Chapter IV: The Derwent

The Derwent in its Infancy--Derwent Chapel and
Hall--Hathersage--Eyam--Grindleford Bridge--Chatsworth--The
"Peacock" at Rowsley--Haddon Hall--The Wye and the
Lathkill--Darley Dale and its Yew tree--The Sycamores of Oker
Hill--The Matlocks and High Tor--Cromford and Willersley
Castle--Ambergate--Belper--Derby--Elvaston.

It might be interesting to ask how many Englishmen have made the tour of the Derwent--a river so rich in pictorial beauty and historic interest. If the country were polled upon the subject, the result would probably not be gratifying to local patriotism. And yet no more romantic revelations of river scenery exist than those traversed by the Derwent from its source among the dusky moorland heights of the Peak to its junction with the Trent, sixty-three miles from its mountain home, after collecting the waters of 300,000 acres of country. Other streams there are, of course, of greater magnitude, with mountain surroundings more stupendous; but beauty is not to be measured by bulk, or rivers by their breadth and volume, nor is the artistic charm of hills ascertainable by an aneroid.

There are several English rivers of the name of Derwent, which is derived from the British _dwr-gwent_, the water of "Gwent," or of the high lands, and the word is often locally pronounced "Darent." There is Wordsworth's Derwent in Lakeland; a Derwent which falls into the sea near Scarborough; and again a Derwent that is a tributary of the Yorkshire Ouse. But it is the Derbyshire Derwent that we now propose to trace down from its source. In the north-east corner of the Peak district, on the stern and austere Yorkshire borderlands, where the Langsett moors are most lonely and impressive, the stream spends its earliest infancy, and you hear its baby prattle in a rocky region, wild and desolate, where the Titans might have been hurling in space gigantic boulders to bring about chaos. The place where the river actually rises is called Barrow Stones. The traveller on the line from Sheffield to Manchester, when he is at Woodhead, with its dismal tunnel and long-linked reservoirs, passes as near as civilisation touches the spot. For some distance the river bubbles and babbles down a boulder-strewn valley, and is the line of demarcation between the counties of York and Derby. It is here a swift tawny streamlet, with effervescent cascades, and deep pools in which you can discern the pebbles at the bottom of the topaz-coloured water. Weather-worn masses of rock are strewn over this heathery wilderness--silvered with rare lichens, and cushioned with delicate mosses. Here and there picturesque little rills pour out their trickling tributaries from numerous mountain springs and musical ferny hollows. The only sound beside that of running water is the cry of the grouse, the blackcock, or the peewit. The Derwent cleaves its rocky way down the valley into Derwent Dale, past Slippery Stones, Rocking Stones, and Bull Clough and Cranberry Clough, with the Bradfield moors rolling away in petrified billowy waves to the horizon line. Before reaching Derwent Chapel it has received the Westend, a considerable stream, and the Abbey Brook, another important contributor, foaming down a deep rugged ravine, with gritstone ridges. In Derwent Dale alder-trees add a shade to the waterside, and the landscape, although still wild in its mountain beauty, is diversified by their green grace.

And now we are at the lonely little village of Derwent Chapel, with its grey scattered houses. The hamlet in the pre-Reformation times had four chapels belonging to the ancient Abbey of Welbeck. At Derwent Hall, charmingly placed by the river bridge, are preserved several relics of the monkish days. But the most interesting possessions are the old carved oak pieces of furniture. They form a unique collection, and are of historic value. Some of the cabinets and bedsteads are four hundred years old. The Hall, which formerly belonged to the Balguys, bears over the doorway the arms of that family and the date 1672. The Duke of Norfolk is the present proprietor, and has added a new wing at the expense of £30,000. The pack-horse bridge makes a pleasing picture, and the surrounding prospect is as fair as any that ever inspired poet's pen or painter's pencil. By leafy labyrinthian ways, in fascinating aquatic vagaries, our river, brown with peat-moss, ripples over the shallows or becomes demonstrative when obstructed by boulders on its way to Lady Bower and Ashopton, sentinelled by the bold peaks of Win Hill and Lose, so called from a sanguinary battle having been fought here between two Saxon kings. The victorious army occupied Win Hill, and the vanquished the opposite height. There are other magnificently grouped hills all around. Ashopton is haunted by painters and anglers. Pleasant it is to lounge lazily over the time-stained bridge that spans the Derwent near its confluence with the Ashop, which has found its way down the "Woodlands" from Kinderscout--famous as the highest point in the Peak, 2,088 feet; while from the opposite side the Lady Bower brook adds its trouty current. Here we are tempted to make a _détour_ to visit Castleton with its caverns, almost as wonderful as the famed Congo cavern in South Africa, the Elephanta cave in India, or the Mammoth cave of Kentucky; to climb up the crag to Peveril's ruined castle; to explore the beautiful green basin suggestively called the Vale of Hope; and to penetrate the Edale pass until the frowning Kinderscout morosely blocks the way. But we must keep to Derwentside.

