the King's statue at Budmouth. Close at hand is the Ridgeway, the place where the Overcombe folk waited all night to see the King arrive; and where the opening scene of the first act of The Dynasts is laid. Adjoining the Ridgeway is Bincombe Down, with its steep, grass-covered sides rising sheer from the straggling village below. Mr. Hardy writes: "The eye of any observer who cared for such things swept over the wave-washed town (Weymouth) and the bay beyond, and the Isle, with its pebble bank, lying on the sea to the left of these, like a great crouching animal tethered to the mainland".

On this hill the soldiers were encamped in readiness to repel Napoleon's threatened invasion, and here came the Mill party in the Trumpet-Major, to see the review, and to overhear the exclamations of the excited rustics: "There's King Jarge!" "That's Queen Sharlett!" "Princess Sophiar and Mellyer!" In the Melancholy Hussar Blagdon is depicted as the spot whereon Tina and Christoph were shot as deserters.

From Upwey a fine walk along the Waddon Valley, the scene of The Lacking Sense; past Corton Church, with its pre-Reformation stone altar, and the Jacobean farmhouse of Waddon; and through the charming hamlet of Coryates, leads to Portisham, or Po'sham, one of the most interesting of the villages that lie at the back of the Chesil Beach. On the outskirts of the village a little stone-roofed house, almost covered with creepers, was the home of Thomas Masterman Hardy, the Flag-captain of the Victory, in whose arms Nelson died. The house is still occupied by the descendants of the gallant seaman, one of three Dorset captains at Trafalgar, and many relics of their famous ancestor are preserved within the dwelling. It was to this house that Bob Loveday came to visit Captain Hardy when he thought of joining the crew of the Victory.

High above the village, on Blackdown or Blagdon Hill, stands the Hardy Monument that forms a conspicuous land- and sea-mark for many miles around.

Portisham is one of the most charming of Dorset's villages; the church having many points of interest that include a leaden roof and a very good tower; while grouped around it are old-fashioned thatched cottages, and ancient Tudor houses with the heavy dripstones and massive mullions so characteristic of their era. Portisham was the birthplace of Sir Andrew Riccard, "President of the East India and Turkey Companies". He left an only daughter, who became successively the wife of Lord Kensington and Lord Berkeley of Stratton.

WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND

Just beyond Portisham is Abbotsbury, where are some considerable remains of a monastic building founded originally, circa 1044, for secular canons, and converted, in later days, into a noble Benedictine Abbey, of which the tithe barn, a very beautiful example, still exists. The little chapel perched on the summit of St. Catherine's Hill is an architectural gem of the Perpendicular period, and one that should not be missed by anyone with antiquarian tastes. The village church is also a good piece of building, with a curious representation of the Trinity let into the wall of the tower, and a fine Jacobean pulpit. While here, a visit should be paid to Lord Ilchester's famous Swannery and Decoy.

As we are now a good deal out of the direct-road route from Dorchester to Weymouth, the visitor may be advised to take the rail motor from Abbotsbury to the maritime town, especially as, after passing through the Waddon Vale, the road leading thither is bare, treeless, and devoid of interest.

Weymouth has been described a thousand times, and it is not unworthy of it, lying as it does in a long curve with the whole town visible from the sea. It is artistically placed, and is a brilliant if somewhat old-fashioned jewel set amid a sea of amethyst and turquoise. Modern Weymouth is made up of two distinct boroughs, Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, which were united by Queen Elizabeth. It is a town whose beginnings are lost in obscurity, although its early history is not of a very engrossing kind. After passing through various phases of fortune and misfortune, with a preponderance of the latter, the place was nothing but a decayed seaport until George III and his Court, coming here to reside in the closing years of the eighteenth century, instilled new life into the town, which has retained, despite the modern builder, considerable architectural remains of this period of its greatest prosperity. The shops have unfortunately been modernized, but the greater number of the old Georgian rows of dwelling houses are intact. Gloucester Lodge, now the Gloucester Hotel, was the royal residence, before which "a picket of a thousand men mounted guard every day". Queen Charlotte's Second Keeper of the Robes was Fanny Burney, who, in her Diary, has left us a very interesting account of the Court life at Weymouth.

With the exception of Casterbridge, Budmouth figures more frequently in the Wessex novels than any other place, and is especially prominent in The Trumpet-Major. By the statue of King George, "wonderfully and fearfully made", Dick Dewy met Fancy Day; and the bridge over the harbour is mentioned in the Well-Beloved. Bob Loveday was familiar with its harbour, and his brother John knew its barracks; and here Anne Garland studied the latest fashions. It was on the esplanade that Festus Derriman cut "a fine figure of a soldier", and here Jocelyn Pierston was staying when he met with two incarnations of the Well-Beloved. In The Dynasts, the interview between King George and Pitt takes place at Gloucester Lodge, and in the Old Rooms Inn across the harbour the Battle of Trafalgar was discussed.

Some four miles to the south of Weymouth lies the "Isle of Slingers" (Portland), the pleasantest way to reach which is by one of the numerous steamers that make the trip. Entering an opening in the great breakwater that encloses the mighty roadstead of Portland, the visitor will notice the ruins of an old castle that stand on the edge of a sandy and rapidly disappearing cliff. This is all that is left of Sandsfoot Castle, built in the time of Henry VIII, and the "right goodlie Castel" of Leland's day. This was the place appointed by Pierston for his farewell to Avice. Our little craft threads her way quickly through the mighty battleships and cruisers that lie securely within this murally enclosed basin of sea, and we glide into the little harbour at the base of the mighty rock. The first aspect of the place, owing partly to the absence of trees, is stern and rather uninviting, but, for those who know it, the rocky mass of Portland has many attractions. From the high land a fine view is obtained of the Chesil Beach, that extraordinary bank of pebbles that connects the "island" with the mainland at Abbotsbury, ten miles away. Farther west is Bridport, the "Port Bredy" of the novels, and a pleasantly situated town, whose marine suburb of West Bay contains a useful little harbour wherein vessels of a small tonnage can enter at high tides. Six miles to the north of Bridport is Beaminster (Emminster), the home of Angel Clare, whither Tess made her way in the hope of obtaining news of her husband.

Interesting as is the rock of Portland as seen from the Bill or from the sandy little cove of Church Ope, the seaward faces of the promontory are best observed from the deck of a boat, when all the elements that go usually to form a picture on a level surface are here raised nearly to the perpendicular, and, by reflecting the sun's rays at a slight angle, produce effects as violent in their nature as they are startling in their novelty of colour. In The Souls of the Slain, the Bill or Beal of Portland is well described: