For some weeks a hard frost had set in, and the Serpentine river and the pieces of water in the Regent and St. James's parks had boasted of their ordinary number of skaters, and, as usual, had furnished many melancholy instances of the rashness and temerity of the youth of London. Hunting had been put an end to, and the Melton men had flocked to the metropolis, to await the arrival of the thaw; but day after day had they been disappointed. Among those who were particularly interested in a change of the weather, was the writer of the following pages, who, having received an invitation to pass a week at Berkeley Castle, was most desirous of benefiting, by the kind offer of the noble host, of mounting him during that period. My day of departure was fixed for Dec. 16, and so settled was the appearance of the weather upon the night of the 14th, as I walked home, that I was almost tempted to leave my hunting gear in London. Great was my delight, then, upon the morning of the 17th, to find a thaw prevailing. For the previous fortnight, my first question upon being called in the morning had been to ask what kind of a day it was; and, during that period, I had received the same answer: Very cold, and frosty."

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Dispirited by this constant disappointment, upon the morning I allude to I had asked no question: great, then, was my joy to find the streets sloppy, and a gentle rain falling. During the day I watched every appearance of the sky, and could hardly believe that the thaw had set in until towards the evening, when another shower gave promise of a wet night.

"What think you of the weather ?" I exclaimed to a sporting friend of mine.

"A regular thaw," he replied; "I shall be off in the morning: we shall hunt on Tuesday."

"Thaw!" responded a regular Londoner, who detested the country; "it will freeze before the morning."

"Thy wish is father, Harry, to that thought," I replied; "you are a genuine cockney, and cannot bear to have London empty."

"Nous verrons," he laughingly rejoined; and we parted.

At six o'clock the following morning I was up, and, to my delight, I found a sort of Scotch mist. "All right!" I exclaimed. I finished my toilet, drove off to Paddington, and at eight o'clock got into the Bristol train, and, in a few seconds, was steamed off at a regular boiling pace of twenty miles per hour. No adventure occurred upon the rail. At two o'clock, I found myself at Bristol; then, taking the Gloucester train, reached Dursley before three o'clock; and the Castle by a little after that hour.

To begin with the beginning, as the story books say, we must inform our readers that the town of Berkeley is (according to the roadbooks) pleasantly situated on an eminence in the delightful vale of Berkeley, about a mile east of the river Severn. The church is a fine ancient edifice, and contains many monuments to the memory of different members of the Berkeley family; the tower stands at some distance from the church, and is a modern erection. This town gave birth to Dr. Jenner, the celebrated discoverer of vaccination. Of the castle, the great Colossus of Roads, Mr. Pattison, thus speaks:

"This ancient pile appears to have been founded soon after the Conquest, but has at different times since received important additions its present form approaches to a circle, and the buildings are enclosed by an irregular court, surrounded by a moat. The entrance to the keep is through an elegant sculptured arched door way, leading to a flight of steps, over which an apartment, called the dungeonroom, is shown as the place where Edward II. was barbarously murdered. This building is flanked by three semicircular towers, and a square one of later construction. The various apartments contain a good collection of portraits, many of them executed in a very superior style. During the civil wars, this castle was fortified for the king, and sustained a severe siege in the year 1645. About the same time, the town and neighbourhood frequently witnessed the disastrous effects of skirmishes between the contending parties."

So says the road-book. Anxious, however, to give a more historical account of this ancient castle, we have rummaged over some musty old volumes, and proceed to lay our newly-acquired information before our readers.

In an old work, published in the year 1720, we find the following account of Berkeley:-"It is so called from Berk—a birchen-tree, and Leas, which signifies a pasture. The manor did anciently belong to the famous nunnery of the town, till Godwin, Earl of Kent, cast his eye upon this fruitful place, and contrived to debauch the nuns, by sending a beautiful youth-his nephew-among them, that if he could effect his design he might beg their possessions upon the account of their wickedness. The heartless trick proved suc

cessful, and the abbess herself having fallen a victim to the seductions of the youth, the noble earl acquainted the devout King Edward with their wickedness, who, finding it true, upon a legal inquisition seized their lands, and gave them to Earl Godwin: but as he met with a check from his lady immediately, who would not eat of the bread that came from such ill-gotten lands, so he enjoyed not the fruits of his wickedness long; for part of the possessions, which were then a large fruitful isle, was soon after irrecoverably swallowed up by the sea, and since retain the name of the Godwin Sands; and he and his whole family, not long after, were rooted out of the land. William the Conqueror about this time obtained the crown, and gave this manor to Roger-a Norman, who had assisted him, and thereupon took upon him the name of Roger de Berkeley. He was a great benefactor to the Priory of Stanley St. Leonards, and in his latter time became a shorn monk there. He had no children, and so this manor descended to William de Berkeley, his nephew. His son Roger was violently ejected out of his castle and honour, but his grandson, of the same name, was restored to his barony of Dursley by King Henry II; but the manor of Berkeley was given to Robert Fitzhardinge, whose posterity have enjoyed it ever since, having changed their name to Berkeley, when they came to reside there. Historians tell us that King Edward II, being deprived of his kingdom by the artifice of his queen, was imprisoned in the castle here, and put under the custody of Thomas Lord Berkeley, who was allowed one hundred shillings a day for the king's maintenance. He was thought to treat the king too kindly, and thereupon was commanded to deliver up the castle and his royal prisoner to John Lord Maltravers, and Thomas Gourney, who murdered him, being induced to do it by the subtle answer of Adam bishop of Hereford, whom they consulted about it; and he gave them this enigmatical reply, capable of two contrary senses:

'Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est.'

Which, for the benefit of country gentlemen, is thus translated:"To seek to shed King Edward's blood,

Be not afraid: I think it good."

This sense the bishop desired his words might be understood in, as indeed they were; and so they inhumanly slew him. This the bishop did out of revenge, because he had been before fined for his crimes by that king. But that he might secure himself from blame, if this order should be after looked in, he left it uncomma'd; and so it might be as well understood in this sense:

"Don't dare to shed King Edward's blood;
good."

To be afraid I think

The room where this bloody fact was committed is still to be seen. In the church is a very handsome monument for Thomas Lord Berkeley, of white marble, the effigies of his lady and himself lying on it. He died in 1385. In the chapel on the south side of the chancel is also a stately monument of white marble, for James Lord

Berkeley, whose effigy, with his son's, lies upon it at length. He died in 1463. There is another stately monument for Henry Lord Berkeley. He died in 1613; and the effigies of him and his lady are likewise carved in white marble. There is an inscription in the same chapel for the Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, widow of Sir Thomas Berkeley. She died 1635.

Before we conclude the notice of "bye-gone times" we must no omit to mention that "the family of the Berkeleys is descended from the blood royal of Denmark, by Harding their first ancestor; from the dukes of Normandy, by Eve, wife of the first Robert; from the ancient Saxons, by Alice, daughter of the Lord Dursley; from thet Princes of Wales, by Elizabeth, the mother of George; from the blood royal of France and England, by Isabel, wife of the first James."

For the above notice, we are indebted to a work published in 1712, entitled, "The ancient and present state of Glostershire, by Sir Robert Atkyns."

"The sandy-bottom'd Severn," to which we have alluded, runs within a few miles of the castle, and is thus described by Hollingshed, in his "Chronicles" :

"The Sauerne, which Ptolomie calleth Sabriana, Tacitus Sabrina, divideth England, and that part of the island which sometime was called Lhoegres, from Cambria, so called of Camber, the second sonne of Brute, as our histories do report. This river tooke the name of a certain ladie, called Havren or Haffren, base daughter to Locrinus, begotten upon Effrildis. At the death of Locrinus it came to pass that Guendolena his wife ruled the kingdome in the nonage of her sonne, and then getting the said Effrildis and Habyen her daughter into her hands, she drowned them both in this river; and in perpetual remembrance of her husband's dissoiatie towards her, she caused the stream to be called Habyen, for which the Romans in processe of time, for readinesse and mildnesse of pronunciation, wrote Sabrina."

Of the drowning of the said Habyen, I find these verses:

"In fluvium præcipitatur Abren,

Nomen Abren, fluvio de virgine, nomen eadem,
Nomine corrupto deinde Sabrina datur."

In another part he writes:

"I suppose rather this ladie was called Ine, and that the word Sabrina is compounded of Aber and Ine, and the letter S added. propter euphoniam. The mouth or fall of every river in the British speech is called Aber."

As we have already quoted considerably from ancient records, we should not give the following anecdote connected with the Berkeleys, which we have taken from Smythe's MS., were it not to show the speed of a class of men now extinct, commonly called "Running Footmen," but who, according to "Gent's Dictionary, or an interpretation of hard English words," published in 1632, are called, "Swift footmen, ceteri pedes." The narrative we allude to runs as follows:-" Langham, an Irish footman of Henry Lord Berkeley,

(in the reign of Elizabeth), upon the sickness of the Lady Catherine, this lord's wife, conveyed a letter from Callowdon, near Coventry, to old Doctor Fryer, a physician, dwelling in Little Brittaine in London, and returned with a glass bottle in his hand, compounded by the doctor for the recovery of her health. A journey of 148 miles, performed by him in less than forty-two hours, notwithstanding his stay of one night at the physician's house, which no one else could have so well and safely performed."

After sundry digressions, we return to the castle in the present day; and certainly there is no domain in England where the sportsman can have hunting, shooting, and good living more to his heart's content than here. And the great secret is, that everything at Berkeley is carried on in a business-like form-we use this expression advisedly, for the noble owner is one of those who feel that both in matters of business, as well as in those of pleasure, arrangement is absolutely necessary. Thus, in shooting, every care is taken that there shall not be more guns than there is shooting for, and to each "gunner" is attached a 66 gilly," whose "business" it is to pick up all the game that falls to his master. The beaters, too, are regularly drilled, and go through their "business" in a most masterly form. After a cover has been shot, the cart is brought up, and the noble proprietor himself, in the most "business" like manner, counts the game that has been killed, and hands it over to one of the keepers, to be deposited away. In hunting, too, "business" is the order of the day. The master, the huntsman, the whippers-in, and the hounds, set to work in a real "business" like form. At the "decoy" (the finest in the world) every one attends to his own "business.' In short, at Berkeley Castle, and wherever the owner's influence extends, as in former years on board the Victory, the well-known signal is hoisted, "England expects that every man will do his duty." Nor ought we to omit to mention that "business" was the very life and soul of the amateur theatricals, of which his lordship was so distinguished a patron and a performer; both in the rehearsals and the performances, "business" was strictly attended to; hence the success of these entertainments, which were not got up for the edification of a few private friends, or under the cloak of charity, with an appeal to an enlightened audience to forgive the errors of inexperienced actors, but were publicly announced, and the doors thrown open to all who liked to pay, and who, having paid, had an undoubted right to manifest their approbation or disapprobation.

Lord Fitzhardinge's establishment, both as to horses and hounds, is princely; and I consider the example of his lordship, and other liberal minded individuals, who expend a large sum of money in the maintenance of a pack of hounds, to the great advantage and accommodation of their neighbours, as highly worthy of commendation; and I cannot help feeling, that by so doing they are rendering a very essential service to the county in which they reside.

(To be continued)