dames of honour. Huzza for maister Mayor, and our good dame Mayoress. His noble grace, there he is, God bless him, and all this jolly company. To all our friends round county, who have a penny in their purse and an English heart in their bodies, to keep out Spanish dons, and papists with their faggots to burn our whiskers. Shove it about, twirl your cap-cases, handle your jugs, and huzza for maister Mayor, and his bretheren their worships."

The honesty, freedom, loyalty, and goodhumour of this speech would, at any time, entitle the orator to a patient hearing and an approving smile.

The above is from Beatniffe's Norfolk Tour.

To that noble and true lover of learning,
Sir Walton Aston.

Sir, I must ask your patience, and be true.
This Play was never liked, except by few

That brought their judgments with them; for of late
First the infection, then the common prate

Of common people, have such customs got
Either to silence Plays, or like them not:
Under the last of which this Interlude
Had fal'n, for ever press'd down by the rude
That, like a torrent which the moist South feeds,
Drowns both before him the ripe corn and weeds;
Had not the saving sense of better mem
Redeem'd it from corruption. Dear Sir, then
Among the better souls be you the best,
In whom as in a center I take rest,
And proper being; from whose equal eye
And judgement nothing grows but purity.
Nor do I flatter; for, by all those dead
Great in the Muses, by Apollo's head,
He that adds any thing to you, 'tis done
Like his that lights a candle to the sun.
Then be as you were ever, yourself still
Moved by your judgement, not by love or will.

And when I sing again (as who can tell My next devotion to that holy Well?) Your goodness to the Muses shall be all Able to make a work Heroical.

2ND.

To the Inheritor of all Worthiness, Sir William Scipwith.

ODE.

1.

If from servile hope or love

I may prove

But so happy to be thought for Such a one, whose greatest ease

Is to please,

Worthy Sir, I have all I sought for.

2.

For no itch of greater name,

Which some claim

By their verses, do I show it To the world; nor to protest, 'Tis the best;

These are lean faults in a post.

3.

Nor to make it serve to feed

At my need;

Nor to gain acquaintance by it; Nor to ravish kind Atturneys

In their journies;

Nor to read it after diet.

Far from me are all these aims; Frantic claims,

To build weakness on and pity; Only to yourself, and such

Whose true touch

Makes all good, let me seem witty.

3RD.

To the perfect gentleman, Sir Robert Townesend.

If you be not reasonably assured of your knowledge in this kind of Poem, lay down the Book; or read this, which I would wish had been the Prologue. It is a Pastoral Tragic-Comedy; which the people seeing when it was played, having ever had a singular gift in defining, concluded to be a play of Country hired Shepherds, in gray cloaks, with cur-tailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, sometimes killing one another; and, missing Whitsun Ales, cream, wassail, and Morris dances, began to be angry. In their error I would not have you fall, lest you incur their censure. Understand, therefore, a Pastoral to be-a Representation of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, with their Actions and Passions, which must be such as agree with their natures; at least, not exceeding former fictions and vulgar traditions. They are not to be adorn'd with any art, but such improper ones as nature is said to bestow, as Singing and Poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and fountains; the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars; and such like. But you are ever to remember Shepherds to be such, as all the ancient poets (and modern of understanding) have received them; that is, the Owners of Flocks, and not Hirelings.-A Tragic-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths (which is enough to make it no Tragedy); yet brings some near to it (which is enough to make it no Comedy): which must be a Representation of Familiar People, with such kind of trouble as no life can be without; so that a God is as lawful in this, as in a Tragedy; and mean People, as in a Comedy.-Thus much I hope will serve to justify ny Poem, and make you understand it; to teach you more for nothing, I do not know that I am in conscience bound.

May move you tears; then you content our Muse. That scorns to trouble you again with toys

Or needless antics, imitations,

Or shows, or new devises sprung o' late;
We have exiled them from our tragic stage,
As trash of their tradition, that can bring
Nor instance nor excuse for what they do,
Instead of mournful plaints our Chorus sings;
Although it be against the upstart guise,
Yet, warranted by grave antiquity,

We will revive the which hath long been done.

