from Sir Christopher's own design; and the Library, for it's spaciousness and highly finished Ceiling is esteemed a very magnificent room. The ornamented appendages; the pavilions, hot-houses, green-houses, &c. add to the beauty of the scene; and a lofty arched Gateway erected over the present (and ancient Roman) road to Bridlington, is seen at a great distance, and has a fine effect from every quarter. The pages of history have blazoned the deeds of heroes, who in the career of ambition and conquest have subdued and desolated fruitful provinces; but how much more dignified a character, in the eye of reason, is he, who clothes the land with the beauties of a new creation, converts a barren waste into a fertile region, and diffuses plenty and cheerfulness around him! SECTION II. ROBIN HOOD's BAY, WHITBY, &c. ROBIN HOOD'S TOWN, A SMALL fishing-place thirteen miles north from Scarbo rought, is frequently visited by strangers on account of the Alum-works in it's vicinity. The road to it is stony and uneven, over a dreary moor, and the hill at Stoupe *Executed by Mr. Rose. It's collection, considerably improved by the present possessor, among other valuable works, contains nearly a complete set of the Aldine Classics. ↑ Between Scarborough and Robin Hood's Bay are only two villages, Burniston four miles, and Cloughton five miles, from Scarborough; neither of them, however, contain any thing worthy of notice, except a quarry of freestone at the latter, from which the Castle at Scarbo Lough appears to have been built. brow is impracticable for a carriage. On descending this hill from the moor to the sands at Robin Hood's Bay, the road passes the Alum-works, where the curiosity of the traveller is gratified with a view of these immense mountains of alum-stone, from which the salt is extracted: the inte rior works also are worthy of observation †. The road from the Alum-works to the village of Robin Hood's Bay lies along the beach, close under a steep cliff, 'to which the sea flows as the tide advances, and the passage is unsafe, except there be a spacious area of the sand uncovered by the water, or the tide be receding. The Seacoast Northward from Scarborough is craggy, wild, and terrific, bending inward as far as the River Tees, and by it's winding, forms this Bay nearly a mile in breadth. The sands are firm and level, but the shore at a little distance * About two miles from Robin Hood's Bay, and the highest land on this part of the coast, being 893 feet above the level of the sea. "The Alum-works of this country are of some antiquity. The Mine was first discovered by Sir Thomas Chaloner, (in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,) who, observing the trees tinged with an unusual colour, supposed that it was occasioned by some mineral in the neighbourhood; and he discovered that the strata abounded with an aluminous salt. At that time the English being strangers to the method of managing it, tradition says, that Sir Thomas seduced some workmen from the Pope's Alum-works near Rome, then the greatest in Europe. The first pits were near Guisborough, the seat of the Chaloners', who still flourish there, notwithstanding his Holiness' anathema. The works were so valuable as to be deemed a Royal Mine. Sir Paul Pindar, who rented them, paid annually to the King, 12,500. ;-to the Earl of Mulgrave, 16407.;-to Sir William Pennyman, 6001. He employed eighty workmen, and sold his alum at 261. per ton. But this monopoly was destroyed on the death of Charles I., and the right was restored to the Proprietors. In these Alum-rocks are frequently found cornua ammonis, and other fossils lodged in a stony nodule. Jet is sometimes met with in thin flat pieces, externally of the appearance of wood. According to Solinus, Britain was famous for this fossil," from the Cliff is rocky; and there is only a narrow passage from the sea, where the fishing-boats can land in safety. The village consists of the habitations of fishermen, and once made a grotesque appearance, the houses being strangely scattered over the face of a steep cliff, and some of them hanging in an aweful manner on the projecting ledges of the precipice; but it has lately sustained a great alteration by the falling of the cliff; in consequence of which the projecting houses, and the pavement of the principal street as far as the fronts of the houses on the opposite side, are ruined, and a new road has been made from the landing-place through the interior part of the town. The village derives it's name from the famous outlaw Robin Hood, who lived in the reign of Richard I., and is said to have retired to this place to evade the pursuit of the military parties sent to apprehend him. Upon the adjacent moor are two little hills, a quarter of a mile asunder, called Iris 'Butts,' where he was supposed to have exercised his men to shoot with the long bow. One of them, however, was opened in the year 1771, and was found to contain human bones, a proof that they have been sepulchral. The exploits of this intrepid freebooter, transmitted through successive generations, have frequently amused us in the days of our youth. Stow, the old historian, gives the following account of him. "The said Robert entertained a hundred tall men and good archers, with such spoils and thefts as he got, upon whom four hundred, were they ever so strong, durst not give the onset. He suffered no woman to be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested: poor men's goods he spared, abundantly relieving them with that which he got from rich abbeys and the houses of rich Earls. Maior (the historian) blameth him for his rapine and theft; but of all thieves, he affirmeth him to be the Prince, and the most gentle thief." He resided generally in the southern parts of Yorkshire, or in Nottinghamshire; and the forest of Sherwood was the scene of many of his adventures. During his retreat upou the sea-coast, it is said that he had always in readiness some small vessels either as a refuge in case of pursuit, or for the convenience of fishing in the summer-season when no enemy approached to annoy him. His tomb, as reported, is still to be seen at Kirklees*, on the river Calder, in Yorkshire, with the following epitaph: "Here undernead dis laid stean,` Lick utlaws hi an his men, Vil England niver si agen. Obiit 24. kal. Decembris 1247," WHITBY is indebted for it's origin to an abbey founded there in the year 650. The Saxon name of the place was Streanshalh †, (Sinus Phari,) or the Bay of the Watch-Tower.' It was afterward called Presteby, or the habitation of Priests;' then Hwytby, next Whiteby ; and now Whitby. It was * Near Huddersfield, the seat of Sir George Armytage, Bart. + In the paraphrase of Bede, and the best Latin copies, it is written Streans-halh; and Junius, in his Gothic Glossary, derives it from the Saxon hal or healh, signifying an eminent building. Candidus Vicus, or Oppidum Album, the White Dwelling or Town.' Mr. Charlton seems to have mistaken the etymology, in supposing it White-Bay, from the whiteness of the waves breaking Upon the shore. destroyed by the Danes, about the year 867; and though it revived after the restoration of the convents, yet the Norman conquest and the subsequent disorders of the times reduced it to the lowest condition. At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries it was an inconsiderable fishing town, and Leland at that period says, "the inhabitants were protecting the haven from the violence of the sea, by a pier constructed of stones which were furnished by the fall of an adjacent cliff.” In the year 1540 (according to Charlton's account) the town consisted only of thirty or forty houses, containing not more than two hundred inhabitants. At this period, two or three small trading vessels constituted the whole of the marine belonging to the port; and the use of coal was then so partially introduced, that the principal fuel was decayed wood or turf, procured in the summer-season from the neighbouring moors. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the inhabitants of Whitby were not above threescore families, and Charlton mentions that he was not able to meet with any certain account of either ship or vessel belonging to the port, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, except fishing-boats.' The important discovery of the Alum-Mine in those parts at the close of that reign was the original cause which raised Whitby from it's obscurity, and by opening a channel for commerce enabled the town gradually to attain a degree of maritime importance. During the time of the Commonwealth, the number of inhabitants was nearly two thousand; and the ships belonging to the port were about twenty small vessels, all of them employed in the coasting trade, and navigated by more than a hundred and twenty seamen. Several car'penters also resided in the town, who built sloops and At the brigantines, and boats for the fishing-trade. Restoration in 1660, the population was three thousand, |