of the old one, which was small and inconvenient, and ill suited to the commanding character and extent of the grounds, he has greatly improved them; and perfected a stately approach to the mansion. Immediately within the great entrance gates, from Keston Common, is the elegant lodge represented by the engraving. For the purpose of making the drawing, we obtained seats just within the gates. While W. sketched it the silence was unbroken, save by the gentle rustle of the leaves in the warm afternoon air of summer, and the notes of the small birds preparing for their vesper song; the rabbits were scudding from their burrows across the avenue, and the sun poured glowing beams from between the branches of the magnificent trees, and dressed the varied foliage in a thousand beauteous liveries

Circumstances prevent this article from concluding, as had been purposed, with notices of Holwood-hill as a Roman en

campment, and of "Cæsar's Spring," in the declivity, beneath the gates of Holwood on Keston Common. An engraving of that ancient bourne, which Julius Cæsar is said to have himself discovered nearly two thousand years ago, and thither directed his legions to slake their thirst, will precede the remaining particulars in another sheet.

*

THE PLAGUE AT EYAM, AND THE REV. THOMAS STANLEY.

To the Editor.

Sir, The publication of the paper, entitled "Catherine Mompesson's Tomb," on "The Desolation of Eyam, and other Poems, by William and Mary Howitt," at p. 482 of the Table Book, gives me an opportunity, with your good offices, of rescuing from a degree of oblivion the name and merits of an individual, who has unaccountably been almost generally overbooked, but who ought, at least, to be equally identified in any notice of the "Plague at Fyam" with Mr. Mompesson himself.

The Rev. Thomas Stanley was instituted to the rectory of Eyam by the ruling powers in 1644, which he held till the "Act of Uniformity," in 1662, threw him

out.

It appears that he continued to reside at Eyam after his ejectment, and the tradition of the place at this day is, that he was supported by the voluntary contributions of two-thirds of the inhabitants; this may have been the cause of some jealousy in those who might have been satisfied with his removal from the living.

His comparative disinterestedness, with other circumstances worthy of notice, are recorded by his friend and fellow-sufferer Bagshaw, usually called "the Apostle of the Peak;" he concludes a most interesting account of Mr. Stanley in these words :"When he could not serve his people publickly, some (yet alive) will testifie, how helpful he was to 'em in private; especially when the sickness (by way of eminency so called, I mean the Pestilence) prevailed in that town, he continuing with 'em, when, as it is written, 259 persons of ripe age, and 58 children were cut off thereby. When some, who might have been better employed, moved the then noble earl of Devonshire, lord lieutenant, to remove him out of the town; I am told by the credible, that he said, 'It was more reasonable that the whole country should, in more than words, testify their thankfulness to him, who, together with his care of the town, had taken such care as no one else did, to prevent the infection of the towns adjacent.'"

Mr. Stanley died at Eyam 24th August, and was buried there on the 26th following, 1670.

I have thus extracted what, as an act of Justice, ought to have been published long since, and which, indeed, ought to accompany every memorial of the plague at Eyam: though I scarcely regret that it has waited for the extensive circulation the Table Book must give to it-if it is so fortunate as to be considered a communication to your purpose. My authority is, "De Spiritualibus Pecci. Notes (or Notices) concerning the Work of God, and some of those who have been workers together with God in the High Peak of Derbyshire," &c. 12mo. 1702. (Sheffield.)

Some farther account of Stanley may be seen in Calamy's "Nonconformist's Memorial," and Hunter's "History of Hallamshire," but both follow Bagshaw.

I exceedingly regret that "William and Mary Howitt" were unacquainted with Mr. Stanley's services at Eyam.

For the Table Book. THE REIGN OF DEATH.

And I saw, and beheld a white horse: and be that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. Revelations, vi. 2.

In nightly vision, on my bed, I saw
A form unearthly, on a pale horse sat,
Riding triumphant o'er a prostrate world.
Around his brows he wore a crown of gold,
And in his bony hand he grasp'd a bow,
Which scatter'd arrows of destruction round.
His form was meagre-shadowy-indistinct-
Clothed with the faint lineaments of man.
He pass'd me swifter than the winged wind-
Or lightning from the cloud-or ghostly vision.
From his eye he shot devouring lightnings,
And his dilated nostril pour'd a stream
Of noisome, pestilential vapour.
Where'er he trod all vegetation ceas'd,

And the spring flow'rs hung, with'ring, on their stalks.
He passed by a city, whose huge walls,
And towers, and battlements, and palaces,
Cover'd the plain, aspiring to the skies:

As he pass'd, he smil'd-and straight it fell-
Wall, tower, and battlement, and glittering spire,
Palace, and prison, crumbling into dust;
And nought of this fair city did remain,
But one large heap of wild, confused ruin.

The rivers ceas'd to flow, and stood congeal'd.
The sea did cease its roaring, and its waves
Lay still upon the shore-

No tide did ebb or flow, but all was bound
In a calm, leaden slumber. The proud ships.
Which hitherto had travers'd o'er the deep,
Were now becalmed with this dead'ning stillness:—
The sails hang motionless-straight sunk the mast
O'er the huge bulwarks, and the yielding planks
Dropt silently into the noiseless deep-
No ripple on the wave was left to show
Where, erst, the ship had stood, but all was blank
And motionless.

Birds in the air, upon the joyous wing,
Fell, lifeless, as the shadowy monster pass'd ·
And hostile armies, drawn in warlike lines,
Ceas'd their tumultuous conflict in his sight-
Conqueror and conquer'd yielding 'neath the power
Of the unknown destroyer! Nations fell;
And thrones, and principalities, and powers.-
Kings, with their glitt'ring crowns, lay on the earth,
And at their sides, their menials.-
Beauty and beggary together lay;
Youth, innocence, and age, and crime, together.
I saw a murderer, in a darksome wood,
Wielding a dagger o'er a beauteous bosom,
Threat'ning quick destruction to his victim:-
The shadow pass'd--the leaves grew sere and dropp'd

The forest crumbled into ashes, and

The steel dissolv'd within th' assassin's hand

His face grew wan and bloodless-his eyes stood
Fix'd, and glazed-he stiffen'd, and he fell-
And o'er his prostrate body sunk his victim!
I still pursued the conqueror with my eye-
The earth grew desart as he rode along-
The sun turn'd bloody in the stagnant air-
The universe itself was one vast ruin-

Then, stopp'd the Fiend. By him all mortal things
Had been destroyed; yet was he unsated;
And his vengeful eyes still flash'd destruction.-
Thus, alone, he stood; and reign'd-scle monarch-
All supreme-THE KING OF DESOLATION!

AND

THUNDER-LIGHTNING-AURORA BOREALIS- EARTHQUAKES EBBING FLOWING OF THE SEA-THE LOADSTONE AND AMBER-ELECTRICITY-RIVERS,

Some of the moderns have assigned the cause of Thunder to inflamed exhalations, rending the clouds wherein they are confined; others, to the shock between two or more clouds, when those that are higher and more condensed fall upon those that are lower, with so much force as suddenly to expel the intermediate air, which vigorously expanding itself, in order to occupy its former space, puts all the exterior air in commotion, producing those reiterated claps which we call thunder. This is the explanation of Descartes, and had but few followers; the former had more, being that of the Newtonians. For a third theory, which makes the matter productive of thunder the same with that of electricity, its author, Dr. Franklin, is in no part indebted to the ancients.

The notion of Descartes entirely belongs to Aristotle, who says, that "thunder is caused by a dry exhalation, which, falling upon a humid cloud, and violently endeavouring to force a passage for itself, produces the peals which we hear." Anaxagoras refers it to the same cause.

All the other passages, which occur in such abundance among the ancients, respecting thunder, contain in them the reasonings of the Newtonians, sometimes combining the notions of Descartes.

