ieal interests defend. He must soon quit his hold of present things; he must soon enter another world; the grand question, therefore is, Does any thing present itself like footing in the abyss before him? Can a floating atom adhere to any thing like substance? I see one ground of hope only on which I can venture. Like the dove, therefore, which "went to and fro, but found no rest for her foot till she returned to the ark," so, after trying other means of rest, I am reduced from necessity to flee to that only rest and refuge set before me in the gospel.-Cecil. Poetry. TO OLWEN. ON HER FIRST BIRTHDAY. (For the Church of England Magazine.) THOU hast a beauty on thy fairy brow, O, may that love's warm prayer thro' future years And worship him from whom all blessings flow ! So shalt thou find in after years, when fast Thy God shall comfort and remember thee. M. C. L. "Thou crownest the year with thy goodness."-PSALM LXV. 11. (For the Church of England Magazine.) GREAT is our God, and merciful : His every work his power displays; The earth is of his goodness full; The seasons celebrate his praise. O, bow ye lowly at his feet, And come into his courts with fear : Our God is good, as he is great, And with his goodness crowns the year. The seasons in their turn display His wisdom and his power divine; They all confess his sovereign sway, And in them does his goodness shine. When in the summer's heat we faint, Our Shepherd and our God is near: He never lets his creatures want, But with his goodness crowns the year. The flocks upon a thousand hills Are his, and own his tender care: He does with them whate'er he wills, And all things here his love declare. Each budding tree, each opening flower, Who crowns with goodness all the year. He sends the plenteous shower from heaven: And wash it with repentant tear; Birmingham. HYMN. (For the Church of England Magazine.) Let the heathen honour thee, Let us not be overcome; Till we reach our heavenly home. When we tread the gloomy valley, And approach our journey's end, Though a thousand foes should rally, O protect us, and defend. When we pass death's dark, cold river, Let thy brightness round us beam: In that hour of dread, deliver; Guide us through the swelling stream. Let us, in thy strength confiding, Safely gain the heavenly shore, Where, in joy and peace abiding, We shall praise thee evermore: There no sickness comes, and never There is pain or sorrow known; There we'll praise thy name for ever, Who hast marked us for thine own. Birmingham. THE HOLY INNOCENTS. F. B. F. B. BY THE REV. FRANCIS SKURRAY, B.D., Rector of Winterbourne, Dorset; and Perpetual Curate of Horningsham, Wilts. (For the Church of England Magazine.) HAIL! ye first flow'rets of the Christian year; Hail, smiling babes, whom jealous Herod slew; Some ere your cheeks were moisten'd with a tear, As buds are pluck'd ere they distil with dew. Sweet innocents! to grace the martyr's death, Like paschal lambs, to slaughter ye were driven. See how the victims, ere they yield their breath, Play with the crowns dropp'd down to them from heaven. Their spirits passed away as in a dream : They had been wash'd, but not in Jordan's flood, Nor any other purifying stream, But in the fountain of a Saviour's blood. Where angels stand to sentinel the way; Of glory, radiant with eternal day. Awhile they rest-the unbarr'd portals fly, Through which the rebel angels erst were driven; And, as they penetrate the upper sky, They catch the sounds of minstrelsy from heaven. Miscellaneous. THE HIERARCHY.-The bishoprics of England and Wales were instituted according to the following order of time, viz.: London, an archbishopric and metropolitan of England, founded by Lucius, the first Christian king of Britain, A.D. 185; Llandaff, 185; Bangor, 516; St. David's, 519. The archbishopric of Wales from 550 to 1100, when the bishop submitted to the archbishop of Canterbury as his metropolitan; St. Asaph, 547; St. Augustine (or St. Austin) made Canterbury the metropolitan archbishopric by order of pope Gregory, 596; Wells, 604; Rochester, 634; Winchester, 650; Lichfield and Coventry, 656; Worcester, 679; Hereford, 680; Durham, 691; Sodor and Man, 898; Exeter, 1050; Sherborne (changed to Salisbury), 1056; York (archbishopric), 1067; Dorchester (changed to Lincoln), 1070; Chichester, 1071; Thetford (changed to Norwich), 1088; Bath and Wells, 1088; Ely, 1109; Carlisle, 1123. The following six were founded upon the suppression of monasteries by Henry VIII. :Chester, Peterborough, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, erected. It is long since the murderer's bones disappeared; but their place is now supplied by a substantial wooden effigy, which gives promise of greater durability, though the legs have already been knocked off by the shepherd lads and others, who occasionally This amuse themselves in pelting it with stones. man belonged to a family which was one of the worst of a bad gang of" faws," itinerant tinkers, who formerly infested this part