SECTION X.

Walk from Hardwick to Bolsover.---Bolsover.---The Buckle Manufacture formerly there.----Bolsover Church.----The Dead Robin.----Bolsover Castle.---Ancient Fountain.---Historical Notice of Bolsover Castle.-The Terrace, Rampart, and Watch Towers.---King Charles' Visit to Bolsover.---Renishaw Hall.---Return to Sheffield.---Retrospection.--

Conclusion.

A PEDESTRIAN ramble of a few miles through Hardwick Park, and by Glapwell, the seat of B. Hallows, Esq. brought us to Bolsover; and I have not, in any of my excursions in this picturesque country, found a more delightful walk. A foot-path is carried along the brow of a hill, which overlooks the beautiful mansion and grounds of Sutton : on the right, situated at one extremity of the same eminence, is Bolsover Castle: on the left, the towers of Hardwick Hall, rising majestically over the surrounding woods, occupy the other: in the middle of this graceful sweep of hill lies the village of Palterton. The houses are all ranged on one side of the road, which passes through it; the other is open to a wide expanse of valley, rich in culture, and beautifully adorned with nearly every object that can give a charm to landscape.

BOLSOVER is a populous village only; it was once a market town;

PART IV.

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Buckle Manufacture at Bolsover.

and it still retains many indications of an importance which has passed away. The inhabitants are now almost entirely employed in agricultural pursuits: formerly a considerable manufacture of spurs and buckles was carried on in this place. These were made in a very superior manner of the best malleable iron, and then hardened on the surface only, that they might admit of a very fine polish. The process of hardening used by the buckle-makers of Bolsover, which is technically called case-hardening, is well known amongst those who are connected with the manufacture of articles of steel and iron; to those who are not it may be useful to intimate that iron, properly so called, is incapable of receiving a very high polish; the buckles and spurs were therefore formed and filed into shape when in the state of iron only; the exterior surface was then converted into steel by a peculiar process, in which burnt bones, and ashes made from the leather of old shoes, were generally used. The manufactured article was now internally iron, and therefore not liable to be easily broken, but the exterior surface was converted into the purest steel, and fitted to receive the highest polish that can possibly be imparted to this beautiful metal.

The land in the neighbourhood of Bolsover is very good, and the rents reasonable, not more on an average than twenty shillings an acre; the farmers are therefore many of them in easy and comfortable circumstances. Those who are esteemed the best managers pursue the following routine; they lay down their land in fallow every four or five years, and generally get a crop of turnips at the end of the fallow; they have then first year wheat---second, clover---the third wheat again, and the fourth oats.

Monuments in Bolsover Church.

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Bolsover church is but a plain and homely structure without, but within it is neat and even handsome. In a small chapel, which has been added to the original building, there are some costly monuments; one of them contains a group of figures in alabaster, and all the parts are richly and elaborately ornamented: another to the memory of H. Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, is composed of different coloured materials, chiefly marbles. In design it is architectural : the columns which form part of the composition are lofty, and two figures in white marble occupy the pediment they support: emblematic devices, honorary inscriptions, and a variety of decorative sculpture, are scattered about this splendid monument. My visit here was in autumn: at this season of the year the red-breast begins to leave the fields and the woods, and resort to the hedges and trees of the cottage garden: there he warbles forth his matins and his vespers amongst the habitations of men: grown more familiar, he enters their dwellings and picks his food from their tables. A robin at Bolsover had flown into the chancel of the church, and unable to obtain subsistence, where perhaps there was neither a crumb of bread, nor a living thing besides himself, he had perched upon this sumptuous monument, chaunted forth his own melancholy requiem, and died amongst the tombs of the noble and the great. When I found him, life seemed to have only just departed; his plumage was fresh and unruffled, and he occupied a situation on the monument as if he had been a part of the design of the artist: no red-breast had ever a more splendid sepulchre. A few months afterwards, when looking over the museum of a friend, I regretted that I had not brought away and preserved this bird, to complete his collection. "Here," said he, "you see every British bird, from the eagle to

the wren, with the exception of the robin-him I can catch and kill at any time whenever I want him, but---he shall live until then.

The church yard at Bolsover is a remarkably clean and neat looking place. The grave stones are placed in an upright position at the head of the grave, and many of them contain devices and inscriptions that refer to the uncertainty of life, and the evanescent nature of all human enjoyments. This resting-place of the departed is capacious, and when I saw it it was covered with a fresh and cheerful verdure. The turf is here but rarely disturbed, and when it is, the removal appears to be done with care, and, as soon as the body is interred, the grass sod is again laid upon the place.

BOLSOVER CASTLE, which we next visited, occupies the plain of a rocky hill, that rises abruptly from the meadows. This building is of great extent, and, from the elevated situation it possesses, it is a land-mark for the country round. The various parts of which the structure denominated Bolsover castle is composed, was built at different periods. The north-east end, which was erected by Sir Chas. Cavendish, about the year 1613, is the oldest. It is now occupied. A broad flight of steps leads to the entrance, and over the door is a kneeling figure of a Hercules, who supports on his shoulders a heavy balcony, that seems to oppress him with its weight; two lions. sculptured in stone stand by his side. The interior of this portion of Bolsover castle exhibits a curious specimen of the domestic arrangements, and accommodations of the age in which it was built. The rooms are small, and the walls are wainscotted and fancifully inlaid and painted. The ceilings of the best apartments are carved and

Em

gilt, and nearly the whole of the floors are coated with plaster. In the pillar-hall there are some old portraits of little or no value, and the labours of Hercules are painted in different compartments. The star-chamber has been richly gilt and carved, and the walls are decorated with the portraits of twelve Roman emperors. The only comfortable apartment which I observed in this old structure, is now called the drawing-room, which name it has recently assumed in place of the pillar-parlour, by which designation it was formerly known. A column of stone is placed in the middle of the room: the capital is the point from whence the ramifications of an arched ceiling branch; the walls are wainscotted, and many old-fashioned devices, partly gilt, are introduced amongst the ornaments. blematical representations of the five senses, all very indifferently painted, occupy various compartments round the top of the room, and the windows are formed and fashioned to correspond with the interior decorations. We had wandered over a great part of Bolsover castle before we entered this apartment, where, in the days of chivalry and romance, courtly dames and barons bold" communed with each other. Whilst my companion proceeded onwards, I sat down in a corner of the room to meditate on those "by-gone" days: a species of delusion, of which I have sometimes been the sport, soon began to interfere with the realities of the scene: a train of thinking, in which I was disposed to indulge, was soon succeeded by an almost complete abstraction from every thing like thought, and the mind was bewildered amidst its own creations: while thus absorbed, the wind swept gently over the strings of an Eolian harp, and the soft strain swelled wildly to the breeze, then died away in sounds, that the ear followed with eagerness, until all was still. The effect of these mysterious strains, breathed out in

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