Tradescant's rarities; went to Bedlam, which he calls a sumptuous place of sad residents;" viewed Windsor Castle and Eton, and admired Hampton Court. Taken altogether, this reverend connection of the county families of Lancashire and Cheshire seems rather to have enjoyed his martyrdom. He wore his rue with a difference.

When all is said, it seems that his Manchester friends were loth to part with him. Mr. Heywood says: "Never was a stronger

or more honourable attachment than subsisted between this modest and sincere man and 'the great congregation' which still yearned for his ministry." When Charles issued his declaration of indulgence, Newcome preached "with open doors" at his own dwelling in the face of virulent and fanatical opposition on the part of the Church and King folk in Manchester. Then he licensed a barn, and one Constable Barlow was sent to apprehend him under the notion that the toleration had been withdrawn. This news (of the withdrawal) was entertained (by the Church and King folk), says Newcome, "with great joy in the town, with bells and bonfires, they expressed much joy and scorn over us." Newcome, under these sharp personal trials, seems to have behaved more bravely than usual. Although he sometimes yielded to the request of the justices to abstain from preaching "to prevent trouble," he continued to preach in his own dwelling until April 26, 1674, when the magistrates sent for him to Strangeways Hall and "forbade him to pursue his calling." A few months later the furniture of the Barn Chapel was seized, which, however, was regained and finally removed two years later. In 1687 Newcome began to preach in Mr. Barlow's house, and thence in Stockton's barn. Sir John Bland amused himself with breaking the windows of poor Newcome's Barn Chapel. Mr. Heywood exclaims, "This from the representatives of the Mosleys!" The Toleration Act of 1689 gave the right of meeting unmolested, and for a while Stockton's barn received the Mosleys, Gaskells, Butterworths, Bayleys, and other wealthy and consistent members of that sect. Our good and weary Newcome delivered his last sermon on the 13th of June, 1695, and he died on the 13th of September in the same year. "His funeral was, according to his own orders, celebrated in his own meeting-place in Manchester, and his corpse laid in the west alley therein, not far from the pulpit."

The two years' diary of Henry Newcome, to which Mr. Heywood's memoir is prefixed, occupies two hundred and twenty pages, and abounds with quaint and picturesque illustrations of the manners and opinions of the time, and is in its way, and in these respects, almost as valuable as the Paston Letters.

Kinder Scout is in the north-west corner of Derbyshire, and forms the highest part of the Peak range. It consists chiefly of millstone grit, covered with thick peat, forming a flat, boggy tableland, nearly two thousand feet above the sea level, and sheds its waters east and west, on the one side flowing towards the Atlantic, on the other into the German Ocean, so that it is quite possible to see at one time two little rivulets, almost side by side, carrying their waters respectively towards these two opposite oceans, and giving rise to the Ashopbrook and Noe, flowing eastward towards the Derwent, and the Kin and Sett running towards the Goyt and Mersey. A result of this mountainous character of the district is that the climate generally is much more cold and variable than in the eastern and southern portion of the country; and the annual rainfall, from its being the first high ground that intercepts the rain-clouds from the western sea (except Rivington Pike), is far greater than it is in districts to the east and west of it. Its shape is very irregular, and covered for several miles with innumerable bosses, or large boggy hillocks, separated by hollows from three to ten feet deep, and about the same width across. The extreme points of the plateau, east and west, are more than four miles

apart, and its extreme length from north to south, along its western edge, is nearly three miles. The general appearance of the Scout from below is a gloomy sublimity, dark and louring, owing to its weather-stained rocks and dark heath.

