its soft and warm air gently dispelling all the sickening chill of departed winter, to smell the sweet fragrance of budding flowers, to hear the mellow notes of tuneful birds, I left for a time the noisy and busy capital for a country town, there to enjoy the hospitality of a kind English friend and his influential circle. Unlike the many annoying inconveniences and drawbacks in leaving a chief city in India for a fine country seat, London commands a multiplicity of easy routes and affords ample resources to carry one within a couple of hours from its busy throng to the pleasing retirement of a freshly blooming country place. There are very few places in England which do not attach to themselves either some political, commercial or social importance. Dunstable, where I passed almost a week, is a well-known town of considerable historical importance and interest. Both to Englishmen and Indians who have studied English history the description of this town, which I herein give after consulting some very trustworthy authorities, will prove worth a glance. Dunstable is a town, a parish, and a sub-district in Luton district, Bedfordshire. The town stands on a chalky eminence in the centre of the Dunstable chalk down, near the foot of the Chiltern hills, on the line of railway from Hertford to Leighton Buzzard, five miles W. by N. of Luton and twenty miles S. by W. of Bedford. It was the Maes Gwyn (as descriptive of the chalky soil of the vicinity) or White Field of the Britons, the Magiovinium, or possibly the Forum Dianæ or the Duracobrivæ of the Romans, and the Dunestaple of the Saxons, and it is thought by some to have got its Saxon and its present name from dun, "a hill," and staple, "a commercial mart"; by others to have got them from a bandit chieftain called Dun or Dunninly, who infested the neighbourhood in the time of Henry I. Remains of the British camp, occupying about nine acres, called the Maiden Bower, and supposed to have been afterwards the magintum of the Romans, are about 1 miles distant, and vestiges of another strong ancient fortalice, called Tottenhall Castle, and comprising keep, mound and double fosse, are a short way further off. Many traces of Roman occupation are in the vicinity, and large quantities of copper coins of Antonine and Constantine, with ornaments of bridles and armours were found in 1770. Several antiquities were recently discovered in the field, comprising coins, rings, swords, &c. The town was overrun first by the Danes, afterwards by bandits, who secreted themselves in neighbouring woods and thickets, but was resettled or rebuilt by Henry I., who destroyed the woods and thickets, gave great encouragement to peaceful settlers, took the town under his own management, gave it a charter and corporate privileges, founded at it a priory of Black canons, and created on a neighbouring locality, afterwards known as Kingbury farm, a royal palace. Henry subsequently gave the town to the friars of the priory and invested them with extraordinary powers over it, but he retained the palace entirely in his possession; yet King John afterwards gave them the palace also, with its gardens, simply on condition that they should accommodate the monarch and his suite within their own walls. King Stephen met his successor, Henry II., at Dunstable in 1154. The town was destroyed by fire in 1213, but was soon afterwards rebuilt. A great synod was held at its priory by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1214. King John was at its palace in 1215 on his journey towards the north. Louis the Dauphin of France with the rebellious English barons halted here one night in 1217. Henry III. was here in 1223. An insurrection of the townsmen against the friars of the priory occurred in 1229, which was at length quelled by compromise through the archdeacon of Bedford. An assemblage of discontented barons and knights took place here in 1244, ostensibly for holding a tournament but really for prosecuting a political design, and they sent a peremptory missive to the Pope's nuncio, who was opposed to them, commanding him instantly to leave the kingdom. Henry III. was often at the priory, and when here in 1247 was accompanied by his queen, Prince Edward, and Princess Margaret, and received the present of a gilt cup. Another royal visit was made hither with the Pope's legate in 1276. An affray between the king's retainers and those of the prior occurred in 1276, and was adjusted by the king in person. sitting as judge. A tournament was held at the town in 1279. The corpse of Queen Eleanor, consort of Edward I., was de posited one night at the priory in 1290, and her funeral procession passed through the town. A cross in memory of her was afterwards erected in the market place, and this stood till the time of the civil war in the reign of Charles I., when it was demolished by some troops of the Earl of Essex as a relic of popery. A grand tournament on the occasion of Edward III.'s return from Scotland, and attended by him and by his queen, was held at the town in 1341. Henry VI. visited Dunstable in in 1457 and 1459; Elizabeth in 1572 and James I. in 1605. Some of the earliest English theatricals on record, and known as "Mysteries," were performed at Dunstable in 1110 under the auspices of the abbot of St. Andrew's. Several Lollard martyrs were put to death here in the time of Henry V., and the sentence of divorce between Henry VIII. and Catharine of Arragon was pronounced in the priory church by Archbishop Cranmer in 1533. A house or