of Northumberland in considerable numbers, robbing and threatening the small farmers who would not allow them to lodge in their out-houses, and who did not, either in provisions or money, pay them a kind of" black mail." Winter is described, by the country people who remember him, as a tall, powerful man, of dark complexion, wearing his long black hair hanging about his shoulders, and of a most savage countenance. The appearance of this ruffian in a small village was a signal for the inhabitants to close their doors; while he, as if proud of the terror which he inspired, would keep walking back and forward, with his arms a-kimbo, on the green. Old Margaret Crozier, his victim, kept a small shop, and was well known to the two girls, Winter's accomplices; and they, believing that she was possessed of a small hoard of money, are supposed to have first prompted him to rob her. The evidence upon which they were convicted was wholly circumstantial; and the principal witness against Winter was a shepherd lad. In passing over Whiskershields common, on the day before the murder, they sat down to eat their dinner beside this lad, who took particular notice of a long knife, or gully," with which Winter cut the fat mutton that he was 66 eating; and, as he lay on the grass, he also particularly noticed and counted some large nails which were in Winter's shoes. When the old woman was found murdered, Winter and his female associates were apprehended on suspicion, and the lad recognised them as the persons who had sat down beside him on the common. He also identified the gully, which was found in Winter's possession, stained with blood, as that which he had used to cut his meat. He also described the form, and mentioned the number, of the nails in Winter's shoes; and, on comparing them with the marks of a man's footsteps near the old woman's house, they were found to correspond. Attempts were made by some of Winter's companions to induce the lad to prevaricate in giving evidence on the trial, but without effect. As his life was afterwards threa tened, he gave up his occupation as shepherd, and entered the service of the late Walter Trevelyan, esq., of Nether Witton, an active magistrate, who was un and Westminster, 1538. Westminster was united to London in 1550. The bishopric of Ripon was insti-remitting in his exertions to clear the county of the tuted in 1836. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.*-On Whiskershields common, about two miles south-east of Elsdon, in Northumberland, and on the right-hand side of the road in going to Newcastle, there stands a gibbet, on which the body of a man, called William Winter, was hung in chains. He was convicted and executed at Newcastle, in August, 1792, together with two female accomplices, for the murder of an old woman, named Margaret Crozier, who dwelt about two miles to the north of where the gibbet is From "Rambles in Northumberland, &c." Chapman and Hall. lawless vagabonds by whom it was formerly infested. The parish of Elsdon is one of the largest, and, according to its extent, one of the least populous in Eugland. Its length, extending to the Scottish border, is twenty-one miles, and its mean breadth about five. It contains nearly a hundred thousand square acres, and the number of the inhabitants does not exceed two thousand. London: Published for the Proprietors, by EDWARDS and HUGHES, 12, Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; J. BURNS, 17, Portman Street; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country. PRINTED BY JOSEPH ROGERSON, 24, NORFOLK-STREET, STRAND, LONDON. ANCIENT MONUMENTS IN COUNTRY CHURCHES*. No. I. "Return'd to lie, The vow performed, in cross-legged effigy Devoutly stretched upon the chancel floor." THERE are few, very few, of the venerable cour.try churches, the modest towers and turrets of which spring above the landscape at every turn of the road in our native land; few, I say, of these exist, which do not contain some memorials of the illustrious dead, who by their pious devotion and princely munificence helped to rear these, in many cases, beauteous piles, and which do not still call to remembrance, by the cross-legged effigies contained in them, the iron-clad and lion-hearted possessors of our now peaceful isle. Wonderingly does the peasant gaze on their stony and stern visages; while the younger part of the community We trust that our correspondent will pardon our dividing his paper, and adding a few illustrative notes.