_Walker & Boutall sc._

THE COURSE OF THE DERWENT.]

The river is now a large stream, and--passing Bamford--at Mytham Bridge it receives the greeting of the Noe. Here we strike the Dore and Chinley Railway, a branch line of the Midland system, at present in process of construction. It follows the course of the Derwent valley for some miles, and is not likely to add to the beauty of the scenery. The noisy puff of the locomotive in this Paradise seems a profanation. The line, however, will open out a new holiday ground, and will give the traveller an alternative route between Sheffield and Manchester, London and Liverpool. This railway extension is twenty miles in length. There are five miles of tunnelling under the mountainous moorland, and the cost will not be covered by an expenditure of less than one million sterling. One of the tunnels is three miles in length, and next to the Severn tunnel the longest in the United Kingdom. At Hathersage, moss-grown and still, and one of the prettiest of Peak villages, a station will be erected, and much of its old-world charm will then have gone for ever. In the churchyard on the hillside may be seen the grave of Robin Hood's stalwart lieutenant, Little John. The resting-place of this romantic outlaw is marked by two stones which by their distance from each other would indicate that he was ten feet high. The famous Forester was born at Hathersage, and fought in the ranks of Simon de Montfort's rebellious barons at Evesham in 1265. After the many vicissitudes of his adventurous life, he returned to his native village to die. Until recent years his cottage was pointed out to visitors, and at the beginning of the present Century Little John's bow and green cap were suspended in the church. They were carried away to Cannon Hall, near Barnsley.

Hathersage is surrounded with places of interest, and the Derwent is here thirteen miles from its source. Mention should be made of Padley Wood and the ruins of the Roman Catholic Chapel; Burbage Brook, another of the Derwent's many feeders, that brawls through a defile as sweetly wooded as the Fairy Glen at Bettws-y-Coed; Longshaw Lodge, the shooting-box of the Duke of Rutland, with its pretty grounds and rockeries; Fox House, a famous moorland hostelry; Hu Gaer, a hoary rocky platform which is marked on the Ordnance map as a Druidical relic; Caelswark, an old British fort; the Toad's Mouth, a huge and hoary block of gritstone bearing a curious resemblance to that unattractive reptile; Stoney Middleton, whose houses seem to hang dangerously from the bordering cliffs; and Eyam, the scene of the great plague of 1666, when out of a population of 350 no less than 260 were swept away by the pestilence. The infection was brought to the village in a box of clothes from London. The place is hallowed by the devotion of the saintly rector, the Rev. Wm. Mompesson. He never deserted his parishioners (although his wife was one of the first victims); and it was by his exertions that the plague was prevented from spreading far and wide.

