Dewsbury

“ But the Commissioners ignore this actual experiment, and soar into the regions of conjecture with, “Who can possibly say?”—concluding the paragraph with—“A priori reasoning on such a question is of little or no value.” Very true. But a posteriori reasoning, from the cases of Leicester, Birmingham, Warrington, Dewsbury, and Gloucester, is of value; but it is of value as showing the utter uselessness of vaccination, and it is therefore, perhaps, wise for the professional upholders of vaccination to ignore it. ”

“ Norwich guards a remnant of its once flourishing worsted industry and Leicester has developed a remarkable hosiery trade. Again, firms whose existence is due to individual enterprise are still studded up and down the country, and manage to compete fairly well with the main manufacturing districts. Since about 1856, however, there can be no doubt that the English wool trade has been centring more and more round Bradford, while the remanufactured materials and the blanket trade is centred round Batley and Dewsbury. ”

“ The remaining parts of these last divisions, with that of Ripon, cover the rest of the riding. Each division returns one member. The following are parliamentary boroughs: Bradford, returning 3 members, Dewsbury 1, Halifax 1, Huddersfield 1, Leeds 5, Pontefract 1, Sheffield 5, Wakefield 1. All these are within the industrial district. ”

“ Every mile of Devonshire has its charm, not to be mapped out in advance, but freshly discovered by each new lover of the moorland and the sea, of soft air and the play of shadows, of folklore and tradition, of the memory of heroes. Those who cannot know fair Devon in actual presence may find her at her best in the romances of Kingsley and Blackmore and Phillpotts. The shire abounds in sea-magic. The south coast, with its wealth of sheltered bays and tempting inlets, has so mild and equable a climate that its dreamy windings have become dotted with winter resorts as well as watering-places. ”

“ Lord Antony Dewhurst, one of the sons of the Duke of Exeter, was in those days a very perfect type of a young English gentlemen—tall, well set-up, broad of shoulders and merry of face, his laughter rang loudly wherever he went. A good sportsman, a lively companion, a courteous, well-bred man of the world, with not too much brains to spoil his temper, he was a universal favourite in London drawing-rooms or in the coffee-rooms of village inns. ”

“ Along the little churchyard, packed full with women, streams all the gentle blood of North Devon,—tall and stately men, and fair ladies, worthy of the days when the gentry of England were by due right the leaders of the people, by personal prowess and beauty, as well as by intellect and education. And first, there is my lady Countess of Bath, whom Sir Richard Grenvil is escorting, cap in hand (for her good Earl Bourchier is in London with the queen) ”

“ What Devon hath kept
Devon shall keep on tide or main;
Call to the storm and drive them flying,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!"
Valour of England gaunt and whitening,
Far in a South land brought to bay,
Locked in a death-grip all day tightening,
Waited the end in twilight gray.
Battle and storm and the sea-dog's way!
Drake from his long rest turned again,
Victory lit thy steel with lightning,
Devon, o Devon, in wind and rain!
The Volunteer
"He leapt to arms unbidden,
Unneeded, over-bold;
His face by earth is hidden,
His heart in earth is cold. ”

“ Devonshire is, in truth, a county of extraordinary contrasts. Large portions of it are extremely beautiful. Almost as large regions again are as devoid of every essential of the picturesque in a general survey as any English landscape could possibly be; mile upon mile of bare humpy hill-top, ruthlessly shorn of every stick of timber and laid out in small{164} and largely arable fields with painful chess-board regularity. ”

“ But while two branches of the race grew, flourished, and fell, a third division rose to rank and fortune in this island, becoming closely allied by links of property and title with Devon, the fairest shire in the English land—links which the space of 750 years has strengthened, the glamour of an historic name, the charm of many a noble nature, have rendered unbreakable. ”

“ The most characteristic district of South Devon, the greenest, most luxuriant in its vegetation, and perhaps the hottest in England, is that bit of country between the Exe and the Axe which is watered by the Clyst, the Otter, and the Sid. In any one of a dozen villages found beside these pretty little rivers a man might spend a month, a year, a lifetime, very agreeably, ceasing not to congratulate himself on the good fortune which first led him into such a garden. ”

