modern English science and energy. My modern English
pride accompanied me all the way to Tipton; for all along the route there
were wonderful evidences of English skill and enterprise; in chimneys
high as cathedral spires, vomiting forth smoke, furnaces emitting flame
and lava, and in the sound of gigantic hammers, wielded by steam, the
Englishman's slave. After passing Tipton, at which place one leaves the
great working district behind; I became for a considerable time a
yawning, listless Englishman, without pride, enthusiasm, or feeling of
any kind, from which state I was suddenly roused by the sight of ruined
edifices on the tops of hills. They were remains of castles built by
Norman Barons. Here, perhaps, the reader will expect from me a burst of
Norman enthusiasm: if so he will be mistaken; I have no Norman
enthusiasm, and hate and abominate the name of Norman, for I have always
associated that name with the deflowering of helpless Englishwomen, the
plundering of English homesteads, and the tearing out of poor
Englishmen's eyes. The sight of those edifices, now in ruins, but which
were once the strongholds of plunder, violence, and lust, made me almost
ashamed of being an Englishman, for they brought to my mind the
indignities to which poor English blood has been subjected. I sat silent
and melancholy, till looking from the window I caught sight of a long
line of hills, which I guessed to be the Welsh hills, as indeed they
proved, which sight causing me to remember that I was bound for Wales,
the land of the bard, made me cast all gloomy thoughts aside and glow
with all the Welsh enthusiasm with which I glowed when I first started in
the direction of Wales.

On arriving at Chester, at which place we intended to spend two or three
days, we put up at an old-fashioned inn in Northgate Street, to which we
had been recommended; my wife and daughter ordered tea and its
accompaniments, and I ordered ale, and that which always should accompany
it, cheese. "The ale I shall find bad," said I; Chester ale had a
villainous character in the time of old Sion Tudor, who made a first-rate
englyn upon it, and it has scarcely improved since; "but I shall have a
treat in the cheese, Cheshire cheese has always been reckoned excellent,
and now that I am in the capital of the cheese country, of course I shall
have some of the very prime." Well, the tea, loaf and butter made their
appearance, and with them my cheese and ale. To m