terests, that the governor was tried by a council of war, and sentenced to death for consenting to it." This sentence was, however, remitted afterwards by the King. The town suffered great damage during the siege; the fine tower of St. Giles's Church, in particular, was pierced by cannon ball, and rendered so insecure, that it was necessary to repair it, lest it should fall upon the heads of the passengers.

In the year 1688, a popular panic began at Reading, which spread over a considerable part of the kingdom. The cry was, that the Irish disbanded soldiers of King James's army were ravaging and burning wherever they came. The roads at that time being none of the best, and there being few newspapers to carry intelligence into the towns and villages, each town imagined that its neighbour was in flames, and turned out its inhabitants to repel the mysterious and terrible marauders, of whom everybody had heard, but whom no one ever saw. This alarm was called the Irish panic.

Reading, which now manufactures ribbons and pins, was formerly more celebrated for its clothing manufactures. In the fifteenth century, there were, it was calculated, one hundred and forty clothiers in the town. In the reign of Edward I, one Thomas Cole was popularly

known as "the rich clothier of Reading." The celebrated Archbishop Laud, who was born in this town on the 7th of October, 1573, was the son of William Laud, a respectable clothier. This trade declined at the commencement of the eighteenth century.

Among other well-known persons who were born at Reading, may be mentioned the Lord Chief Justice Holt; and in our own day, Thomas Noon Talfourd, the author of " Ion," who, though a poet, may also become a Lord Chief Justice, of whom Reading is justly proud, and who is at present member for the borough.

The town is divided into two parts by the river Kennett, which is navigable westwards to Newbury. By means of the Kennett and Avon canal, a water communication is made between the Thames and the Severn, from which this town receives considerable benefit.

The prospect from the Forbury, an eminence at the north-east side of the town, is very extensive, over the beautiful county of Oxford, with its groves and parks, and pleasant waters, and its country houses rising in rich profusion from every knoll. On the south-west of the town, is another eminence, which the geologist will do well to visit. It is about four hundred yards from the river Kennett, and is called

Cat's-grove hill. A stratum of oyster-shells runs through the hill. When the oysters are taken out, the valves are closed as in the natural state, and on being opened, the animal is found reduced to a powder. In the stratum of sand, which runs above this, the bones and teeth of large fish have been frequently found.

There is yet one more incident connected with Reading, on which the future tourist will delight to dwell. It was here that the poet Coleridge was stationed as a dragoon, under the name of Comberback, and here in a common tap-room, amid the hubbub and noise of the bacchanalian troopers, he composed one of his finest poems. This place also witnessed his emancipation from the army. Nathaniel Ogle, the son of the Dean of Winchester, and captain of the troop, in which the soi-disant Comberback served, going into the stables at Reading, observed written upon the white-washed wall, under one of the saddles, the mournful exclamation,

Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem !

Struck with the novelty of such scholarship and such sorrow in a common soldier, the captain inquired who had written it, and was informed that it was Comberback. The future

philosopher and poet was sent for; examined in the spirit of sympathy and kindness as to his real name and previous history, when all the truth was elicited. His friends were soon apprised of his situation, the runaway from Jesus College, Cambridge, was recognised, and a post-chaise having been sent for him to the Bear Inn, Coleridge was whirled away from the scene of his adversity, amid the congratulations of the officers and soldiers. The poem which he composed in the tap-room at Reading, modestly entitled "Religious Musings," is perhaps his finest composition, and far superior to "Christabel," "Genevieve," or the "Ancient Mariner," which seem to have pleased the world from their very eccentricity, but which do not abound in such noble thoughts and philosophic aspirations as his "Musings."

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CHAPTER XIV.

The river Kennett.. The ruins of Silchester. - Newbury.Donnington Castle and the Poet Chaucer. - Chaucer's Oak. Caversham.- Purley Hall. - Wallingford. - The poetical Fiction of the Thame and Isis.

ITHIN a short distance of Reading, and on the banks of the Kennett, stand the ruins of Donnington Castle, once the abode of the father of English poetry. This alone

would be sufficient to induce us, enthusiastic lovers of the divine science of Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton, to diverge from the straight path of our course to visit it, had the river Kennett no other reminiscences on which the rambler might dwell with pleasure as he wandered along its banks.

Leaving the Thames for a while, we will thread the mazes of the

Kennett swift, for silver eels renowned,

as far as Newbury and Donnington, and then back again to the suzerain river of our chief