But we are now at grey Grindleford Bridge. What a view there is down the richly wooded reaches of the river by Froggatt Edge, Stoke Hall, Curbar, Calver, and Bubnall to Baslow--the threshold of Chatsworth! The Derwent has here accomplished a distance of exactly twenty miles, and received numberless and nameless tributary outpourings from the moors on both the eastern and western sides. It is now a fine river, and lends additional beauty to the Duke of Devonshire's magnificent park, surely the most glorious domain in the wide world. The river sweeps in front of the Palace of the Peak, with ancient trees reflecting soothing shadows in the shining water. So much has been written about Chatsworth--its great hall, its superb state apartments, its miracles of wood-carving, its unique sketch-gallery, its noble libraries, its priceless picture-gallery, its grand drawing-rooms, bed-rooms, and banqueting-rooms, its superb sculpture gallery, its gardens, terraces, conservatories, woods, and fountains--that little fresh can be said upon a subject so well worn. A well-known writer, when he was at Niagara, and was supposed to write a description of the scene, simply remarked, "There are some waterfalls hereabouts, which are said to be pretty." In a similar manner the grandeur of Chatsworth may be summarily dismissed, we being content with the accounts of a thousand and one admirable authors. Enough to say that this treasure-house of art is apt to give the visitor a sense of general splendour on the brain. The house and park are open every week-day to the public, and many thousands of people each year avail themselves of the privileges so freely granted by the generous owner. Sightseers pour into the ducal palace, with its gilded casements and princely saloons, just as if the place belonged to them instead of to the Duke of Devonshire. It is open for them to enjoy, and all their pleasures are prepared for them. They can inspect the carvings by Grinling Gibbons, the masterpieces of Landseer, and Sir Joshua Reynolds' picture of the beautiful Duchess; admire the work of Verrio and Laguerre, and the chisellings of Canova and Thorwaldsen; dwell upon rare tapestry and the choicest products of Sèvres and Dresden; pause at tables of malachite and porphyry, be delighted with the plants and orchids of tropical climes, including the _Victoria Regia_, and stand and watch the Emperor Fountain and all the _grandes eaux_ playing. All this gratification belongs to the public without the slightest cost of maintenance or responsibility of possession, for the head of the illustrious house of Cavendish keeps these precious treasures for his fellow-men rather than for his own private enjoyment.

There is a pleasant field-path through park and pasture, past Beeley, to Rowsley, three miles away. Just below the grey arches of the bridge at the sign of the Peacock--a quaint ivied Elizabethan building with many gables and battlements, an abundance of heavy-mullioned windows, and green lawns gently sloping down to the water--the Wye has its confluence with the Derwent. It is a pleasant Mesopotamia, the smaller stream issuing from the limestone dales transparent as glass, and so swift in motion as to at first push back the Derwent--flowing slow and strong and stately, the colour of cairngorm through its association with the moors. But the deeper river soon asserts its superior weight and strength, and the two streams--happy in their union--amalgamate in one undivided current, recalling--in, of course, a minor degree--the junction of the Thames and Medway, the alliance of the Rhone and Arve, the coalition of the Moselle and the Rhine. We are now in contact with the Midland Railway, which crosses and recrosses the Derwent by bridge or viaduct fifteen times during the remainder of its course. A short walk from the russet Peacock--half-way between Rowsley and the bonnie town of Bakewell--stands, on a wooded eminence, Haddon Hall. The Wye winds in many a graceful curve, overhung by gnarled trees, at the foot of the grey old pile. The antique appearance of the hostelry has assisted to subdue the contrast that must strike every observer between the comparative newness of Chatsworth (although it is 200 years old) and the venerable aspect of Haddon--a revelation of a bygone age, a memorial of ancient chivalry which is almost unique, for some portions of this perfect baronial castle date back to the twelfth century. Haddon, the property of the Duke of Rutland, is uninhabited, although it is not a ruin, and promises to remain intact for centuries to come. It has never suffered from the violence of war, stronghold as it is, but has always been the home of hospitality.

"Lightly falls the foot of Time,
That only treads on flowers."

"The kitchens and larders all look as if the domestics had only retired for a short time. We come to the dining, drawing, and ball-room, all clean and dry as when abandoned as a human habitation; and as we pace along this latter room with its polished floor, the hollow sounds of our footsteps lead us to the contemplation of the time when the gay Elizabeth, surrounded by her Court, honoured the Vernons with her presence, and made the rooms echo with shouts of merry laughter. A long day may be spent in wandering about the terraces, gardens, and shady walks; the door is pointed out to us through which eloped Dorothy Vernon with her faithful lover (Sir John Manners). Which route they took is left to the visitor's imagination; perchance they crossed the remarkable stone foot-bridge. Suffice it to say the escape was perfected, and adds additional interest to the romance of Haddon Hall."

