Page:First impressions of England and its people.djvu/27

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CONTENTS.
XIX
CHAPTER IX.
Detour.—The Leasowes deteriorated wherever the Poet had built, and improved wherever he had planted.—View from the Hanging Wood.—Stratagem of the Island Screen.—Virgil's Grave.—Mound of the Hales Owen and Birmingham Canal; its sad Interference with Shenstone's Poetic Description of the Infancy of the Stour.—Vanished Cascade and Root-house.—Somerville's Urn.—"To all Friends round the Wrekin."—River Scenery of the Leasowes; their great Variety.—Peculiar Arts of the Poet; his Vistas, when seen from the wrong end, Realizations of Hogarth's Caricature.—Shenstone the greatest of Landscape Gardeners.—Estimate of Johnson.—Goldsmith's History of the Leasowes; their after History 175
CHAPTER X.
Shenstone's Verses.—The singular Unhappiness of his Paradise.—English Cider.—Scotch and English Dwellings contrasted.—The Nailers of Hales Owen; their Politics a Century ago.—Competition of the Scotch Nailers; unsuccessful, and why.—Samuel Salt, the Hales Owen Poet.—Village Church.—Salt Works at Droitwich; their great Antiquity.—Appearance of the Village.—Problem furnished by the Sal Deposits of England; various Theories.—Rock Salt deemed by some 8 Volcanic Product; by others the Deposition of an overcharged Sea; by yet others the Produce of vast Lagoons.—Leland.—The Manufacture of Salt from Sea-water superseded, even in Scotland, by the Rock Salt of England 193
CHAPTER XI.
Walk to the Clent Hills.—Incident in a Fruit Shop.—St. Kenelm's Chapel. -Legend of St. Kenelm.—Ancient Village of Clent; its Ap-