Uttoxeter is a characteristic specimen of an old English market town, which neither the railway nor what Carlyle contemptuously calls "the age of gin and steam-hammers" has left unspoiled. It has many interesting literary and historical associations. Here Mary Howitt was born; and Dr. Johnson's father, bookseller at Lichfield, kept a stall in the market-place. On one occasion he asked his son to attend the market in his place, but the future lexicographer's stubborn pride led to insubordination. Fifty years afterwards, haunted by this disobedience of the paternal wish, Dr. Johnson made a pilgrimage to Uttoxeter market-place, and in inclement weather stood bare-headed for a considerable time on the spot where his father's stall used to stand, exposed to a pelting rain and the flippant sneers of the bystanders. "In contrition," he confesses, "I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory." The incident says much for Johnson's character, and the scene may be commended to a painter in search of an historical theme. [Illustration: THE STRAITS, DOVEDALE.] At Uttoxeter the Dove is thirty-eight miles from its mountain home. It now winds past Sudbury, where it is crossed by a strikingly handsome bridge giving access to Lord Vernon's domain, with its deer park of 600 acres and model dairy farm. The Hall is a red-brick mansion in the Elizabethan style, and was erected in the early part of the seventeenth century. This delightful retreat was the residence of the Dowager Queen Adelaide from 1840 to 1843. The church, which is within the park, is a large and venerable structure, grey with age, and green with glossy ivy.