The Wye is the most important feeder of the Derwent, and runs through scenery that is romantically beautiful. Its length from Axe Edge to its junction with the Derwent at Rowsley is twenty-two miles, although the distance as the crow flies is considerably less. But the little river winds about in capricious curvatures, and its serpentine wanderings add much to its peculiar charm. There are two distinct Wyes, uniting in the Buxton Gardens, to which pleasaunce they add attraction. The larger stream issues from the gritstone formation; the other comes from the limestone. The one is coloured by the peat of the mosses; the other is of pellucid purity. The limestone water has its birthplace in the gloomy recesses of Poole's Cavern, and you may hear it fretting in the chill darkness, as if it were impatient to greet the glad sunlight. In Ashwood Dale, just below the Lovers' Leap, and a mile from the fashionable watering-place, the character of the scenery with which the Wye is for the most part associated begins. Limestone tors, of great height and beautifully wooded, rise above a contracted valley along which the stream pursues its lively course. The river leaves Topley Pike abruptly to the right, and enters Chee Dale. Nature here is in the imperative mood. Chee Tor soars to a height of 300 feet sheer above the water--a solemn limestone headland, its gaping fissures here and there clothed with a pendent tree. It is convex in shape, and is faced by a corresponding bastion, concave in form. In the narrow channel between these bold walls of rock the Wye forces its way through the pent-up space, making a tumult over the obstructing boulders. A scanty footpath is carried over the abyss, making a passage of unequivocal sublimity, for the defile has no superior and few equals in all Derbyshire. Miller's Dale afterwards opens out its picturesque features, although its idyllic charm is marred by the screaming railway junction and by the quarrying operations that are toppling bastions of rock--ancient landmarks--into lime-kilns. Two miles from Miller's Dale is Tideswell, with its grand old church--"the Cathedral of the Peak"--its secluded valleys and immemorial hills. Litton Dale and Cressbrook Dale follow--both wild glens that will repay lovers of rocks, ferns, and flowers. At Monsal Dale the scenery is no longer savage as it was at Chee Tor, but is of winsome loveliness. The Wye winds in green meadows below wooded heights, with here and there a rocky pinnacle jutting out like a spire; "lepping" stones cross the stream, and rustic cottages, with blue filmy smoke curling from their chimneys, stand just where an artist would have placed them. Well might Eliza Cook sing--

"And Monsal, thou mine of Arcadian treasure,
Need we seek for Greek islands and spice-laden gales,
While a Temple like thee, of enchantment and pleasure,
May be found in our native Derbyshire Dales?"

Close by is Taddington, an abode of miners, which contests with Chelmerton the claim of being the highest village in England. There is a quaint church, and in the churchyard an ancient cross which archæological authorities argue is the work of the monks of Lindisfarne, who introduced Christianity into Derbyshire. The Peakrels, in their caustic humour, gravely furnish the visitor to Taddington with the information that "only blind, deaf, and dumb persons, and those who do not live in the parish, are buried in the churchyard."

Past Demon's Dale, and we are at the pleasant village of Ashford-in-the-Water, celebrated for its inlaid marble manufactures. In the old church are hung five paper garlands. They are the relics of the obsolete custom of carrying garlands before the corpses of maidens in the funeral procession, and subsequently suspending them in the church. The custom is alluded to by Shakespeare. These garlands are Ophelia's "virgin crants" in _Hamlet_. The Priest tells Laertes that but for "just command" Ophelia would have been buried--as a suicide--in "ground unsanctified," and "shards, flints, and pebbles" only would have been "thrown on her"--

"Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial."

The innocent observance lingered longer in Derbyshire than anywhere else, and was not abandoned at Ashford-in-the-Water until 1820. The Wye at this point spreads out its waters, turning weedy wheels, and wandering through lush meadow-lands, finely timbered. At Bakewell the stream is of considerable width, and is spanned by a handsome old bridge evidently the work of an architect of imagination. The town itself is of considerable antiquity, and the church, one of the oldest and finest in the county, stands on a commanding hill, and is a picturesque feature in a glorious landscape. Time has made furrow and wrinkle on the grey old fabric, but

"Still points the tower and pleads the bell,
The solemn arches breathe in stone;
Window and walls have lips to tell
The mighty faith of days unknown."

Bakewell is the Paradise of anglers, and wonderful stories are told of the trophies captured when the May-fly is on the water. The river now narrows, and winds in many a tortuous curve through the Haddon pastures. Below Haddon Hall, at Fillyford Bridge, it receives the limpid Lathkill, a stream to-day as clear as when Charles Cotton described it to "Viator" in "The Compleat Angler" as "by many degrees the purest and most transparent stream that I ever yet saw, either at home or abroad, and breeding the reddest and best trouts in England."

