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REVIEW-Britton's Beauties of Wiltshire.

vii starrs; (5) on the other side the story of the birth and passion of Christ, as it is found graved by a King of Scots [David II.] that was prisoner in Nottingham, in a cell, called to this day, the King of Scotts' prison. (6) The worde was that of the good theife Lord, remember me, when thou comest in thie Kingdom.' Domine, memento mei cum veneris in regnum,' and little beneath Past crucem, lucem!' (7) The wax candle to be removed at pleasure to the top, and so to make a candlestick, stoode in a foot of brass. (8) The snuffers and all the outside of the lantern, of iron and steele plate. (9) The perfume in a little silver globe, fild with musk and amber." P. 49.

The gift was accompanied with a copy of verses, of which the two last Tines furnish an exquisite specimen of the bathos,

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"With all, yet more than all, rejoice do I, To conster JAM-ES PRIMUS, et non vi." In p. 47 we find that Sir William Browne, Lieut. Governor of Flushing and the States, all got drunk in drinking the health of the King, at the expense of the Burgomaster, and this, and other demonstrations of joy, were seemingly well founded. In the North of England, cultivation immediately took place, the country, so often desolated by war, received new inhabitants, who brought with them not only flocks and herds, but also manufactures and commerce; the works effected by peace were soon distinguished, the barren wastes were put under the ploughshares, towns and hamlets diversified the scene, and increasing population enlivened every valley, which for ages had been marked by works of hostility (Hutchinson, quoted p. 47). Nor was this the whole. All idea of the revivification of Popery, and making Scotland an ally in aid of foreign invasion, were conceived to be utterly extinguished; so little could mankind anticipate, that this very accession would soon convulse the three kingdoms with a Civil War, more destructive than the Plague, and follow it up with an attempt to regenerate Popery, and two rebellious in that very country from which no more evil or invasion was to proceed. So likewise, when the French were expelled from Canada, it was thought that the American Colonies were secured to us for ever; whereas the utility of an English army in preventing aggression on the settlers, rendered them dependent on England, and kept them in allegiance. (To be continued.)

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92. The Beauties of Wiltshire, displayed in Statistical, Historical, and Descriptive Sketches, interspersed with Anecdotes of the Arts. Royal 8vo. Vol. III. Pp. 442.

Plates.

THE Archæological world is under great obligations to Mr. Britton, for having been the first to introduce cal works, those of Buck, Grose, and beautiful engravings into Topographipreceding writers, being, though faithful, stiff and tasteless. He has also added much by peregrination to local history, in matter and curious objects, which would otherwise have remained unnoticed; and he has moreover published only books which will ever have utility and value; in short, we consider Mr. Britton to be a very industrious and meritorious writer; and, by his plates and labours, to have enlarged and improved the taste for ancient monuments, and thus to have contributed to their better preservation, and a warmer feeling of the honour which they confer upon the nation; for what would be Egypt, Greece, and Italy, if they had no ancient monuments; they would thus be destitute of a great influence upon the mind, especially with regard to taste and the arts? Besides, men would have to invent the means of improvement de novo, and be retarded for centuries. In short, the preservation of ancient monuments is like the preservation of national records.

Wiltshire is a country remarkable for valuable remains, which however were never developed in any satisfactory form, until Sir Richard Colt Hoare published his "Ancient History" of this curious district of our island. The most contemptible blun ders were committed, such as was calling "a small circular entrenched work at Bury Blounsdon a Roman Camp (see our Author, p. 4), and many other such silly affirmations.

We shall, according to our custom with regard to topographical works, extract some curiosities.

"In a field at Bromefarm, near Coate, a small hamlet to the south of Swindon, was formerly an upright stone, called Long Stone, measuring above ten feet in height, and in an adjoining meadow was a range of smaller stones placed in a line." P. 9.

They are called Druidical; but were much more probably sepulchral cippi, of a Chieftain, and those whom he had killed in battle. (See Encycl. of Antiq. ii. 514.)

