together so large a number of knights, retainers, horses, &c., that provisions were not to be found for their support, and all those who were not completely armed and equipped were accordingly dismissed, sixty thousand heavily armed troops remaining. It was whilst John was waiting in the midst of this splendid power, in expectation of Philip and his army, that Pandulph sent two Knights Templars to him to propose a conference, and the meeting was held at the Maison Dieu. At the Maison Dieu, in Dover, it is believed that John did homage to Pandulph. The ceremony was performed with all the humiliating rites which feudal barons require of their tenants. The haughty legate being seated on a throne, the King was introduced, and kneeling before the priest lifted up his joined hands, and putting them between those of the legate swore fealty to the Pope. Many other English monarchs also upon occasions of import to the kingdom, held conferences at the Maison Dieu. In the reign of Henry the Eighth the glory of the Maison Dieu departed from it, and it became a victualling office, and in Elizabeth's reign we find it on lease to Thomas Boone, a maltster, at sixty pounds per annum. The remains of the church of this edifice is all that now is left to point out the place where the great Hubert de Burgh* expended so much money.

The scenery in the vicinity of Dover is highly romantic; the town is embosomed in lofty heights, and the grandeur of the ocean blends with the wild scenery of the mountain and valley. Whilst rambling upon the hills around this Cinque Port, we defy the most matter-of-fact person, the veriest railroad surveyor, to be uninfluenced by impressions of the early days of Britain. Those grassy trenches in which "the thistle shakes his lonely head, and the moss whistles in the wind"— those dark patches of woodland in the gorges and passes of the hills, all speak of a bygone time when the beacon of the barbarian, and the pick and spade of the Roman were busy upon the wold. When

Far over hill and valley,
The mighty host was spread,
And with a thousand watch-fires,
The midnight sky was red.

Then again, as the eye wanders from these more ancient remains, and turns towards the towers of the distant castle, the chivalrous acts of the Norman recur to our thoughts; the scene shifts and we live in those splendid days which Shakspeare has realised in his historical plays Southward from Dover stands the cliff which has the honour of identification with Shakspeare's description in King Lear. It rears its head three hundred and fifty feet above

"The murmuring surge,

That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles cliafes.”

Landward the steep ascent to its summit rises from a valley, and, as portions of the cliff have repeatedly fallen, it was doubtless even higher

Shakspeare makes Hubert De Burgh the atrocious instrument of an attempt to render Arthur of Bretagne unfit for rule by loss of sight, by burning the eyes of that prince out with a red-hot iron. It is somewhat curious (though not generally known) that the grandfather of De Burgh himself suffered a similar punishment. After the battle of Tinchebray he fell into the hands of his opponents, and by order of King Henry his eyes were burnt out.

n Shakspeare's time than it is now. It is however a question, we think, whether this cliff is indeed the veritable height Shakspeare had in his mind's eye when he wrote the passage. We think it is not, but on the contrary, that one of the cliffs nearer the town better answers the bard's description.

In the reign of King Stephen an hospital was built near Dover by a monk of St. Martin's named Godwin. The piece of land called Thega was given for its site. This was the hospital for lepers; nineteen thousand of similar houses had been erected in Europe for persons affected with this loathsome disease. Many of the rules for those admitted were somewhat curious for a religious house. They were ordered after their first sleep to sit up in their beds and say a paternoster. Such a rule was not out of place; but they were also forbidden to tap at the women's dormitory in the night, or play any pranks or make any assignation; a prohibition which would seem to infer that they had not altogether been entirely given to religious contemplation during their prayers. They were to share equally all profits arising from their dairy, their poultry, and their sucking-pigs, and no member was permitted to remain all night out of the establishment. These unhappy lepers were also enjoined to a life of strict retirement, and (like the poor clapt up in a modern union) were forbidden to live in any room or cell having either arrow slit, loophole, or window commanding a prospect of town, or road, or thoroughfare.

