VOLUME 2 - "There is no better way of rediscovering a lost but still not forgotten England than to turn to the colourful pages of William Cobbett's Rural Rides," writes Asa Briggs in the Introduction to this volume.

Already when Cobbett began to write the accounts of his journeys in 1821, the England which he had known as a boy was beginning to look and to feel different. The landscape was changing as a result of the double impact of agricultural enclosure and the growth of towns: society too was changing as a result of the combined influences of industry, finance and war.

To many of Cobbett's contemporaries the changes were good, visible signs of the " march of improvement"; to Cobbett and his followers they were bad, but it still seemed that there was time enough to reverse them. "Events are working together".

Cobbett wrote in 1825, "to make the country worth living in which, for the great body of the people, is at present hardly the case." It was for the sake of discovering the true state of affairs and appealing to others to help promote the proper remedies that Cobbett began to travel round England.

Book Introduction: Besides depending upon the classic authority of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, and the topographical and biographical writings of our earlier Wiltshire antiquary, the only and incomparable John Aubrey, I have drawn freely for information upon the Magazine of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, and upon Wiltshire Notes and Queries.

On Salisbury and the Cathedral there are many books; among the more recent writings on special points I may mention those of the Rev C Wordsworth, Mr Maiden and Mr C Haskins.

The Plain has been adopted of late years as a military training ground. But there is less change, however, than might be thought. The landscape is so large and open that the camps scattered here and there from April to September—and even the permanent settlements are soon lost and forgotten in its immensity.

Preface: This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors to the great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illustrated guide books at a popular price. The aim of each writer has been to produce a work compiled with sufficient knowledge and scholarship to be of value to the student of archaeology and history, and yet not too technical in language for the use of an ordinary visitor or tourist.

From the authors: There is probably no cathedral church in Europe, certainly no other English one, that has such a clear record of its history as Salisbury. Whereas in almost every other instance we have only vague legendary accounts of the original foundation of the building, in this case there is a trustworthy chronicle of its first inception and each successive stage of its progress extant.

Songs Of Lymington Vol 2 by Henry Doman (1820 to 1885).

Book  Introduction: A year or two ago into the world an unpretentious book of song I sent, Much fearing such bold emprise to repent. Some look'd upon't with mighty scorn, and curled disdainful lips, loud wondering what was meant by such presumption.

Some, to mercy bent, suspended judgment, read, and gave it place with nobler volumes.
 

Preface: Whether the following poem will give its author any claim to be considered a child of nature, and to have produced a poem in harmony with truth, beauty and utility, the reader must judge. Both the poet and his poem, therefore, should be children of nature, not of art.

As there are many proofs that Southampton was a place of importance in the earliest times of the Saxons, it must have been a considerable British town before the Romans left this Island, and was perhaps a British town before they attempted its conquest.