implies that the view included the stream flowing through the Eton fields, and that the actual river is not visible from the road here, the answer might be that Gray would not trouble himself about such a fact. With him a locality might generally supply a train of ideas, but he kept his eye on selected details rather than on the object. If he received his poetic impulse out of doors he composed at his desk, and within reach of his books. It has been urged that the churchyard of Stoke Poges was not the one that suggested the elegy, because all particulars do not agree. Gray's method did not require that they should; and Mr. Penn, who must have known, surely settled the question when he inscribed verses from the elegy on the sarcophagus he raised just opposite the spot. The Eton ode was written at Stoke in the autumn of 1742.

Mr. Charles Kean, the actor, was fond of ruralising at the "Windmill." He had distinguished himself at Eton school, and seems always to have warmly cherished the recollections of his youth, and of the friendships he made in the beautiful playing-meadows.

The first four-in-hand club in London was formed in 1807, and called the "Bensington (breviter Benson) Driving Club," because one of its rules was to drive twice a year to Bensington, a village between Henley and Oxford, about 46 miles from town, and containing a good inn, the "White Hart." The number of members was limited to twenty-five, and the association was so sought after that, in 1808, Mr. Charles Buxton founded a second club, called the "Four-Horse Club." The drive with this club was to the Salt Hill inns. Patronage was distributed alternately between the "Windmill " and the "Castle." The distance from London is put down in Paterson's "Roads" as twenty-one miles and a quarter. But the amateurs took it very quietly, lunching at the "Packhorse," Turnham Green, further refreshing at the "Magpies," Hounslow Heath, and finally dining and passing the night at Salt Hill. As the Bath Road was crowded during the dark hours with hay carts and provision waggons, and the times were those of "three bottles," it seems as well that the return was made the next day, with all the advantages of light and reason.

On one occasion a dispute arose as to whether the fare and accommodation were better at the "Castle" or at the "Windmill." The landlords were put on their metal, and three dinners-two at the "Castle" and one at the "Windmill "—left the question still undecided. But at the second competition dinner at the "Windmill " the weather was excessively hot, and the gentlemen were just turning to the table for their meal when a body of waiters and attendants entered, and entreated the guests not to sit down on the chairs they

were then using, but to exchange them for cool ones, now brought. This attention was thought so delicate that the palm was at once awarded to the "Windmill."

As we call up the procession and its surroundings to our mind's eye we must remember two points. It was before the epoch of Macadam, and therefore the stones with which the roads were made were not broken to the same size, and beaten and rolled after being watered. It may be just mentioned, in passing, that Macadam appears to have taken his master-idea from the kunkur roads of India, where the curious nodules of lime, so called, are found pretty well of the same dimensions. Again, the carriages were not drags, but barouches with yellow bodies. A preference was expressed for bay horses, and they carried rosettes at their headstalls. The coachmen wore long drab coats, with huge mother of pearl buttons; blue waistcoats with yellow stripes, plush breeches, and low-crowned hats. Further particulars will be found in the Duke of Beaufort's most entertaining volume on "Driving," in the Badminton Library.

By old Eton men the "Windmill" will be remembered as Botham's. It acquired this name from two brothers who conducted it, with great skill and experience. One of these, Mr. George Botham, still survives at an advanced age, as the respected owner of Wexham Court. The brothers, again, were nephews of old Mrs. Botham, of whom a pen portrait is given in the Duke's book. She presided over the "Pelican" at Speenhamland, Newbury, with regard to which hostelry Quin is said to have written:

The famous inn at Speenhamland,

That stands below the hill,

May well be called the "Pelican,"

From its enormous bill.

This, perhaps, was never true, but the name suggested a joke which could not be resisted. At any rate prices were not exorbitant in Mrs. Botham's time, and lovers of the gentle art of angling will testify to the efficient moderation of the establishment still existing there.

The Duke writes very nicely of the landlady of the "Pelican," as she appeared when he was a boy. "I must not forget dear old Mrs. Botham, with her rich black silk gown, and her high, whitesort of modified widow's cap. She was always kind and hospitable. When the family posted up they dined there, and were all made to drink a little most excellent cherry brandy; each was presented with a cornet or screw of white paper containing brandy snaps of the very best, and when children travelled by the coach they had the

same. The cherry brandy was noted all over the country. Mrs. Botham died at a ripe old age, respected by all who knew her."

Readers of Lord Grey's correspondence with the Princess Lieven will recollect that he dated occasionally from the "Cock," Eaton Socon, a famous house kept by Mrs. Walker. It was comfortable enough to afford a pleasant retreat to the busy statesman, who doubtless found a warm, if not, with poor Shenstone, his warmest welcome in an inn.

It is said that women have not hitherto produced an oratorio or opera, and that no masterpiece exists from their brush. Let it be urged, per contra, that they have often shown a genius for innkeeping; and this not only in the household department-where it is not strange they should excel-but in the horsing of coaches and in the management of posting, postboys, ostlers, and the other not always very tractable hangers-on of the stable yard. Single ladies. even have succeeded admirably. In the days of the old East India College, at Haileybury, Miss Fanny Brown, of the "Bull," Ware, was a well-known elderly maiden, who extended the care of an amiable aunt to some of the more frivolous students. Mrs. Walker's inn at Eaton Socon was in later days, when roads were smooth and posting rapid, a favourite resting-place for newly-married couples. It was near St. Neots, and not too distant a drive for the long afternoons of summer.

