below us. resentation which the friends of portmanteaus, and anxious inReform are just now pointing out quiry concerning missing travelas a monstrous injustice that cries ing bags, sixteen passengers were aloud for a remedy. It is not to disposed of, inside and outside be supposed, however, that should the conveyance, and rattling the town lose one of its members rapidly through the Honiton High upon a re-distribution of seats, or Street we soon began slowly to even should it be merged alto- ascend a long hill, where, from gether in some larger constitu- many successive sweeps of the ency, the interests of its lace- road, there was afforded a pretty makers will be greatly compro- view of the valley and the town mised to the advantage of Valenciennes or Malines, and certainly Darkness had come down before the success of a Reform Bill can we commenced the descent on the never rob it of free nature's grace, other side, and we could see "or mar its picturesqueness hid nothing, therefore, of what I among the green Devonshire afterwards thought one of the hills." finest bits of scenery in all EngFrom Honiton to Sidmouth, land. This is the narrow valley which latter town was the point of the Sid, a stream insignificant of my destination, the distance is in volume, (having at times nine miles. The public convey- scarcely water enough to slake ance is a vehicle, which, being the thirst of the sleek, patient neither omnibus nor stage-coach, Devon cattle that enjoy the highpartakes of the character of both, est phase of bovine existence in the inside seats being arranged the lush grasses along its short longitudinally, like the omnibus, course of four miles to the chanand there being seats on the roof nel) but very bright and sparkbehind the driver corresponding ling, and seeming to sing the reto those of the old-fashioned frain of the Laureat's song of English stage-coach. Ordinarily, "The Brook," as if this had been this vehicle more than fulfils the written for it, that "men may wants of the traveling public come and men may go, but I go between the two places, but on on forever." The valley is nothe occasion of my journey, there where more than half a mile in were many more persons desiring width, and terminates with the to be taken to Sidmouth than it town of Sidmouth, built along the could possibly accommodate.- channel between two lofty hills. Two seats next the driver had Seen from the highest point of been specially reserved, while the the highway, six miles distant railway porters were piling the and perhaps 600 feet above the baggage on top at the station, for sea, the outline of the landscape, no fewer than six gentlemen, channel-wards, is peculiar, as which led to very grave complica- presenting an are of a circle in tions of disputed possession, but the curve of the land from peak after three quarters of an hour of to peak on either side of the town, grumbling, and stowing away with the blue expanse of the ocean filling the intermediate will accept the rubber of whist space out to the level horizon. in the corner from which every The waters seem held, as it were, in a cup, for the sea view is bounded by the hills on the right hand and on the left. From the sea-wall to the extreme point of now and then we catch the voice of remonstrance at revokes-the infinite complexities of worsted in the taper fingers that are working it into endless hoods, firc-screens, view on a bright day, many miles jackets, afghans and what-notsof waves tumble in the sunshine, the private theatricals that are and the surface is flecked, and to come off next week for a vilexquisitely varied in tint, with lage charity-the sermon of the the shadows of passing clouds-the new preacher last Sunday: are sky above the channel is rarely not all these familiar to us in wholly cloudless--which come America, and are they any more scudding in from the vext Atlan- characteristic of a town in Devontic or go sailing grandly over to France. manner come at night-fall around the house, and outrage the dramatic unities on the lawn in the recital of a masque, in which Cœur de Lion runs his tin sword through the first Emperor Na shire than of a town, let us say, in Delaware? What I saw peculiar On arriving in Sidmouth, it was to England and English life was. my good fortune not to realize the rather out of doors than within, truth of Shenstone's line of find- and something of this belonged ing one's "warmest welcome in to the season and its ancient cousan inn," for I was most hospitably toms. For example, the mumreceived within a charming cot- mers. A dozen little urchins tage home, half concealed by dressed in the most preposterous thickets of laurel and rhododendron upon the verge of the town. May I not say, without abusing this hospitality, that I found the social aspects of Sidmouth, as therein presented, much the same that one always sees among cul- poleon, and Lord Nelson smites tivated people in a small town the Marc Antony who expires in the world over? The