Long may such blanks of solitude and wild nature remain amid the busy hum of commerce to remind us of what all England once was, to afford, at a few holidays in the year, a free breathing place to the hardworking multitude, and to the poet and student that calm delight which the golden fragrance of a gorse-covered moor can bestow. Before we reach Stafford we leave on the right, although not in sight, Shugborough, the deserted mansion of the Earl of Lichfield, a descendant of the Lord Anson who "sailed round the world but was never in it." STAFFORD. STAFFORD CASTLE, on the summit of a high hill, whose slopes are clothed with forest trees, gives in the romantic associations it awakens a very false idea of the town to be found below. The towers of the Castle built by the son of Robert de Tonei, the Standard Bearer of William the Conqueror, have survived the Wars of the Roses and the contests of the Great Rebellion, while the remainder has been restored in an appropriate style by the family of the present possessors, representatives of the ancient barony of Stafford--no relation of the Staffords who in another part of the county enjoy the Dukedom of Sutherland. But the town, prosperous in spite of many changes of fashion, has completely lost any antique air it may ever have enjoyed, and now, in all the smugness of brick, quite realises the idea of a borough which at every election is for sale to the highest bidder. [STAFFORD: ill18.jpg] The principal manufacture is that of shoes for exportation. Many remarkable men have represented Stafford, some as remarkable for their talent as for their folly. Sheridan's most brilliant speeches, and Urquhart's most undeniable failures in the House of Commons, were both due to the borough of Stafford. It is, in fact, a stepping-stone to the House of Commons, always ready for the highest bidder and promiser, but whoever would sit for Stafford for a series of Parliaments, would need the use of the Philosopher's Stone. The independent electors would exhaust California if they had the chance. As the Stafford shoemakers, to the deep disappointment of its agricultural neighbours, have not yet been ruined by the influx of foreign boots and shoes, its chief interest at present is derived from its being the point from which several important railways radiate. * * * * *