CONGLETON is an ancient borough of Cheshire, on the borders of Staffordshire, containing a number of those black and white oak frame and plaster houses, which are peculiar to that county, and well worth examining. It is situated in a deep romantic valley on the banks of the river Dane, and enjoys a greater reputation for health than commercial progress. The population does not appear to have increased between the two last census. The Municipal Corporation dates from a remote period. It appears from the Corporation Books that the Mayor and Aldermen patronised every kind of sport--plays, cock fights, bear baiting, morris dancing. So fond were they of bear baiting, that in 1621, by a unanimous vote, they transferred the money intended for a bible to the purchase of a bear. Times are changed; every inhabitant of Congleton can now have his own bible for tenpence. Bear baiting and cock fighting have been discontinued; but we hope the inhabitants have grown wiser than they were some fifteen years ago, when they allowed themselves, for the sake of petty political disputes, to be continually drawn through the Courts of Law and Chancery--a process quite as cruel for the suitors, and more expensive and less amusing than bear-baiting. At the Town Hall is to be seen a "bridle" for a scold, which the ladies of the present generation are too well behaved ever to deserve. President Bradshaw, the regicide, was a Cheshireman, born and christened at Stockport. He practised as barrister, and served the office of mayor in 1637, at Congleton, of which he afterwards became high steward. At Macclesfield, according to tradition, he wrote, when a boy, on a tombstone, these prophetic lines:-- "My brother Henry must heir the land, My brother Frank must be at his command, Whilst I, poor Jack! will do that, That all the world shall wonder at." Bradshaw became Chief Justice of the County Palatine of Chester under the Commonwealth, was dismissed by Cromwell for his Republican opinions, died in 1659, was magnificently buried in Westminster Abbey, and disinterred and gibbeted with Cromwell and Ireton at the Restoration. A piece of vengeance on poor dead bones that remained unimitated until one of the mobs of the first French Revolution scattered the bones of the French Kings buried in the vaults of St. Denis. THE LAKES. Some of our readers may feel disposed to visit the charming scenery with which Cumberland and Westmoreland abound; and that they may be assisted in their route thereto, and in their rambles through that beautiful district, we will furnish a few notes descriptive of the most convenient and pleasant routes.