After it has welcomed the meandering Wye, the Derwent spreads through an open verdant country of contemplative beauty, with rounded wooded hills in the distance. This spacious golden-green strath is Darley Dale. Lord John Manners (now the Duke of Rutland), viewing this scene from Stanton Woodhouse, a wooded knoll close by, with weather-beaten tors, lofty hunting tower, and Druidical remains, was inspired to crystallise in verse the deep impression that the pastoral scene and its mountain surroundings had made upon his mind:--

"Up Darley Dale the wanton wind
In careless measure sweeps,
And stirs the twinkling Derwent's tides,
Its shallows and its deeps.

"From many an ancient upland grange,
Wherein old English feeling
Still lives and thrives, in faint blue wreaths
The smoke is skywards stealing.

"The simple cheer that erst sustained
The Patriarch Seers of old,
Still in these pastoral valleys feeds
A race of ancient mould.

"And should fell faction rear again
Her front on English ground,
Here will the latest resting-place
Of loyalty be found."

In the churchyard at Darley Dale is the most venerable yew-tree in the world. Many authorities claim for it a fabulous age, making it as much as 3,000 years old. It is thirty-three feet in girth, but its trunk has suffered not a little from the modern Goths and Vandals who have carved their names in the bark, and employed other methods of mutilation. The tree is now fenced round to save it from further insult; and "whatever may be its precise age," says the Rev. Dr. John Charles Cox, "there can be little doubt that this grand old tree has given shelter to the early Britons when planning the construction of the dwellings that they erected not many yards to the west of its trunk; to the Romans who built up the funeral pyre for their slain comrades just clear of its branches; to the Saxons, converted, perchance, to the true faith by the preaching of Bishop Diuma beneath its pleasant shade; to the Norman masons chiselling their quaint sculptures to form the first stone house of prayer erected in its vicinity; and to the host of Christian worshippers who, from that day to this, have been borne under its hoary limbs in women's arms to the baptismal font, and then on men's shoulders to their last sleeping-place in the soil that gave it birth."

On the left bank of the Derwent, amid rocks and plantations, is the royal residence of the late Sir Joseph Whitworth; and on the opposite side rises, sharply defined, Oker Hill--a green isolated eminence that was once an important Roman station. Growing on the summit of this lofty peak are two sycamores. A legend is attached to the planting of these trees, which Wordsworth has recited in his tender sonnet:--

"'Tis said that to the brow of yon fair hill
Two brothers clomb; and turning face from face
Nor one look more exchanging, grief to still
Or feed, each planted on that lofty place
A chosen tree. Then eager to fulfil
Their courses, like two new-born rivers they
In opposite directions urged their way
Down from the far-seen mount. No blast might kill
Or blight the fond memorial. The trees grew,
And now entwine their arms; but ne'er again
Embraced those brothers upon earth's wide plain,
Nor aught of mutual joy or sorrow knew,
Until their spirits mingled in the sea
That to itself takes all--Eternity."

The trout and grayling fishing in the Derwent here is of excellent quality, the water being stocked and preserved by zealous local angling societies, supported by the Trent Conservancy Board.

