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BUXTON DIAMONDS.

AX-EDGE.

my estimation there is little in it to repay the trouble and inconvenience of a visit: those indeed who have seen the Devil's Cavern at Castleton, will derive but little gratification from Poole's-Hole. The roof and sides of this cave abound with stalactites, sometimes thrown together in such a manner as to bear a distant resemblance to objects in nature. In one place we were shown a petrified turtle; in another, a flitch of bacon; in a third, Old Poole's saddle; and still further on there are other calcareous incrustations, called wool-packs a chaira font a lady's toilet a lion a pillion — and the pillar of Mary Queen of Scots. That these names have been dealt out and appropriated in a very arbitrary manner, may easily be imagined. The whale, or ouzel, which Hamlet points out amongst the clouds to poor Polonius, was not more unlike in form and feature than these uncouth resemblances are to the objects they are said to represent.

About half a mile beyond this cavern is Diamond-Hill, a place often visited by strangers for the purpose of collecting those detached crystals of quartz that are here denominated Buxton diamonds. These crystals are hexagonal, and their sides and angles are accurately formed, but in general they are of a bad colour, and but few of them are found perfectly transparent. They are hard, and their points, like the diamond, will cut glass; but this property is soon worn off. Bray, in his tour into Derbyshire, gives a curious account of the formation of these crystals: he says, "in the year 1756, a gentleman, in his walks, observed some little risings on the rocks, which appeared like ant-hills; he opened some, and found they consisted of a perfect arch, drawn up, as he imagined, by the exhalation of the sun; in them was first formed a thin bed of dirty-coloured spar, and upon that a regular cluster or bed of these crystals." He then adds, "Dr. Short says, all these are formed in the winter, and the more stormy and colder that is, the larger and harder these petrifactions." Our modern chymists, I am aware, will not be altogether satisfied with Dr. Short's old-fashioned method of manufacturing crystals.

Returning from Fairfield, we passed through Buxton, intending to pay a visit to the summit of Ax-edge, a mountain which is considered one of the highest in the Peak of Derbyshire: A gradual and tiresome ascent of three or four miles leads to the top of this eminence, which commands an extensive view into Staffordshire and Cheshire on one hand, and to the mountainous districts of Derbyshire on the other. In the prospect

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bere unfolded, the Staffordshire Hills are conspicuous objects; and towards the source of the River Dove, which lies at the foot of Ax-edge, some very wild but barren scenery is presented. This stupendous hill is covered with heath, which affords both food and shelter to the numerous moor game that inhabit it; and as it was now the first day of the shooting season, wé found ourselves somewhat annoyed with the guns that were continually going off around us: we were besides occasionally enveloped in clouds that swept over Ax-edge; and being thus at times obscured from the sportsmen, and not entirely exempt from the danger of a stray shot, we relinquished our picturesque pursuits and returned to Buxton.

Re-entering the public-room at the Angel, I observed an interesting young man, who evidently laboured under the effects of a strong mental depression. His face was pale, but extremely prepossessing, and his dark eyes rather increased than diminished the melancholy expression of his countenance. He spoke but little, and he had apparently abstracted his attention so effectually and entirely from all external objects, that he seemed to be alone even in the midst of company. Yet the slightest noise breaking suddenly upon his ear, sensibly vibrated through all his frame. His existence was miserable; and I placed myself near him, not with the intention of impertinently interfering with the privacy of his sorrows, but certainly with a hope that an opportunity might occur of diverting his attention to other objects than those which appeared to have taken possession of his every faculty. In this hope I was disappointed. His eye never wandered for a moment from the place on which it was fixed; and I had too much respect for his sorrows, whatever they were, or however imaginary they might be, to obtrude myself upon his observation. The greater part of the company had left the room in which we vere early in the forenoon, and the shooting parties, together with some little merry-making, on account of the Prince Regent's birth-day, brought the 12th of August, which might otherwise have passed without particular notice, to the recollection of the Buxton visitors. The casual mention of the day strongly agitated this interesting young man: the melancholy expression of countenance, and the wildness of his eye increased; he was now conscious that he was not alone; he therefore struggled with his feelings, and evidently endeavoured to suppress the violence of his emotions. With a tremulous voice he feebly ejaculated, "My poor brother!"

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RAMBLES NEAR BUXTON.

then bursting into tears, he rushed out of the room. I know not that I ever observed any person more powerfully agitated. I saw him again in the after-part of the day, when he appeared more composed, but I could not succeed in obtaining any part of his attention without a breach of good manners.