Helena. Both have sworn:

And, Princes, as you hope to crown your heads
With that perpetual wreath which shall last ever,
Cast on a poor dejected innocent virgin
Your eyes of grace and pity. What sin is it,
Or who can be the patron to such evil?-
That a poor innocent maid, spotless in deed,
And
pure in thought, both without spleen and gall,
That never injured creature, never had heart
To think of wrong, or ponder injury;
That such a one in her white innocence,
Striving to live peculiar in the compass
Of her own virtues; notwithstanding these,
Should be sought out by strangers, persecuted,
Made infamous ev'n there where she was made
For imitation; hiss'd at in her country;
Abandon'd of her mother, kindred, friends;
Depraved in foreign cămes, scorn'd every where,
And ev'n in princes' courts reputed vile :
O pity, pity this!

C. L.

• So I point it; instead of the line, as it stands in this unique copy

Nor instance nor excuse for what they do. The sense I take to be, what the common playwrights do (or shew by action-the "inexplicable dumb show" of Shakspeare-), our Chorus relates. The following lines have else no coherence.

to the right, lies the village of Keston, a few houses embowered in a dell of trees; with a stone church, which did not seem to have been built more than a couple of centuries. A peep through the windows satisfied us that there was nothing worth looking at within. We had heard of stone coffins having been found at the bottom of the War Bank, and we returned to that spot; where, though the ground had been ploughed and was in pasture, we met with much stone rubbish in the soil, and some large pieces loose on the surface and in the ditches of the hedge. These appearances indicated a former structure there; and an old labourer, whom we fell in with, told us that when he was a boy, his grandfather used to talk of " Keston old church" having stood in that spot, but becoming decayed, it was pulled down, and the church rebuilt in its present situation, with the materials of the ancient edifice. If this information was correct, the coffins which were discovered in that spot were more likely to have been deposited there in ordinary burial, than to have contained, as most of the country people suppose, the bodies of per sons slain in battle on the War Bank. Besides, if that mound derives its name, as tradition reports, from a conflict there between the Romans and the ancient Britons, it must be remembered that our rude aboriginal ancestors were unaccustomed to that mode of sepulture, and that Cæsar had work of more consequence to employ his soldiers on than such laborious constructions for the interment of his officers. One of these coffins is at Mr. Smith's, near the well-head on the War Bank, and another is at lady Farnaby's, at Wickham Court.

The little village of Keston is, of itself, nothing; but, looking over it from the road towards the weald of Kent, and particularly Surrey, there is a sweeping view of hill and dale, arable and pasture, intersected with woodlands. Its name is said to have been derived from Cæsar's (pronounced Kæsar's) town; but it is quite as likely to have been a corruption of "castrum," a fortress or citadel. There is little doubt that the Romans maintained a military position on the heights adjoining Keston for a considerable time. The site they held was afterwards occupied by the late right honourable William Pitt; and respecting it, there was published in the year 1792 the following

ACCOUNT OF HOLWOOD. Holwood-hill, at present the seat of the right hon. Willam Pitt, is a most beautiful

eminence, commanding (without the view of water) one of the most agreeable prospects in this country, or perhaps in this kingdom.

The house is a very small, old, plastered brick building; but being on the edge of a celebrated fox-hunting country, it was formerly the residence of various gentlemen who hunted with the old duke of Grafton. It afterwards came into the hands of the late Mr. Calcraft, the agent; and, small as it is, was used as a house of rendezvous by the heads of the great party at that time, where they privately formed their schemes of parliamentary manœuvre, and partook of Mr. Calcraft and Mrs. Bellamy's elegant entertainment.

From Mr. Calcraft it came into the hands of the Burrell family; by them it was sold to captain Ross, and was purchased of him by Burrow, Esq., (nephew of the late sir James Burrow,) who stuccoed the house, added greatly to the grounds by various purchases, grubbed and converted considerable woods into beautiful pasture and pieces of water, and planted those ornamental shrubberies, which have rendered it so delightful and so justly admired a spot.

Randall, Esq., an eminent shipbuilder, purchased it of Mr. Burrow, and he has since sold it to the right hon. William Pitt, a native of (Hayes) the adjoining parish.

Holwood is fourteen miles distant from London, in the parish of Keston, Kent; which parish evidently, either by Latin or Saxon derivation, takes its name from the camp, commonly called Julius Cæsar's Camp; on the south entrenchment of which Mr. Pitt's house stands, and some part of the pleasure-ground is within the same.