Leucippus, and the Eleatic sect, held

that "thunder proceeded from a fiery exnalation, which, enclosed in a cloud, burst it asunder, and forced its way through." Democritus asserts, that it is the effect of a mingled collection of various volatile particles, which impel downwards the cloud which contains them, till, by the rapidity of their motion, they set themselves and it on fire.

Seneca ascribes it to a dry sulphureous exhalation arising out of the earth, which he calls the aliment of lightning; and which, becoming more and more subtilized in its ascent, at last takes fire in the air, and produces a violent eruption.

According to the stoics, thunder was occasioned by the shock of clouds; and lightning was the combustion of the volatile parts of the cloud, set on fire by the shock. Chrysippus taught, that lightning was the result of clouds being set on fire by winds, which dashed them one against another; and that thunder was the noise produced by that rencontre: he added, that these effects were coincident; our perception of the lightning before the thunder-clap being entirely owing to our sight's being quicker than our hearing.

In short, Aristophanes, in his comedy of the "Clouds," introducing Socrates as satisfying the curiosity of one of his disciples as to the cause of thunder, makes him assign it to the action of the compressed air in a cloud, which dilating itself bursts it, and, violently agitating the exterior air, sets itself on fire, and by the rapidity of its progress occasions all that noise.

The Aurora Borealis was also observed by the ancients, as may be seen in Aristotle, Pliny, Seneca, and other writers, who conjectured differently its cause.

The Cartesians, Newtonians, and other able moderns, ascribe Earthquakes to the earth's being filled with cavities of a vast extent, containing in them an immense quantity of thick exhalations, resembling the smoke of an extinguished candle, which being easily inflammable, and by their agitation catching fire, rarefy and heat the central and condensed air of the cavern to such a degree, that finding no vent, it bursts its enclosements; and, in doing this, shakes the surrounding earth all around with dreadful percussions, producing all the other effects which naturally follow.

Aristotle and Seneca assigned these dreadful events to the same cause. The former says, that they were occasioned by the efforts of the internal air in dislodging itself from the bowels of the earth; and he observes, that on the approach of an earth

quake the ather is generally serene, be cause that sort of air which occasions commotions in the atmosphere, is at that time pent up in the entrails of the earth.

Seneca is so precise, we might take him for a naturalist of the present times. He supposes that the earth hides in its bosom many subterraneous fires, which uniting their flames, necessarily put into fervid motion the congregated vapours of its cells, which finding no immediate outlet, exert their utmost powers, till they force a way through whatever opposes them. He says also, that if the vapours be too weak to burst the barriers which retain them, all their efforts end in weak shocks, and hollow murmurs, without any fatal consequence.

Of all the solutions of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea, the most simple and ingenious, though afterwards found by observation to be inadequate, is that o. Descartes, who supposes a vortex of subtile matter, of an elliptic form, to invest our globe, and compress it on all sides. The moon, according to this philosopher, is immerged in this elliptic vortex, and when at its greatest elongation from the earth, it makes less impression upon the circumambient ethereal matter; but when it comes to the narrowest part of the ellipse, gives such an impulse to the atmosphere, as puts the whole ocean in agitation. He supports his system by this remark, that the ebbing and flowing of the sea generally coincides with the irregularity of the moon's

course.

The opinion of Kepler and Newton is more conformable to observation, and is founded on this hypothesis-that the moon attracts the waters of the sea, diminishing the weight of those parts of it over whose zenith it comes, and increasing the weight of the collateral parts, so that the parts directly opposite to the moon, and under it in the same hemisphere, must become more elevated than the rest. According to this system, the action of the sun concurs with that of the moon, in occasioning the tides; which are higher or lower respectively, according to the situation o those two luminaries, which, when in conjunction, act in concert, raising the tides to the greatest height; and when in opposition, produce nearly the same effect, in swelling the waters of the opposite hemispheres; but when in quadrature, suspend each other's force, so as to act only by the difference of their powers; and thus the tides vary, according to the different positions of the sun and moon

The Cartesian method of solution has been indicated by Pytheas Massiliensis, who observes, that the tides, in their increase and decrease, follow the irregular course of the moon; and by Seleucus of Erythrea, the mathematician, who ascribing to the earth a rotation about its axis, imputes the cause of tides to the activity of the earth's vortex, in conjunction with that of the moon.