This house was suppressed, together with the Maison Dieu; and the buildings were demolished by a zealous reformer named Bouille, a citizen of Dover, who, without any commission, so effectually bestirred himself in the good work, that he left scarce a stone to trace the edifice by. Like the Cromwellian reformers of a later day, so eager was he for gain, that he even pulled up the grave-stones and plundered the dead. The church of St. Martin's (according to an ancient chronicle) was built by Withred, King of Kent. Withred also built several edifices in Dover for the accommodation of twenty-two secular canons, which he removed from the castle. They had large grants of lands in the neighbourhood of their church; these canons and several of their members were chaplains to the King. The conduct of the canons of this edifice presents a curious picture of the monks of old. We find that such canons continued upwards of four hundred years in their situation in the town, where they built three churches, and maintained authority with an iron hand, and being only answerable for their conduct to the sovereign, they stepped accordingly beyond the bounds of ecclesiastical decorum. In the reign of Henry the First they were accused of behaving with great indecorum to single and married women, both within and without the walls of the town. And during six years complaints were continually made to the King of their increasing wickedness. Not only were these monks gallant, but they were accused of worldly cares, temporal pursuits, dissipation, and wasting their revenue in extravagant luxuries. Altogether they must have been fit companions for Father Paul or Friar Tuck.

The Commissioners who were first sent into Kent to take possession of the religious houses at Langdon, Dover, and Folkstone, give another picture of the lives of the jolly old monks, whom they censure for incontinency, and their idolatry and superstition, nay, even coining being

amongst the lesser crimes, but their testimony must be received with some caution. The Commissioner Leighton and his associates, violently breaking into the Abbey of Langdon, burst into the Abbot's apartment, and found him in company with his mistress, who passed in the monastery as a lay brother dressed in men's clothes.

Of Dover Priory scarce any traces are left except some small remains of a gateway, and the walls of a once noble room, lately used as a baru. Even these relics, small as they are, however, are remembrancers of the desolating hands and insatiable avarice of the commissioners and others at the time of the Reformation. Although the "Monks of Old" have amongst worse epithets, been branded with those of lazy drones and ignorant teachers, yet to judge from the number of books mentioned in the catalogue belonging to Dover Priory they must have spent many a weary hour in cloistered seclusion, transcribing such works. They had, for instance, numerous copies of the Greek Testament, many volumes of sermons and glossaries, several dictionaries, and a collection of the Fathers and the classics. They had also numerous works on natural philosophy, history, grammar, institutes, decrees and councils, medicine, and music, and a miscellaneous collection on arts and sciences, and various other subjects. Certainly, if they had not possessed a taste for literature, they would hardly have undergone the labour of transcribing such a mass as this.

Many strange legends exist on the subject of the original situation and entrance into the harbour of Dover. According to an ancient manuscript preserved at Sandwich, it is supposed that Arviragus, the British King, stopped up the passage to prevent the Romans coming into it with their fleet. But was there such a person reigning here, and cetemporary with Augustus Cæsar? The bank attributed to the labour of the Roman soldiery was evidently cast up by the sea, being composed of pebbles, shells, and sand, the Romans erecting some of their first buildings upon it. The portion of the town called the Pier was built after the reign of Henry the Eighth, upon the waste left by the waves. As early as the reign of Henry the Third the sum of money paid for a passage from Dover to France was regulated by statute. A horseman was carried over the ocean for two shillings, and a pedestrian for sixpence. It was also enacted for "ye comfort of Dover" that no merchant, pilgrim, traveller, horse or other beast, should be permitted to have passage at any other port or place within Kent, to Calais-nor should they land at any port, except Dover.

In Fiennes tower at Dover Castle, so named after the knight who commanded in it, the ancient records of the Cinque Ports were deposited. But with unpardonable neglect most of them were allowed to rot and perish from the dampness of the room in which they were kept, whilst others were sold for a trifle to tailors in the town for making measures. In Clopton tower were kept the archives of the Castle, but these, like the Cinque Port records, have been almost all destroyed. They were piled up in a heap and then set on fire, as we are informed, by one Levinishe, out of spite to one John Pronings, whose competitor be had been for the chief command.

587

OLD CHRISTMAS.

BY G. LINNEUS BANKS,

AUTHOR OF "SPRING GATHERINGS," "LEOLINE, A TALE OF THE HEART," "LAYS FOR THE TIMES," "IRA,' ETC.

HURRAH! for old Christmas, the hearty and jolly,
Hurrah! for old Christmas, the friend of us all,
Who laughs at the frowns of grin-faced melancholy,
And comes with a transport to great and to small.
Up, up! let us drink to the jocund old fellow,

Though wrinkled his brow, and his locks silver-grey,
Yet his footstep is light, and his heart, it is mellow
As any that joins in our banquet to day.

Then pluck from the misletoe, pluck from the holly,
The red with the white in a chaplet appear,
While we banish dull care, which to cherish is folly,
And drink to old Christmas, the king of the year.