After leaving Darley the wooded banks contract, and the hills press forward, and at Matlock, nine-and-twenty miles from Barrow Stones, the stream runs through a deep gorge, where limestone precipices, festooned with foliage, rise sheer from the water's edge. This romantic ravine, overtopped by higher hills, extends for about three miles. Matlock is a misleading title. The little town is only a small watering-place, but it is split up into several principalities, governed by two Local Boards, and known as Matlock Bath, Matlock Bridge, Matlock Bank, Matlock Town, Matlock Cliff, and Matlock Green. There are two railway stations, the Bridge and the Bath, a mile apart; but passengers wishful to get to the one place find themselves alighting at the other, and the divisions and sub-divisions are most confusing. Matlock Bank (for which the Bridge is the station, distant a quarter of a mile) is given up to hydropathic establishments, of which there is a colony. Here John Smedley introduced the cold-water treatment many years ago, and the building devoted to his system of cure has developed into one of colossal proportions. Between Matlock Bridge and Matlock Bath the High Tor intervenes, occupying nearly the whole distance. It is a most impressive example of rock scenery, rising in one perpendicular face of grim grey limestone, 400 feet above the Derwent, which brawls angrily over the rocky bed at its stupendous base. The Midland main line perforates this mighty mass, and the dull roar of the trains may be heard reverberating in the gloomy tunnel with strange echoing resonance. There are natural fissures in the rock abounding in dog-tooth crystals, fluor-spar, lead-ore, and other minerals, and at the summit of the giddy cliff are pleasure-grounds. More than one disastrous accident has occurred through people venturing too near the edge and falling into the abyss beneath. Matlock Bath is a continuation of the poetic gorge, the Derwent being almost enclosed on the right by the towering Heights of Masson (commonly called the "Heights of Abraham"), and on the left by the Lovers' Walks. For about a mile the stream is deep and stately, and lends itself admirably to boating. Matlock Bath is a favourite resort of cheap trippers, who find innocent enjoyment in climbing the hills, exploring the caverns, investing their coppers at the petrifying wells, and driving to the Via Gellia, a charming valley within easy distance. The Pavilion is a large modern building standing on a terrace under the Dungeon Tors, and commanding panoramic views of great extent and variety. The Bath is also a much-frequented resort, and contains hotels that favourably compare with the caravansaries of other fashionable watering-places. The New Bath Hotel stands on the site of the old hotel, where Lord Byron met Mary Chaworth, and the lime-tree under which the poet sat with the proud beauty still flourishes. This tree has weathered the storms of more than three hundred winters, and is a marvel of arboreal growth, its wide-spreading branches covering an area of 350 square feet. Byron was a frequent visitor to Matlock, and in one of his letters to Thomas Moore he declares "there are prospects in Derbyshire as noble as in Greece or Switzerland." Mr. Ruskin visits the New Bath Hotel, and the author of "Modern Painters" writes in a characteristic manner:--"Speaking still wholly for myself, as an Epicurean Anchorite and Monastic Misanthrope, I pray leave to submit, as a deeply oppressed and afflicted Brother of that Order, that I can't find anything like Derbyshire anywhere else. '_J'ai beau_,' as our polite neighbours untranslateably express it, to scale the precipices of the Wengern Alp with Manfred, to penetrate with Faust the defiles of the Brocken--the painlessly accessible turrets of Matlock High Tor, the guiltlessly traceable Lovers' Walks by the Derwent, have for me still more attractive peril and a dearer witchery. Looking back to my past life I find, though not without surprise, that it owes more to the Via Gellia than the Via Mala, to the dripping wells of Matlock than the dust-rain of Lauterbrunnen."

Leaving Matlock Bath, the Derwent is utilised for commercial purposes by the Arkwrights, in connection with their mill machinery, and a very dangerous weir is the _bête noir_ of the oarsman. Cromford, the cradle of the cotton manufacture, follows. Here are the immense but cleanly factories founded by Sir Richard Arkwright, the Preston barber's apprentice; and here is Willersley Castle, the seat of the family whose fortunes he made, looking down from a natural rocky plateau, embowered in trees, upon the windings of the river. Cromford bridge is a curious old structure. The arches on one side are pointed Gothic in style, and on the other side they are of a semicircular character. The same incongruity in architecture is to be observed in the bridges at Matlock Town and Darley. This is to be accounted for by the fact that they were once pack-saddle structures, and have been widened with no regard to the preservation of uniformity.

The river now passes down a contracted valley, deeply wooded, to Whatstandwell. A prominent feature on the steep crags to the left is Lea Hurst, the Derbyshire home of Miss Florence Nightingale, and on the other the forest of Alderwasley, a surpassing example of sylvan scenery. Ambergate is the next point of interest, where the Derwent receives the Amber, which has watered the delightful Ashover Valley, and wound under the steep hill dominated by the ruined towers and gables of Wingfield Manor. Then our river flows under hanging woods to Belper, where all its energies are required to turn the ponderous wheels at Messrs. Strutt's cotton mills. Nowhere in all its course is it more picturesque than at Belper bridge. Above the weirs it is lake-like in its wide expanse, reflecting the green verdure at its side, the undulating uplands beyond, and the hillside cemetery that by its delectable situation seems to render Death beautiful. The weirs make the water a live thing. One of these is a merry sluice, with several gates liberating the flood above, which comes down like Southey's torrent at Lodore. The large weir is of great width, and of crescent shape, with a wooded island at its foot. But the best view of this tumult of sunlit foam is obtained when we have for a moment turned to the river-path on the right; then, as we look up the stream, the graceful stone arches frame a picture of dancing water. Above, in the woodland park, is Bridge Hill, the residence of Mr. G. H. Strutt. The ivy-embroidered windows flash back the sunlight, as they look out over the valley of the Derwent. At Belper the river is forty-three miles from its birthplace. Milford comes next, with more of Strutt's mills and more turbulent weirs; and at Duffield, a mile or two farther south, the river Ecclesbourne pours its cheerful waters into the Derwent. It has come from the Wirksworth country, where George Eliot found character and scenery for "Adam Bede." Past pleasant pastoral scenes, farmsteads, and country houses, past Little Eaton and Breadsall, and Allestree Hall, with its ancestral woodlands, the seat of Sir William Thomas Evans; past Darley Abbey, where Evans's cotton mills break up the river into miniature Niagaras, the Derwent pursues its course, until presently we are at Derby, fifty-one miles from where we first made the acquaintance of the stream. An accession of considerable importance, the Markeaton Brook, falls into the river at this point; but we must get into the meadows at the west end of the town to see it, for it follows a subterranean course through the principal streets, being arched over in the year 1845. The upper windings of the Brook afford the painter many pretty "bits," and are held in high favour by lovers of Nature and other lovers.

