mile of hot or forcing houses, where all the climates, seasons, soils, fruits, and vegetables of the earth's various latitudes are produced. Here, on the last day of November, were now potatoes growing, already nearly as large as hens' eggs, to be dug for the table at Christmas. Another house was filled or festooned with cucumbers, trained up like grape-vines, and hanging their long green pendants with a relishing savour which would have delighted Sarah Gamp to ecstasy. Strawberries in blossom had a house to themselves. French beans were in pod, and peas in blow for New Year's Day. About two hundred pine-apple plants were in fruit at different stages, larger and better in flavour than those which Nature produces by herself in the West Indies. In the grape-walks we saw one set of vines which averaged a growth of twenty feet from the last of October, or within the space of five weeks. The head gardener has a force of about thirty-five men and boys in constant employment, whose aggregate wages amount to about £100 a month. We learned that the whole establishment, including house and conservatories, consume yearly £2,000 worth of coal. The kitchen-garden contains about thirteen acres. The park embracing or surrounding these gardens is of vast extent and grandly wooded. One old oak looks just like old England in its trunk and branches and in all the stoutness of its huge vitality. So until it falls or is sawn in sunder, one cannot read the record of its centuries, but it probably was a thrifty little tree before the Norman Conquest.

This little sequestered world of beauty takes a new charm from one felicitous feature it presents to the outside world. Through all the weeks and months of its glory, it is thrown open to the public. On Tuesdays and Fridays through the season all the sooty-faced, hard-handed, and heavy-shod men of the mine, forge, and furnace in all the Black Country, may come and luxuriate in these flower gardens without a farthing's charge for admission. Here they may ramble through the flowery mazes, and drink in their life and beauty, as free as air. Nor is this all. The great fountains are played for their entertainment on both these days; thus giving them the treat which the fountains of Versailles reserve for crowned guests. When they have sated their eyes with all this gorgeous show, and walked up and down the winding aisles of the great gallery of Nature's flower paintings, they are allowed to go up into the higher grounds of the park just beyond the green walls of the garden, and there, overlooking all its beauty, have their pic nic spread, and dance and frolic, without any restriction upon their hilarious freedom. The gardener told us something to their credit, corroborating a fact which has come to be widely noticed of late, that the roughest working men may be trusted with the closest view of costly treasures of art and nature, and that they are as unlikely to abuse that confidence as the classes that claim to be more highly cultivated in dispositions and manners. He said their sense of honour was very keen, and that he could always trust them among the choicest flowers; that they never overstepped a border that was restricted, and needed no watching. If one of their number forgot the confidence reposed in them and took a single step on forbidden ground, he was arrested and reproved in a moment by his companions. His greatest trouble was with the middle-class people, or those who assumed a superiority over the humble visiters and made less scruple in gratifying their curiosity. Such persons had to be watched with much care to keep them from trespassing on objects which men of the mine and furnace would not think of touching.

Thus these extensive and beautiful grounds, with all the artistic and expensive culture bestowed upon them, are really consecrated to the enjoyment and elevation of the masses of the people, of which none take more advantage than the working men of the district. This is an act of generosity on the part of the noble proprietor worthy of the highest appreciation and respect; and it is to be hoped that he himself will esteem the honour he wins by it above any laurels to be obtained in the hazardous competitions of the turf, in which he has risked so much for a precarious and sterile reputation. In opening such a great, green gallery of exquisite artistry to the masses of the people without money and without price, he has instituted a noble race, in which he leads the runners for a prize well worthy the highest nobility of England.

In addition to these general and gratuitous admission days, fêtes have been produced in these gardens on a scale equal to those of Versailles. On one occasion 250,000 variegated lamps illuminated the walks, shrubbery, flowers, and plants. About 60,000 persons were present, who came from parts as distant as London. Leeds, and Liverpool. The conservatory showed every line, curve, and cornice of its structure, and appeared a vast prism which coloured the branches of the oaks and elms. The fireworks were of infinite variety, but the water view of the lakes was the masterpiece of the scenery. A three-masted frigate and a gunboat had a kind of naval action and poured into each other shot and shell of coloured fire. A pigeon of living flame flew backward and forward over the scene, and every device of pyrotechnic genius was called into requisition to make a fascinating spectacle.

