the sensitive nerves. There is no club-house, coffee-room, billiard-room,
or theatre, to slip into; and if caught in a shower you must content
yourself with the arcades of Nature, beneath which you enjoy the
unwished-for luxury of a shower bath. Poor Nature is drenched and drowned;
perhaps never better described than by that inveterate bard of Cockaigne,
Captain Morris:

Oh! it settles the stomach when nothing is seen
But an ass on a common, or goose on a green.

We were once overtaken by such weather in a pedestrian tour through the
Isle of Wight, when just then about to leave Niton for a geological
excursion to the Needles. Reader, if you remember, the Sandrock Hotel is
one of the most rural establishments in the island. Think of our being
shut up there for six hours, with a thin duodecimo guide of less than 100
pages, which some mischievous fellow had made incomplete. How often did we
read and re-read every line, and trace every road in the little map. At
length we set off on our return to Newport. The rain partially ceased, and
we were attracted out of the road to Luttrell's Tower, whence we were
compelled to seek shelter in a miserable public-house in a village about
three miles distant. No spare bed, a wretched smoky fire; and hard beer,
and poor cheese, called Isle of Wight rock, were all the accommodation our
host could provide. His parlour was just painted; but half-a-dozen
sectarian books and an ill-toned flute amused us for an hour; then we
again started, in harder rain than ever, for Newport. Compelled to halt
twice, we saw some deplorable scenes of cottage misery, almost enough to
put us out of conceit of rusticity, till after crossing a bleak, dreary
heath, we espied the distant light of Newport. Never had we beheld gas
light with such ecstasy, not even on the first lighting of St. James's
Park. It was the eve of the Cowes' regatta, and the town was full; but our