of the "First and Last house in England" will gratefully present a piece of plate (a Druid "spanning" [consider Ezekiel's "putting the branch to the nose" as a sign of contempt]!) to the author of "Hints for a Chisel," "Proverbial Phil.," &c. &c. &c. But—revenous à nos moutons: to the Logan: until it was scrupulously pointed out, by so tangible a manner as my boy-guide getting on it, I could scarcely distinguish it from the fine hurlyburly of rocks around. That it moves there is no question; but when I tell you that it is now obliged to be artificially kept from falling, by a chain fixing it behind, and a beam to rest on before, I think you will agree with me in muttering "the humbug!" Artists have so diligently falsified the view, ad captandum, that you will have some difficulty in recognising so old a friend as the Logan: it is commonly drawn as if isolated, thus, and would so, no doubt, be very astonishing; but, when my memory puts it as above, stapled, and obliged to remain for Cockneys to log it, surrounded by a much more imposing brotherhood, my wonder only is that it keeps its lion character, and that, considering the easy explication of its natural cause or accident, it should ever have been conceived to be man's doing; perhaps the Druids availed themselves of so lucky a chance for miracle-mongering, but as to having contrived it, you might as well say that they built the cliffs. It strikes me, moreover, that Cornwall could never have been the headquarters of Druidism, inasmuch as the soil is too scanty for oaks: there isn't a tree of any size, much less an oak tree in all West Cornwall: they must have cut samphire from the rocks, instead of misletoe from oaks, and the old gentlemen must have been pretty tolerable climbers, victim and all, to have got near enough to touch the Logan: to be sure it was a frosty day, and iron-shod shoes on icy granite are not over coalescible, but I did not dare scramble to it, as a tumble would have insured a particularly uncomfortable death; and although the interesting "Leaper from the Logan, or Martin Martyr" would have had his name enshrined in young lady sonnets, and azure albums, such immortality had little charms for me. I contented myself with being able to swear that I have seen 90 tons of stone moved by a child of ten years old. Near it is another, called the logging lady, a block, upright like its neighbours, about 12 feet high, and which the boy told me could only be made to log by two men with poles; in fact, one end is worn with levers: well, I told him to try and move it; no use, says he; try, said I; he did try, and couldn't; well, I took a sight of where I thought he could do it, and set him to push; forthwith, my lady tottered, and I told the boy, if he would only keep to himself where he pushed it would be a banknote to him. I mention this to illustrate what I verily believe, to wit, that, if a man only took the breakneck trouble to clamber and try, he would discover several rocking-stones; but the fact is, this would diminish the wonder, and Cockneys wouldn't come to see what is easily explained: your Druids, with imaginary dynamics, invest nature's freaks with mysterious interest. But away to Tol Peden Penwith, where there is another curiosity; in the smooth green middle of a narrow promontory, surrounded and terminated by the boldest rock-scenery, strangely drops down for a perpendicular hundred feet, a circular chasm, not ill named the Funnel, and which not even a stolid Borlase can pretend was dug by the Druids: at the bottom there is communication with the sea by means of a cavern, and in stormy weather the rush up this gigantic earth's chimney-must be something terrible: will this convey a rough idea? the scenery all round is really magnificent, and the looking down this black smooth stone-pit is quite fearful; it slopes away so deceitfully, and looks like a huge lion-ant's nest. Few people see this, because you can only get at it by a walk of a mile, but I think it quite as worth seeing as the logan-rock. My next object was the Land's End, where, as elsewhere, I did signalise myself by not scribbling my autograph on a rock, or carving M. F. T. on the sod: the rocky coast is of the same grand character; granite bits, as big as houses, floundering over each other like whales at play; the cliffs, cavernous, castellated, mossgrown, and weatherbeaten; it looks like a Land's end, a regular break up of the world's then useless ribs: an outlier of rocks in the sea, surmounted by a lighthouse: looks like the end of the struggle between conquering man, and sturdy desolation. One place, where I tremble to think I have been, struck me as quite awful: helped by an iron-handed sailor, who comforts you in the dizzy scramble with "Never fear, sir, you shan't fall, unless I fall too," you fearfully pick your way to the extreme end, where it goes slick down, and lying prostrate on the slippery granite (which looks disjointed everywhere, and as if it would fall with you, bodily) with head strained over you see under you a dreadful cavern, open nearly to where you are, up which roars the white and angry sea. O brother David, and foot-tingling Sire, never can you take that look; and never would I again. Only think of tipping over! ugh.