The Enville Gardens are as full an illustration of the artistic culture and grouping of flowers as can be found in England. But side by side with the development of all this culture and floral susceptibilities has progressed, pari passu, the cultivation of the human community of the village and neighbourhood. The results produced in this culture of their mind and manners have been more radical than any obtained in the training of flowers or plants. Indeed the improvements effected have been more like transformations than developments. Our landlord, who had been indefatigable in producing these changes for the better, described to us the means employed. He said that thirty years ago a shocking state of things existed in the village. Enville, from time immemorial, had been celebrated for its cherries; and a cherry fair had been held in the village always on Sunday during the season. Great multitudes came to it, not only from towns adjoining but all through the Black Country. To obtain a supply of cherries was only a side and secondary motive; the real one being a boisterous, roistering, ring-fighting and cock-fighting holiday, with the usual amount of drunkenness and demoralization. He had known thirty regular prize-ring fights on a single Sunday, generally extemporized on the spot and spur of the moment. This demoralizing fair had become one of the fixed institutions of the district, a vested interest of the mass in old British furious fun. To break up this institution root and branch unconditionally, would have doubtless produced a riot. No civil or religious authorities attempted this; but the better-minded people of the village effected a partial transformation of the holiday and its sports by a substitute which the fair-frequenters accepted with good humour. They got up a new set of sports, as funny as possible, but all capable of being carried on in good-nature. These they provided for Monday instead of Sunday. Our landlord described some of the games or frolics which he invented or introduced. Indeed he seems to have been master of the ceremonies. One of these was a kind of social tar-and-feathering. A lot of fellows would stand up in a cart or wagon and daub each other with treacle instead of tar, then shake on a coat of feathers, until they looked like great owls but not so sober and human. Another sport was equally odd and unique, especially for full-grown men who had children at home. It was the jumping in sacks. A number of men would get each into a large wheat bag, with his head sticking out of the mouth gathered up around his neck ready for the race. When the signal was given, the platoon of bags would begin their frog-like jumps towards the goal, jostling each other on the way; some falling like sacks of bran, tripping up others, and making the crowd of spectators split their sides with laughter at their grotesque antics. A third entertainment was climbing a greased pole for a leg of mutton or a flitch of bacon. It was a poor chance for the first climbers after the prize, for they had to contend with the fresh grease in their ascent; but after several had made the trial the pole became less slippery. To help the desiccating process, some of the later climbers would contrive to carry some dry sand in their vest pockets and to scatter it in their upward trail. Nor were these sports and games confined to the male section of the multitude. Several of equal fun and ingenuity were provided for the fair sex both old and young. One of these was the oddest conceit I ever heard of, and I think our landlord must have originated it. This was a competition in which several old ladies contended with each other for the prize of a pound of tea by showing which of them could first eat a basin of soup with an awl!

Thus for a brawling, fighting, and drinking Sunday was substituted a Monday holiday with its roistering but not malevolent or mischievous fun. This change produced a very perceptible improvement in the morals and habits of the common people of the village and vicinity. At the time of our visit another transformation was at its first stage of operation upon them. Lady Stamford a few years ago erected very elegant and capacious school buildings, at the expense of over £2,000, for the education of the children of the village, and ever since has taken a lively interest in the institution. That most popular and useful entertainment, the Penny Readings, had been recently introduced, and so well attended at these school-rooms that on the last occasion the Earl and his Countess had been able to get in only with considerable difficulty. So he had invited the villagers to have their next Penny Reading in an apartment of his mansion. Nor was this all; the manuscript programme was just that moment brought into the inn, by which we saw that the Earl was down on it for the first reading, to be followed by Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, and a harp solo from a lady of the chateau. The clergyman, schoolmaster, and several other gentlemen of the village were to contribute readings and songs to thc entertainment, and our landlord's daughter was coming all the way from Manchester to sing for them. I learnt afterwards that about 450 persons were present, and that they had a delightful evening.

