A Journey Into Cornwall; Through the Counties of Southampton, Wilts, Dorset, Somerset & Devon Interspersed with Remarks, by George Lipscomb (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1799. Excerpt: ... numerous well planted orchards in full bearing; and came into a fine valley beautifully variegated with the richest products of vegetation, ---thousands of honey-suckles, on all sides, being interspersed with the ever-flowering furze and broom, mingling and diffusing their different odours. The dialect of the country people here, is verycorrupt; and, in some places, their pronunciation differs so much from all the world besides, and they seem to have an idiom so peculiarly their own, that strangers find it almost impossible to understand them. Cheriton-Cross stands in a small village of that name; and is about three feet high, placed on a block of stone. On what account it was erected, or how long it has been here, the inhabitants can give no information: but, as superstition is always the companion of ignorance, the people believe a tradition--that several attempts have been made, in former times, to remove this.monument of antiquity, without success; some invisible power La having always immediately restored it, to it's old situation. Justly as we deplore the prevalence of that gross and almost inexterminable stupidity, which possesses the narrow-minded boor, and the untu-. tored rustic--Antiquity, it must be confessed, is greatly indebted to it, in many instances, for the preseivation of it's tottering ruins, and even it's finest and most valuable relics. How often have the noble remains of gothic splendor been preserved from ruffian hands by a legendary tale; and how frequently secured from the destructive curiosity of the exploring traveller, and that whimsical love of novelty, and rage for modernization, which the builders of the present age so fondly affect "All the fine arts of past times, and all the magnificent works we now so justly admire, ar...