—Into the gig again, beside my shrewd Sam Weller driver, and away. Here and there about this part of Cornwall are studded rude stone crosses, probably of the time of St. Colomba, as they are similar to those at Iona: about two or three feet high, and very rude. In one place, I noticed what seemed to be a headless female figure, perhaps the Virgin, and as large as life: my Jehu said he had heard that it once had a head. We soon came to a small square inclosure, said to be a most ancient cemetery; I scrambled over the wall, and found among the briars and weeds one solitary tomb of a venerable and Runic aspect, but I soon found out that it recorded the name of somebody who departed Ye LYFE somewhere in 1577; nothing so extremely ancient. A rough rock-besprinkled hill now attracted me, as I heard it was called another Carn-bréh, and was surmounted by some mound, or ruin: so out of the gig, and up in no time. Clearly it had been an ancient beacon place, as atop are the remains of a small square-built terrace inclosing some upright stones placed irregularly—a sort of huge fireplace. One of the neighbouring rocks presented on its surface a fine specimen of what are called rock basins; but unluckily for the antiquary, this excavation is on the side of the stone, not on the summit; so that it could not possibly hold water, and is clearly caused by some particular moss eating away the stone.—By three o'clock returned to Penzance, had dinner (it was breakfast too), bought a mineral memorial, and in the gig again, over the sands to the outlandishly named Mara Zion, or Market Jew, words probably of similar import. Opposite to this little place, and joined to it by a neck of rocks passable at low-water, stands that picturesque gem, Mount St. Michael. You know the sort of thing; an abrupt, pyramid of craggy rock, crowned with an edifice, half stronghold and half cathedral. It is a home of the St. Aubyn family, and is well kept up in the ancient style, but in rather a small way: a portcullised entrance, old armour hanging in the guard-room, a beautiful dining-hall with carved oak roof, and panels, and chairs; a chapel to match, with stained windows; an elegant Gothic drawing-room, white and gold; and everything, down to black-leather drinking jugs, in character with the feudal stronghold. I mounted the corkscrew tower, and got to the broken stone lantern they call St. Michael's chair; an uncomfortable job, but rewarded by a splendid panorama, gilt by the setting sun: in the chapel too, I descended into a miserable dungeon communicating with a monk's stall, where doubtless some self-immured penitent had wasted life away, only coming to the light for matins, and only relieved from solitary imprisonment by midnight mass. This has been discovered but very lately in repairing the chapel: it was walled up, and contained a skeleton. As a matter of course, this old castle contains a little hidden room, where that ubiquitous vagabond, the royal Charles, laid his hunted head: the poor persecuted debauchee sponged upon all his friends like Bellyserious Buggins. Back again, by water this time, to little Mara Zion, but ever and anon looking with admiration on that beautiful mount; the western rocks are really magnificent, as big as the largest hay-stacks, and tumbled about as loosely as an emptied sugar-basin; some hanging by a corner, and others resting on a casual fragment; I am sure of one logan-stone, if a little impertinent bit of rock were only moved away; and I walked under and between more Titanic architecture than Stonehenge can show: the Druids, for my part, shall have their due, but not where they don't deserve it. At nine, after a substantial fried-fish tea, I mounted the night coach to Falmouth—outside, as there was no room in, and so, through respectable Helstone, remarkable for a florid Gothic arch erected to some modern worthy of the town, to decent Penryn, and then by midnight, to the narrowest of all towns,