In addition to these intellectual entertainments, soup and other food are distributed daily at the hall to the sick and poor. Putting all these things together and taking an aggregate aspect of Lord Stamford's establishment and its manifold and generous hospitalities, he may be congratulated on a course of beneficence to the community around him, not only in the highest degree creditable to him, but worthy of imitation by all the nobility and gentry of England. We noticed these features of his disposition and character with much interest, and felt highly pleased with our visit to Enville Gardens, and with the proof we saw of their moral and social relation to the masses of the people. The contrast between the multitudes that now visit them in their season and the boisterous, brutalized squads that used to flock to the Sunday cherry fairs to drink, fight, and carouse; the difference between the Penny Readings in Lord Stamford's temporary ball-room, and the improved diversions which our landlord invented as a substitute for coarser sports, were very impressive, and we dwelt upon them with great satisfaction. Truly few flowering plants in those gardens had been more radically changed by culture than have been the habits of the common people who have walked those perfumed aisles and breathed in their softening influence since they were first opened so generously to the public.

After dinner we took leave of our hospitable and intelligent landlord, and resumed our way to Wolverhampton. The weather was inauspicious for seeing the country, which under the sun of the preceding day must have shown well to the traveller. We passed Himley Park, the family seat of the Ward family, and where the dowager Lady Ward now resides. The first Humble, founder of the family, was buried here. It is a great estate of remarkably variegated surface; indeed the park wall on the turnpike road seemed long enough to make of the sides of one a common-sized township. Understanding that access to the hall and park was barred by rather rigid restrictions, we did not diverge to get a better view of them than the road could command. When we reached Wolverhampton, the town was brimful of the music of the old church bells, which were playing their gladdest chimes in honour of the first anniversary of the Queen's visit at the inauguration or unveiling of Prince Albert's equestrian statue. The grand, massive tower, that had vibrated to Sunday chines for six hundred years, was now thrilled through all its thick walls with the silvery retintabulation of as many bells as would supply all the steeples of a large American town with one apiece.

Wolverhampton was a goodly and important town when Staffordshire was as green as any other county in England. It has a good Saxon name and history. Some of the antiquarians, with Druidical predilection, have tried to discover a British origin for its earliest name. One says it was first called "Hautune," which he thinks came from Huan, a deity of the ancient Britons. But if this were ever its name, it was doubtless a word of Danish or Saxon origin, like Hawton or Hoiton, meaning, high-town. This would designate its location. It stands on high ground, commanding a good view of the surrounding country. But a pious Saxon lady gave to the town the name it has borne for eight centuries. Wulfruna, sister to King Ethelred, founded the College and Church of St. Mary here. The town was afterwards called Wulfrun's Hampton in honour of her pious wish and deed; but was soon shortened into Wolverhampton. The church is one of the most ancient and venerable to be found in England, and bids fair to stand as long as it has already stood, if the earth endure for so many centuries to come. It is just emerging from a recent renovation, in which all the characteristics of the old structure have been faithfully preserved and reproduced. It is the great centre-piece of the town; and though the rain and wind were raking the streets, we hunted up the key-holder, who let us into the building. The dim, religious light and the silent presence of nearly a thousand years blended well in the impression with which we walked up and down the solemn aisles. Most of the painted windows, however, are recent productions and of modern genius. Our recent visit to Boscobel, and the fresh impression of Charles's adventures there and at Moseley and Bentley, gave us special interest in the Lane Chapel, and we went to that first on entering the church. It contains monuments of the family for several generations, at least two before the celebrated John Lane. On an altar tomb lie the full length forms in marble of Thomas Lane and his lady, who died in 1582, or thirty-seven years before Colonel John, the hero of Charles II, was born. So he was probably their grandson. His monument is a very elaborate piece of sculpture; indeed. I do not remember one in which so many devices and symbols are grouped and wrought with such minuteness. The various parts of body armour, and all the tools known to war, ancient and modern, are done to life in the marble. Then Charles's Oak at Boscobel, with a trooper's horse at full gallop under the leafy branches, are well carved. Indeed, a number of passages in his experience in this vicinity are carved in the monument, so that both by illustration and written narrative, a record of that uncrowned and recrowned sovereign is here graven in characters more lasting than the memory of his dubious virtues; even if he had any worth remembering in the present day. The tall, broad tablet, headed and bordered by all these symbols of Mars and martial history, bears a long inscription in Latin, which is an eloquent tribute to his worth, and a very expressive production withal. I do not know if a translation of it into English has ever been published, so I subjoin the following, which is rather literal, with the exception of the word exuviæ, which contains a meaning that would be too inelegant, even for so grave a subject, if given in full; for it would suggest more especially that process of shuffling off a mortal coil by which snakes shed their skins and chickens their shells:

"THE MORTAL REMAINS OF THE PRE-EXCELLENT JOHN LANE, ESQ.,
EXPECTING TO BE HAPPILY REANIMATED,
HERE ARE DEPOSITED.
A MAN ABOVE TITLES, OR TO WHOSE MERITS TITLES ARE WANTING,
IN THE RECENT INTESTINE TROUBLES UNDER KING CHARLES I,
AND AFTERWARDS IN THE WAR IN HOLLAND UNDER KING CHARLES II,
HE MOST WORTHILY DISCHARGED THE OFFICE OF MILITARY COMMANDER,
HE WAS THE LIBERATOR OF KING AND COUNTRY,
FOR WHEN CHARLES II FROM THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER
WAS FLEEING FAINT AND PURSUED ON EVERY SIDE,
WITH GREATEST PIETY, GREATEST FAITH, GREATEST BRAVERY,
THEREFORE TO THE EXTREME PERIL OF HIS HEAD,
FROM THE WICKED WILES OF THE USURPING TYRANT AND HIS FOLLOWERS STOUTLY RESCUED HIM!
A DEED AMONG ILLUSTRIOUS THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS,
AS THE MONARCH ALSO HIMSELF DID NOT TACITLY ACKNOWLEDGE.
WITH REGAL AUGMENTATION FROM THE ROYAL INSIGNIA
TO THE ANCIENT ARMS OF THE NOBLE LANE FAMILY,
THE SON, THOMAS LANE, ESQ., WORTHY HEIR OF A WORTHY FATHER,
HE DECORATED AND REWARDED IN PLACE OF THE DECEASED,
WHOSE BONES THE ABOVE GRATEFUL AND PIOUS KING
IN THE BASILICK MAUSOLEUMS OF WESTMINSTER
OUT OF HIS LOVE WISHED TO BE MAGNIFICENTLY ENTOMBED,
HAD NOT THE DYING HERO HIMSELF TO THESE HONOURS MODESTLY OBJECTED.
HE WAS BORN THE VIII OF APRIL, 1619,
AND DECEASED THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER, 1667,
A DEATH DEEPLY LAMENTED."

This resumè of the life and worth of Colonel John Lane, taken from his monument, is as brief a notice of him as one could well write. His unwavering fidelity to a king and a cause which the great majority of the English people so disliked does not dim the lustre of that loyalty of heart which even the political enemies of a man cannot help admiring. Charles, on his restoration to the throne, remembered gratefully, as well he might, the devotion of this faithful servant of his crown; and the House of Commons voted £1,000 per annum, and another £500 in 1660. Although called Mrs., she must have been Jane Lane, the colonel's sister, who took up Charles II on her saddle before her, on that famous ride to Bristol. It is a pity that Richard Penderel, the hero of the Boscobel drama, was not also buried in Wolverhampton church or honoured with a monument near the Lanes. We found that he was interred in St. Giles-in-the-Fields. London, where his true-hearted faithfulness to his outlawed and distressed sovereign is recorded in rhymes of wretched brag and bathos, unworthy of the sublime simplicity of his virtues. When next in London I intend to visit the grave of that valiant yeoman, whom Cromwell himself might have admired for his unbribable and invincible constancy. The other host and hider of Charles in his thickest perils, or Thomas Whitgreave, of Moseley Hall, was buried in the parish church of Bushbury. The inscription on his monument is written in vigorous Latin, and the heated feeling of that stirring time seems still warm in the marble words. Here are most of them:

"STOP, TRAVELLER, TO REVERE THE FAITHFUL ASHES HEREIN,
HE WHO LIES HERE WAS A SERVANT WORTHY OF CÆSAR.
IT IS NOT A GREAT THING TO SERVE THE GREAT WHEN THE SKY IS SERENE;
HE WAS A SERVANT WHEN THE TIMES WERE CLOUDY;
HIS GUEST WAS THE KING WHEN VANQUISHED, DEFENCELESS, POOR,
COMPLETELY DISGUISED AND UNLIKE HIMSELF;
WHILE, THUNDERING IN ARMS, BREATHING FIRE AND FLAMES,
A BLOODY TROOP WAS SEEKING THE KING,
ANON POURING FORTH BRIGHT GOLD WITH THEIR CRIES,
ADDING LARGE BRIBES TO THEIR THREATS.
BUT XX DID NOT SEDUCE NOR PERIL APEAL HIM;
FOR FAITHFUL, LOVE WAXED STRONGER IN HIS NOBLE BREAST,
THE FAITHFUL LOVE OF KING AND THE BRITISH REALM.
SO IF THOU ART WISE LEARN FIDELITY FROM THIS MARBLE."

Charles's host at Moseley Hall, this Thomas Whitgreave, seems to have outlived nearly all the companions and helpers of his flight and escape; for he died on the 14th of July, 1702, at the age of 84. What is the precise meaning of XX in his epitaph I have not undertaken to give in the foregoing translation, Whether XX gold sovereigns, or a Bank of England note to that amount, made the bribe usually offered by Cromwell's "bloody troop" for betraying the King, or whether the two numbers represent some other idea current at the time, I am unable to decide. Of course the XX did not mean a familiar brand of ale, of which a barrel was offered to warp the loyalty of any of Charles's liege subjects. Indeed, it is doubtful if that ale brand were known in his day. There is another monument, the statue of a full-sized knight standing on a pedestal, which bears a full description of his virtues. It is that of Admiral Levison, who served against the Spanish under Elizabeth, and achieved feats deeply recorded in brass. If one could not read the Latin inscription, he might take the statue for that of Shakespeare. In form and face the resemblance is quite striking.

Few churches in England are more impressive in their exterior and interior aspects than St. Mary's of Wolverhampton. It does not compare with Tong Church for monumental wealth and grandeur; but its massive wails and tower, and its history, reaching back into the misty blue and romance of Saxon times, make it an object of peculiar interest. When one, especially an American, or the citizen of a young nation, visits such edifices, and walks up and down with chastened step their dim-lighted aisles, a spray of thoughts comes flashing to his mind, like the tinted beams of light that come to his feet through the stained windows. Something more than half-a-dozen centuries is looking down upon him. The living Present that overshadows him is a great and solemn vitality, whose breath and pulse he feels all alive and stirring upon him. And, what is more, and the special thought that touches him, this breath and pulse have the glow and throb of twenty successive human generations. Through all these long ages they have breathed and beat without a break. Here is this grand old church, built and baptised by that fair-haired, blue-eyed, good-hearted Saxon woman. Wulfruna. Ever since she had her flaxen-haired baby christened in it, up to this day, the little bleating lambs of Christ's flock have been brought to this font. Ever since her day, fathers and mothers, young men and young maidens, and children of all years, have gathered within these walls for worship. The Norman Conquest, the Wars of the Roses and of the Revolution; the changes of dynasties, governments, and of religions even, have not broken up or sundered the line of this pious succession with the gap of one silent Sunday. Who can stand in such a building and, as it were, put his hand to this day's link of such an electric chain of life, and not feel a thrill coming down it all the way from the Saxon Heptarchy? Look at this town around it. Few in England wear seemingly more antiquity in general aspect. Here are houses built in Elizabeth's day. But what is Elizabeth's day compared with the date of the oldest walls of this house of religious life and worship? Why, here assembled men and women said prayers and sang hymns together, and brought their infants to the font four hundred years before Elizabeth was born. From Wulfruna's time to Victoria's the angels that come listening to the mingled voices of human worshippers, have looked down through these mullioned windows upon a living mosaic of gray, golden, raven, and flaxen heads, bending low in prayer under these lofty and massive arches. Think of the self-renovating vitality of this sacred edifice. All its stony veins seem alive with the immortality of truth and faith. This great tower, looking so serene over the woods and vales, has seen "the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces," built from the same quarry with itself, melt away, and whole villages of brick and stone dissolve under the breath of time. This very town it has seen reduced to dust and rebuilt many a time; and embattled castles, with walls of boastful might, broken and mingled into haggard ruin, while its own life renews itself like an immortality. These are thoughts that an attentive mind must give scope and verge to in visiting one of these old English churches of Saxon foundation and history.

