riddle upon this steeple, preserved in Gray's Chorographia:

My altitude high, my body four-square;

My foot in the grave, my head in the air;
My eyes in my side, five tongues in my womb;
Thirteen heads upon my body, four images alone.
I can direct you where the wind doth stay,

And I tune God's precepts twice a day.

I am seen where I am not, I am heard where I is not,
Tell me now what I am, and see that ye miss not.”

The prison of this town has not participated in its improvements. It has no sick room, no chapel. In one small room were three felons, two of whom slept in one room, and the third under. The debtors were shockingly crowded: the only place allowed them for exercise was the leads on the roof. The felons have no place to take the air in. A miserable female convict some years since attempted to make an escape, by descending from the battlements (where she was permitted to walk) by a cord, which was too weak to sustain her, and she fell into a small yard adjoining, and died in consequence a few days after. The assizes are here also held only once a year. It is a matter of surprise, that, in a town so opulent and flourishing, a suitable prison should not be erected. It has been long in contemplation to build a new one, but the gentlemen of the corporation should be reminded of the Spanish saying, that "Heaven will be filled with those who have done good things, and the lower regions with those who intended to do them."

There are several very handsome buildings in this town, particularly the theatre, the assembly-rooms, (which were built about forty years since,) and the town-hall, by the quay side, on the weather-cock of which a rook used, during many years, to build its nest. There are very large glass-works carried on here, and manufactories of white and red lead; there are also manufactories of broad and narrow cloths, wrought iron, several soap-boileries, and potteries. The grindstones which I have mentioned are so frequently shipped from this place, that there is a proverb, "that a Scotchman and a Newcastle grindstone travel all the world over."

But its principal exportation is that of coal, the annual amount of which from the port of Newcastle is estimated at four hundred thousand Newcastle chaldrons, equal to seven hundred and seventy-five thousand London chaldrons *. As I am upon this subject, it may not be uninteresting to mention that the annual importation of this valuable mineral into the port of London is averaged at nine hundred and fifty thousand London chaldrons; which, deducting about one-twentieth part, say fifty thousand

Before the last war, for several years, it was nearly 448,000 Newcastle chaldrons: at which time considerable cargoes used to be annually freighted for Holland, and other parts of the north of Europe.

chaldrons, consumed in the counties in the neighbourhood of London, forms the annual consumption for London, Westminster, Southwark, and the environs, in which about two thousand six hundred chaldrons are consumed every day, for the whole year, which is doubled in very cold weather.

At Newcastle there is a patent-shot tower of great height, with which the following extraordinary anecdote is connected. Some time since it sunk on one side, and was alarmingly out of its perpendicular, which it recovered by an enterprising ingenuity of the persons employed, who dug away the earth from its opposite and more elevated side, until it recovered its level.

In the road to Hexham is the village of Lemington, where there are several glass-houses for window-glass, and a considerable iron manufactory; and nearly opposite, on the south side of the Tyne, are Smallwell iron-works, which are very extensive. In crossing the Tyne at Corbridge I passed by the place where a noble piece of silver Roman plate, richly embossed, was found some years since, now in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland, and which is frequently exhibited upon his Grace's sideboard. Above Corbridge, at low water, may be seen the remains of a Roman bridge. Roman coins are frequently found here,

and in the neighbourhood. Near Dilstone, or Devil's Stone, are the remains of the ancient seat of the Derwentwaters, now in the possession, with the rest of the property of that family, of the trustees of Greenwich Hospital. The friend and admirer of that magnificent asylum for the support of naval valour in its declining days will be happy to hear that the farm at Dilstone, comprising about five hundred acres, which about twenty years before was let at 500l. per annum, was lately re-let for 1,780l. per annum, and that most of the Greenwich-Hospital estates have risen in proportion.

Hexham is a considerable town, in which a large manufacture of gloves is carried on. The inhabitants appeared to be very idle; and every other house in the town is an alehouse. Colonel Beaumont has lately repaired and altered the old abbey, which with the rich lead mines, and all the other property now in the possession of the Beaumonts in Northumberland and Durham, belonged to the family of the Blacketts. Most of the lead from the mines is brought to Hexham, and thence sent to the smelting-mills in the neighbourhood for extracting the silver. The grounds about the abbey have been levelled, to group with the alterations, in consequence of which the bones of many a holy friar have been disturbed. This building is close to the church, which unites the Gothic and Saxon architecture; a large and venerable

TRAVELLING PLEASURES.

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pile. The view from Hexham along the vale, over the Tyne, commanding a very handsome bridge, through which that beautiful river meanders, with numerous sloping gardens on one side, and richly planted woods and elegant country houses on the other, is extensive and very fine.

O! ye dales

Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands! where,

Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides,
And his banks open and his lawns extend,
Stops short the pleased traveller, to view,
Presiding o'er the scene, some rustic tow'r,
Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands.

AKENSIDE.

At Hesleyside, the seat of my friend W. J. Charlton, Esq. I was received with great hospitality, and, with him and his amiable mother and aunt, renewed in retrospection the scenes which, as accident brought us together, we had visited in various parts of the north of Europe. I leave to those who have thus agreeably met abroad and at home to conceive the pleasures of such an interview. This part

of Northumberland abounds with more charms for the sportsman than for the lover of rural nature. But Providence is always equal in the distribution of its favours, though divided into infinite variety. In this bare and rugged soil, the poor peasant may, with very little trouble and as little expense, procure as much coal as he requires,

E