The "Budmouth" localities mentioned in _The Trumpet Major_ are: the Quay; Theatre Royal; Barracks; Gloucester Lodge; and the Old Rooms Inn in Love Row, once a highly fashionable resort which was used for dances and other entertainments by the ladies and gentlemen who formed the Court of George III. It was also the spot where the battle of Trafalgar was discussed in _The Dynasts_. However, the old assembly rooms and the theatre have now vanished. Mention of Hardy's tremendous drama reminds me that it is rarely quoted in topographical works on Dorset, and yet it is full of the spirit and atmosphere of Wessex. Thus in a few words he tells us what "Boney" seemed like to the rustics of Dorset: "WOMAN (_in undertones_). I can tell you a word or two on't. It is about His victuals. They say that He lives upon human flesh, and has rashers o' baby every morning for breakfast--for all the world like the Cernel Giant in old ancient times! "SECOND OLD MAN. I only believe half. And I only own--such is my challengeful character--that perhaps He do eat pagan infants when He's in the desert. But not Christian ones at home. Oh no--'tis too much! "WOMAN. Whether or no, I sometimes--God forgi'e me!--laugh wi' horror at the queerness o't, till I am that weak I can hardly go round house. He should have the washing of 'em a few times; I warrent 'a wouldn't want to eat babies any more!" There are a hundred clean-cut, bright things in _The Dynasts_, and some of the songs are so cunningly fashioned that we know the author must surely have overheard them so often that they have become part of his life. Does the reader remember this from the first volume?-- "In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the land, And the Back-sea met the Front-sea, and our doors were blocked with sand, And we heard the drub of Dead-man's Bay, where bones of thousands are, We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgar. (_All_) Had done, Had done For us at Trafalgar!" Or the other ballad sung by a Peninsular sergeant-- "When we lay where Budmouth Beach is, Oh, the girls were fresh as peaches, With their tall and tossing figures and their eyes of blue and brown! And our hearts would ache with longing As we passed from our sing-songing, With a smart _Clink! Clink!_ up the Esplanade and down."