About the ancient borough of Derby there is much that is historically interesting; and although the leading thoroughfares abound in pretentious examples of modern architecture, there still remain some of the old-world buildings that were in existence long before Prince Charlie in the winter of '45 began his disastrous retreat from Derby market-place, the most southerly point to which his army penetrated. A pilot guard advanced, it is true, six miles farther, to Swarkestone Bridge, but the Rubicon, that is the Trent, was not crossed.

The Derwent was formerly navigable up to Derby, but the right of communication was sold to the proprietors of two canal companies, who, before the introduction of railways, monopolised the traffic. In this place one peculiarity of the Derwent should not escape notice. The late Dr. Spencer T. Hall observed a distinguishing characteristic of the river, and described it in the following happy manner:--"Of all the rivers of England there is perhaps not one so noted for the sudden rise and lapse of its waters, on the melting of the snows, or the occurrence of summer storms. Even no higher up the stream than Chatsworth, there is an annual average of thirteen inches more rain than at Derby, and farther up the country a higher average still. For this, and for all the ordinary supply, such rapid descent is afforded by the steep cloughs and gullies and mountain roads, that, whenever a sudden thaw or unusual downpour occurs, the normal channel of the river is very soon overfilled, and on rushes the swelling and boiling torrent till it becomes majestic--almost terrific--as it breaks at last from the confines of the mountain gorges into the plain. It is sometimes easy to tell as low down as Derby, by the colour of the water, over which of the tributaries an up-country storm has broken. If out on the heather-side, about the Yorkshire border or the Longshaw and Chatsworth moors, down comes the deluge somewhat the colour of good coffee; if from the limestone districts, almost the colour of cream to it; and in the proportion in which both colours happen to be blended you may calculate pretty nearly how far the storm has been partial or general. Some fine morning you may walk as far as Derwent Bank or Darley Abbey, and see the river winding quietly along with its wonted grace and its usual flow. At noon you look again, and on it comes with the force of a little Niagara through the open flood-gates and over the great weir of Darley Mills, and thence spreads out until the meadows, as far as the Trent, form a series of lakes, which, if that river be also full, soon extends as far or farther down than Nottingham."

The Derwent at Derby is spanned by several handsome bridges. The oldest and most picturesque of these structures is St. Mary's. At the foot of the bridge is an ancient chapel where "the busy burgesses or men-at-arms turned aside for a brief silent prayer before crossing the Derwent and plunging into the forests that stretched out before them on the other side of the river." This mediæval bridge-chapel of Our Lady is now used as a mission-room in connection with the church of St. Alkmund. Just below the bridge, on an island, stands the first silk-mill ever erected in England. It is a vast pile of time-toned brick, pierced with as many windows as there are days in the year, and surmounted by a curious bell-tower. The history of the silk trade in Derby dates back to the opening days of the last century. At that period the Italians held secret the art of silk-throwing, and monopolised the market. John Lombe, an ambitious young fellow, full of spirit, an excellent draughtsman, and a capable mechanic, determined to acquire the secret. He visited Italy, and brought to Derby from Piedmont models of the coveted machinery, together with two native craftsmen who had favoured his enterprise and secured his safety. The Derby Corporation leased to Lombe the island swamp in the Derwent, where he erected in 1718 the present immense mill on a foundation of oaken piles. It cost him £30,000, but his manufactures were a superlative success, and the Italian monopoly was driven out of the market. But Lombe did not live more than two years to reap the rich result of his labours. Treachery was at work, and he was poisoned at the hands of an Italian woman who was employed by the Piedmontese, and who contrived to escape the punishment due to her crime. Lombe, who was only twenty-nine when he thus tragically perished, was buried at All Saints', a church whose tower is one of the glories of the midland counties. Here, too, rest several members of the Cavendish family, their virtues commemorated in monumental marble; and there is a magnificent monument to the famous Countess of Shrewsbury, the friend of Queen Elizabeth, but better known as "Building Bess of Hardwick."