But earlier the inns at Salt Hill were similarly employed. They were not, however, very quiet places; there was a great deal of traffic on the Bath Road. Horses were often changed at Salt Hill, and the down coaches mostly breakfasted there. And when the four-horse club men were spending their evening in the little hamlet, and Captain Morris or Mr. Prowse was there and in good voice, it seems not unlikely that there was a sound of revelry by night. The patronage extended to the "Castle" by Mr. Buxton's driving companions about the year 1810 shows that at that time no prejudice existed against the establishment; but some years before, in the latter half of the last century, a tragic occurrence ruined the reputation of the house, whether justly or not shall be here briefly inquired.

On March 29, 1773, a party of gentlemen met at the “Castle.” They were, it appears, members of the Colnbrook Turnpike Trust, Colnbrook being a village about five miles nearer London, and, like Salt Hill itself, on the Bath Road. They took the opportunity of the trust business to inspect a body of paupers. These poor

creatures were probably applicants for outdoor relief, or were anxious to prove their right of settlement, or to urge their objections

to vexatious removal; for in those days the landowners and tenant farmers were the only persons to find the means for the poor rate, and it was their interest to prevent paupers marrying, to prohibit their building cottages, and to require clear proof of their right of settlement in any particular parish. In 1723 an Act was passed authorising the establishment of workhouses in any village where it was thought necessary; but there was no union of parishes till far later. To give an idea of what could be done in the way of ignoring, if not of suppressing, pauperism, it may be mentioned that the whole sum for the relief of the poor in England and Wales, at the time of the incident under description, is believed to have been little more than one and a half million. The poor rates now exceed fifteen millions; but the population, of course, has enormously increased, and the whole of the sum is not applied to the poor. The indigent had a rough time of it, because the ratepayers were anxious to keep them moving, or drive them into rude asylums, such as were the workhouses of the day, from whence they would voluntarily decamp. The turnpike trustees were, probably, most of them magistrates and justices of the peace, and exercised a general supervision over the disposal and treatment of the pauper classes. And the present inspection may well have been intended to allow of any obvious injustice and hardship being set right. The record of what occurred is taken from the Gentleman's Magazine, under date May 1773, and is imperfect in details. After business had been transacted the trustees all dined together. Only eleven names are given, but it is not quite clear that the list is exhaustive. The names themselves indicate position in the county: the Hon. W. O'Brien, Captain Needham-three others are military men-Mr. Walpole Eyre, and so on. All who were present at the dinner, except one, were taken ill. They sickened probably gradually, and, it is said, in some ten days were seriously unwell. When the Magazine was published five were dead. With regard to one gentleman, Mr. Walpole Eyre, the exact date on which he succumbed is known, from the parish register at Burnham. It was April 13. There is no mention whether inquests were held or post-mortem examinations directed, and an inquiry made for the purposes of this paper elicits that the records at the coroner's office do not go back so far, as from time to time the older papers have been destroyed. It seems desirable that the county councils should make arrangements for the preservation of inquest records, as coroners will henceforward be appointed by them, and will remain, in some degree, under their supervision. The Magazine, however, states that "from every

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circumstance that can be collected" the illnesses were caught from contagion, and that their nature was of a type of disease incident to paupers; and so it may be concluded that medical evidence was taken at the time. We know from the labours of John Howard, and the account of his life, what a scourge the so-called jail fever was at a period contemporaneous with the catastrophe under notice. Nor is there anything incredible in the supposition that a body of paupers, badly fed, badly clothed, and huddled into imperfectly drained dens, should carry with them the germs of malignant typhoid disease. The medical treatment then prevalent rendered the malady more fatal. Bleeding and drastic purgatives hastened the mischief commenced by under-nutrition and blood-poisoning.

Of course when so sad and striking an occurrence took place gossiping tongues were not idle, and a few ill-natured talkers were anxious to make out that there was something wrong either in the kitchen or the cellar at the "Castle "-some poisonous herb, perhaps, accidentally used. It was not without precedent that monkshood had been mistaken for horse radish. One story was that the Madeira had been drawn too near the filings. But from the Magazine already quoted it would appear that the belief was generally prevalent that the cause of the fatal sickness might be traced to the inspection of the body of indigent people who were collected together at the trust meeting. It would be presumptuous to call the visitation a punishment, or to attempt to trace the hand of Providence in what befell these country gentlemen. Nothing is known of their characters, and they may well enough have been benevolent and charitable persons. But what are called the laws of nature exercise themselves irrespective of the individual who perhaps unwittingly sets them in motion. If nitre and carbon and sulphur, intimately mixed, are ignited, there is an explosion, though the spark may have fallen from the lamp of a saint. Oppression and deprivations-whether of food or of air-produce with bad constitutions a condition of blood which is contagious, and the fatal possession may be transmitted to a bishop-to anyone. There can be no question that landowners and landholders had harried and worried the pauper population, in many instances driving them from the country into the suburbs of towns, where they formed the nucleus of what are now called "the dangerous classes." The drunkard, the thief, the burglar-ultimately, perhaps, the murderer-owe their existence, in some measure, to the shortcomings of responsible people.

And therefore when these outcasts at Salt Hill, who seemed so helpless, but were really so formidable, shook their pestilent rags,