Swindon

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REVIEW Britton's Beauties of Wiltshire.

Swindon Church is remarkable for having a tower at the West end, and a spire at the East end. P. 11.

Spires are not coeval with towers; and possibly a new Church was meditated eastward of the old one, with the tower," for the Church bears the appearance of antiquity," but relinquished, after the spire, which then would have been westward, had been erected.

"The nomination of members of parliament for the town of Cricklade is always made in St. Sampson's Church; and the Clerk charges each candidate five guineas."

P. 16.

This shows, among other things, that where Town Halls did not exist, Churches were used for parish business of all kinds. The election for Westminster is held under the porch of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, upon the same ancient principle.

Purton Church is remarkable for two towers, one of which is crowned with a lofty spire; the other seems, from the style of its architecture, to have been of later date; and is supposed to have been built for the recep tion of the bells, which endangered the spire. P. 21.

At Lydiard Tregoze,

"On folding doors on the North side of the chancel, are two singular genealogical tablets, exhibiting pedigrees of the St. Johns, with their portraits, and representations of their armorial bearings, and those of several ancient baronial families, from whom they derive descent, and with whom they claim connexion. By the inscription it appears, that these heraldical and family

evidences, called "Ancient remains," were

drawn up by Sir Richard St. George, Knt. Garter King at Arms, in the year 1615,

and transcribed on these boards in 1694.' P. 25.

How much better would it be, if, instead of these perishable memorials, noble and ancient families printed their pedigrees with excellent engravings, and lodged a copy in every great library.

Under Wotton Basset we have a

curious petition of the Mayor and free tenants, stating, that though they had been used to have free common of pasture for their cows, &c. in Fasterne Great Park, of 2000 acres, which they resigned for 100 acres, yet that after they had so done, Sir Francis Englefield worried them with law-suits about their common, and turned in his own

[Dec.

cattle. Whenever he did so, they affirm, that thunder and lightning were sure to ensue, and expel his cattle, while their own were never touched. Pp. 39-40.

We shall only notice concerning this affair, that parks were originally formed, in numerous instances, on purpose to steal the commons; an instance of which appears in Fosbroke's Gloucestershire, under Stoke Giffard; and that the people felt the loss severely, because on them they kept their cows, as further appears by this very petition, and another case, quoted in the same author's Encyclopedia of Antiquities, ii. 530.

Mr. Britton, speaking of Minety (a parish both in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire), says,

"This parish affords a remarkable proof, that the division of England into counties was regulated by the territorial claims of the landed proprietors, at the period when the

extent and boundaries of the different shires were finally settled." P. 35.

This was not the fact. Places, géographically situated in one county, were annexed to another, on account of their connection with particular Baronies.

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Under Garsdon, we find one origin of Ghost Stories. Some valuable communion-plate was placed (probably during the civil wars) in a box, deposited in a lumber-room of the manorhouse, and a tale (evidently circulated to prevent violation) was added, “that a ghost had been laid in the box." The box remained untouched, till the Clergyman of a subsequent æra was informed by an old man, "who probably had heard it from an ancestor, privy to the deposit, that there was some communion-plate at the great and the plate discovered." Ancient trahouse. The box was then opened, ditions have always some foundation, though they may be so disfigured by vulgar notions, as to appear like pure inventions.

In p. 119, Mr. Britton mentions, as anciently part of the manor-house of Stanton St. Quintin,

"A square tower of two stories, with a circular staircase at one angle. On the rently a prison, lighted only by loop-holes, ground floor was a small square room, appawhilst the room above had three oriel or hay-windows, on three different sides, in each of which windows were two seats or privies.” P. 119.

The

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REVIEW. Britton's Beauties of Wiltshire.

The apparent prison was for stores and defence by archers, or cross-bow men; the room above with oriel win dows, for reconnoitering.

