⚫ the L. Cromwell) were then and there brent; the timber work of this fhrine on the outfide was couered with plates of gold, damafked with gold wier, which ground of gold was ' againe couered with jewels of golde, as rings, ten or twelve, cramped with 'gold wyer into the fayd ground of golde, many of thofe rings having ftones in them; brooches, images, angels, pretious ftones and great pearl &c. The spoile of which 'fhrine, in golden and pretious ftones, filled two great chests, such as fixe or feauen strong men could doe no 'more than conuey one of them at · once out of the church.'

"This was the object of pilgrimage without end. A hundred thoufand devotees have made it a vifit in one year: men of every rank, even to the crowned head. Among others, Louis VII. of France came in 1179, in the guife of a common pilgrim. Louis, on this occafion, prefented a rich cup, of gold, and the famous precious stone, called the Regal of France, which Henry VIII. fet and wore as a thumbring. He granted the monks a hundred tons of wine, to be paid at Paris annua ly. He kept watch a whole night at the tomb, and in the morning demanded to be admitted of the frater

nity; and was indulged in his requcft, attended by the penitent Henry 11.

"St. Thomas feems quite to have preceded, if not fuperfeded, our Saviour: for in one year the offering to 'Chrift's altar was ol. os. od.; to that of his Holy Mother, 4. 1s. Ed.; to that of the great Becket, 9541. 6s. 3d. It was alfo by the merit of his blood, not our Saviour's, that we were taught to expect falvation.,

Tu, per Thomæ fanguinem,
quem pro te impendit,
Fac nos, Chrifte, fcandere
quò Thomas afcendit.'

"Chaucer mukes one of the fe religious follies the fubject of a most entertaining poem. The pilgrims affèmbled at the inn in Southwark, and put up at the Chequer, in High Street, which ftill remains. It is a wooden building, with a great gallery round the court, and is now the habitation of many poor families: not but there was, in the days of pilgrimages, good provifion made in this monaftery for the poor itinerants, a domus hofpiturn,

where they had lodging and diet at the expense of the houfe. It was a hun dred and fifty feet long, and forty broad; and had a noble hall for the reception of poor pilgrims and ftrangers. Mr. Grofe has given us a view of the beautiful entrance, through a round arched door, with carved mouldings, and of the fingular columns on the fide of the ftair-cafe.

"The pilgrims, in their way, ufed to ftop at the hospital at Harbledon, which had been founded by Bishop Lanfranc, for leprous perfons. This houfe is about a mile and an half from the city, on the London road. It had the happiness to be in poffeffion of St. Thomas Becket's flipper. This, Erafmus fays, was the upper leather of an old fhoe, decked with cryftals fet in copper, which the pilgrims kiffed with great devotion, as a preparation for the more folemn approach to the tomb.

"The hiftory of this violent man is fo well known that I need not repeat it. I will only fay, that he was, after his murder, thrown by the affaffins over the stairs that lead to the choir; and to this day the guide fhows you the fpot where his indelible blood remains." Vol. i. p. 150.

"The chapter-room is ninety-two feet by thirty-feven, and fifty-four feet high. The pillars of the stalls on the fide are of Petworth marble. In this place Henry II. underwent the severity of his humiliating penance.

"The king thought it neceffary to 'vifit the fhrine of this new-created faint; and as foon as he came within 'fight of the tower of Canterbury ca'thedral, at the diftance of three miles,

defcended from his horfe and walked 'thither bare-foot, over a road that 'was full of rough and sharp ftones, which fo wounded his feet, that in many places they were ftained with his blood. When he got to the tomb, which was then in the crypt of the church, he threw himfelf proftrate before it, and remained for fome time in fervent prayer, during which, by his orders, the Bishop of London, in his name, declared to the people that he had neither commanded nor advised, nor by any artifice contrived the death of Becket, for the truth of which he appealed in the moft folemn manner to the teftimony of God; but as the murderers of that prelate

· had

⚫ had taken occafion, from his words, 'too inconfiderately spoken, to commit this offence, he voluntarily thus 'fubmitted himself to the difcipline of the church. After this he was fcourg⚫ed, at his own request and command, by all the morks of the convent affembled for that purpose, from 'every one of whom, and from several 'bishops and abbots there present, he received three or four ftripes. This 'fharp penance being done, he returned to his prayers before the tomb, which he continued all that day and ' all the next night, not even fuffering a 'carpet to be spread beneath him, but kneeling on the hard pavement. EarFly in the morning he went round all 'the altars of the church, and paid his 'devotions to the faints there interred; ⚫ which having performed, he came back to Becket's tomb, where he ftaid 'till the hour when mafs was faid in 'the church, at which he aflifted.

"During all this time he had taken 'no kind of food, and, except when ◄ he gave his, naked body to be whipt, was clad in fackcloth. Before his ' departure (that he might fully com'plete the expiation of his fin according to the notions of the church of 'Rome), he affigned a revenue of forty 'pounds a year to keep lights always 'burning, in honour of Becket, about his tomb. The next evening he reach ed London, where he found it neceffary to be blooded and reft fome 'days'." Vol. i. p. 154.

CODWINE'S SANDS-GREAT STORM

OF 1703.

"MUCH is fabled concerning thofe fatal fhoals; that they had been once a folid and populous tract, the property of Earl Godwinę, fometimes ftyled Earl of Kent, a man of great abilities and courage, but infamous for cruelty and treachery. He died in the year 1053. The monks give him a horrid end, and fay, that, dining at the table of Edward the Confeffor, and being charged with a murder, he with horrid imprecations took a bit of bread and wifhed it might be his bane if he was guilty: no fooner had he put it into his mouth but he died in the most dreadful manner. It feems this bread had been corfned, i. e. accurfed according to form by a certain bishop; fo the purgation proved fatal to the Earl.