Pliny's account has more affinity to that of sir Isaac Newton. The great naturalist of the ancients maintained, that "the sun and moon had a reciprocal share in causing the tides:" and after a course of observations for many years, he remarked, that "the moon acted most forcibly upon the waters when it was nearest to the earth; but that the effect was not immediately perceived by us, but at such an interval as may well take place between the action of celestial causes, and the discernible result of them on earth." He remarked also, that the waters, which are naturally inert, do not swell up immediately upon the conjunction of the sun and moon; but having gradually admitted the impulse, and begun to raise themselves, continue in that elevation, even after the conjunction is over.

There are few things which have more engaged the attention of naturalists, and with less success, than the wonderful properties of the Loadstone. Almost all have agreed in affirming that there are corpuscles of a peculiar form and energy that continually circulate around and through the loadstone, and that a vortex of the same matter circulates around and through the earth. Upon these suppositions Descartes and others have advanced, that the loadstone has two poles similar to those of the earth; and that the magnetic matter which issues at one of the poles, and circulates around to enter at the other, occasions that impulse which brings iron to the loadstone, whose small corpuscles have an analogy to the pores of iron, fitting them to lay hold of it, but not of other bodies.

All this the ancients had said before. The impulsive force which joins iron to the loadstone, and other things to Amber, was known to Plato; though he would not call it attraction, as allowing no such cause in nature. This philosopher called the magnet the stone of Hercules, because it subdued iron, which conquers every thing.

Descartes's idea of his explanation was doubtless derived from Lucretius, who admitted, that there was a "vortex of corpuscles, or magnetic matter, which, continually circulating around the loadstone.

repelled the intervening air betwixt itself and the iron. The air thus repelled, the intervening space became a vacuum; and the iron, finding no resistance, approached with an impulsive force, pushed on by the air behind it."

Plutarch likewise is of the same opinion. He says, that "amber attracts none of those things that are brought to it, any more than the loadstone, but emits a matter, which reflects the circumambient air, and thereby forms a void. The expelled air puts in motion the air before it, which making a circle, returns to the void space, driving before it, towards the loadstone, the iron which it meets in its way." He then proposes a difficulty, to wit, "why the vortex which circulates around the loadstone does not make its way to wood or stone, as well as iron?" He answers, like Descartes, that "the pores of iron have an analogy to the particles of the vortex circulating about the loadstone, which yields them such access as they can find in no other bodies, whose pores are differently formed.”

Certain authors report, that the properties of the loadstone, particularly its tendency towards the north pole, enabled the ancients to undertake long voyages; and they pretend, that the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians, employed the compass to guide them in their naval excursions; though afterwards they lost the use of it, just as they did of dying purple, and of embroidering, and of composing bricks, and a cement able to resist the force of all weathers; arts, without all doubt, formerly well known to them. Pineda and Kircher affirm likewise, that Solomon knew the use of the compass, and that his subjects steered their course by it in sailing to the land of Ophir. There is also a passage of Plautust produced, wherein it is alleged he speaks of the compass. There is not however a single passage in the ancients that directly supports these pretensions.

We may with exactness determine what the tree colour was of the purple of the ancients, by attending to two passages of Pliny, wherein he says, that the whole aim of the Tyrians and Phoenicians, in bringing their purple to the utmost perfection, was to render it in colour &s like as possible to the oriental amethyst. Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. ix. c. 38 & 41, et lib. xxxvii.c. 9. + Hùc secundus ventus nunc est; cape modò Vorso riam,

Stasime; cape Yorsoriam, recipe te ad Herum. With respect to what was known to the ancients, and of which we still are ignorant, recourse may be had to Pancirolus de rebus Deperditis, particularly te his first book, chap. i. 35, 36, 39, respecting the colour of purple, the ductility of glass and the effects of the ancient music. See especially Dion. Cassins's History, in Tiber. lib. vii, p. 617. E. Plin. lib. xxxvi, e. 26, &c. Isidor. de Originib. lib. xvi. e. 15, respecting the ductility of glass.