-ED. VOL. XVII. tremble with youthful fears at their grim appear ance; though some, of more dauntless disposi tion mount upon and help, by their heedless step, to mutilate those monuments which the piety of former generations set up. It is my intention, in the present article, briefly to consider the different kinds of monuments which occur most frequently in village churches; and, in doing so, I shall altogether exclude those more splendid ones found in cathedrals and collegiate churches. And, for this purpose, it will be the most convenient plan to divide them into three great classes, viz. : !. Blank monuments; 2. Monuments with stone effigies; and 3. Monuments inlaid with brass plates. With repect to the first class, perhaps it can scarcely be said to constitute a naturally distinct division, as the examples of it almost always are those which have been stripped in later times of their effigies or brasses. Tombstones in churches very often occur, retaining the forms of their E brasses (Byland abbey, Yorkshire, &c.), which have been in many cases stolen for the sake of their metal. But I am glad to observe that this occurrence is now very rare, and that these ancient memorials of the past are more taken care of than formerly. It sometimes happens, however, that we find large blue stones, evidently coverings of sepulchres, which do not bear any traces of brasses having been attached to them. Another class of blank monuments consists of those which have formerly possessed stone effigies. They usually consist of an arch in the wall of the chancel, having a crocketed pediment above, and buttresses at each side: below is either a flat stone ar an altar tomb, broader at the west end than at the other, and evidently intended for a sepulchral figure, the broad end being where the head once rested. Before I leave the subject of blank monuments, I will merely glance at two kinds of sepulchral memorials, which will most appropriately be introduced here. The first kind consists of the stone coffins often found in churchyards, and sometimes in churches. They are mostly of one shape, being oblong, and tapering from the end for the head to the other for the feet. A projection for the shoulders often occurs, but it is not very conspicuous. In one or two instances, the lid of a coffin appears through the floor of the church, being distinguished from the other flag-stones by its shapet. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that this was especially the case in the civil wars. It was lucre no less than infatuated zeal which led to the depredations which have so fearfully mutilated so many of the no lest buildings of the land. So far did bodily gratification lead the rebels, thatso me of the finest specimens of carved work were hewn down with axes and hammers to heap upon the fires, to keep them from cold. The coffin of St. Cuthbert has been long famed as one of the most remarkable of this kind. "To the left, in going towards Norham, the stream is overlooked by a bold crag, at the foot of which is the spring called St. Helen's well. A little lower down the stream, on the west side, and near its junction with the Tweed, are the ruins of a sinall chapel, dedicated to St. Cuthbert. At this chapel there used formerly to be seen the stone boat in which, it is said, the body of St. Cuthbert was conveyed down the Tweed from Melrose to Tillmouth. The rev. Robert Lambe, writing in 1773, says: Not many years since, a farmer of Cornhill coreted the saint's stone boat, in order to keep pickled beef in it. Before this profane loon could convey it away, the saint came in the night time and broke it in pieces, which now lie at St. Cuthbert's chapel, to please the curious and confute the unbeliever.'" (Rambles on the Scottish border) There is a tradition relating to one of the removals of the body of St. Cuthbert thus commemorated by sir Walter Scott in his "Marmion." When speaking of the monks of Lindisfarne, he says: "Nor did St. Cuthbert's daughters fail But, though alive he loved it well, In his stone coffin forth he rides, CANTO II. 14. To this is appended the following note:-" St. Cuthbert was, in the choice of his sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the calendar. He died A.D. (8, in a hermitage upon the Frne islands, having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, about two years before. His body was brought to Lindisfarne, where it remai ed util a des ent of the Danes, about 763, when the monastery was nearly destroyed. The monks fle to Scotland, with what they deemed their chief treasure, the reliques of St. Cuthbert. They paraded him through The other kind I allude to includes those antique stones in churchyards, more or less in the form of a cross. Sometimes these are extraordinarily perfect, and very beautifully carved; at other times they are mutilated masses of stone, and with scarcely any perceivable shape at all. They are nearly always found at the southern part of the churchyard, and seem to have been placed at the end of graves. Inscriptions on them are very rarely to be met with. I may here remark that these crosses might, divested of all superstitious sanctity, be adopted as an elegant and appropriate form for head-stones in our own day, and certainly would appear to much greater advantage than the tasteless stones now used in our cemeteries. Besides, there would be the further recommendation of their durability; for, what more lasting monument could be devised than a substantial cross, with a brass