parochial gos- arms, not of Cleopatra, but of sip about Miss Araminta's new Punchinello, while the Queen of bonnet and Miss Amanda's en- Sheba in crinoline executes a pas gagement--the long match at seul, after which the mighty backgammon between the dear old Corsican and the great Roman gentleman of the family and his triumvir carry round their caps next door neighbor, commenced for pennies, and the histrionic corps troop away to rehearse their stories to another audience. And then come the Waits, a melancholy band of music enough, that blow their discordant blare of horns and depart. It is in the country only that these antique several months ago, and played every afternoon from four to sixthe tea-table criticism of the magazines and illustrated papers from London, wherein Mr. Anthony Trollope is duly censured for not making up his heroine's mind as to which of her two lovers she observances linger, and even in the country they are likely to lin- vincial towns all seem, as has been ger not long. The Christmas already mentioned of Honiton, mumming and music of the cities (the manufacturing towns only are done in the pantomime. excepted) to be quite completed There is a look about all provin- and to be altogether content at cial towns in England character- being so. Not a brick is out of istically and unmistakably Eng- its place, there is no improvement lish. No American suddenly going on, because there is nothing whisked into one of them from to be improved, (actually or in the his own shores could fail to per- opinion of the inhabitants) and ceive that the general aspect of the one feels that to-day is but a repplace was unfamiliar to him. He etition of the same day of the would read the same names, likely year any time in the reign of enough on the signs of the Eng- George II., due allowance being lish town that are over the shops had for the changes of costume (or stores) of his native place. There is Smith, the livery stable keeper, and Jones, the seller of hardware, and Brown, the apoth ecary, and there is the same air of lounging listlessness and idle vacuity in the men that hang around the stables, the same show of pans and kettles at the door of the hardware dealer, the same array of gallipots and globes of green and red water in the windows of the apothecary, that he has been accustomed to from childhood. But the apothecary is called a chymist, and the hardware dealer an ironmonger and the keeper of the livery-stable a post-master!* Moreover, the pro and conventionality. One marked point of difference between the country towns of England and America is greatly in favor of England as affecting, the sense of beauty, while another seriously mars the general effect of the English town. In this quiet, quaint, comfortable little Sid mouth, the smooth, well-kept roads, winding in graceful curves, here giving just a glimpse of a cottage at a turn two hundred yards off, and there sweeping away to cross the brawling Sid by a bridge of stone, are surely far prettier than the long rectilinear streets of American villages. But the high brick walls that run from one end * A great rage prevails in London of the island to the other, excludfor giving magnificent names to trades, ing from the view of the traveler and special departments of business enterprise-names derived chiefly from on the highway, lawn and terrace the Greek. No foreigner visiting Eng land during the past two years, in whatever part of the island he may have been, can have failed to notice the universal slanting sign of and ancient mansion, are doubly distasteful, as objects ugly in non" is the Greek for "all iron," pas, pasa, pan, all, and Klibanos, iron, and the ubiquitous Sign refers to an ironfurnishing establishment in Baker street, next door to Madame Tussand's Wax-Works. There are even so many "Pantechnicons" for the storage of bulky articles. A carrier of household goods on railway seeks, through Notes and Queries to know whether he shall call himself "ecoscuephoron," "ecoscuephoros" or "ecoscuepheron." themselves, and annoying for what indeed with all the towns lying on they conceal. Why, having built the channel-that majestic view a fine house, or having inherited of the sea, ever varying and yet, and restored a many-gabled edi- in a certain sense, ever the same, fice with Elizabethan windows, that boundless outlook over the and ornamented the grounds waste by which all the bards from around it, the English gentleman the Psalmist down to Mr. Tennyshould wish to shut out his abode son have been moved to raptures. from the sight of men is not at As for the sea itself, it affects the first altogether comprehensible.