leaving great atmospheric disturbance behind it. So sultry was it throughout the valley that the trout would not sport in the Rea at all. I find a note of the Last of the Old Squires, written about this time, in which he observes: 'July is the worst month in the year to procure minnows, as, after spawning, they retreat into the deep water to recover themselves. It is also the worst month in the year for killing trout in rivers, as they generally confine themselves to the sides, waiting under trees and bushes for their food. I have found the most successful way of taking them to be by walking down the stream or mill pond, and when you happen to see one break water in pursuit of his favourite food, which is flies, if you are fishing with a minnow to drop it gently about a yard above where you see him break water. You are almost certain to take him, as he is then in pursuit of whatever food comes first within his vision; but still, as I said before, July is not a favourable month for trout-fishing.' Never was a more dexterous fisher! Owing to the name of Hill, Peninsular affairs were a matter of great interest in the old county and in the valley. Ciudad Rodrigo was taken on July 9, and on the very day of its surrender the French cavalry appeared on the plains of Almeida. Its castle was called by Dumouriez the strongest place in Portugal, forgetting Elvas, which, as Southey remarks, is far superior to it in strength. It was captured August 27. In these days General Hill was watching Regnier at Elvas, ready to 'make a movement on the right bank of the Tagus, in order to cover the road to Castello Braneo from Lisbon, which Regnier menaced.' But Lord Wellington's clever movements after the fall of Almeida, General Hill still cooperating, and his repassing the Mondego, and so throwing himself between Massena and Coimbra, is a page in Peninsular history, and needs not to be repeated here. Enough to say that all Shropshire people drank bumpers to Hill's success; and every tap in the county ran with its best nutbrown ale when his name was toasted. On such occasions John Diggory was heard to say that even Dikky Tummas of the Lea Cross' did not mix his drink! We will hope that what Williams said to Henry V. is not always true: 'I am afraid there are few die well that die in battle!' The storm of July, as I noted above, caused great atmospheric disturbance, and on August 14 and 15 there was another fearful storm in London, when Westminster Hall was deluged, which also was felt throughout the kingdom. Of this time it was that Hannah More wrote from Barley Wood to Mrs. Kennicott: 'We are paying, in common with all invalids, the penalty of this drenching weather. It makes us beautiful without, and sick within. How do you stand it? I just spy something suspicious of what to the best of my remembrance is sun, but it is so long since I have seen his face that I ought not to speak too positively.' They had just the same weather in the valley of the Rea and the valley of the Severn, at Worcester and Gloucester. Later on in the year-September 27 or 29-Genera Hill's name again was bruited abroad in connection with Busaco, though the news arrived in the valley three weeks later. The Sierra de Busaco Lord Wellington thought the strongest in Portugal, and it took the Shropshire hero no little trouble to drive Regnier down the hill. 'Massena himself upon this reconnoitred the position, after which he asked one of the unworthy Portuguese who accompanied him if he thought the allies would give him battle? He was answered that undoubtedly they would, since they showed themselves in such strength. The French marshal replied, "I cannot persuade myself that Lord Wellington will risk the loss of his reputation; but if he does . . . . I have him! To-morrow we shall effect the conquest of Portugal; and in a few days I shall drown the leopard!" At the end of the year General Hill said, in his quiet way, which all will recollect who have seen him at the Hunt Ball at the 'Lion' in Shrewsbury, walking up and down with his hands in his breeches pockets: 'After all, Massena was not able to drive us into the sea!' Lord Wellington reached his lines at Torres Vedras on October 9. Trying days were these for British courage, but the commander-in-chief gave the soldiers the best example (as old Woolvin, orderly to Lord Raglan, and till his death coachman to my dear old friend William Woodward of West Grinstead, and Miss Simms, his niece, at Horsham, told me), for he lived most sparingly, was up by four, and by five rode out and visited his advanced outposts. Good old Woolvin— of seven clasps-was once cut down by a Toledo blade, and he always said that Spanish steel was very sharp-his actual words. When people talked of the hardships in the Crimea, he always said: 'In my day, we were very glad to find a post to rub our shoulders