The sage has declared, with a solemn conviction,
The moment that 's present can only be ours,—
The poet has painted, in beautiful fiction,

The land of the future all teeming with flowers,--
The painter has dreamt of the past, and its glory
Depicted in colours that never can die,

But the future and past is an old ballad story,

There's naught like the present good cheer to supply.
Then fill up the goblet, for where is the spirit,

Whose eye, whether sparkling or dimm'd by a tear,
Would not if it's honest, most eagerly merit

This bumper to Christmas-the king of the year.

Hurrah! for old Christmas, good feeling and gladness
Are his by a right which is truly divine;

He robs the proud heart of its cankering sadness,

And deems there's no virtue but springs from the vine.
He pledges past times round the cottager's ingle,
He lights up the smiles of the young and the gay,
Delighting in pleasure's deep fountain to mingle,
The kindliest feelings that suffer decay.
His stay may be short, but his reign shall be merry,
For whenever he comes 'tis a token of cheer,
Then drink to his health, and the red holly berry,
The friend of Old Christmas, the king of the year.

Hurrah! for old Christmas, again fill the chalice,
Be first and be foremost to raise the glad shout
When hope lights the cottage, and mirth fills the palace,
The song and the carol should never ring out;
For sorrow and care are twin-sisters of pleasure,
They rest in her bosom, they walk in her train,
And permitted to taste, they will empty the measure
The brightest to-morrow shall ne'er fill again;
Then pluck from the mistletoe, pluck from the holly,
The red with the white in a chaplet appear;
Let us drive away care, which to cherish is folly,
And drink to old Christmas, the king of the year.

THE GIPSY'S BAPTISM.

FOUNDED ON A SPANISH ANECDOTE OF THE SIXTEENTH

CENTURY.

BY THOMASINA ROSS.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY LEECH.

THE Val de Corriedo, situated on the northern boundary of the Asturias, is one of the most romantic spots in Spain. There nature seems to have concentrated all her charms to compose a picture never excelled in the most fanciful creations of poet or painter. Towering hills, covered with virgin forests, and tinged with every hue of verdure,-foaming torrents dashing down lofty precipices,-steep pathways, like ladders leading to the clouds, and accessible only to the mountain hind or the intrepid brigand,-all form a panorama in which wild grandeur and sylvan beauty are fantastically blended, and when tinged with the warm glow of a Spanish sunset, the scene has perhaps no parallel on earth. In the centre of the Val de Corriedo, lies the little village of La Vega; and in the immediate vicinity of the latter may still be seen the ruins of a seignorial castle, which, in the sixteenth century, was the residence of a family whose name is illustrious in Spanish history.

On a warm spring evening in the year 1562, a well-mounted cavalier was riding slowly up a hill in the neighbourhood of the castle. On a grassy plain, forming the summit of the eminence, rose a chapel dedicated to Nuestra Señora de la Vega, whose festival had that day been celebrated by the inhabitants of the surrounding district. The chime of the chapel bells announced the close of the vesper service, and parties of villagers, wending their homeward way, filled the air with their pious chaunts. The horseman seemed to have been attracted to the spot merely by the love of solitude. He was absorbed in thoughtful reverie; and truly the enchanting scene which unfolded itself around was one which the eye of contemplation might well love to rest on. The sun was slowly retiring beneath a mass of purple clouds, whose fantastic outlines and varied tints suggested to the imagination the idea of an aerial Alhambra. In calm contrast with the splendour of the western sky, was the deep blue canopy, which, advancing from the east, gradually overshadowed the village and the castle of La Vega. But the sublime picture thus visible at once in the heavens and on the earth, was unobserved by the solitary rider, whose abstraction of mind rendered him heedless of all external objects.

This person, whose listlessness and languor were apparent even in the slow lingering pace of his horse, was Don Felix de la Vega, lord and master of the solar and the cortijos constituting the chief portion of the village honoured by his name. A casual observer might naturally have supposed Don Felix to be sinking beneath the mere weariness of life, yet he enjoyed advantages well calculated to soothe and lighten the ordinary cares of existence. He was a young and handsome man, possessed of rank and fortune. He had resided since his birth in a district which was the hereditary domain of his ancestors. There he had grown to manhood, happy and prosperous, -the sunshine of his days unclouded by misfortune or sorrow. To complete his happiness he was married to Doña Francisca Fernan