1825.]

Christmas next, which subjects me to two rents, heavy to ine, for half a year. I think, however, as there is nothing like the thing at Newton to be had for the same price any where else in the country, that I had better submit to that weight, and take it from Midsummer. Particulars may in the mean time be the better placed; the gardens in more order for use, coal laid in, and some drink stored. My bed may be put up (which I had rather have than one of the landlord's for my own lying on), and several other considerations arise. If you then think it best to do so, proceed; if not proper in your judgment, let it melt into thin air. I am a cosmopolite, and shall never shed many tears on account of the part of the globe I happen to be stationed on. He has almost danced his dance, then goes behind the curtain; and what does it signify where he falls asleep? But if in Yorkshire, where shall I get one to attend me? I do not like an old woman, and had rather have some honest woman's daughter, who has been taught by her mother to make a pudding. That's the girl that pleases Jam,

me.

IT is a subject of no small cause for rejoicing, that the houses of Refuge for the Destitute have been recommended in several counties of England. That established near London in the Hackney Road, has been found of great benefit to the distressed objects themselves, and in proportion to the community, for it is a manifest evidence of a repentant conviction, that their past errors will become inevitable ruin, unless they are entirely reformed, and that the punishment which they have already incurred has been a wholesome discipline;-the sorrow of a mind thus disposed to take a moral retrospect of past conduct, is a godly sorrow not to be repented of, but cherished till the latest hour, when it will afford its purest fruits of consolation.

The public Magistrate undertakes a hard duty to administer the severity of the law, and this is in fact all that he can do. If the punishment which he commands does not affect a hardened offender, the case seems to be hopeless, and he will return to his former courses, until he is overtaken at last by

untimely and ignominious death! But if a spark yet remains which can be fed during the discipline of temporary privations, and the separation from bad companions, until it lights up in his mind a conviction of the sense of shame of the offence committed against. God, of ingratitude to his Providence, and of dread that his all-seeing eye may be for ever averted, from him,the culprit may be brought to that state of penitence, which, while it corrects his heart, saves him from despondence; -he then not only feels what he suffers himself, but he is deeply disgusted with the unfeeling and untameable profligacy and wicked resolutions of future retaliation, which he hears among his fellow prisoners; and perhaps he rejoices more at the moment of his discharge from their association than at the expected cessation of his own discipline. But still he has learnt a lesson, the very reverse in its effects to that which they mean to adopt; his first reflections turn to the great difficulty of the step to be taken for his self-preservation, for his recovery from the discomforts of his imprisonment, and for his avoiding the danger of meeting with his compa-nions. He expects nothing from society; if he becomes a beggar, he incurs the return to confinement; yet he

sees no one of whom he can ask bread, and having lost his character, he dare not offer his services to any, for he deserves not confidence, and has no character to introduce him. He looks back to the former years of his life, when he was under the care of his parents, or of the magistrates, or of the laws of his country, and could claim their united protection; nay, he reflects that he was then one of the great family of the earth, and could cast up his thoughts with humble hope to Heaven! He now feels that he has offended all these; therefore he dare not appeal to them, but represents a rude unserviceable trunk upon a barren mountain, shorn of its leaves and branches, and left to the horrors of every pitiless storm!

"If we consider (says Bp. Sherlock, IV. 379) the nature and disposition of mankind, we shall easily perceive that two things are especially necessary to guard the practice of virtue and religion,-instruction and correction; one a proper remedy for the weakness of the understanding; the other for the perverseness of the will. The power

of

of correction is proper to be preserved in the hand of the Magistrate, and is never better applied than for the punishment of wickedness and vice, and for the maintenance of true religion and virtue. It is a lamentable fact, that in conjunction with all the helps that are at present afforded, great numbers continue ignorant to a degree hardly to be imagined." If this ignorance were suffered to prevail, there would be no expansion of time sufficient for the duties of the Magistrates; but under all their discouragements, and the great difficulty of holding the balance even, they have the hope that reformation is better understood in these days than formerly. "Necessity is a great temptation to fraud, and idle and dissolute boys commonly prove loose and vicious young men, and often fall a sacrifice to the severity of the laws before they become old ones." Ibid. 392.

The situation of all such persons, when discharged from prison, calls aloud and with piercing cries of repentant sorrow for some protection against their return to the miseries of evil! Here the shield of protection with moderate comfort will give effect to moral instruction, and by this means every culprit may be saved!

The Lord Lieutenant and Gentry of the County of Surrey have lately organized a Society for this purpose, "to furnish temporary assistance to those who in their discharge from the prisons of that County, are destitute of the means of subsistence, and from want of friends are unable to procure employment; and to promote the reformation of the juvenile offenders discharged from those prisons." It is remarked, that the first week of their liberation commonly finds them relapsing into those habits of vice and dissipation, which the restraint and regularity of the prison had gone far towards subduing. To remedy this evil, by supplying them with employ ment till they have time to look around them and find means of obtaining an honest livelihood, thereby giving them an opportunity of acting up to such good resolutions as they may have formed, is a work of real charity and public utility. The formation of such a Society was also recommended by the venerable Judge Sir J. A. Park, who presided at the last Assizes at Kingston,

[July,

in his Charge to the Grand Jury, and it has the prospect of being espoused by every person who commiserates the wounds of despair!