I afterwards learnt that the 12th of August was the birth-day of a beloved brother, whom he had lately lost, not by the slow approaches of disease, but by a fall from his horse. On the day of his brother's death the first paroxysms of his grief were succeeded by an intense stupefaction, that made him totally. indifferent to all around him: yet, until the day of interment, he would not be removed from the corpse of him whom in life he had so sincerely loved. At this awful moment, as the body was borne from one door of the house, he quitted it by another, and was not heard of for several days afterwards: he was then met with in a state of mental derangement, which afflicted him for many months, and at last left him so depressed in spirits, and so extremely sensitive, that with him, existence could hardly be regarded as a blessing. This acute sensibility and excess of feeling exhibits, it is true, but little of selfpossession; it would, nevertheless, be impertinent and idle, if not cruel, to blame it. No man would willingly devote himself to unpleasant sensations, and voluntarily become miserable: No! misery is instinctively and industriously avoided; and yet the mind that now triumphs in health may soon be "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and all its energies may be destroyed. Who can say that the fortitude which resists calamity to-day may not be overthrown on the morrow?

The remainder of this day we spent in perambulating the environs of Buxton, and having visited the source of the Dove in the early part of the day, we devoted the afternoon to a short excursion to the source of the Wye, that river which it was our principal object to investigate. Four of the rivers of Derbyshire-the Dane, the Goit, the Dove, and the Wyeare seen from the foot of Ax-edge, and taking different directions, they adorn and fertilise some of the most beautiful dales in the county. On the left of the Macclesfield road, in a deep hollow, about one mile from Buxton, we found the cradle of the Wye in as barren and unpicturesque a birth-place as ever infant streamlet had. With the source of a river with whose devious windings and lovely scenery we had been a thousand times delighted, we had associated ideas of the beau

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tiful and romantic, and we wished to have found the Wye, where it first issues into day, not nestled amongst fern and rushes, but emerging from a bed of rock, and overhung with branches. Such was the picture our wishes and imaginations had portrayed. It was a sketch of fancy that reality embodied not. But Nature works as she pleases; and if she gives more than she promises, who has a right to complain of the little pledge merely because it has been redeemed with a greater performance?

Nearer Buxton this little rivulet becomes an interesting, and, in some places, a beautiful stream: it winds through a plantation newly made, where a walk is carried along its banks, and as the river ripples amongst the stones or glides smoothly away, it is a pleasing picture to the eye. In the short space of half a mile several artificial cascades occur, which have but little or no beauty, yet the sound of the water, as it rushes over them, is grateful to the ear: it is one of natures sweetest melodies, and in the quiet retirement of a sequestered dell, where every other sound is hushed to rest, it comes with a delightful influence upon the senses, abstracts the mind from ordinary cares, and sometimes soothes the troubled spirits to repose.

Seated on a rural bench, beneath the shelter of a spreading elm, near one of these little water-falls, we listened to the music that it made until the last faint glimpse of day had departed, and the dark shadows of night, which seemed gradually to ascend from out the valley, had invested the tops of the mountains, and the bat and the beetle, and the glimmering lights of evening, had warned us to depart: such, and so tranquil, was the close of our first day at Buxton.

SECTION IV.

Staden-Low.-South entrance into Buxton.-The Crescent.Mr. C. Sylvester's Hot Baths.-St. Anne's Well.—Buxton Bath Charity.-Amusements.— Antiquity of the Warm Baths. -Demolition of the Shrine and Image of St. Anne.

THE weather continuing fine, we commenced our second day's ramble round Buxton by a visit to Staden-Low, where the remains of some ancient earth-works are said to have been clearly distinguishable until within a very few years. The ground, however, is now enclosed, and the plough has obliterated nearly every vestige of these memorials of former times. The adjoining village of Staden is of great antiquity, and it was once the most important place in the whole district. At this period, the officers of the surrounding hamlets, in consequence of some ancient prescription, were annually chosen, and inducted into their respective offices on the top of StadenLow, where their names were registered in the parochial records on a large flat stone, which occupied that situation for several centuries. This custom has passed away, and the table of stone has disappeared. In this search after antiquities we were disappointed; but, as we passed along a part of the Duke's Ride, we were gratified with a view of the river Wye from the topmost summit of the rock denominated LOVER'S LEAP.

As our observations had hitherto been confined to the modern part of Buxton, we determined, on our return from Staden, to join the Ashbourne Road near Shirbrook, and enter the town at the other extremity. Here nothing is presented to the eye but a mean country village, surrounded with barren hills. The houses, which are built of limestone and thrown promiscuously together, equally in despite of order and taste, and the old church, one of the first objects that strikes the eye, and certainly one of the humblest places of worship I ever beheld, seem to mark out this little town as the residence only of