Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

There is but one hotel, at which the company generally dine together at one table, but they are seldom nu

merous.

Those who have agility and strength enough to scramble up the mountains, which from the base to the summit is supposed to be two miles, will have a view of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, and many other counties, as well as the black mountains near Brecknock, in Wales; the three cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester, and Hereford, are all seen from the same spot with the naked eye, which lie in a kind of triangle, nearly thirty miles distant from each other; and, at the season when the trees are in blossom in these cider-countries, intersected with nu

merous

merous hop-grounds, they present a picture almost too voluptuous to describe, when you look down upon them from this mountain.

Worcester is a handsome city, great part of which is paved and flagged; it stands on the banks of the Severn, over which is built a very handsome bridge.

The Cathedral is a stately Gothic building, which, with the cloisters, have lately been repaired at a yast expence; the inside of both have the appearance of being newly built; the whole of the Cathedral has had a new pavement laid down, the old monuments put in a good condition, and that of Bishop Hough, sculptured by Rubiliac, would be an ornament, and Q2

is

is fit to be ranked among the best of that artist's performances in Westminster Abbey.

Worcester is a hundred and eleven miles north-west of London, through Oxford, Woodstock, Chipping Norton, Pershore, &c. Malvern-wells are eight miles from Worcester, on the road to Hereford.

Riding near Ledbury, in Worcestershire, one rainy day, upon a restive horse, I had the misfortune to splash a poor young soldier all over, who was on his furlough; I was grieved at the circumstance, and apologized to him; the roads were deeply cut and dirty; he had a heavy knapsack at his back, and seemed much tired; entering into conversation with

him, he told me he had played the fool to his own cost, had rashly enlisted for a soldier, in consequence of a little quarrel with his wife, saying she was one of the best of women, and that he had great reason to repent of his folly every day; I pitied his situation, bid him a good day, sat down at the first inn upon the road, and wrote the following song, which I have heard Mr. Dignum sing with great effect.

THE FURLOUGHED SOLDIER.

As I've plodded my way to some far country town,
Full many a wearisome day,

My purse has contain'd but a scanty half-crown,
And that has soon melted away.

II.

Dejected and sad, on some wintery road,

With rain I've been wet to the skin;

Of my knap-sack grown tir'd, I've sought for abode At some friendly good ale-house or inn.

III. I've

III.

I've hop'd that good Fortune, in turning her wheel, Would cast me, per chance, on the place,

Where the wound in my bosom would instantly heal At the sight of my Sally's dear face.

IV.

She grieves, for she knows how I'm destin'd to roam,
On the strength of my furlough to rest;
And then she oft wishes her Allen at home,
To bury his cares in her breast.

About two years after this period, on the same road, in the winter time, at a cottage near Worcester, I became a spectator to a very affecting but pleasing scene, where a soldier had just returned from the continent of Austrian Flanders, from which I was led to a combination of ideas, thinking it might possibly have been the same young man which I saw near Ledbury, therefore was induced to

« ÎnapoiContinuă »