"
As we left the town I saw the Wrekin, a round, pointed hill of regular
shape, and remembered the old toast, "To all friends round the Wrekin!"
As we approached Birmingham, the country began to look somewhat
Brummagemish, with its manufacturing chimneys, and pennons of flame
quivering out of their tops; its forges, and great heaps of mineral
refuse; its smokiness and other ugly symptoms. Of Birmingham itself we
saw little or nothing, except the mean and new brick lodging-houses, on
the outskirts of the town. Passing through Warwick, we had a glimpse of
the castle,--an ivied wall and two turrets, rising out of imbosoming
foliage; one's very idea of an old castle. We reached Leamington at a
little past six, and drove to the Clarendon Hotel,--a very spacious and
stately house, by far the most splendid hotel I have yet seen in England.
The landlady, a courteous old lady in black, showed my wife our rooms,
and we established ourselves in an immensely large and lofty parlor, with
red curtains and ponderous furniture, perhaps a very little out of date.
The waiter brought me the book of arrivals, containing the names of all
visitors for from three to five years back. During two years I estimated
that there had been about three hundred and fifty persons only, and while
we were there, I saw nobody but ourselves to support the great hotel.
Among the names were those of princes, earls, countesses, and baronets;
and when the people of the house heard from R-----'s nurse that I too was
a man of office, and held the title of Honorable in my own country, they
greatly regretted that I entered myself as plain "Mister" in the book.
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