- imagination in much the same An iron railing, one might sup- way all round the world, but the pose, would as effectually guard tall cliffs and bold headlands of him against intrusion as a 15 foot the channel impart additional blank wall, but then an iron rail- grandeur to the general prospect ing would permit other people to along its margin, and make up a enjoy at a distance, something of scene for Turner to paint and the beauty of the place, and the Ruskin to describe. A noble seaEnglish gentleman desires to keep it all to himself. Personal isolation as opposed to companionship is his characteristic. He is constantly building up moral and social brick walls around his individuality. He probably loves his neighbor as well as most other people, but the scriptural injunetion does not seem to him to involve the necessity of his neighbor's acquaintance. To love your neighbor, it is not by any wall called "The Esplanade," extends for a third of a mile upon the very border of the channel, from the hill on one side of the town to the hill on the other, affording a promenade for the citizens, and protecting them from the too fierce onset of the waves, which, during the winter months, driven before the south westerly gales, come thundering against the stone-work with a fury that would seem well nigh resistless. means required that you should No pier or jetty or breakwater exknow him, and the English gen- tends out into the sea, for Sid tleman would appear to act upon the belief that if he knew him better, he would probably love him less. But the brick walls around the Lodge, the Villa or the Park, whatever may be their social significance, are a great disfigurement to the rural and suburban landscapes of England. Perhaps, after all, the country would be too lovely without them. The finest sight of Sidmouth is what it offers to the visitor in common with Dover and Hastings, and Brighton, and Torquay, mouth is not a seaport; there are only some dangerous breakers a few hundred yards from the shore, over which the sea lashes itself incessantly into foam, and the villagers are therefore never visited by the great ships that are always ploughing their way up and down the channel, bearing the commerce of the world to London, and carrying off the fabrics of England to the ends of the earth, except when one of these is driven upon the rocks, and goes hopelessly to pieces within almost a rope's of Heaven at all. length of human habitations. At to land. It was an Italian vessel, the time of my visit the channel from Palermo or Leghorn, bound was very unquiet, and raged vio- to London, and the sailors, who lently upon the sands from day to had not a word of English to exday, seeming ever more angry press their thanks, poor fellows, to and insolent in its advance, and their human benefactors, fell, dashing the spray, now and then, every man of them, upon his even into the faces of the pretty knees, there on the first bit of dry promenaders, who, with their fair ground he touched, and inwardly hair blown about their blooming expressed his gratitude to God. cheeks, and their skirts blown Whether honest Giacomo breathed about their trim ankles, paced to his thanks-giving to the Alland fro along the Esplanade, ex- Father or to the Virgin or yet to actly, for all the world, as in John one of the Saints is probably of Leech's pictures. But the sea little importance, but we do not was not so rough as it had been a wonder to be told that the sight few weeks before. There still re- was an impressive one to English mained, at a short distance from Protestants, who might well doubt the town, the fragment of a wreck whether an English crew cast over which the waves broke as if ashore upon a Roman Catholic in a mad joy at the ruin they had strand would ever have thought wrought. In the latest tempest of the winter, while lives were being dashed about anywhere on the perilous coast of England, (it had been only a fortnight ago,) a gallant barque was hurled there able Vade Mecum in my rambles upon the breakers, within sight thereafter. I was always deof the homes of Sidmouth, fortu- lighted with "Little Pedlington nately in the broad light of day. and the Pedlingtonians" which The Coast Guard and the brave volume is scarcely a burlesque men of the National Life Boat after all. Does not every villager Institution and all the citizens of think his own village the most the town hurried to the beach and remarkable village in the two the cliffs that towered above it, to hemispheres? Is not the number lend their aid to the hapless mariners, or to watch in breathless suspense the result of the efforts to save them. It was indeed an awful moment, a trying quart d'heure, as the struggle went on for these poor creatures between human energy and courage and the pitiless elements, but, had been able to show that a God be praised! the efforts in Roman paved road existed intheir behalf were successful, and dubitably in the neighborhood ; the entire crew was safely brought that the geological formations In the local book-shop of Sidmouth, I bought a little shilling guide to the town and neighborhood, which proved a most valu much greater than is generally the world? I confess I think the weakness an amiable one, and that I was charmed to find that the genial author of the Guide to Sidmouth |