plate let in at the intersection of its arms for the name of the deceased §? T. Q. J. V. Scotland for several years, and came as far west as Whithern, in Galloway; whence they attempted to sail for Ireland, but were driven back by tempests. He at length made a holt at Norham; from thence he went to Melrose, where he remained stationary the Tweed in a stone coffin, which landed him at Tillmouth, in North Durham. This boat is finely shaped, ten feet long, three feet and a half in diameter, and only four inches thick; so that it might certainly have swam.' "Not only did the coffin exist till within the last few years, but for a short time, and then caused himself to be launched upon with very little assistance was so constructed that statical experiments have proved it to be capable of floating with a weight equal to that of a human body."-Old England, p. 150. 1 Vide Iona, C. E. Mag. No. 461. The doubt is whether this custom might not give rise to superstitious feelings, and lead to superstitious observances, and, consequently, not to be supported: introduced it has been recently in some few instances in churchyards, and doubtless will be followed up in public cemeteries, where, perhaps, it might not be equally objectionable. The following statement as bearing upon the subject may be interesting: "Oxford Architectural Society. Meeting, May 1, 1844. The rev. the master of University college in the chair.-A paper was read by J. E. Millard, esq., of Magdalene college, on monuments and gravestones, recommending the revival of flat monumental stones, or of coped stones, ornamented with crosses of varied forms, with inscriptions if necessary, or with emblems expressing the profession or employment of the deceased, according to the ancient cu tom. The average cost of an ornamental coped stone is estimated, by a person well versed in such matters, at four pounds; while that of a common head-stone is usually three guineas, and even a small brass would cost ten pounds. The paper was illustrated by a number of drawings of stone coffin-lids and flat grave-stones, ornamented with a great variety of devices, of which, however, the cross generally formed the leading feature, and of a curious boss in the cloisters of Norwich cathedral, on which a funeral is represented. with eleven monks surrounding a stone coffin in the act of lowering the lid. "The chairman observed, that the adoption of these flat grave-stones, though very desirable, would be attended with much inconvenience in crowded churchyards, and that their use must necessarily be almost confined to the top of brick graves; but wherever their use is practicable, they are infinitely preferable to the modern tombs with which our churchyards are disfigured. He thought, however, that head-stones, made ornamental according to such designs as those furnished by Mr. Paget and Mr. Armstrong, would often be found more convenient than flat stones. "A member observed, that for the graves of the poor, which Mr. Millard appeared to have chiefly in view, the simple wooden cross at the head, with the name or initials and the date, a custom scarcely yet obsolete, was preferable to any memorial of greater pretension, or of a more lasting material." The monumental effigy here given is that of sir John Freville, a knight templar, in the chancel of the church of Little Shelford, Camb idgeshire. Near the communion table, a skeleton, with the hair perfect in lead, was dug up in 1824-Lewis. JEWS IN POLAND*. IF anything is calculated to make a residence in Lemberg, or, indeed, in any part of Poland, disagreeable, it is the Jews-those torments of peasants and travellers. During our stay we were generally surrounded with them, even before breakfast. While we were yet in bed, slumbering drowsily on our pillows, they were generally round us, screaming their various offers into our ears. Three factors, each of whom announced himself as the one real factor of our hotel; ten drivers, who offered to convey us safely and comfortably to any part of the world, at a moment's notice, and whom we in vain assured that we had yet no intention of proceeding further; a dozen brokers, who offered to transact business for us anywhere, of any kind; and innumerable venders of new and old wares, who importuned us to purchase wares we did not want-these officious tor mentors often plagued us so, that we sought refuge in the street, in sheer despair. There, however, we were no better off. The stranger has no chance of escaping the eyes of these pitiless vultures, who follow and fasten on him like a swarm of bees. Nothing can exceed the officious and tormenting importunity of the Polish Jews: no assurances, no declarations, suffice. One may give them all denials a thousand times a day without getting rid of one of them. A detailed history of the Jews in Poland, by the hand of any one who knew and understood them, would abound in extraordinary and interesting events and anecdotes; and a description of their present condition would combine