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intermixed to admit of separate interests.

In this spirit, a covenant between the parishes was formally agreed on, at a general meeting of the inhabitants in January, 1791, under the guidance of Sir William Lee. It was instituted for promoting the "detection and impeachment of offenders, and securing the blessings of public justice," in consequence of some unexpected felonies and outrages having been committed in that vicinity. The preamble stated, that the union was for the purpose of creating an establishment of mutual aid, “for preventing, by every legal effort, the commission of those enormities for the future, inasmuch as the delinquents, by eluding discovery, have hitherto escaped the vengeance of the law, and might otherwise (from the ineffectual endeavours of an injured individual) be disposed to continue their atrocious practices, and perpetrate crimes of a more alarming degree of guilt." Many of the rules and observances of this well-adapted body, remind me of the useful corps of Barancelli, an armed association for the protection of the rural departments in the island of Sardinia.

But the school of the district must not be forgotten-since, by teaching the young idea to work, as well as to shoot, it is found to be well adapted for its end. It was instituted under the patronage of Sir George Lee about the year 1820, and has continued with a steady progress to the present hour. The schoolhouse is a detached building situated nearly equi-distant from the villages of Hartwell and Stone, and also from the hamlet of Bishopstone. One acre of land has been annexed to it by Dr. Lee, which is divided off by a quick-set hedge from the adjoining field. The average number of boys attending the school throughout the year is about thirty, each paying two pence per week to the master. Besides the usual time devoted to approaching the Parnassian heights, the boys are occasionally employed one hour each day, from 1 to 2 P.M., on the oneacre allotment, and for their labour they receive a penny each; they work willingly, and in case of misdemeanour would be deprived of the garden-privilege. The produce of this juvenile husbandry is sold, and the proceeds realised thereby pay the rent of the land, wages to the boys, a gratuity to the master, the expenses of tools, seeds, manure, &c.; whilst a small balance-some 37. or 47.-is

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usually left in hand, which is placed in the savings' bank as a reserve fund. The gross annual average amount realised for the produce of this acre of land, during the last seven years, is 137. 48.; but in 1839 it amounted to 187. 138. 7d. Dr. Lee would accommodate them with more land were it required; but the due cultivation of one acre seems fully equal to their present force.

Few bodies can exist in emulation without guerdons of honour, and their consequent panem et circenses. So, in the teeming month of August in each year, the boys of this school, and the girls of the Stone and Hartwell Sundayschools, altogether about sixty in number, assemble at Hartwell House. Here twelve of the girls, and four of the boys, selected according to merit, are presented to Dr. and Mrs. Lee, and receive a suit of new clothes on the occasion, under an appropriate address from the doctor or the ministers of the parishes. The whole of the pupils are then regaled with a hearty dinner of beef, mutton, and plumpudding, after which they disport themselves in the grounds of the mansion for a couple of hours, when they are re-assembled in the great hall. When order has obtained, the schoolmaster produces his accounts for the preceding year, with a list of his scholars, shewing the number of hours they have each worked in the garden during the year, and the arrears of payment due to them. These sums are then formally given by Mrs. Lee to each boy, with suitable remarks, accompanied with the present of a little book, proportioned to the age and progress of the scholar and she also awards books to the girls; after which a hymn is sung, and they are dismissed to their homes.

4. THE RECTORY.

Hartwell Rectory is in the rural deanery of Wendover. In the Valor Eccles. made for the assessment given by Pope Nicholas IV. to Edward I. in aid of his crusade, it was taxed at 87; and thus it continued till the survey made in the 26th Hen. VIII., when it was valued at 14l. 15s. 10d., since which it has stood

