midland counties coal is found in great and apparently exhaustless quantities. But while enumerating the coal riches of England, the poor collier himself, driving his dismal work down under the ruins of a former world, exposed to perpetual peril from mephitic vapors and crumbling walls, dangling upon a slender rope, or crawling up shafts like interminable chimneys, upon ladders that will rot, should not be forgotten. There is stout manhood under his dirt-crusted brutality. He says he "wins" the coal. He does indeed win it. He never descends into the coal-pit but with the chances immensely augmented that he will never see another sun. It is computed that fifteen hundred lives are annually lost in England by accidents in coal mines. The most dreadful of these enemies is the "fire-damp," whose chief ingredient is carburetted hydrogen, which, with a certain mixture of common air, becomes explosive. In mines where the ventilation is imperfect, a single act of carelessness will fill miles upon miles of subterranean chambers with a streaming blaze of fire, sometimes rising to the surface and bursting out of the shafts with the roar and violence of a volcano. And the poor miners, it is said, will carry their pipes, though forbidden, into the long and distant. reaches of the mine- whence this continual danger. When we sit down before a genial winter fire, let us think of those bold hearts who have "won' the coal for us.

CHAPTER IX.

LICHFIELD TO MATLOCK.

A MORE tranquil, sleepy, and yet high-feeling old ecclesiastical town than Lichfield, in the green and pleasant valley of South Offlow Hundred, can hardly be found. It is proud of its Cathedral, of its siege, of its Tory renown, of its memories of Dr. Johnson, of its relationship to the illustrious families of Anson and Anglesey. Lichfield is a genuine example of an unchanged English town of some six or seven thousand inhabitants, with its walled "Close," its "Minster Pool," its "Butcher Row," its "Three Crowns Inn," its "King Edward's Grammar-School," all as in the former days.

The Hotel bore evidences of considerable past splendor. The mahogany furniture, black and polished, was majestically carved and stately. The principal staircase had white marble steps, though they were worn into hollows in the middle. And there was a long ball-room up-stairs, with oldfashioned mirrors and a gorgeous chandelier. The names of the streets, St. John Street, Bird Street, Frog Street, Gore Street, Wade Street, etc., are unmodernized. One road out of the town leads to Tamworth, and to Ashby-de-la-Zouch some eight

miles distant, the scene of Ivanhoe's achievement. Drayton Manor, the seat of Sir Robert Peel, "the member from Tamworth," is seven miles from Lichfield. Tamworth Castle, now belonging to the Townshend family, is a very old Norman structure built by Robert Marmion.

"They hailed him Lord Marmion; They hailed him Lord of Fontenaye, Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye,

Of Tamworth tower and town."

Five miles from Lichfield is venerable Wichnor Park, which was formerly held by the tenure of its possessor's being obliged to furnish an annual flitch of bacon to every married pair "who, after being married a year and a day, should make oath that they had never quarreled!" This custom has been revived, and there have not been wanting honest candidates for this amiable prize. Thus every thing in and about Lichfield leads to the past, and makes a pleasing and restful contrast from the surrounding workshop and coal-bin of Staffordshire.

In front of the Bishop's Palace, on the north side of the Cathedral, is a shaded avenue called "The Dean's Walk," and is said to have been a favorite resort of Major André. This looks down upon the lovely pastoral vale of Stow, and the traditionary spot where the early martyrs were slain, called "The Field of Dead Bodies," which gave the name to Lichfield, or Litchfield, as it is sometimes written, and which signifies field of the

dead. The arms of Lichfield is a shield covered with the representation of piteously hacked limbs, mixed with axes and knives.

"Lichfield should be a field of good,

For it was watered with holy blude."

In the rural valley of Stow Mr. Day lived, the author of "Sandford and Merton." With ten thousand others who have been boys once, I should like to assist in erecting a monument to him and Defoe conjointly, in some secluded and beautiful spot in the middle of green England, to be given and consecrated to the "Joy of Boys." Forever blessed be the memory of men who have done something to make youth "frisch, frei, frölich, fromm."

On the little path that leads down into Stow Valley, stands an off-shoot of Dr. Johnson's willowtree. The original one in which he took a great interest was blown down about forty years ago. Passing along" Butcher's Row" toward the market-place where is Dr. Johnson's statue, is the spot where Lord Brooke was killed by a shot fired by a deaf and dumb man from the battlements of the Cathedral. The monument of the Doctor fronts the house where he was born and lived. I found two big-limbed young countrymen intently gazing at it, and after a long pause one of them asked the other, "Who war the mon?" The other answered, "I 'se forgot, but he war some gret mon."

It is a clumsy affair, but perhaps good enough to answer every purpose. There is a colossal sit

ting figure, with plenty of books around, if indeed the "gret mon is not sitting on a pile of them. The relievos of the pedestal represent the good, brave Englishman in his youth, one of them as a boy chaired by his schoolfellows; another of him listening to Dr. Sachervell's preaching, mounted on his father's shoulders; and another of him standing bareheaded in the rain at Uttoxeter, to do penance for youthful disrespect to his father.

The house where he lived in his youth, on the west side of the market-place, is a neat, three-storied, excellent brick dwelling. Instead of M. Johnson, which was formerly written upon it, it has now a sign in large letters, "Clarke draper." The next door to it is the "Three Crowns Inn " where Dr. Johnson and Boswell put up, and where the autocrat of the bar-room told Boswell, who was disparaging the respectable quietness of Lichfield, "Sir, we are a city of philosophers, we work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands."

The Grammar-School where Johnson, and Addison (who was the son of the Dean of Lichfield), and Garrick went to school, had fallen into decay, but has been recently repaired, and indeed rebuilt, preserving its ancient Elizabethan character. The little shops that one sees going down quiet St. John Street to visit it, reminded me of Hawthorne's description of the "Cent store" in the "House of Seven Gables," and of such little magazines of respectable and uncomplaining poverty as even now may be seen in some of our oldest New England towns.