r-in-law. A brother of this lady, a mariner, lies
buried in Braddan churchyard, and his tombstone bears an epitaph which
Wordsworth indited. The poet spent a summer at Peel, pitching his tent
above what is now called Peveril Terrace. One of my friends tried long
ago to pump up from this sapless soil some memory of Wordsworth, but no
one could remember anything about him. Shelley is another poet of whom
there remains no trace in the Isle of Man. He visited the island early
in 1812, being driven into Douglas harbour by contrary winds on his
voyage from Cumberland to Ireland. He was then almost unknown; Harriet
was still with him, and his head was full of political reforms. The
island was in a state of some turmoil, owing to the unpopularity of
the Athols, who still held manorial rights and the patronage of the
Bishopric. The old Norse Constitution was intact, and the House of Keys
was then a self-elected chamber. It is not wonderful that Shelley made
no impression on Man in 1812, but it is surprising that Man seems to
have made no impression on Shelley. It made a very sensible impression
on Hawthorne, who left his record in the "English Note Book."

MANX PROGRESS

I am partly conscious that throughout these lectures I have kept my face
towards the past. That has been because I have been loth to look at the
present, and almost afraid to peep into the future. The Isle of Man is
not now what it was even five-and-twenty years ago. It has become
too English of late. The change has been sudden. Quite within my own
recollection England seemed so far away that there was something beyond
conception moving and impressive in the effect of it and its people upon
the imagination of the Manx. There were only about two steamers a week
between England and the Isle of Man at that time. Now there are about
two a day. There are lines of railway on this little plot of land, which
you might cross on foot between breakfast and lunch, and cover from
end to end in a good day's walk. This is, of course, a necessity of the
altered conditions, as also, no doubt, are the parades, and esplanades,
and promenades, and iron piers, and marine carriage drives, and Eiffel
Tower, and old castles turned into Vauxhall Gardens, and fairy glens
into "happy day" Roshervilles. God forbid that I should grudge the
factory hand his breath of the sea and glimpse of the gorse-bushes; but
I know what price we are paying that we may entertain him.

Our young Manxman