For many years Derby has been associated with the production of artistic porcelain. The making of china in the town has really never been discontinued since Duesbury commenced his labours here in the middle of the last century, amalgamating the historic works of Bow and Chelsea with his famous factory at Derby. There are now three china-works in the thriving town, which boasts of more than 100,000 inhabitants within the borough boundaries. The factory of the Derby Crown China Company, Limited, is a Palace of Porcelain where poems in pottery are produced. It is one of the sights of the neighbourhood, and is much visited by Americans and foreigners. Established in 1877, the works have been greatly developed, the business connections increased, and an advanced and higher tone given to most of the productions. All the usual services, such as dinner, tea, breakfast, trinket, and _déjeûner_, are made both in porcelain and in semi-vitrified "crown" ware, as are also figures and perforated vases in Parian. The specialities of the Company are vases of every conceivable design and style of decoration, from the most sumptuous Oriental schemes, wrought in raised gold of various hues upon full and lusciously coloured grounds, to the dainty and refined shapes and ornaments of the classic and of the best periods of the Renaissance. Other productions of the Company are the egg-shell specimens of fictile ware, which demand the most artistic skill of the potter. They are of extraordinary thinness; and the beauty of the colouring and the dainty jewelling and enamelling of the ornamentation equal anything achieved at the old works visited by Dr. Johnson in 1777, when he observed:--"The china was beautiful, but it was too dear; for that he could have vessels of silver of the same size as cheap as what were made here of porcelain." Derby, however, is largely dependent for its industrial prosperity upon the Midland Railway Company, who have their chief offices, locomotive, carriage and waggon, telegraph and signal works in the town. They employ in Derby alone a staff of 12,000 officials and workmen, and their estate covers 500 acres. It extends for some distance along the Derwent, which at this point receives the entire sewage of the town. This pollution of the beautiful river calls for legislative interference. What should be a source of delight becomes an object of disgust, and what was lovely is degraded with all that is loathsome. The South Sea Islanders pelt with filth the people they specially wish to honour: Derby treats the Derwent to a similar distinction.

But a truce to sanitation and economics. Let us follow the Derwent, unfragrant as it has become, past Spondon and the pretty mills at Borrowash, to Elvaston, the noble domain of the Earl of Harrington. The stream supplies with water a spacious ornamental lake, with four islands, concerning which the first Duke of Wellington, walking round it in company with Charles, the fourth Earl, stopped suddenly, and looking round, exclaimed, "Harrington, this is the only natural piece of artificial water I ever saw in my life." The gardens and grounds themselves are a triumph of arboriculture and landscape gardening; and who is there that has not heard of their avenues of quaintly clipped trees? The church tower and castle rise above a forest of patrician trees, while umbrageous aisles of green give vistas of scenes "where Boccaccio might have wooed and Watteau painted." These poetic perspectives look upon rockery and statuary, lawn and fountain, borders and beds of flowers. There is an avenue of elms a mile in length, framing at the extremity a view of the Gotham hills. The "golden" gates at the entrance-lodge belonged to the first Napoleon, and once occupied a position near the royal palace at Paris; they were erected here in 1819. The castle and church adjoin each other. The former is a Gothic mansion, which in 1643 was plundered by the Cromwellian troops. A costly monument in memory of Sir John Stanhope was demolished, and outrages were committed in the family vault. The church is a picturesque edifice, with a lofty perpendicular tower; in it are effigies of Sir John Stanhope and his wife, dated 1610, and other interesting family memorials.

Below Elvaston the Derwent flows through a flat country, and at its estuary at Wilne, near Shardlow, has greatly contracted its banks, so that it presents a striking contrast to the broad and powerful Trent. The Derbyshire river, indeed, is not worth following for its own sake below the county town.

EDWARD BRADBURY.

THE HUMBER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.