He that has seen Dovedale has no need to visit the Highlands.

In the afternoon we visited old Mrs. Dale.

JULY 17.

Sunday morning, at church.

Afternoon, at Mr. Diot’s.

JULY 18.

Dined at Mr. Gell’s[1176].

JULY 19.

We went to Kedleston[1177] to see Lord Scarsdale’s new house, which is very costly, but ill contrived.  The hall is very stately, lighted by three skylights; it has two rows of marble pillars, dug, as I hear from Langley, in a quarry of Northamptonshire; the pillars are very large and massy, and take up too much room; they were better away.  Behind the hall is a circular saloon, useless, and therefore ill contrived.

The corridors that join the wings to the body are mere passages through segments of circles.  The state bed-chamber was very richly furnished.  The dining parlour was more splendid with gilt plate than any that I have seen.  There were many pictures.  The grandeur was all below.  The bedchambers were small, low, dark, and fitter for a prison than a house of splendour.  The kitchen has an opening into the gallery, by which its heat and its fumes are dispersed over the house.  There seemed in the whole more cost than judgment.

We went then to the silk mill at Derby[1178], where I remarked a particular manner of propagating motion from a horizontal to a vertical wheel.

We were desired to leave the men only two shillings.  Mr. Thrale’s bill at the inn for dinner was eighteen shillings and tenpence.

At night I went to Mr. Langley’s, Mrs. Wood’s, Captain Astle, &c.

JULY 20.

We left Ashbourn and went to Buxton, thence to Pool’s Hole, which is narrow at first, but then rises into a high arch; but is so obstructed with crags, that it is difficult to walk in it.  There are two ways to the end, which is, they say, six hundred and fifty yards from the mouth.  They take passengers up the higher way, and bring them back the lower.  The higher way was so difficult and dangerous, that, having tried it, I desisted.  I found no level part.

At night we came to Macclesfield, a very large town in Cheshire, little known.  It has a silk mill:  it has a handsome church, which, however, is but a chapel, for the town belongs to some parish of another name[1179], as Stourbridge lately did to Old Swinford.

Macclesfield has a town-hall, and is, I suppose, a corporate town.

JULY 21.

We came to Congleton, where there is likewise a silk mill.  Then to Middlewich, a mean old town, without any manufacture, but, I think, a Corporation.  Thence we proceeded to Namptwich, an old town:  from the inn, I saw scarcely any but black timber houses.  I tasted the brine water, which contains much more salt than the sea water.  By slow evaporation, they make large crystals of salt; by quick boiling, small granulations.  It seemed to have no other preparation.