edly cross its
surface.

'Rydal and Fairfield are there,--
In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead.
So it is, so it will be for aye,
Nature is fresh as of old,
Is lovely, a mortal is dead.'

These reflections, which by themselves would be enough to sink even an
Itinerary, seemed forced upon me by the publication of _A Journey to
Edenborough in Scotland by Joseph Taylor, Late of the Inner Temple,
Esquire_. This journey was made two hundred years ago in the Long
Vacation of 1705, but has just been printed from the original
manuscript, under the editorship of Mr. William Cowan, by the
well-known Edinburgh bookseller, Mr. Brown, of Princes Street, to whom
all lovers of things Scottish already owe much.

Nobody can hope to be less known than this our latest Itinerist, for
not only is he not in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, but it
is at present impossible to say which of two Joseph Taylors he was.
The House of the Winged Horse has ever had Taylors on its roll, the
sign of the Middle Temple, a very fleecy sheep, being perhaps
unattractive to the clan, and in 1705 it so happened that not only
were there two Taylors, but two Joseph Taylors, entitled to write
themselves 'of the Inner Temple, Esquire.' Which was the Itinerist?
Mr. Cowan, going by age, thinks that the Itinerist can hardly have
been the Joseph Taylor who was admitted to the Inn in 1663, as in that
case he must have been at least fifty-eight when he travelled to
Edinburgh. For my part, I see nothing in the _Itinerary_ to preclude
the possibility of its author having attained that age at the date of
its composition. I observe in the _Itinerary_ references which point
to the Itinerist being a Kentish man, and he mentions more than once
his 'Cousin D'aeth.' Research among the papers of the D'aeths of
Knowlton Court, near Dover, might result in the discovery which of
these two Taylors really was the Itinerist. As nothing else is at
present known about either, the investigation could probably be made
without passion or party or even religious bias. It might be
best begun by Mr. Cowan telling us in whose custody he found the
manuscript, and how it came there. These statements should always
be made when old manuscripts are first printed.

The journey began on August 2, 1705. The party consisted of Mr. Taylor
and his two friends, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Sloman. They travelled on
horseback, and often had difficult