"The Church of Stanton is a very ancient and very curious building. It consists of two ailes and a chancel, with a small room or closet on the North side of the latter. On the South side is a projecting porch, with an old arched doorway. This is very rude, having a half column on each side, sloping considerably from the base upwards, from which spring archivoll mouldings, with zigzag ornaments. Between the ailes are two arches, one of which is pointed, the other semicircular, but both certainly of the same age. The small room on the North side of the chancel, about six feet square, arched over with a circular window of only thirteen inches diameter, is one of those singularities which serves to puzzle the antiquary. At the western end, externally, there is a very rude piece of ancient sculpture, which Aubrey calls an ugly figure of St. Michael and the Devill.' The font here is very singular, and certainly very ancient." P. 120.

We would recommend Topographers, when they are describing ancient Churches, to add the information, whether a Priest is mentioned in Domesday. From the deductions, which we have drawn concerning old Churches, from Sir R. C. Hoare's Ichnographical Plans, in our review * of his Hundred of Branch and Doll, we are inclined to think, that an old Church has here been altered in the body or nave, as there expressed. Of the room adjoining, it may have been for confession, or other uses mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Antiquities, from Whitaker's Richmondshire, &c.

In p. 127 are records concerning Ashley in Gloucestershire (in the parish of Charlton Kings), applied to Ashley in Wilts, a mistake of the Editor of the Magna Britannia.

"An old man told Aubrey, that his father, who was 110 at his death, remembered in the time of the old Lawe eighteen little bells that hung in the middle of the Church, when the pulling of one wheel made them all ring, which was done at the elevation of the hoste." P. 181.

This was a fashion, as old as the Anglo-Saxon æra. See the Encyclopedia of Antiquities, i. p. 98, note 9. On each side of the East window of a Sepulchral Chapel at South Wraxhall is a niche, and on the right hand a piscina. The circumstance is remark

See hereafter, in our present Number.

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able, as this part of the Church appears to have been built since the Reformation. Pp. 225, 6.

At the Church of Monkton Farley, is a pillar, with a capital, exhibiting a human face with the nose represented at one of the angles. P. 228.

In p. 245, we find that a century ago, a stage of fifteen miles from Bath to Sandy-lane, was a whole day's journey; and that two inns were placed

on the road for the accommodation of travellers, at one of which a team of horses was kept for the express purpose of drawing carriages up Beacon Hill.

We next come to the very interesting monument of Abury. ^Mr. Britton has given us a restored plate of it, which is exceedingly ingenious and well adapted to display it in its original state. He has added accounts of various authors, but declines giving any opinion himself. We beg to observe, that neither Aubrey nor Stukeley were the authors of the ascription of them to the Druids. It was Holinshed, from whom Aubrey probably borrowed his hypothesis. It is a mistake to say, that stone circles are not mentioned in History, for they occur in Homer, as Courts of Justice; and we know from Cæsar, that the Druids exercised judicial as well as ecclesiastical functions.

A very high authority, the learned Calmet, says, that the erection of such stones in squares and circles, is of Canaanitish or Phenician origin. Several Churches were built within them; and Holinshed reports the tradition of our ancestors, that they were "Chapels of the Gods." Wallace's famous oak grew within one of them; groves of mountain ash are contiguous to others, and the Druidical superstitions connected with these trees need not be mentioned. It often happens, that negatives furnish the best modes of illustration. If they were not temples, what could they be? They were not adapted to residence or fortification, or sepulchral monuments; for of these we have remains, quite distinct in character. The only analogies to Druidism are found in Asia, and there stone circles occur. Pausanias also, speaking of Pharai in Achaia, says, near the statue of the god are thirty stones of a quadrangular form, each of which is worshipped under the name of some Divinity; and in the present day the Indians dress stone circles in America with wreaths and branches, as we do Churches at certain festivals. In short,

stone

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REVIEW-Sharp's Coventry Pageants, &c.