Wolverhampton has been distinguished for two centuries and more for its manufactures. Locks led the way in this distinction, and perhaps hold it still. The early smiths seem to have rivalled the most ingenious artisans of the Continent in the trade. A unique, old history of Staffordshire, printed in 1730, gives many instances of this skill. It says: "So curious are they in lock-work (indeed beyond all preference) that they can contrive a lock that shall show, if the master or mistress send a servant into their closet with the master-key or their own, how many times that servant has gone in at any distance of time, and how many times the lock has been shot for a whole year; some of them being made to discover it 500 or 1,000 times. Further, there was a very fine lock made in this town, sold for £20, that had a set of chimes in it, that would go at any hour the owner should think fit. These locks they make in brass or iron boxes, curiously polished, and their keys finely wrought, not to be exceeded." Thus the town stood first in the kingdom at that early date in reputation for lock-making, and this it still maintains. Chubb's locks are literally household words in both hemispheres. They now produce over 30,000 annually, varying in price from 10s. to £3 each. And, what is rather singular, these are all made by hand, in the old process in vogue twenty years ago. There are now upwards of 100 establishments for the manufacture of locks in Wolverhampton, employing about 2,000 hands.

Japanned ware must stand second if not first in the manufactures of the town. It is produced on the largest scale, and in a surprising variety and value of articles. Although the island itself is supposed to have been called after the tin of Cornwall, imported and used by the Phoenicians, it would be difficult to ascertain how the metal was worked into articles of use or ornament. For a thousand years or more it was probably used only as britannia, or melted and cast into moulded utensils. The plating of sheet iron with it is comparatively a recent invention. It was first introduced into England in 1665 from the Continent, and constituted a considerable trade in South Wales, especially at Pontypool. About a century later Wolverhampton became the principal seat of the manufacture. It was introduced into New England about the time of the American Revolution, and became the leading business of several towns in Connecticut.

The most interesting, if not most extensive establishment for the manufacture of this white and black ware is that of Messrs. F. Walton & Co., at the Old Hall. While standing in the massive-walled, low-jointed counting-room of this grand old Elizabethan mansion, I was impressed very vividly with the movement and mutation of the industries of the town and district which it represented. Here was the central, manor mansion of the town, erected before Elizabeth was born, and occupied by the Levison family. They were probably of Jewish descent, bearing for centuries the Hebrew name of Ben Levi, when they Saxonized it to Levison, which meant the same thing At the time when they flourished here, they made the wool trade the great business of Wolverhampton. This was their counting-room, where they conducted their large operations. Then the district around had not begun to be a black country. Then white sheep, with fleeces unstained by smoke, fed over a green and undulating surface, now buried fathoms deep in the debris of mines, furnace, and forge. They grazed and basked with their white lambs, where now the tall gaunt wolves of flame lap the earth by night and day with their red tongues. So distinctive and extensive was the wool trade carried on here, that the town up to the present century was called Woolverhampton. I was told that in process of time, the Levison family, who owned this hall and estate, became reduced to a single representative, and that was a daughter. The accumulated property had become a fortune equal to the wealth of one of the richest peers of the realm. The trustees, therefore, thought that it ought to constitute the dowry of a peeress, and they easily found a peer's son willing to take the heiress and her fortune on that condition. She was therefore married to a Gower, but on the stipulated condition that her name should always be put first through all generations of their posterity, and this condition is now observed in the compound name. Leveson-Gower. This is the maiden name of the Sutherland family, and in the counting-room of the Old Hall in Wolverhampton, now a tin and japan-ware manufactory, the foundation of that family's fortune was laid. But there is another historical incident connected with this Old Hall of nearer and wider interest to the admirers of dramatic celebrities. Here, side by side with working-men still living, at the same bench. Edwin Booth, the great tragedian, laboured as a skilled artisan. One of the old men of the establishment remembers him well, and his first acting in some amateur theatricals in the town. His impetuous temper was as marked at the workmen's bench as it was in later days on the stage, as Richard or Macbeth. Tin and iron are not the only metals worked at this establishment into every conceivable article of household use and ornament. Paper is here made into a metal and wrought into shapes of wonderful variety and beauty. The trays of this material rank among works of high art. Indeed, these wares of tin-plate and papier maché not only employ but develop artists of first-rate genius. Here Bird, the painter of "The Village Politicians," took his first lessons in the art, by which he won such reputation. Other artists are in training in the same school, painting on japanned tin-plate or metallized paper for their canvas. The Old Hall is the most interesting manufacturing establishment in the Black Country for its antecedents and associations, and well worth visiting for the beautiful ware it produces.

