Stories like these are only incredible when the circumstances of the age are unknown. In times when a stranger might easily enough prove to be a highwayman, or at the very least, some Government emissary intent upon collecting hearth-money, window-tax, or one of the very many duties then levied upon necessaries of life, a strange face might be that of an enemy, and at any rate was unlikely to be that of a friend. Sightseers were unknown. No one stirred from home if he could find an excuse for staying by his own fireside. “What do you want here?” asked the Welsh peasants of the earliest tourists; and declined to believe them when they said they journeyed to view the Welsh mountains. “For Christianity’s sake, help a poor man!” implored an early traveller in Scotland, fainting by the way. The door was slammed in his face. “Surely you are Christians?” exclaimed the unhappy man. “There are no Christians here,” replied the half-savage Scot: “we are all Grants and Frasers.” That last is, perhaps, rather a savagely humorous than a true story, but the mere existence of it is significant. More authentic--nay, well established--is the statement that even so late as 1749, in Glasgow, two people of the same name would commonly be distinguished by some physical peculiarity; or else, if one was travelled and the other not, the one who had been to the capital would be “London John,” or James, according to what his Christian name might be. A course of reading in the “travels” of the authors and diarists who ambled about England, on horseback or otherwise, in the old days, sufficiently demonstrates the aloofness and isolation, and the essential differences that divided the country districts. When the Dukes of Somerset resided at Petworth, in Sussex, the roads were so bad that it was next to impossible to get there, and when once there it was equally difficult to get away. Petworth is only forty-nine miles from London, but the Duke of Somerset maintained a house at Godalming, sixteen miles along the road, where he could halt on the way and pass the night. His steward generally advised the servants some time before his Grace started, so that they might be on the road “to point out the holes.” When the Emperor Charles VI. visited Petworth, his carriage was attended by a strong escort of Sussex peasants, to save it from falling over. In spite of their efforts, it was several times overturned, and that was a very sore and bruised Emperor who supped that night with the Duke. Similar adventures befel Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne, visiting Petworth from Windsor. He went in some state, with a number of carriages. “The length of way was only forty miles, but fourteen hours were consumed in traversing it; while almost every mile was signalised by the overturn of a carriage, or its temporary swamping in the mire. Even the royal chariot would have fared no better than the rest, had it not been for the relays of peasants who