against'; reminding me of what a true Scotchman said when the Duke of Argyle set up mile-stones, to his very great ease and comfort, regardless of distances. October 26 was the last day the venerable King ever made his appearance in society. On the 29th Lord Eldon and Perceval were at Windsor; and after Lord Eldon's second interview, the House adjourned from November 1 to 15, impressed with coming difficulties. It was on November 2 the sad blow came-the Princess Amelia died-the desire of the old King's eyes was taken from him. On the last interview she had put a ring on his finger, with a lock of her hair in it and the inscription, 'Remember me!' And as he bent over his dying child she added, 'Remember me, but do not grieve for me!' and they led him away to weep. None knew her but they loved herthe Prince of Wales even, three years after her death, burst into tears at the very mention of her name. She left this world for a better in the twenty-eighth year of her age. On November II the poor old King was something better and more composed, asked if her funeral had taken place, and on finding that it had not, selected for the burial anthem the last verse of the sixteenth Psalm: 'Thou shalt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is the fulness of joy: and at thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore. So settled was his heart, however unsettled in his poor racked mind, in heavenly places. On the 14th she was deposited in St. George's Chapel, and the good old man's deep, deep sorrow had nothing to do with the hired wail of Oriental weepers, but it was the grief of a bereaved father, and none, perhaps, ever knew the deepest depth of his affliction. CHAPTER LI. THE REGENCY. Hoc scito, nimio celerius Venire quod molestum est, quam id quod cupide petas. A time was come to try who triumpht most, CHURCHYARD, Siege of Edinburgh Castle, p. 157. But the dark hours wring forth the hidden might A treasure all undreamt of; as the night Calls out the harmonies of streams that roll MRS. HEMANS, The Forest Sanctuary, xxxv. No man can be truly for himself unless he be first of all for truth itself, of which he that gains the greatest share (what other detriment or disparagement soever in the meantime he sustain) in the end speeds always best.- JACKSON'S Works, vol. i. 175, folio. Scorn the world, abandon folly, Purchase faith, that glorious treasure ; Faith is wisdom, wisdom virtue, Virtue truth, and truth is pleasure. How's Devout Meditations, ciii. AT the beginning of this year (1811) the King's bodily health was better than it had been, but the mind was in an unhealthy state, and he laboured under two delusions: one, that he was Elector of Hanover; the other, that he was wedded to his old love, the Countess of Pembroke, whom Horry Walpole described, when at the coronation of the King, as the picture of majestic modesty.' The result was great parliamentary complications, cabals, and friction, not unfostered by the Prince, whose eyes were on the Regency, and who grasped at power. And so the land had much to fear, and thoughtful men said, 'He who was a lover of pleasure, and an undutiful son, was never likely to make a good ruler.' Nor was he an unready scholar who, when he called to mind the orgies at Carlton House, repeated these lines of Claudian : Luxuries prædulce malum, quæ dedita semper The year was introduced by very heavy weather. On January 3 was a dreadful gale from the north-east, which did much damage at Gravesend and Folkestone. It was a drift of sleet and snow, and by the 8th the Thames was all but frozen over. The snowfall seems to have been more severely felt at Boston and Stamford, but it did much damage in the midland counties and in the north. In the previous summer the elm-trees in Shropshire had been much hurt by the Scolytus, and most weakened branches, if not trees, fell before the blast. Some twelve years later the Scolytus became a great pest; and I well recollect its ravages in Wolsey's Walk, as well as in other trees in the Christ Church Meadow, Oxford, as well as the late Archbishop Whately's remark on good old Dr. Bodwin's (the Sub-dean) having cut their roots to deepen the ditch. It was then, in their morbid and moribund state, that the Scolytus attacked them most. Waterton, the naturalist, observes this elsewhere. Referring to this, Dr. Hibson remarks: 'We rarely, in the lower grades of animal life, see any living creature destroy, unless some future beneficial result should be obtained, in order to counterbalance, in some way or other, the destruction.' 'Use the elm,' said my Talking Friend, 'before it becomes useless; but spare the oak, as carefully as did Columba, the Saint of the North, of whom my venerable father used to talk;' but I knew not to what he alluded. Perhaps what has been recently said of the monks of the West may be appli |