“ The earliest settlements of Devonshire and Cornwall were probably all formed from the sea. In this they differed from Somerset, where the parts adjoining to Wilts and Dorset most likely received their earliest permanent colonists from the Wilsætas and Thornsætas of Wilts and Dorset. The Devonshire settlements began on the coast like the earlier ones of Kent, Sussex, and Wessex. It is no doubt owing to this that the Devon people along the south coast and banks of the navigable rivers are of fairer complexion at the present time than the people of the interior. ”

“ Above all things, its position has made Devonshire a native land of heroes. Very few other counties have produced so many men of mark, so many men of enterprise [8] and daring. Certainly no other has played a greater part in the expansion of England. From Devonshire came not only some of the most distinguished seamen of the Golden Age of Elizabeth, some of the most skilful and daring of her naval captains, but some of the earliest and most famous of our explorers ”

“ When I was at home in Devon I had a dream of Winchester, of Salisbury, or other great towns further away, where the men and women who are great in the land meet together, and where my eyes would perchance sometimes have the happiness to behold the king himself—my husband's close friend and companion. My waking has brought a different scene before me; this castle in the wilderness, a solitude where from an upper window I look upon leagues of forest, a haunt of wild animals. I see great birds soaring in the sky and listen to the shrill screams of kite and buzzard ”

“ It contradicts, too, a view rather generally held, that the spirit of restless daring and love of adventure that have distinguished innumerable men of Devon belonged solely to Elizabethan days—a view that has, no doubt, sprung up because the great lights that shone in that glorious reign have eclipsed all lesser ones. ”

“ Not only is the splendour of the sunsets heightened by these occasional showers, but their frequent recurrence tends greatly to give summer in Devonshire that vigorous life and motion which continuous sunshine can never grant to other lands.
Let us borrow the wild bird’s wings, and take a passing glance at Devon, from end to end, as it now is. ”

“ In twenty-four hours all Devonshire was up. Every road in the county from sea to sea was covered by multitudes of fighting men, all with their faces set towards Torbay. The lords of a hundred manors, proud of their long pedigrees and old coats of arms, took the field at the head of their tenantry, Drakes, Prideauxes and Rolles, Fowell of Fowelscombe and Fulford of Fulford, Sir Bourchier Wray of Tawstock Park and Sir William Courtenay of Powderham Castle. ”

“ Another characteristic of the people has always been their loyalty to their sovereign, to their county, and to each other. Devon is proverbial, like Cornwall and Yorkshire, for the clannishness of its inhabitants. It is a land, too, where superstition dies hard. Belief in pixies—fairies, as they are called elsewhere—in witches and witch-craft, in whisht-hounds and other weird and uncanny creatures, and in portents and omens, still lingers, especially on Dartmoor. ”

“ Devonshire, whence he came, has preserved more of the old features of English country life than the central and northern parts of England, where manufactures and the growth of population have swept away the venerable remains of feudalism. In Devonshire the old families are still deeply respected by the people. ”

“ But the point to be mentioned is that our delightfully remote cottage belonged to a gentleman through whom—although we never met or knew each other—I came to realise my dream of some day seeing Devonshire. I often wish I had known him; for by all accounts he was a rare and original person.
In the oldest of our old times, the pre-gold times, when these lands were being "taken up" by a gallant set of young men, cadets of what we call "good" British families, he had been a pioneer squatter. ”

“ TEWKESBURY ABBEY
From the summit of Worcester Beacon and from other of the higher Malvern crests the view ranges, on a clear day, over some fifteen counties and embraces the six momentous battlefields of Shrewsbury, Mortimer's Cross, Edge Hill, Worcester, Evesham and Tewkesbury, and the three cathedrals of Hereford, Worcester, and Gloucester, besides the remnants of six great religious houses of mediæval England,—Great and Little Malvern, Pershore, [283] Evesham, Deerhurst and Tewkesbury. ”

“ The road from Dartmouth to Slapton Sands is almost entirely composed of astonishing hills. Only in Devon could hills so many and so fierce be compressed within so small a space. But only in Devon, surely, is the [88] coast at the same time so wild and so luxuriant, so stern and yet so tender; only in Devon can we look down from the clifftop through so soft a veil of trees, and see far below us sands so yellow and rocks so red, and the ripples of so very, very green a sea. ”

