Sympathetic inscriptions in English, French, Latin, and Italian on pedestal and slab vainly express Sir Brooke Boothby's poignant grief over his great loss. One of these inscriptions reads:--"She was in form and intellect most exquisite. The unfortunate parents ventured their all on this frail bark, and the wreck was total." One of the legends of art is that Chantrey stole into the church to study this poem in marble, and that it gave him the idea for his "Sleeping Children" in Lichfield Cathedral, which he designed in an Ashbourne hostelry while the inspiration was fresh upon him. After leaving Ashbourne, the Dove, alder-fringed and willowed over, broadening through sweet-smelling pastures and passing prosperous farmsteads, makes its first acquaintance with a railway. The North Staffordshire line and the river play at hide-and-seek all the way down to the Trent, and the traveller has many gratifying glimpses--carriage-window pictures--of the glancing stream. The Dove is now not quite half-way on its journey to the strong and stately Trent. The scenery is very much like that of the Upper Thames, and should tempt some of our bright open-air school of painters. In succession follow Hanging Bridge and Mayfield, associated with the genius of Tom Moore; Church Mayfield, Clifton, Colwich Abbey, and Norbury, with its grand old church glorious in old stained glass, perfect of its kind, and its manor-house rebuilt in 1267. Then comes Rocester, inviting alike the artist, the angler, and the archæologist. The Dove here receives the rippling waters of the Churnet that flows past Alton Towers, and at Marston Montgomery it is joined by the Tean Brook, a tributary of considerable volume. [Illustration: ASHBOURNE CHURCH.] Passing Eaton with its rich verdure and hanging woods, once part of Needwood Forest, we come to Doveridge, the Hall--the seat of Lord Hindlip--rising above the wooded ridge. If the house itself, because of its debased style of architecture, is not an attractive addition to the landscape, its situation, on the green heights above the valley of the Dove, with the rolling Staffordshire moorlands and the obtuse peaks of the Weaver Hills in the distance, is enchanting. The Dove winds in the rich pastoral "strath" below in the most capricious curvatures, and the eye follows the course of the wilful stream by meadow and upland, by deep dell and dusky slope, for many miles. Presently comes Uttoxeter, the spire of the church being a conspicuous feature in a landscape filled with sylvan beauty. The pronunciation of the word puzzles the visitor, and even the natives grow gently disputatious on the subject. A local bard, however, comes to the rescue of the stranger. In a fine patriotic outburst he declares: "In all the country round there's nothing neater Than the pretty little town of Uttoxeter."