It is scarcely credible, that the real cause of Electricity was known to the ancients, and yet there are indications of it in the work of Timæus Locrensis, concerning the soul of the world.

The moderns are also divided in their sentiments, as to how it happens that Rivers, continually flowing into the sea, do not swell the mass of waters, so as to make it overflow its banks. One of the solutions of this difficulty is, that rivers return again to their source by subterraneous passages or canals; and that there is, between the sea and the springs of rivers, a circulation analogous to that of blood in the human body. This solution, however, is the same as Seneca's, who accounts for their not overflowing the bed of the ocean, by imagining secret passages, which reconduct them to their springs; and because, at their springs, they retain nothing of that brackishness which they carried with them from the sea, he supposes they are filtrated in their circuit through winding paths, and layers of every soil, so that they must needs return to their source as pure and sweet as they departed thence.

FILEY, YORKSHIRE. HADDOCK LEGEND, AND HERRING FISHERY.

For the Table Book.

At Filey a singular range of rock, said to resemble the celebrated mole of Tangiers, extends from the cliff a considerable way into the sea, and is called Filey bridge. It is covered by the sea at high tide, but may be traversed for upwards of a quarter of a mile at low water. From the farther end a distant, but, in fine weather, a distinct view may be had of Scarborough and the Castle on the one hand, and of Flamborough-head and the Lighthouse, with an extensive stretch of lofty chalk-stone cliff, on the other. When the wind is from the north-east the waves break over it majestically, and may be seen rising up in foamy spray to a great distance, producing an imposing and awful appearance. From

its singularity there is no wonder that the credulous, the superstitious, and the vulgar, who have always had a propensity to attach something of the marvellous to whatever is extraordinary, should have made this ridge an object from which to form a story.

Perhaps, Mr. Editor, you, as well as many of the readers of the Table Book, may have seen the haddock at different

times, and observed the black marks on its sides. But do you know, sir, how the haddock came by these said marks? The legendary tale of Filey says, that the devil in one of his mischievous pranks determined to build Filey bridge for the destruction of ships and sailors, and the annoyance of fishermen, but that in the progress of his work he accidentally let fall his hammer into the sea, and being in haste to snatch it back caught a haddock, and thereby made the imprint, which the whole species retains to this day.

The village of Filey is seated in a small and beautiful bay. The settled inhabitants depend chiefly on the fishery, which is carried on with success to a considerable extent, although of late years a few good houses have been built, and several respectable families have resorted thither during the season, for the purpose of sea-bathing, for which the beach is well adapted. The church is in the form of a cross, with a steeple in the middle, and bears some resemblance to an ancient cathedral in miniature; it stands at a distance from the village, being divided by a deep ravine, which forms the boundary of partition between the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire; the church consequently stands in the former, and the village in the latter of the two Ridings. T. C.

Bridlington, Sept. 27, 1827.

Since the foregoing was written I have been at Filey, and was there informed that in the month of September, yearly, about ninety men, sometimes accompanied by their wives and children, leave this village for the herring fishery at Yarmouth. Previously to their setting out for the fishing station they send a piece of sea-beef on shore from each boat to such of their friends at the public-houses as they wish "weel teea;" this occasions "a bit of a supper," at which those who are going away and those who stay meet to enjoy good cheer, heightened with mutual good-will. October 11, 1827.

PISCATORIA.

T. C.

Lucan, the Roman poet, makes a beautiful digression to paint the happy life of a fisherman. In plain prose it will read in this manner :

News (says he) was brought to Cæsar, at a late hour, that Pompey was up in arms in Calabria, ready to dispute with him the