THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
.LXXL—CENTRAL ENGLAND :-NORTHAMPTONSHIRE AND WAR- WICKSHIRE.-GEOGRAPITY.
WE now come to what may in more than one sense be called the heart of England, the two most central of the Midland .Counties, and those which still express more distinctly perhaps than any other counties the characteristics of those Saxon and Danish races, the amalgamation of which made those English whom Shakespeare loved to portray, alike in their healthy honesty .of purpose and sturdy perseverance, and in their somewhat gro- tesque simplicity of mind and monotony of occupation. The _great nest of mechanical industry which now somewhat disturbs the associations connected with Shakespeare's country has really -sprung up in the midst of it, without overlaying its older fea- tures, and there is still much within the limits of Warwick- shire which recalls rather the memories of the forest of Arden or of Goodman Dull, than of the busy workshops and forges of Birmingham and the artisan life of the nineteenth century. The topographers of Northamptonshire, too,—John Dryden's county, the land of "squires and spires,"—tell us with pride that "its tongue is singularly pure ;" that Fuller says of it, "the language of the common people is generally the best of any shire in Eng- land," giving as a proof that a hard-labouring man of this county, though acknowledging words above his comprehension in the -metrical Psalms of that (the Stuart) period, assured him that the last translation of the Bible agreed perfectly with the common speech of this county ; that nowhere in this the nineteenth) century "will an educated stranger have so little difficulty in understanding and being understood, and this not only from the purity of pronunciation (so much the more remarkable from the broad provincialisms of Leicestershire and Buckinghamshire on either side), but from the local words being so apt and expressive that even when unfamiliar the sound at once suggests the sense ;" and that no county in the present day exhibits a healthier and happier proportion and amalgamation of classes ; nowhere are there fewer lines of social demarcation, and nowhere,
politics notwithstanding, a more general feeling of cordial good- will among all parties and classes ; that there are no overpowering proprietors, few non-resident landlords, the farms of a moderate size," an intermediate class of yeomen proprietors, little strict game-preserving, and a manufacturing and trading interest great enough to be very sensible, but not overpowering. Such are the counties of our two essentially English poets, and in them we seem to recognize something of the sturdy independence and stolid con- tentment of the Saxon harmoniously blended with the more enter- prising genius and simple innate courtesy of the Scandinavian.
Northamptonshire consists of a long and narrow strip of territory, stretching from north-east to south-west for 66 miles, and with a greatest breadth at right angles to its length of 26 miles, the average breadth, however, being hardly as much as 16 miles. Its area is 1,016 square miles ; its population in 1851 was 212,380, and in 1861, 227,704. Leaving the neighbourhood of Lincoln- shire and Huntingdonshire at Crowland and Peterborough, it forms a long barrier between the former of these counties, Rutland, Leicestershire, and Warwickshire on- the north- west, and Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire on the south-east, while its south-western extremity fits as in a sort of socket into the county of Oxford, near Ded- dington. Its greatest breadth is measured by a line passing from the meeting of the frontiers of Leicestershire and Warwick- shire on the north-west to Stony Stratford in the centre of the Buckinghamshire frontier on the south-east.
Warwickshire, in shape something like an irregular diamond or double triangle, has a greatest length of 50 miles, and a greatest breadth of 33 miles, with an area of 881 square miles, or 563,946 acres, and a population in 1851 of 475,013; and in 1861, of 561,855. It is bounded on the north, for a very small space, by Derbyshire, and on the north-east by Leicestershire, which forms with Staffordshire on the north-west the northern angle of the county ; Northamptonshire on the east forms the socket of the eastern angle ; Oxfordshire on the south-east and Gloucestershire on the south-west form the southern angle of the county, while the western angle or rather shoulder is enclosed by Worcestershire on the west. There is, therefore, a certain symmetry in the disposition of the neighbouring counties relatively to Warwickshire, which may have given to its population a many-sided, but well balanced and broad English character.
The surfaces of the two counties are not very dissimilar, and perhaps originally resembled each other in general appearance very much more than they do at present. Neither of them have any very high hills, but each presents a gently undulating surface. Horace Walpole speaks of the dumpling hills of Northaraptonehire In this latter county the original forest character has nearly disap- peared, and the plough, which to so great an extent displaced the ash tree (still, however,the staple timber of Northamptonshire), has in its turn given place to the grazing ground. Warwickshire, on the contrary, though there is a great extent of pasture land, is still very well timbered, there being woods and coppices on every estate of any extent, besides hedge-row trees, in form unusually beautiful and luxuriant, though the advancing spirit of high farming is beginning to strip the county of this natural ornament. The oak here predominates, as the ash in Northamptonshire.
