[13] Since this was published in the Athenæum in the autumn of 1834, Washington Irving has published his interesting visit to Newstead and _Annesley_. That wooded ridge was our landmark from the first step of our journey, and we soon reached Hucknall. The approach to Hucknall is pleasant; the place itself is a long and unpicturesque village. Count Gamba is said to have been struck with its resemblance to Missolonghi. Sixteen years have now passed since the funeral of Lord Byron took place here, and yet it seems to me but as yesterday. His admirers, in after ages, will naturally picture to themselves the church, on that occasion, overflowing with the intelligent and poetical part of the population of the neighbourhood. A poet who had spent a good deal of his boyhood and youth in it--whose patrimonial estate lay here--who had gone hence, and won so splendid a renown--whose life had been a series of circumstances and events as striking and romantic as his poetry--who had finally been cut down in his prime, in so brilliant an attempt to restore the freedom and ancient glory of Greece--would naturally be supposed to come back to the tomb of his ancestors, amidst the confluence of a thousand strongly-excited hearts. But it was not so. There was a considerable number of persons present, but the church was by no means crowded, and the spectators were, with very few exceptions, of that class which is collected, by idle curiosity on the approach of any not very wonderful procession; who would have collected to gaze as much at the funeral of his lordship’s grandfather, or his own, though he had not written a line of poetry, or lifted the sword of freedom;--probably, with threefold eagerness at that of a wealthy cit, because there would have been more of bustle and assuming blazonry about it. With the exception of the undertaker’s hired company; of Sir John Cam Hobhouse, and his lordship’s attorney, Mr. Hanson; his Greek servant Tita, and his old follower Fletcher, the rest of the attendants were the villagers, and a certain number of people from Nottingham, of a similar class, and led by similar motives. There was not a score of those who are called “the respectable” from Nottingham; scarcely one of the gentry of the county. This strange fact can only be accounted for by the circumstance that Nottingham and its vicinity are famous for the manufacture of lace and stockings, but, like many other manufacturing districts, possess no such decided attachment to literature. Many readers there are, undoubtedly, in both town and country, but readers chiefly for pastime--for the filling up of a certain space between and after business--and a laudable way too of so filling it; but not readers from any unconquerable passion for, or attachment to, literature for its own sake. A few literary persons have lived in or about the neighbourhood, but these are the exception; the character of the district is manufacturing and political, but by no