Mr. Leo Grindon has kindly supplied me with some notes on the flora of the Scout. He says: "The flora, or indigenous vegetation, of Kinder Scout, though interesting to the botanist, presents few of the lively characters which give beauty to the meadow and stream side. Mountain vegetation in England is very nearly uniform until considerable heights are attained. Although the loftiest part of the Peak range-Kinder Scouthas an elevation of something over two thousand feet above the sea level, it is scarcely more than half as lofty as Ben Nevis and Ben Lawers, and much less in altitude than many of the summits in the Lake District and in North Wales. Hence it cannot be expected to furnish any of the plants peculiarly distinguished as 'Alpine.' The nearest approach to an Alpine is found in the very curious fruit-bearing shrub called the Cloudberry (Rubus Chamamorus), which is plentiful on the highest parts. Rising only a few inches above the ground, the flowers resemble those of a blackberry, and are always pure white, while the fruit resembles a fine rich raspberry of a delicate waxy pink, and is excellent to eat. The great mass of the vegetation consists of the common heather (Calluna vulgaris), the common whortleberry (Vaccinium Myrtillus), and the coarse grasses and rushy plants which are their ordinary associates. Trees, of course, are few, both in species. and in number of individuals. The only really indigenous one, probably, is the mountain ash, which grows all alone on some of

the higher portions of the Scout, as well as upon the flanks of the mountain. Where the Scout melts away into meadow and farm land the variety of wild-flowers soon becomes very attractive, and is enough to furnish enjoyment to the lover of unmolested Nature for many a long summer afternoon." Of rare birds the kingfisher and the heron may sometimes be seen in the streams about, and even the king of birds has been seen here. About thirty years ago an eagle was shot on Kinder Scout by Mr. Isaac Rangeley, but before he secured his game it bit a piece from his cheek, very near to his eye. The streams which are "preserved" are stocked with trout.

This tract of mountain moorland and valley is near the great Lancashire and Cheshire manufacturing towns. Hayfield, the village at the foot of Kinder, is only about seventeen miles from Manchester, eleven from Stockport, and five from Glossop. I desire in this short communication to put in a plea for the reclamation of the public rights in this property, and the preservation of the bridle-roads and footpaths of the district. A great part of Kinder Scout and the adjoining moors were, until lately, what is known as "King's land," over which the public might ramble at 'their pleasure; but about the year 1830 the whole of these lands were surveyed, and allotted to the various owners of contiguous lands, according to the size of their holdings. No allotment, however, so far as as we know, was made to the poor, or for their benefit; and it seems that since this time more than forty acres of what was known as "Poor Man's Piece," and "Poor Man's Wood," have disappeared from many modern maps. The award of acres may be thus tabulated :

To the rich, according to their riches.
To the poor, according to their poverty.
Moreover, minus upwards of.

2000 acres

40"

If the pedestrian wishes to ramble over the Scout, and thus

make a closer inspection of it, he must first provide himself with an order, as, since the "enclosure," the lands have been "preserved," and the public, imagining that what was once their own is now their own, have not unfrequently come into unpleasant collision with gamekeepers.

It was a wicked act, a wilfully-ignorant act, which gave thousands of acres of moorland which could not possibly be brought under agriculture 'to rich owners for absolutely nothing. When a large part of king's land on the Scout was surveyed, no one had the courage to ask even for their rights. Farmers seemed willing, on getting their share of allotment, to hold their peace, and the majority of the villagers were tenants of the larger landowners; and it is a significant fact that the individual who surveyed that part of the Scout apportioned to Park Hall, and in which the now enclosed "Poor Man's Piece," or turfery ground, left by Joseph Hague to the poor of Hayfield for ever the same individual was at that time Captain White's agent. It seems now that even the road to this turfery is disputed and walled up. There are three causes for the present indifference of the people: first, village selfishness; second, fear of landlords; third, want of means in those willing to try to save the rights.

In one of the great questions which must ere long come before the legislature of this country-I mean the Land Laws-there ought to be an amendment of the Enclosures Act, empowering corporations and local boards to acquire back again those lands which, being awarded for the purpose of agriculture, still remain in the same unproductive state as before. Moreover, these lands, which were given for nothing, ought to be purchasable, say at twenty-one years' purchase; or, suppose the shooting rent of a piece of award land to be, say £50, let it be purchasable, at say £1,000 or £1,500, letting the farmers graze their sheep as they did when it was king's land. Surely it is as important that human beings should sometimes sniff the mountain air as sheep and moorbirds.

My object in making this communication is to bring this