This was not all: the sea swallowed up his Kentish eftates, and left them in the fhape we find them to this day. Swift jocularly tells us, that to the prefent time the houses and steeples are vifible beneath the waves.

Thus oft by mariners are shown

(Unless the men of Kent are liars) Earl Gedwine's caftles overflown, And palace-roofs, and fteeplefpires.'

"Perhaps a natural folution may be as credible: we may afcribe it to the vaft inundation which A.D. 1100 overflowed part of Holland, fo that the water being carried from this part of the fea rendered it fo fhallow, that places which might have been fafely paffed over before, now became full of dangerous fhoals. Such was the cafe here: the Godwine fands were two fub-marine hills, in ancient times unnoticed by reafon of the depth. After this drainage their heads at the ebb tides appeared above water, and became moft dangerous to mariners: yet they have their utility--fhips anchor or moor beneath their fhelter, and the little they receive from the North and South Forelands, and find protection from the winds, unless in very extraordinary tempefts: fuch was the fatal one of November 1703. It began five hundred leagues from the English coast, and hurried the homeward-bound fhips, which happened to be in the Atlantic, with amazing impetuofity up the channel, and as it were fwept the ocean and filled every port: no fhip that did not go direct before the wind could live. It passed over England, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Ruffia, and part of Tartary, and spent itself amidst the islands of ice in the Frozen Sea. I refer to a moft ample relation of its dire effects by fea and land, given in the City Remembrancer, vol. ii. from p. 43 to 187: its height was in the night of November the 26th, but it lafted with incredible fury fourteen days. That dreadful night was uncommonly dark, and made more hide-" ous in many places by the quick coruf-. cations of lightning and the fingular glare of meteors and imaginary fymp toms of earthquakes, while the rolling of the thunder and the howling of the winds formed the terrific diapafon. It is faid, that in various parts not fewer than eight thousand perfons perished..

Rear

Rear-admiral Beaumont, in the Mary, a fourth rate, together with the Northumberland, Stirling Castle, and Reftoration, three third rates, and one fifth, were beaten to pieces against the fands, and near twelve hundred gallant failors loft to the country in the midft of a moft important war.

"The Godwine Sands confift of two parts, divided in the middle by four narrow channels, about two fathoms deep; the middle called the Swash, navigable by boats, and that only in fine weather. The Sands extend ten miles along the coaft north and fouth, verging towards the caft, and from three and a half to fix miles diftant from the main land. They have over them at all times fo little water as not to be any where paffable, unless by very finall veffels; but at the ebb are in many parts dry. This frequently occafions a lingering death to the unhappy people who are wrecked on them at low water: they often pass with horrible prospect the intermediate fpace between their getting on the fands and the return of the tide. It fometimes happens that in cafe they are feen from land they are relieved if there is a poffibility for a boat to be put off; for, to do juftice to the people of Deal, they are always ready to hazard their own lives to fave thofe of their fellow-creatures: as to the effects fcattered on the fand, they have at all ́times been deemed fair prizes." Vol. i. p. 167.

HYTHE CHURCH-BONES OF DANES. "THE parish church of Hythe is. feated high above the town, on the rifing grounds: it is a large and venerable pile, dedicated to St. Leonard; once conventual, and belonging 'fumtyme to a fayr abbay,' fays Leland; which is all we know of it: at prefent it is only a chapel to Saltwood. There is much fingularity in and about the church, fuch as paffages cut through the five great buttreffes, a ftrange grotefque face over one of the doors, and a door with a neat moulded arch on the fouth fide, now almoft buried in the earth, poffibly a way to the crypt or fub-chapel, by which, Leland tells us, the religious people came in at midnight. Within is a vaft flight of fteps from the nave to the chancel, and a neat gallery round the sides, with Go

thic arches, divided by a pillar. The windows at the end of the chancel are three, narrow and Gothic, with the moft elegant fender and lofty pillars on each lide I ever faw. The whole of the building is Gothic, one round arch excepted, which fhows that there must have been, prior to this, a church perhaps founded in Norman days.

"Under the chancel is a great vault, with a neat Gothic door opening to the church-yard, full of fculls and other bones, nicely forted and piled: thefe are conjectured to have belonged to fome Danish pirates, who, having landed on the fhore, had been defeated with great flaughter, and their bones left to be bleached by external expofure to heat and cold upon the naked beach; they are certainly of uncommon whitenefs. There is, not far from Hythe, a fpot called Marrowbone Field; poffibly from having been the place where the flaughter was made, and the bones in after-times collected." Vol. ii. p. 8.

ASHBURNHAM-HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE ANÉCDOTE OF A LORD DACRE.

"THE country about Battel is very beautiful, full of gentle rifings, and fertile bottoms well wooded. We took the road to Pevensey, about ten miles diftant: in a fhort time we paffed by Afhburnham, three miles from Battel, the feat of Earl Afhburnham. This place gave name to the family which Fuller calls of ftupendous anti

quity. Bertram de Efburnham was theriff of the counties of Suffex, Surry, and Kent, and conftable of Dover caftle in the reign of Harold; and gave great luftre to the pedigree, by having his head and thofe of his two fons, ftruck off by the Conqueror, for the brave defence he made of that key to the kingdom. We foon after paffed Standard-hill, and the village of Nenfield with its fpire fteeple. A few miles further we defcended Wartlinghill, into an extenfive woodlefs tract, the marsh called Pevensey Level. We left to the right the fite of the most magnificent pile of ancient brick-work of any of the world, Huritmonceaux caftle, or more properly houfe, the princely habitation of the Fynefes, built by Sir Roger de Fynes, treasurer of the household in the reign of

Henry