meals are provided with food at home, the others take their shares at a common table, and some few reside in the poor-house altogether. The whole number receiving daily aid are about 100 persons.

The Lancastrian school has also been an essential public benefit, and a very visible improvement has taken place in the children of the poor since its institution. Establishments of the same kind, but on a smaller scale, have been set on foot in Ramsay and Castletown, from whence it may be hoped, that the blessings of education, which not many years since were unattainable even by the higher ranks in the island, will now be extended to the lowest. The last public buildings which I have to notice are the hot and cold salt water baths, these, which are not yet quite finished, will be of inestimable utility to valetudinarians, and no doubt tend to increase the resort of visitors from the opposite coasts during the bathing season.

The post office for the island is in Douglas, where all letters are brought from Whitehaven, and thence forwarded to the other towns. The packet sails from England, wind and weather permitting, every Monday night, and after a stay of three days is again due for the opposite

coast.

The lodging-houses are very numerous in this

town, but there are few inns, and only two of any pretensions; in these the accommodations are good, and the difference between their charges and those made at English hotels is so great, that it induces many persons to give a preference to Douglas, for a temporary visit during the summer, especially as the sands are well adapted for bathing, and proper machines in waiting. The markets are abundantly supplied; but for a scale of prices, &c. I shall reserve a page at the conclusion of the work.

The Duke of Athol's house or castle, as it is the first object which strikes the eye of the traveller, and the most considerable for magnitude in the island, must not be passed over with the slight notice already taken of it. It is an erection faced with free-stone, on a plan so extraordinary, that it has puzzled persons, much better skilled in architecture than I pretend to be, to decide what class it belongs to. The mansion is a perfect square; on a line with the back front extends a string of offices, forming one wing under a colonnade, and thereby giving an air of deformity to the whole. The principal front recedes a little in the centre, for no reason but to countenance the erection of a modern balcony with a light iron railing, to contrast the gothic columns running up in the other parts of the

building. The windows are much too narrow, and the grand saloon, which is of magnificent dimensions, is completely spoiled by a row of small lights, like the windows of an attic story, passing over the cornice and principal sashes; besides all, the eye is offended by a line of battlements, above which rises a pointed and slated roof, giving a direct contradiction to the armed pretensions of the front; nor is this the worst error in judgment, for, amidst an assemblage of chimnies, ròofs, cornices, and carved work, springs up a round Gothic tower, with long sash windows between the loop-holes, the only visible use of which strange excrescence, is to sustain a flag-staff, whence the colours are occasionally displayed.

The domain around the mansion is on a scale of littleness exciting continual astonishment, since there could be no cause why the lord of the whole island should fix on a spot so circumscribed, that the dwelling appears completely crowded under the hill, or rather gives an idea of having slid down in some violent concussion of the earth.

The terraces, walks, and gardens, would hardly suffice to exercise the taste of a citizen, who had to plan out his parterre and paddock for a country-box at Islington, and the whole is

so much elbowed and incommoded by neighbouring villas and cottages, that it can be compared to nothing more appropriate, than the noble owner himself, descending from his elevated station as lord of Man, and submitting to jostle and associate as deputy with those officers over whom he ought to have held sovereign sway. The cost of this building, with all its defects, is said to have been upwards of £50,000.; a large sum to expend on a mere monument over departed greatness.

CHAP. X.

Tour continued-Castletown-Derby HavenThe Calf-Peel Town and Castle-Ramsay Lazey, and the Road returning to Douglas again.

FROM Douglas to Castletown, which is the regular route, the distance is ten miles, the road lies past the seat of Major Tabbman, called the Nunnery, from the ancient structure formerly occupying the same site; but of which not a vestige remains, except a gateway still supporting the old bell, but now forming an entrance to the stables. The gardens and grounds have some beautiful features, for many years the whole has been without a rival, and travellers, finding nothing else to admire, have lavished more praise than it deserves on this spot, which certainly has many advantages in point of situa