into the huge trunks. Ruffles and lappets
demanded the most gingerly handling, that they
might not be crushed in the little bandbox.
The gentlemen had their share of these
troubles; for the best suit, with its buck-
rammed long skirts and huge-pocketed waistcoats,
was almost as intractable as the lady's
mantua, while the wig—frizzled, pomatumed,
powdered—was packed in its appropriated
huge box, as carefully as if each particular hair
were endowed with feeling and would
protest, against anything but the gentlest usage.
They made little preparation for rain,
save in the thickness of the gentlemen's
shoes. There was the scarlet rocquelaure,
indeed; and, if the shower came very fast
they unlooped the three corners of their
cocked hats: but the ladies, with only the
silk hood and the huge green fan—their only
substitute for a parasol—how anxiously must
they have watched the changes of the
weather!

It happened however that the July of
seventeen hundred and forty-eight was
clear, warm, and sunny. All the trunks
being arranged, and all the indispensable
et ceteras duly provided "at eight o'clock
in the morning, on the fourth, the two
ladies, Mr. J., and myself in the landau and
four, and brother Valentine and cousin Sam
and his friend each on horse-back, we set
forth."

Cousin Sam was a valuable assistant. An
experienced traveller, a merry companion,
and moreover

              A train-band captain eke was he
              Of famous London town.

To him was committed the guidance of the
party, together with the equally important
office of superintending the commissariat.
Who cannot see the cavalcade setting out?
The lumbering landau; the ladies in
mohair dresses and hoods and cardinals,
green fans, with arquebusade-bottle in
hand; the two gentlemen in sad-coloured
suits, wigs, undress cravat and ruffles; while
the equestrians, in their riding bob-wigs,
buckskins, and huge top-boots, trotting quietly
by the side; cousin Sam sometimes riding
forward to reconnoitre, sometimes riding
back to consult " The Roads through
England Delineated, revised, improved, and
reduced to a size portable for the pocket,
by John Senex," the which, purchased for
this very journey at the Black Horse in
Cornhill, is very carefully turned over by the
narrator of the journey.

They have passed Hyde Park and
Kensington: they are actually in the country,
past Brentford, and approaching Hounslow
Heath. That dreaded heath is safe enough
provided you keep along the high road and beneath
a noontide sun. But we can well imagine the
solemn looks cast around, and how the ladies'
arquebusade is put in requisition as the tall
gibbets come in sight. One-mile heath, two-
mile heath, three-mile heath—so says the
guide-book cruelly enough, as if to emphasise
the probable danger of the way. But all
three miles are past, the road to Salt Hill is
taken; and here, at the Windmill, they dine;
all of them quite cheerfully, having had a
good day so far. Nor did they hurry on;
for a pleasant ride to Henley completed their
day's journey.

Another fine morning rose upon them, and
they proceeded to Dorchester, where they
viewed the antiquities of the place, especially
an ancient altar. No antiquities were thought
worthy of notice then except Roman
antiquities; and then they went on to Oxford.
"Here we dressed, and after dinner
congratulated each other on the palpable amendment
of our looks." Truly, a journey to
Oxford was something for stay-at-home
people to brag of; so no wonder it was
matter of congratulation that their health
had not failed them. Oxford presented many
notable things; the printing-office, at which
the ladies greatly marvelled; and where doubtless
they had their names, and the date of
their visit, printed within a curious border of
eylet-holes and little bolt-upright flowers,
after the manner of printing-houses a hundred
years ago. Then they went to the lecture-
theatre, to Dr. Radcliffe's new library, and the
solemn Bodleian, which doubtless they found
very dull and gothic; all affording matter
for a variety of speculations. The speculations
of our worthy diarist were, however,
not altogether favourable to Oxford. As a
determined whig, patronising the Daily
Courant and the Amsterdam Coffee-house, he
looked with little pleasure upon colleges
where the Pretender's health had been
furtively toasted, and whence, not three
years before, the progress of the
Jacobite army had been watched with
undisguised satisfaction. Indeed, so inveterate
were the Stuart tendencies of Oxford, that
only in the preceding February, a Jacobite
manifestation had been got up by the gowns-
men of so serious a character that the heads
of houses were compelled to pass a vote of
censure, and to put some of the leaders into
confinement.

Without reluctance, therefore, on the
following morning, after visiting the Physic
Garden (where the sensitive plants excited
their wondering admiration), the party
left this beautiful city, its best associations
and fine architecture unappreciated in that
formal age; and bent their way to the more
grateful shades of Woodstock, where stood
the Mecca of the whig partisan, Blenheim.
After a good dinner— a shoulder of lamb and
cauliflower, a couple of chickens and a dish
of tarts—they repaired to " this large,
sumptuous building, the noble monument of a
nation's gratitude to a man so famous in his
day, and viewed with much delight the
incomparable paintings and hangings, although,"
adds the writer, " the remembrance of the
ungrateful treatment he afterwards received,