I next visited the manufactory of the Messrs. Loveridge and Co., who carry on the same trade on a still more extensive scale. They employ between 400 and 500 persons, and one would think, on looking at the prodigious stock of articles ready for the market, that they could alone supply a large and growing nation. I was told that this stock was worth at least £60,000, embracing articles used in the first stages of civilization. The stamping-rooms show the progress of machine-force in the manufacture of the larger wares. Not long ago the hand-mallet or hammer worked up these various forms with continuous din of the gold-beater's strokes. But now you see in one of these large shops two parallel rows of fall or stamp presses working by steam, on the principle of the pile-driver. Some of these falling stamps weigh a ton, and they make powerful impressions on the plate of sheet-iron, placed over the lower die, at the first stroke. The iron must be of the first quality to stand this process without breaking or straining the grain of the surface. The best has to be annealed after three or four blows. They were trying an experiment with the Bessemer steel, with the view of getting a smoother surface for large dinner covers, some of which would give honour, scope, and margin to the largest joint of roast beef ever cut from a prize ox in England. The steel is hard to work under the stamp and requires annealing frequently, but will probably yield a surface susceptible of higher polish when tinned than the common sheet-iron. The art department of the establishment is very interesting; and I had never conceived that so much highly-trained genius was employed in the ornamentation of these household articles. I was surprised to learn that the pictures in the lids of parlour coal vases were really painted one by one on canvas and in oils. Thus the lid of the vase is the frame of an oil painting under a glass cover. Here, too, as at Messrs. Walton's, could be seen in remarkable illustration what can be made of paper. Not only trays of every style and size, with a metal ring to them, but panels for railway carriages, which, in a collision, would make no splinters. They gave me a piece of half-inch paper board; and doubtless the joists and ceiling of a house might be made out of the same material. There are about 2,000 persons employed in the manufacture of tin and japan ware in the town and immediate neighbourhood. Since 1849 these industries have doubled in extent, and bid fair to increase in the same ratio. There are fifteen iron foundries, twenty brass foundries, ten iron-plate works, fifteen steel toy manufactories, and many other mechanical businesses in the town. Wolverhampton, if not the central, is the leading town of one of the most industrial counties in England. It stands on a commanding site, and on a good solid stratum of ancient history. Its name has a good old Saxon sound; and its main street and market place have not yet been reduced to the straight lines and cast-iron uniformity of modern architecture. It has the best equestrian statue of Prince Albert yet created, which was wrought after the express thought of the Queen, and inaugurated by her with great eclat in 1866. The following year the most remarkable Church Congress ever held in England assembled in the town, with bishops from all English-speaking lands. So, taking all the aspects of its individuality and progress into view. Wolverhampton is making its mark as a vigorous and public-spirited community.