“ It was not a lord of Mercia, nor a lord of Wessex! Ethelfrith rushed from her room, down the stairs, and headlong into the orchard-close, in a fit of wild shyness.
There was her waiting-maid, and there were several aged ladies who cared not to look on at the shooting of the rooks. All confused, she stammered to them of her surmise—how that the King of East Anglia was even at their gates. What should they do, with her parents away?
"Why, lady, there is no need for fear," said one kind-hearted matron. ”

“ There was a fair upon the green for the sale of chickens, ducks, and geese.
"I do think that these be lying tidings," said Tori the priest of Ludford. "Two kings dead within a year, and English and Welsh at peace in Herefordshire! I will believe there is such a William when I have set eyes upon him, and in the deaths of kings when I see kings lying dead. I am a stickler for the good old ways: I do not waste my prayers upon an unknown outlander, but beseech heaven for Edward and for his Lady as I have been wont all the days of my life!" ”

“ Besides the trip up the Tamar, there are other rivers in South Devon whose charms are of a totally different, but perhaps even more exquisitely beautiful character. Thus the Dart, the Lynher, the Plym, the Yealm, the Erme, and the Tavy, all present attractions to the tourist.
It cannot fail to augment the enjoyment of those who visit this beautiful county—the fairest, the brightest, and the “greenest” of all our English shires—to recall the many “worthies” to whom Devonshire and Cornwall have [77] given birth ”

“ They live much like Gascoynes—affecting their own language, valuing themselves much on the antiquity of their families, and are proud of making entertainments.
The Duke of Powis, of the name of Herbert, hath a noble seat near this town, but I was not at it; the family followed King James’s fortunes to France, and I suppose the seat lies neglected. From Ludlow in a short day’s riding through a champaign country I arrived at the town of Shrewsbury.
Shrewsbury stands upon an eminence, encircled by the Severn like a horse-shoe; the streets are large, and the houses well built. ”

“ In Devonshire you have wider horizons, save for the lanes and hedges, which do their best to keep straying eyes fastened on their own beauty.
I suppose men who never have left England take such beauty for granted, but to me, after the flaunting luxuriance of the East, it is enchanting. I notice everything. I want someone, who cares for it as I do, to admire it with me. If it weren't for Dick Burden this England would be making me twenty-one again. ”

“ Warner of the eighteenth century, “is by far the most genteel town in North Devon.” This is a very happy word; though why a town whose history includes the days of Athelstane, a town that has had a castle and a priory and a [187] life by no moans dull, should be “genteel” when all is said, is hard to understand. The nice public gardens and open spaces, the air of clean prosperity, and the colonnade with the fluted pillars give it an eighteenth-century air, at latest. ”

“ Dewbury follows no such useless vocation. He is no dreamer--not he. He is a utilitarian; believes in being useful in the world and all that; manufactures things."
St. Lawrence on the gridiron must have experienced sensations of positive delight when contrasted with Mr. Dewbury's feelings at that moment. Jessie took pity on him, and putting down the roses began to extol the beauty of the orchids until the smiles returned to his face. ”

“ There are folk of primitive ways of thought and rugged speech up the valley of Dawlish Water, [82] and their characteristics are those of old Devon, of whose peasantry it has been truly said: “They work hard, live hard, hold hard, and die hard.” ”

“ Devonshire, a county in the S. of England, with Exmoor in the N. and Dartmoor in the S.; is fertile in the low country, and enjoys a climate favourable to vegetation; it has rich pasture-grounds, and abounds in orchards.
Devonshire, Duke of. See Cavendish.
Devrient, Ludwig, a popular German actor, born in Berlin, of exceptional dramatic ability, the ablest of a family with similar gifts (1784-1832) . ”

“ There is no really steep gradient on this road, and though [53] near Exeter there is a long climb followed by a long descent, there are several surprising miles, near Plymouth, that are almost level. The surface is usually very good. The scenery is not so strikingly beautiful as on the other roads, but in places it is very lovely, and everywhere there are the special charms of Devonshire: the shadowing trees, the high banks and trailing ivy, the stone walls green with myriads of tiny ferns, the gardens full of sunshine and flowers. ”