rd to provide as
comfortably for his guests, as when, in old posting days, five dukes made the
Haycock their night halt at one time. On entering the well carpeted coffee-
room, with its ample screen, blazing fire, and plentiful allowance of easy
chairs, while a well appointed tempting dinner is rapidly and silently laid
on the spotless table-cloth,--the tired sportsman or traveller will be
inclined to fancy that he is visitor to some wealthy squire rather than the
guest of an innkeeper. When we add that the bed-rooms match the sitting-
rooms, that the charges are moderate, that the Pytchley, Earl Fitzwilliam's,
and the Duke of Rutland's hounds (the Beevor), meet within an easy distance;
that the county abounds in antiquities, show-houses like Burleigh, that
pleasant woodland rides are within a circle of ten miles, that good pike-
fishing is to be had nearly all the year round, while in retirement Wansford
is complete; we have said enough to show that it is well worth the notice of
a large class of travellers,--from young couples on their first day's journey,
to old gentlemen travelling north and needing quiet and a bottle of old port.

The last station, Peterborough, presents an instance of a city without
population, without manufactures, without trade, without a good inn, or even
a copy of the Times, except at the railway station; a city which would have
gone on slumbering to the present hour without a go-a-head principle of any
kind, and which has nevertheless, by the accident of situation, had railway
greatness thrust upon it in a most extraordinary manner.

* * * * *

PETERBOROUGH is one of the centres from which radiate three lines to London,
viz., by the Northampton route, on which we have travelled; by the direct
line, through Herts, of the Great Northern; and by the Eastern Counties, with
all its Norfolk communications. From Peterborough also proceeds an arm of
the Midland Counties, through Stamford, Oldham, and Melton Mowbray, and the
best Leicestershire grass country, to Leicester or to Nottingham,--while the
Great Northern, dividing, embraces the whole of Lincolnshire and makes way to
Hull, by the Humber ferries, on the one hand, and to York on the other. There
is, therefore, the best of consolation on being landed in this dull
inhospitable city, that it is the easiest possible thing to leave it.

Peterborough dates from the revival of Christianity among the Saxons;
destroyed by the Danes A.D. 870, rebui