pictures of the most squalid misery and of the greatest luxury. The extraordinary privileges with which the Polish nobles have sometimes, and the degrading treatment with which they have at other times, loaded them, have given rise to the greatest extremes in their condition. Sometimes the Jews, who had their own deputies at Warsaw, and their own marshal over them, appeared to form a state within the state, preparing to face the Poles as nation to nation; sometimes, on the contrary, they were made the slaves of slaves. The affairs of the court at Warsaw have often been guided by some fair Jewish Esther. Conspiracies and insurrections of the Jews have often taken place; and in the wars of the Poles for independence, the Jews, who mourn with them for the downfal of the old republic, took an active part. Casimir the Great, upon whom a Jewish mistress exercised great influence, enacted many laws highly advantageous to them. He gave them a privileged court of justice for settling their disputes with Gentiles, and other courts of their own for settling their disputes among themselves: he freed them from all state burdens, and endeavoured to relieve them from the tyranny and oppression of their masters. This tyranny and oppression have, however, continued ever since to be exercised upon them; and the nobleman has always done what he pleased with the Jews on his estate. He fines, and increases at pleasure the taxes which they pay him; and the fear of driving away these useful slaves by overweening tyranny is the only restraint upon his despotic caprice. The law forbids the nobleman to flog his Jews; but the Jew, dependent upon his master's humour Fon Kohl's "Austria." in so many respects, dares not claim the protection of the law; and, in reward for his endurance, he is allowed to tyrannize over the peasant as the noble tyrannizes over him. It was formerly a common custom for the Polish nobles to keep Jews at their castles as fools. Even families: they bear every kind of insult and illnow the Jewish jesters are often met with in great treatment with patience and servility. They are treated just like house-dogs, eat and sleep in their master's rooms; but are the butts and scapegoats of the whole family, on whom each throws his own sins and vents his own ill-humour. In a certain Polish household there lived lately a brilliant name of prince Freiderich, and was never "house-Jew" of this kind. He had received the called by any other. He was as elegantly dressed as the master of the house, and was fed by every one like a pet parrot. Each member of the family which he was compelled to swallow: if he was in was continually popping things into his mouth, favour, it was a lump of sugar; if they wished to tease him, rhubarb and magnesia, and sometimes a rap on the knuckles at the same time. He was bear, draught-ox, and jackass for the children, obliged to be alternately rocking-horse, dancingas they and their play required. On Sundays they dressed him up and masked him, now as a negro, now as a Brahmin, now as a he-goat, and often played tricks upon his fool even more piquant now as Jupiter or Pluto. The master himself than those of his children, for they did not always met him in the castle-court, just as he returned pass off without bloodshed. One day the Jew from the chase in a great ill-humour, having shot nothing. "I hope the guadige herr has had a good day's sport," said the fool, bowing low. "Peace, Jew! I haven't so much as shot one chattering magpie. My gun is still loaded. But stay-I think I can bring down a magpie yet. Up into the tree, sirrah. Up-no flinching! Higher, higher, or I'll give you the ball in your head. Up into that branch: now sit still, magpie!" So saying, he discharged the contents of 66 the gun into the leg of the screaming Jew, who fell down from the tree into the court-yard; and the nobleman rode past him, laughing heartily, and fully content with his day's sport. The Jew was taken up, cured, fed with honey and bonbons, and remained in the house as before. At Lemberg we were told of two young noblemen who had, a short time previously, played the following trick, by no means the worst of which I was told at the time. They had been riding along a very dirty road, and came to a Jewish village, where some Jewish families, men, women, and children, all attired in their sabbath splendour, were walking along the clean pathway, while the young noblemen were splashed with mud from top to toe. "Look at the Jews how fine they are, with their white stockings and bright black shoes. They go in finer clothes than the nobility of the country." "Let us make them dance in The proposal met the mud a bit," proposed one. down from the footpath; you shall have a fine with the greatest approbation. "Down, Jews, Sunday's sport. Come, dance a mazurka here in the mud; we will provide music." The Jews prayed the "good gentlemen" to have mercy, and not to turn the merry jest into mournful earnest; but the latter ordered their servants to |