In Northamptonshire "a nearly continuous range of heights runs just within the northern boundary, commencing near Ded- dington, and running in a south-western direction to the neighbour- hood of Watford, where it turns more to the south, and meets at Woodford another range that crosses the southern division of the county to the north of Towcester. At a short distance east of Woodford, a chain of hills runs nearly due south from the range north of Towcester, the most southern part of the county. The highest land is about Daventry, where Arbury Hill rises to the height of 804 feet above the level of the sea. The general eleva- tion is about 300 feet above the sea level. The north-eastern extremity of the county, near Peterborough, belongs to the great Fen district, and is only a few feet above the level of the sea." The eastern border of the county is occupied by the Oxford clay, the north and central parts and the south - eastern border by the oolites. At the base of the oolite formation, "all along the line of railway from Peter- borough to Towcester, an important bed of ironstone has been discovered. The western border of the county, and one or two villages penetrating into the interior, are occupied by the lias. Limestone is obtained in great plenty in almost all parts of the county." Attempts have been made to discover coal in the face of the geologists' decided judgment, but they have proved miserable failures, and have entailed considerable loss on the small people who were induced to embark their little savings in the specula-
lion. Northamptonshire is "singular in having no rivers but what are natives. Independent of all other counties, it distri- butes its own systems in every direction from the two great watersheds, one lying between Brackley and Banbury, whence flow the Cherwell, the Ouse, and the Learn; while from Naseby height, the Nene, the Welland, and the Avon flow in opposite directions into the Wash and the Bristol Channel." The length of the Nene in this county and in the border is about Sixty miles. It becomes navigable at Northampton, and for some distance it separates the county from Huntingdonshire. The Grand Junction and Union Canals also traverse this county.
The whole county of Warwickshire is "occupied by gentle eminences, with intervening vales. The south-eastern border is skirted by hills, composed of the lower formations of the oolite series, overlooking the valley of the Stour, and the 'Vale of Red Horse,' so called from a colossal figure of a horse, carved in the ferruginous sands of the slope of Edge Hill, now obliterated by the progress of enclosures, and replaced by one of much smaller dimen- sions. Of these oolite hills the chief portion consists of two ridges, separated from each other by a narrow valley drained by a small brook which joins the Cherwell near Banbury. The northernmost ridge runs from north-west to south-east, dividing the valley just mentioned from a parallel valley, drained by another small feeder of the Cherwell, and through which the Oxford Canal passes. The other ridge consists of two parts or branches meeting at Knowle Mill; one part runs parallel to that just described, and overlooks the valley between them ; the other is nearly at right angles to the former, and runs southward, overlooking the valley of the Stour. The latter part of the ridge is known in one part as Edge Hill, and consists of an elevated platform, with a steep escarpment," and a wide view over Warwickshire and Worcestershire. "The southern prolongation of Edge llill consists of detached summits." Brailes Hill is detached from the principal chain of hills, and is more advanced into the valley of the Stour ; it has two rather high summits. The valley of the Stour and the Vale of Red Horse are occupied by the beds of the has formation. The has forms towards the north-western limit a range of high ground, at the foot of which the formations of the red-marl and new red-sand- stone group crop out, and occupy the valley of the Avon nearly as far as Rugby. The has forms the cap of several hills north-west of the Avon, between Stratford, Alcester, Warwick, and Henley- in-Arden. The marlstone of the lies beds is quarried between Strat- ford and Alcester. The rest of the county forms part of the Great Midland red-marl, and new red-sand-stone district." "There is a range of high ground in Feckenham Forest, west of Alcester, along which the Ridgeway runs ; another forms a semicircle north of Henley-in-Arden, enclosing the valley drained by the Alne." A third range passes across the northern part of the county in a crescent, and a fourth runs northward from the lies-capped hills near Warwick to Whitacre, where it unites with the third range. A range of hills also runs eastward from Leamington-Priors, to the borders of the county, separating the valleys of the Learn and the Avon.
There is one coalfield in Warwickshire, sixteen miles in extent. The principal coal works are at Grill and Bedworth, in the southern part of the field, between Nuneaton and Coventry. There is a great deficiency in rive). navigation in Warwickshire, it being limited to a small part of the course of the Avon below Stratford ; but this is compensated for by the number and extent of its canals. The greater part of the county belongs to the basin of the Severn, a considerable portion iu the north to that of the Trent, and a small portion in the south-east to that of the Thames. The drainage of the county is conveyed into the Severn by the Upper Avon, which, as we have seen, rises at Naseby, and enters Warwickshire about twelve miles from its source ; and after a course through the county of about fifty-seven miles, quits it just above Harvington Mill. The Lam rises near Shuckburgh Park, and flows in a very winding channel into the Avon just above Warwick. The Sow rises five or six miles north of Coventry, and flows into the Avon in Stoneleigh Park. There are also the Swift, Stour, the Avon, the Dene, the Abu', &c., belonging to this river system. Of the Trent system, the Tame enters Warwickshire above Aston, near Birmingham, and quits it at Tamworth. To this system belong also the Bourne, the Blyth, and the Ankur.
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