in heaps and burnt. It seems that a machine might do this as well, with infinite saving of labour; but I dare say there is some good reason against it of which I am not aware. The scale of agriculture is such, that I saw five pair of fine horses with five harrows at work in one field. They sow their grain in drills, and weed it by means of a frame into which nine small hoes are inserted, alternately, in two rows, so as to run between nine lines or rows of plants at the same time; this weeding-harrow is drawn by one pair of horses ;-enormous rollers are used to crush and pulverize the earth. The drought and night frost have done so much harm, that farmers are employed in many places in ploughing up their wheat to sow turnips. Large farm-houses are seen with all their out-houses substantial and complete ;-very few cottages. I do not know how and where the common labourers live, those in the fields do not appear poor or in rags ;farmers on horseback ride about overlooking their labourers; they look like rich manufacturers, not at all like peasants. Agriculture is evidently not a beggarly trade here. Large flocks of ragged sheep, with long black legs and noses, range about the heath, disputing with innumerable rabbits every blade of grass; the latter are seen popping in and out of their holes in every direction. The Norfolk sheep give the best Eng

lish wool, next to the South Down; the price 35s. for 28lb. No Merinos here. Rabbits sell: at 6d. the carcass, and is. to 2s. 6d. the skin. Black-cattle here have no horns; of an accident they have made a species; I do not know whe ther there is any utility in it, but there certainly is no beauty.

About fifty miles from London, on a rising ground, we observed two barrows about 20 feet high, and near them a deep trench across the plain; these mounds are probably of Danish origin, covering heaps of bones of the slain in battle.

June 15.-The Abbey of Castle Acre is the first Gothic ruin we have seen in a country which possesses so many. This is a fine Anglo-Norman edifice; the western front in good preservation, light, and the ornaments admirably finished. I took a sketch of it. The ruins cover a great space; some people were employed in removing part of them;-I hope this profanation will not be carried too far. A few miles farther, we were shewn the remains of a fort, either Roman or Danish, nowise remarkable but by the materials of its walls, formed of a confused mass of flints, in a common bed of mortar or cement, as hard as the flints themselves; the whole is like a perfect rock. The soil seems extremely barren, and hardly fit for cultivation, yet the finest farms are seen everywhere, and the inhabitants look quite

affluent. Land rents from 15s. to 40s. an acre, and sells at thirty years purchase; in some cases land has sold at forty, fifty, or even eighty years purchase; but the latter price was in consequence of game, or some other peculiar advantage. An intelligent capitalist of London, Mr A. has purchased a great tract of land hereabouts at a very low price, in pursuit of some great scheme of improvement. The stocks give uneasiness; foreign commerce is still more precarious at present; these circumstances throw a larger capital into agriculture than its share in ordinary times. The consequence is, a greater abundance of natural products, and prices rather lower than they would otherwise be ;-that is to say, that the rapid rise of prices is a little retarded, and that the salary of labour has a little more time given it to overtake the general advance, which is all the great mass of the people need care about.

A gentleman in this neighbourhood has a cabinet of porcelain, made in Italy in Raphael's time, and painted from his designs. The lustre of this name is the greatest merit both of the drawings and of the ware. The same gentleman has some good pictures of Vandyke, Leonardo da Vinci, and Rembrandt, my favourite painters; and we admired his fine lawns and majestic shades.

June 18.-Bury St Edmonds. We left our friends this morning, grateful for the warm re

ww

ception we have met with, and melancholy at the idea that, at their age, we are not likely to see them again. This venerable couple is attended by an only daughter;* and filial duties never were more charmingly discharged, with that cheerful constancy which knows no impatience, no disgust, no weariness,-that total forgetfulness of self, compared to which the virtues of heroes sink to nothing. The country we have passed is much the same as described before, chalk and flints, with a thin layer of vegetable soil,-immense fields, without inclosures of any sort, no buildings in sight. Some parts of these plains give the idea of the sea. Farming is con. ducted in the same extensive style. We observed ten ploughs at work together in the same field, with each a pair of very fine horses ;-no oxen used in agriculture. Few villages, and those by no means pretty; but no appearance of poverty. The houses, indeed, poor enough on the outside, but the casements in good repair,-the floors clean, and the people with decent working-clothes on, and healthy looks. No beggars at all to be seen. The roads, made of pounded flint, are hard and smooth ;-the horses fly along.

* This amiable woman died unexpectedly three months after we left the place. Both parents followed her to the grave a few weeks after.

It is certainly a pleasurable sensation to be thus transported with ease and swiftness, and without fatigue or exertions,-a lazy sort of selfish pleasure, however, which one feels almost ashamed of enjoying.

The prices are here, for bread, 14 d. the quartern loaf of five lb.; beef, 9d. to 10d.; mutton, 9d.; veal, 8d. (this is the cheap time of veal ;) pork, 10s. for 14 lb. ; all these are nearly London prices :-Labour by the week in summer, 14s.; in winter, 12s. Workmen find themselves even in small beer. Women 8d. a-day. Wheat is 61s. for a comb, or 17 stone, being 238 lb. (equal to 15s. sterling, or three dollars for an American bushel of 60 lbs. which costs there about two dollars ;) coals, 45s. a chaldron of 36 bushels; flour, 85s. per sack of 20 stone, or 280 lbs.

A private gentleman of this county, a great agriculturist, and particularly a great sheep-breeder, has a territorial income of L.60,000 a-year. He wanted Mr Pitt to make him Lord Leicester, but, not succeeding, he turned, and has been ever since a great Foxite!* He influences the

This, the author understands, is a mistake. Mr Pitt, as he is now informed, gave the title of Leicester to Lord Townshend's son, out of spite to Mr C-, because, probably, he was then a Foxite, instead of having become one since.-Note to Second Edition.