in the King's Book at 147. 58. 5d., though the actual returns of the living may now be valued at 2307. per annum.* The advowson of the church had belonged to the manor for a period of nearly six hundred years; but the present patron, Dr. Lee, having some strongly-grounded scruples as to the propriety of churchpreferment being in private and irresponsible hands, presented it to the Royal Astronomical Society of London in 1838-he having previously given that of Stone to the same learned body. The church, dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, which stood here when the Lees acquired the estate, appears to have been a very ordinary building; and it must have been erected long after that charged twelve marks in the Taxatio Valor made in 1291. The structure is minutely described by Browne Willis, in the MSS. preserved in the Bodleian Library, in whose time the rectory-worth 1007. per annum—was held by Alexander Crooke. This church, which had apparently been erected about the time of Richard III. and had undergone a thorough repair in 1660, is stated by him to consist "of a body and north isle and chancel, which are tiled. At the west end is a broad wooden turret, in which hangs one modern bell cast out of the two little ones which formerly hung there. On the south side is a small tiled building, in which are the seats of the family of Lee. Length of the church and chancel, twenty-three yards; breadth of the church and north isle, eight yards. No arms or painted glass in the windows, except in the east window a broken effigies, which seems to be of the Virgin Mary." Among the monumental memorials then existing in this church, he mentions-" On the pavement at the lower end of the chancel, a very ancient marble, thereon on a brass an heart, and underneath on a plate this inscription- Here lyeth the harte of Richard Hampden, Esq. then Chiefe Clerk of the Kychen unto the Queen's Majestie, whos body is buryed in gret Kymbel Churche. Obijt 30 May, 1567.'"

The present elegant church was erected by Sir William Lee, the fourth baronet, who was warmly aided therein by his uncles; Sir William, the Chief

* In 1803, the parish-rates, at 3s. produced 1697. 18s. 6d. In 1843, the annual value of real property, as assessed to the Property and Income Tax, was 17637. 3s.

Justice, contributing 10007., to which sum his brother, Sir George Lee, added 500l. It is constructed in the florid Gothic style, on the model of the wellknown Chapter-house at York Minster; the peculiarity of which consists in there being no central pillar to support its elaborately-groined roof; and the pressure upon the walls is effectually counteracted by an appropriate buttress to each external angle. It was completed in 1756, having been only two years in hand; and the situation is extremely well adapted for harmonizing effect with convenience, as well for the parish as the mansion, the rectory, and the grounds.

This edifice is built of the finest freestone, and evidently with the best appliances of masonic art. It is in shape an octagon, the interior diagonals of which are fifty feet seven inches across, by sixty-four feet in height; having two square towers, eighty-eight feet high, one at its east and the other at its west end, extending the inner length in that line to seventy-two feet five inches. These towers, being symmetrically built, surmounted with crocketed pinnacles nine feet high at the angles, and a neat parapet pierced with quatre-foil featherings, add greatly to the beauty of the exterior aspect of the fabric, while increasing the stability of the whole: from the uses, to which they are appropriated, one is named the Belfry Tower, and the other the Communion Tower. There are three doors, of which the principal is on the west side; over each is an ornamental blind rose, or wheel-window, and the other faces of the octagon are each decorated with a well-proportioned Gothic window, above which are quatre-foiled clerestory apertures. On the exterior these windows are decorated at their apex with a fleur-de-lys, and on on the interior with a flory-form ornament of nearly the same description: this, coupled with the circumstance of that symbol being also on the ancient porch of the mansion, was made matter of remark when the royal family of France resided at Hartwell. Over the principal entrance is a gallery which forms the pew of the Lees, and at the back of it are the arms of England on a shield of stone; while on the window opposite, over the Communion-table, are the Lee bearings and crest. In the intersections of the upper mullions, are the shields of Hampden, Lee, and Harcourt; and above them is a royal crown surmounting

a coat. The interior of the edifice has a very striking air of taste and neatness, from its general form and airy aspect, heightened by the finelyfinished pendant of the fan-tracery roof, the lozenged black and white marble pavement, the open-carved frames of the pulpit and reading-desk, and the regular rows of well-made moveable benches, on its otherwise unincumbered area.

Under the church is a cryptic vault, of equal dimensions with the periphery of the foundation walls: this space is roofed with groined arches springing from solid pillars of stone erected on the area-ground, and forms three large recesses containing nine catacombs, wherein repose the ashes of the Hampdens, the Ingoldsbys, and the Lees. The parish burial-ground is on the north side of the rectory-lands, and, as is recorded on a stone obelisk in its centre, "consecrated ye 29th May, Anno Dom. 1756:" it is kept in excellent order, and the communication between it and the church is easy and convenient.

was

To this slight description, the following sketch-copied from a drawing by Lady Elizabeth Lee of the church as seen from the east, may prove

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