Hitherto some of these objects have been received at the Refuge in Hackney Road upon a contract of 78. per week, but it has been filled to such excess, that these objects could no longer be admitted, and the difficulty has been fairly met by an agreement with Mr. Hey of Rockingham House for the erection, at his own expence, of a building in the New Kent Road, which will be opened in October next, and for which he is to receive a rent of 1007. per annum from this new Society.

It is expected that, upon the lowest calculation, the charge of conducting this plan will amount to 800l. per aunum; but it has already, during the past year, effected so much good, that as its means expand its greater benefits may be anticipated. Fifty discharged prisoners were effectually relieved; of which number from 15 to 20 were furnished with employment, and 30 sent to the Refuge for the Desfitute;. 3 women are now in respectable situa tions as domestic servants; 3 boys have been apprenticed, and 2 men are supporting themselves in a creditable man

ner.

It is therefore hoped that these have been rescued from a life of infamy and wretchedness, and by thus thinning the ranks of the depraved and dangerous members of the community, the best interests of society at large have been well consulted and regarded.

In the List of Vice-Presidents we' read the name of the Bishop of Winchester; and in that of the Committee of Thirty, we find that of Mr. Justice Park, Henry Drummond, esq. the Treasurer, and Rev. John Butt, the Honorary Secretary; and it seems to be their design to call Meetings in different parts of the County in support of the Society.

A. H.

10

that he was elected Archbishop of Canterbury, but was refused by the Pope. In 1211 he was made Lord Justice of Ireland, where he staid two years; he died as he returned in his embassy from the Pope, at Picton, Oct. 18, 1214, and was buried in his cathedral at Norwich.

The abovementioned Henry left four sons; viz. 1. Richard, whose principal seat was at Codnovre, in Derbyshire. His descendants were parliamentary Baronst. 2. John, was Justice of Chester, and Progenitor to the noble families of Grey, of Wilton, Ruthyn, Groby, Marquis Dorset, and Viscount Lisle. 4. Robert de Grey, of Rotherfield, co. Oxon. §. 3. William de Grey, first of Landford, Notts. then of Sandiacre in Derbyshire, and afterwards of Cavendish in Suffolk, He left two sous, John and Henry.

Sir Thomas de Grey, of Cornerth, Suffolk, knt. son and heir of John de Grey, esq. of Cavendish, married, before 1300, Alice, daughter and sole heiress of Sir Richard de Cornherd or Cornerth, knt. Their son and heir Sir Thomas succeeded, and by marriage with Isabel eldest daughter and coheiress of Fulk Baynard, brought Merton into the family. He left a son, who died a minor, and two daughters, Margaret, afterwards married to Sir Thomas Shardelowe, and Joan, to Thomas Pynchbeke. This manor was then divided into three parts; Thomas Grey, clerk, their uncle, had one third part, which 1388 he settled on Pynchbeke and his wife, and so they had two thirds, and Sir Thomas Shardelowe and his wife the other third, the whole being entailed for want of issue of the nieces on Thomas de Grey their uncle, and his heirs. In 1402 Thomas Grey, clerk, held this manor, and the whole estate of the Greys in Norfolk, and died possessed of it before 1401,

[July,

for in that year Fulk de Grey, esq. son of Fulk de Grey and Margaret his wife, and nephew and heir to Thomas de Grey, clerk, had livery of his estate in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire; he married Eleanor Bernardestou, and was succeeded by William de Grey, of Merton, esq. from whom it hath passed by a series of honourable alliances to the Right Hon. George de Grey, Baron Walsingham, and Privy Councellor, who is the present Lord of the Manor, and patron of the Rectory, of whose illustrious family see more hereafter among the monumental inscriptions in the Church.

MERTON HALL, (See Plate I.) is a brick edifice, and appears to have been built about the year 1610, on the site of the ancient residence of the Baynards. It faces the North, and has in front a curious gateway, with a clock. The chimney-piece in one of the bed-rooms bears date 1613. Three of the rooms are hung with tapestry in tolerable preservation. A curious oak chest is preserved in the gallery with the initials H. R. surmounted by a crown. It is supposed to have belonged to king Henry the Eighth, who [in 1510] made a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham, barefooted, and carried a rich necklace as a present.

Part of the front of the Hall was modernized about sixty years ago, by Mrs. De Grey, who (as the story goes) during her husband's absence from home, wished to make some improvement and astonish him on his return; and as the house looked rather dull and antique, modern windows were sub. stituted for the original fine bow windows of the Elizabethan age. Lucky indeed was it that Mr. De Grey's return prevented any further modernization.

There are a few family portraits remaining in the Hall; viz. 1. Thomas

§ Id. 723.

De