Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came,
And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
'Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest, was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind,
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind."

The most ancient part of the cathedral is the western division, built by Roger Cleriton, în 1148, and pronounced by Sir William Chambers to be the most beautiful thing of the kind in Europe. Indeed, the whole cathedral is august and uniform, but (strange to say) not built in a srait line; for on viewing the interior from the great western door, it appears that the altar, which is placed exactly in the centre of the eastern end, does not stand opposite to the entrance. On the south side of the western door is the monument of Launcelot Addison, father to the celebrated author of the 'Spectator.' The choir may be truly said to be simplex munditiis; nothing gaudy, nothing superfluous, and finely terminated by the Lady's chapel, whose window exhibits a magnificent specimen of Mr. Eggington's painting upon glass, in a superb picture of the Resurrection; which is intended to be supported on each side by the Crucifixion and Ascension, from designs of Jarvis. On returning through the south-eastern aile, we could not but stop a moment at the tomb of Bishop Hacket, a

prelate of the seventeenth century, whose piety and munificence were both exerted in an extraordinary manner to repair and re-edify the cathedral of Lichfield, which had been almost destroyed by the sacrilegious hands of the Oliverians. For this good purpose the venerable man drew from his own purse the sum of 5000l. and added 23000l. more, which he had collected together by begging at the doors of the inns the benevolences of travellers as they arrived there, for eight years together.

Original genius did not depart from Lichfield when Johnson and Garrick turned their backs upon the city; for it has now to boast of two extraordinary self-taught artists in the pictorial line-Mr. Glover, and his apprentice Mr. Fernyhough. Landscape is the department in which Mr. Glover excels chiefly; and in some of his superior pieces, both the manner and colouring of the first masters of the Italian school are attempted with great effect. He shewed us a good original picture of Luca Giordano's, Hercules and Omphale; harsh, but superlatively grand.

The situation of Lichfield is low, the land around it flat, and the soil sandy; a character of country that accompanied us the greater part of the road to Burton-upon-Trent; a ride, however, that was rendered interesting, by the great trunk canal con

necting Mersey with Trent, which took a course parallel with the road for a considerable distance; some iron-works, busily employed upon its banks; the fertile meadows, watered by the Trent in the neighbourhood of Burton, and the rich pasturages rising above the town on its northern side. The flourishing appearance of the place announced the several manufactories which are here carried on with briskness and success; seven breweries employed in making that rich and glutinous beverage named after the town, and well known in the neighbourhood of Gray's-Inn Lane; "balm of "the cares, sweet solace of the toils," of many an exhausted limb of the law, who, at the renowned Peacock, re-invigorates his powers with a nipperkin of Burton ale, and a whiff of the Indian weed;-a cotton-mill; and a manufactory of screws. river admits vessels of forty tons to the town quay, and connecting itself, by means of canals, with all the other parts of the kingdom, affords a ready and cheap exportation to the produce of all the manufactories of the place. A most pleasing picture, formed by Burton, the river Trent, (which divides itself about half a mile below the bridge into two branches) vessels and fishing-boats, a fine extent of meadow ornamented with handsome houses and neat demesnes, presents itself on mounting the hill

The

that swells to a considerable height on the northern part of the town.

Pursuing our road to Derby, we soon perceived the style of the country was changing; and that nature, tired with the tameness of a level, began to indulge herself in inequalities and variety. The grand trunk occasionally shewed itself-an indica tion of the great internal commerce carried on in this part of the kingdom. The river Dove also, of bewitching name, (which rises a little to the south of Burton, and makes the boundary between Derbyshire and Staffordshire, as far as its junction with the Trent below Burton) crossed the turnpike at the eighth mile-stone, and crouched beneath an aqueduct of twelve arches to the right, which conveyed the canal over its bosom; whilst a beautiful landscape offered itself to the right, formed by the village of Eggington, the seat of Sir Henry Everett, and a pleasing groupe of humbler dwellings.

On reaching Derby, its manufactures claimed our first attention. They consist of the silk manufactory; the porcelaine ditto; and the marble and spar works. works. Of the first, there are six in Derby; that of Mr. Shell employs about three hundred people; one single water-wheel sets in motion all the beautiful machinery, which exhibits above one hundred thousand different movements. All ope

rations upon the silk are performed here, from the skain to preparing it for the weaver. The skain (the production of China) is first placed upon hexagonal frame-work wheels, and the filaments that compose it regularly wound off upon a smaller cylindrical one. The cones of silk thus produced are carried below to be twisted, when a proper machine unites two of them together. The women then receive the thread, and twist four, seven, or ten of them into one, according to the purposes for which they are intended; the finer thread going to the stocking-weaver, the latter to the manufacturer of waistcoat-pieces. It is now fit for the dyer, who discharges the glue which it had received in China, and gives it a beautiful gloss. The weaver then takes it, and proceeds to his part of the process; which is so lucrative, that if he have the least industry, he may earn two guineas per week by his labour; the profits upon a single pair of stockings being from three to four shillings and sixpence, according to the size. A common one consumes about seven hundred yards of twist. It is to the Italians we are indebted for our present elegant and expeditious mode of manufacturing silk thread; who were long exclusively in possession of it, till Sir Thomas Lombe clandestinely obtained in Italy, with great risque, difficulty, and expence, a model of one of