Surrey

and pleasure-boating by stretches, or here and there the turning of a mill. The name has been taken for a little joke of

nousling Mo

erground, till Th

n such banyan-like root here, seems also to have a smack of Saxon origin. The Emlyn is the Mole's old alias, which has been connected with a Celtic word for "mill"; and when we compare the Latin Mola and Molina a more probable origin of the name may be suggested. But

pples and rushes; and as it pushes through the chalk it may give itself up to the freaks of its "swallows"; but in general this "wanton nymph" takes a rather tame career on a flat arena, showing its friskiness chiefly by curving turns, or by cascades too nea

, NEAR EAS

knows what tasks await the end of its holiday independence. In the final mile or two i

s of angling rights; the Mole has even been chained and brought into law courts. In following it upwards, we must often be content to keep near its bed, sometimes only to be stuck to by ordeals upon muddy banks, in thorny gaps, over barbe

of "The Farmer's B

r delic

banks, rom

the left bank of the Mole at its old paper-mills. So far the path may seem not very attractive unless to lovers or philosophers; but beyond the railway it is enlivened by a prospect of the grounds of Esher Place on the farther bank. The gateway of ivied brick, so conspicuous here, is known as "Wolsey's Tower," a sturdy remnant of the Episcopal residence to which that proud Car

"worth following." This was once the seat of a Priory and Hospital, whose brethren were all swept away by the Black Death, and every trace of its buildings has long disappeared. By its enclosure ascends the high-road, pass

Charlotte, whose husband afterwards became the first king of the Belgians. Here ended the eventful life of Louis Philippe. In the Church, that raises its graceful spire beside the cross-road leading up from the river, there is a monument to King Leopold, also a bust of the late Duke of Albany. The old church, by the main road, was disused more than half a century ago; and the graveyard

ar-fetched to connect Sandown with "Donwell Abbey," if one did not know that there is a well of old note beside the racecourse, and that Sandown was originally a priory. Now for more positive marks of identity. "Highbury" is in Surrey, and on a hill. The description of the Donwell grounds (chap, xlii.) exactly fits the banks of the Mole, which lies a Georgian lady's "twenty minutes' walk" below the place. This is introduced as being a large village, almost a small town. The market town (iv.) is Kingston; and Cobham is spoken of as within a walk. It is sixteen miles from London (passim), where Frank Churchill rode to get his hair cut; nine miles from Richmond (xxxvii.); and seven miles from Box Hill (xliii.). The only one of these distances tha

his is a house with a history, even before it became a royal demesne. It was originally built by Si

on him, ea

a heavy lo

ut by "Capability Brown" at enormous expense. Macaulay tells us how Surrey peasants whispered that the wicked lord had the walls made so thick to keep himself from being carried away by the devil; and Clive's unhappy death

a good view over the river's bends. Here the park ends, and one may turn off through the woods to the left, among which lies hidden the Black Pond, a characteristic specimen of Surrey "lochans." About the road and eastward to the direct Guildford line, there opens some two miles breadth of woods and heaths, through which one may stray at will, Esher Common, Abrook Common, Oxshott Heath, and Fair Mile Common, all running int

aud, when one of her maids was drowned in crossing the ford, "for the repose of her soul," which probably implies a chapel at the bridge end, taking toll of Christian charity. To the left-hand side of the road, near the bridge, is Pains Hill Cottage, where Matthew Arnold spent his last years; there is a brass to him in Cobham Church. On the farther bank the road m

OF ESHE

so between the croo

-house, forming a picturesque group by the riverside. The relics of this church are of no small interest, for besides its Vincent and Norbury tombs, it contains what is believed to be the oldest brass in England, to Sir John D'Abernon (1277), and another to his son (1327), with some old glass as well as modern memorial windows. From the station, shared between Cobham and Stoke D'Abernon, or from Oxshott, the next one towards London, we might make for D'Abernon Chase, only one name in a lo

kes another provoking loop to the north. I have nothing to say against the road, a very pleasant one as roads go. But the pedestrian may now take a via media across country by turning down the left bank of the river beside Slyfield, and presently bearing off right across fields, on a mounting path that leads pretty straight into a lane, growing into a

to Guildford, its chief thoroughfare guiding them to the bridge at which stands the old "Running Horse." This is taken to

llers, t

ers, to

good ale

wimming-bath. Leatherhead has fewer signs of antiquity than of prosperity, surrounded as it is by large houses, one of them St. John's School for the sons of the clergy, a former headmaster of which had a son of his own known to novel readers as "Anthony Hope." The two stations are close together o