This celebrated camp, till within these twenty years, was tolerably perfect: it consisted of a circular double, and in some places treble entrenchment, enclosing about twenty-nine acres of land; into which there appeared to have been no original entrance but by the opening to the north-west, which descends to the spring called "Cæsar's Spring." This spring has long been converted into a most useful public cold bath; a dressing-house is built on the brink of it it is ornamented with beautiful trees, and from its romantic situation, forms a mos pleasing scene.

However antiquarians (from the varia of fragments, coins, &c. discovered ploughed up in the neighbourhood) may have been induced to differ in conjecture as to the person who framed it, they all.

agree that this camp was originally a strong and considerable Roman station, though not of the larger sort; but rather from its commanding situation, and short distance from the Thames, a camp of observation, or castra æstiva. At the same time, there is great reason to suppose it to have been since possessed by other invaders.

The beautiful common of Keston to the south-west of the camp, from its charming turf, shade, and views, has long been the promenade of the neighbouring company; and parties of gentry from even so far as Greenwich, have long been accustomed to retire with music and provision to spend in this delightful spot the sultry summer's day, drinking at Cæsar's Fountain, and making the stupendous Roman bulwarks resound with the strains of instrumen's and the voice of social glee.

The above is some account of the coun try-seat of Mr. Pitt; but as an inhabitant of the capital may be desirous of knowing what works of taste, or of neighbouring utility, may have engaged the retirement of our illustrious prime minister, the following are the few improvements Holwood has yet undergone.

Whether from a natural antipathy to the animal, or from too much of " Fox" in other places, certain it is, the first order that was issued, was for the utter destruction of the "fox earth," being a lodgement in one side of the bulwarks, which the sagacious Reynards are supposed to have been in quiet possession of ever since the Roman abdication.

The house standing on a high hill, the gentlemen who have hitherto lived in it, judging "not much good was to be had from the North," had defended it on that quarter by large plantations of evergreens; but the present possessor has cut down these plantations, and seems determined "to be open to every thing that comes from that delightful region."

The house itself has undergone no other alteration than the addition of a small eating-room covered with pantiles, and a curious new-invented variegated stucco, with which the whole has been done over: this stucco has now stood several winters, and only requires to be a little more known to be universally adopted.*

While Holwood was in the occupation of Mr. Pitt he there seemed to enjoy the short cessations he could obtain from official duty. His chief delight in these spare

• European Magazine, Dec. 1792.

hours was planting; which, as he pursued it only as opportunity enabled him, was without system of purchase or order of arrangement, and consequently very expensive. After his death Holwood successively devolved into different hands, and the residence and grounds were variously altered. At length the estate was purchased by John Ward, Esq. a merchant of London, who pulled down the house, and erected the present edifice from a design by Mr. Burton, under whose direction the work was completed in the spring of 1827. Its exterior is chaste, and the interior commodious and elegantly laid out. It stands on the sunnit of a noble ascent, well defended from adverse winds by full-grown trees and young plantations. From the back front, a fine sweep of lawn descends into a wide spreading valley; and the high and distant woodlands of Knole, Seven Oaks, Tunbridge, and the hills of Sussex, form an extensive amphitheatre of forest scenery and downs, as far as the eye can reach. The home grounds are so disposed, that the domain seems to include the whole of the rich and beautiful country around.

In the rear of Holwood Mr. Ward is forming a vineyard, which, if conducted with the judgment and circumspection that mark the commencement, may prove that the climate of England is suited to the open culture of the grape. Mr. Ward has imported ten sorts of vines, five black and five white, from different parts of the Rhine and Burgundy. They_are_planted on a slope towards the S.S.E. Difficulties and partial failures are to be expected in the outset of the experiment, and are to be overcome, in its progress, by enlarged experience and information respecting the treatment of the plants in foreign countries. That the vine flourished here several centuries ago can be proved historically. There is likewise evidence of it in the old names of places still existing. For instance, in London, there is Vineyard-gardens,” Clerkenwell; and in Kent, there is a field near Rochester cathedral, which has been immemorially called "the Vines." Many examples of this nature might be adduced. But far stronger than presumptive testimony is the fact, that, in some parts of the weald of Kent, the vine grows wild in the hedges; a friend assures me of this from when a boy in rooting up the wild vine on his own knowledge, he having often assisted

his father's land.

decisive and extensive. Besides the erection Mr. Ward's alterations at Holwood are of a new and spacious residence, instead