Leamington, long without direct railway communication, is now wrapped up between the broad-gauge and the narrow-gauge, like a hare in a bottle-spit.  The opening of the line to Rugby affords a new short way to London.  The population will henceforward increase at the expense of its gentility, but the police and sanitary arrangements before alluded to, will always make Leamington a favourite with invalids, hypochondriacs, and flaneurs.

The multiplicity of these railroads compels us to abandon the plan of describing, as we pass, the more celebrated towns, mansions, or castles, because it would be impossible to follow out such a zig-zag of topography.  It is better to take it for granted that the traveller will stop at certain places, and from them make excursions to everything worth seeing in the neighbourhood.

In this manner, as Birmingham gave occasion for an examination into the leading manufactures, we presume that Leamington will be the best central encampment for a survey of everything within a circle of ten miles interesting to the Antiquarian, the Historian, the Artist, the Poet, the Agriculturist, and the happy beings who have a taste for all these pursuits.

The number of interesting places within an easy walk or drive of Leamington, forms one of its great advantages as a watering place.

Either on foot or in a carriage (and Leamington is extremely well provided with carriages for hire), Warwick Castle, or Stratford-on-Avon, or Guy’s Cliff, and Kenilworth, or Stoneleigh Abbey, may be visited in the course of a day, or part of a day.

The detailed beauties of these places will be found fully set forth in county histories and local guides.  A brief reference, sufficient to enable a traveller to make up a plan of campaign, will be all we shall attempt.

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Stoneleigh Abbey, the residence of Lord Leigh, is noticeable for its fine woodland scenery,—­splendid oaks adorn the Park, and as having been the subject of a series of very extraordinary trials at the suit of claimants of the estate and ancient title.  The true heirs of this estate have never been discovered; many claimants have successively appeared, and endeavoured to prop up their claims by extraordinary fabrications of evidence.  For instance, a certain tombstone, bearing inscriptions of great importance, was not only described and sworn to by a cloud of witnesses, as having been at a certain year in Stoneleigh Church, but other witnesses, with equal circumstantiality, related how, on a particular occasion, this said tombstone was taken down and destroyed.  And yet, it was clearly proved before the House of Lords that no such tombstone ever existed.

The present family are now secure in the estates under the Statute of Limitations, but the late Peer, up to a short period before the old title was revived in his favour, occupied Stoneleigh as a trustee, as it were, for want of a better claimant.