, crossing the Mole and striking into the path above mentioned as turning off the Guildford road beside the railway. This path takes him near the river for a couple of miles, by the lower edge

pools, after a continuance of dry weather, its current being swallowed up in subterranean recesses, as happens notably in Derbyshire, and most markedly in the Karst region of Austria, taken as the typical stage for this freak performance of nature. An eminent geologist tells us how the chasm which lets the Mole through the Downs is honeycombed beneath by a mixture of broken masses of chalk, interspersed with looser drifts. "

, shown from the railway in a tantalising glimpse. The lofty and leafy bank to the west is one face of Norbury Park, that so well displays its

ny wild forms, and the visitor who stands there towards evening, and peers into that sombre grove, will sometimes yield to the spell which the scene is sure to exercise on imaginative natures-he will half fancy that these ghostly trees are conscious creatures, and that they have marked with mingled pity and scorn the long processions of mankind come and go like the insects of a day, through the centuries during which they have been stretching out their distorted limbs nearer and nearer to each other. Thick fibrous shoots spring out from their trunks, awakening in the memory long-forgotten stories of huge hairy gi

walls and ceiling disguised with fictitious landscape scenes. This paradise is not accessible without permission; but there are rights of way through the park that open some of its sylvan treasures. One, as we have seen, leads above the Mole from Leatherhead. Another from the lodge and bri

-Ranmore, the outskirts of Leith Hill, the woods of Deepdene, Box Hill, and Juniper Hill, among which the river has cleft its way through the ridge of the Downs. Box, juniper, and yew all flourish on the chalk soil; and the lordly parks on these hillsides have fo

turns to the right which would take one through the Fredley meadows, across the Mole, and on to West Humble, where is the Box Hill station of the Brighton line. On a slope near this station is conspicuous the long front of Camilla Lacey, a house that hangs by a tale, for it

F BETCHWORTH,

Revolution found refuge at Juniper H

e exiles; and so, as she could, was Fanny Burney's sister, Mrs. Phillips, then occupying a cottage at Mickleham. Fanny became intimate with her sister's friends, especially with the handsome General D'Arblay, with whom she exchanged lessons in their respective languages; then soon it came to exchanging the speech of the eyes. Dr. Burney was against the engagement from prudential considerations; but he did not play the stern father after the young couple, without his presence, had got marr

ied by the popular poet Charles Mackay, father by adoption of the successful novelist Miss Marie Corelli. Among many illustrious guests of the "Hare and Hounds" at Burford Bridge have been Nelson and Hazlitt; and here Keats finished his Endymion, perhaps getting a hint or two from "thorny-green entanglement of underwood" on Box Hill, when "the good-night blush of eve was waning slow." I am much mistaken if William Black also had not at one time the chance of making copy from such fine scenery. Matthew Arnold spent more than one summer at West Humble, where he mentions the Miss Thackerays as rusticating near him, also Herman Merivale, who "says it is the most enchanting country in England, and I am not sure but he is right"; only this critical poet, though privileged to fish in Wotton Park, is found sig

days when it made a favourite excursion for Epsom Spa visitors and for picnic parties from so far off as Emma's "Highbury." But it is a grandly wooded face under which the river crosses the Holmesdale Valley, on the other side winding round the avenues of Betchworth Park, where stand the so-called castle ruins that represent rather a tumble-down mansion. Above the park it passes by the

s, it comes from the south, draining the wet Wealden clays beyond, where it is fed by more tributaries than there are forks of the Missouri. The main stream passes by Horley, and between the two arms of the Brighton r

, one of them in tradition a haunt of Ben Jonson-Charlwood, with its fine old church, distinguished by a noble screen and decayed frescoes-Newdigate, so "far from the madding crowd"-Capel, that has not so much to show, unless the adjacent station of Ockley, where under the face of Leith Hill we get into oftener sought scenes. All this edge of the county ma