hospital for lepers was founded in connection with the priory, and a monastery of Black friars also was established here and countenanced by the Court much against the will of the priors and canons. The priory was granted after the dissolution to Dr. Leonard Chamberlaine and passed to Colonel Maddison, but its church was designed by Henry to be a cathedral to Bedford diocese. No part of the church now stands except the nave with the aisles. The architecture is mainly Norman, but includes early English, decorated and perpendicular portions. The nave is Norman and very broad, the arch is lofty, the piers are a group of small shafts with some slightly figured capitals; the clerestory is perpendicular, the front shows a good Roman arch filled with perpendicular tracery, and the interior has an altar-piece of the Last Supper by Thornhill. A restoration of the edifice after some interruption was resumed in 1869. Nearly opposite the church are six houses founded by Mrs. Blandina Mark in 1713, and designated the "Maidens' Lodge," for six unmarried gentle. women, whose income has been increased by benefaction from another lady to £120. The inhabitants formerly procured water from public reservoirs, of which there was one in each street, but a supply is now obtained from wells, which from the chalky nature of the subtratum are sunk at a great depth. The town consists chiefly of four streets in cruciform arrangement toward the four cardinal points. Some of the houses have an antiquated appearance, but many are modern and neat. One house built of walls consisting all around of flints, and known as "Flint cottage," presents a very picturesque appearance and stands prominent among all the buildings of the town. Although its modest inmates may not make much of it, yet to a foreign eye it has its peculiar charms. There are a head postoffice, two chief inns, two railway stations, two banking offices, a parish church, which is the quondam church of the priory, five dissenting chapels, a workhouse, an endowed school, a suite of almshouses and a variety of charities, including the school and the almshouses. A weekly market is held on Wednesday, and fairs on Ash Wednesday, 22nd May, 12th August and 12th November, the last being the largest fair for sheep. The town is particularly famous for the manufacture of straw hats and bonnets and has recently carried on that manufacture more extensively than before, employing upwards of five hundred women, who are in general farmers' daughters, and who are required to pay two guineas each and to give three months of their time at entering in order to learn the business. There are also some large manufactories for whitening, from which most of the manufacturing towns are supplied. The town once was distinguished for the number of its inns and posting establishments, about two hundred horses with the requisite number of post boys being kept for the use of travellers. Dunstable is 324 miles N.W. by N. from London. It is famous also for the size of its larks, obtained in the neighbouring country and sent in great numbers to London. It is a polling place, was at one time summoned to send members to Parliament, but made no return, and acquired a municipal government in 1865. The town is regarded as conterminate with the parish, that being the district of the local lighting board. John Dunstable and Elkanah Settle, a dramatist (the rival of Dryden) and a political writer of notoriety in the reign of Charles II., were natives of this place. The parish contains 390 acres, real property £13,388, of which £330 are in railways. Population is 4,470. Houses 884. The property is much subdivided. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Ely, value £150, patron the Lord Chancellor. A few minutes' walk from any part of the town brings one to a beautiful country all round. A knocked-up student will always find here fresh vigour, and an admirer of nature will meet with objects for deep contemplation while leisurely strolling along the silent groves which seem destined to be the nursery of pure content. Here again upon lovely downs, upon flowery meads, upon verdant hills, peace seems slumbering with a soft pillow of innocence under its head. Here amidst many a shady vale weary footsteps would mechanically tread over miles and miles with the tuneful accompaniment of soft zephyrs that ever dance around. Eyes weary of hard study, dull reading and the monotony of city life find here real charms, to see from afar hills clothed with vegetation whose mixed colours reflected by the dim evening rays of the departing golden orb please the senses and soothe the spirit. Meadows covered over with a bewitching garden of wild flowers do here now and then forcibly snatch a word of admiration from even the most unsympathetic heart. On one side, safe from the burning rays of the fierce sun the kine slowly move along, and on the other the gentle sheep recline by the side of the wide expanding cultured fields. I who was very partial to many a grand and picturesque scene of India could not but do justice to such foreign scenery by thus admiring it. My kind friend, who always accompanied me in my rambles in order to show the many beauties of his country, which he is deservedly proud of, being naturally of a poetical turn of mind, began to recite while standing on a high hill on a delightfully cool and quiet evening some of the very effective lines from Gray's well known "Elegy on a Country Churchyard": "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, |