stone worship and tree worship are among the most remote forms of idolatry; and proved to have been so by ancient writers without end. It does not therefore follow, that because numerous authors have thought fit to speculate concerning Abury and Stonebenge, without the smallest regard to ancient learning, or to the well-known fact of various Churches having been built within them, and traditions of the people, all knowledge of their being Druidical structures has no foundation. There may have been, and probably were the following gradations; a cromlech only, the lowest rank of religious structure; a cromlech and stone circle; and a number of both, on a less or greater scale, the highest rank. Lastly, the affix of Drew to many places where there were stone circles, as Stanton Drew; or Cromlechs, as Littleton Drew, near which are tumuli and the Roman Fosse-road (see our author, p. 146), Drews-Teignton, &c. all furnish the same evidence of Druidical appropriation, as coins do of History; and it would be highly absurd to say, that there may be coins of a country, but no history, for, where there have been human beings, there must be a history, whether reduced to writing or not.

Mr. Britton has collected a mass of information and speculation concerning Abury and the vicinity. He is not to blame; for it is usual, but it is injurious to Literature, because, as one joint-stock bubble makes twenty jointstock bubbles, one speculator makes twenty more, and we are not surprized to find that Stonehenge and Abury have been treated, like the man in the moon, who is in China a rabbit. If such trash were left in oblivion, the explanations of competent scientific men would be the sole objects of regard, as they ought to be; but when an excellent house is built at the cost of infinite labour, these projectors trespass upon it like ghosts, and destroy all the comfort remaining in it. To many literary men it is as unpalatable, as it would be to others to have suspicions raised that their mothers were unchaste, or that the titles of their estates were bad.

Stonehenge and Abury were temples, because they could be nothing else, and are shown to have been so by circumstantial evidence of the most satisfactory kind; and they are ascribed to the Druids, because no other ancient

[Dec.

priests are known except Druids. It is only the petty conceit, of trifting talents, of the vanity of pedantry, to offer new hypotheses; and such paltry publications should be crushed in the birth by professed literary men disdaining to notice speculations which violate circumstantial evidence, that evidence, which Paley says, cannot lie.

Here we shall leave this interesting work, which is highly creditable to Mr. Britton; and shall conclude by remarking that the plates are beautiful.

98. A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dra+ matic Mysteries anciently performed at Coventry, by the Trading Companies of that City; chiefly with reference to the Vehicle, Characters, and Dresses of the Actors. Com piled, in a great degree, from sources kitherto unexplored. To which are added, the Pageant of the Shearmen and Taylors' Company, and other Municipal Entertai ments of a public Nature. By Thomas Sharp. 4to. pp. 226.

ATTACHED to the army of Literary investigators, is a company of pioneers; who, by exploring the devious wilds of "hoar antiquity," and using their saws and hatchets in clearing away the thickets which hide from view many ambuscades of interesting objects, which, but for their labours, would never be disclosed, afford to the general body of troops an unobstructed access to their discoveries. Of these pioneers, Mr. Sharp has long been known as one of the most industrious; and the present handsome Volume bears testimony to his established character. The early History of the Stage is so entwined with that of the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries, that any elucidation of the latter must shed a ray upon the former. The Work now before us, being no doubt already in the hands of most of our Antiquarian readers, or soon to be so, our epitome of its con tents will be comparatively brief, though we shall probably resume the subject hereafter. The Frontispiece itself, may be viewed as a page of choice information, for it gives, for the first time, a distinct graphic repre sentation of the Pageant Vehicle; which has been often thought of in the glimmerings of an uncertain twilight, but is here, clear as the day, in noontide certainty. Indeed the appropriate groupes of spectators, and the entire scene of action, are well displayed by the draughtsman (a young

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REVIEW-Sharp's Coventry Pageants, &c.

artist of Coventry) who appears to handle the burin, as well as the pencil, with spirit and effect, as other plates of his entire performance testify. After a Dedication to Francis Douce, esq. and an Introduction acknowledging his obligations to that gentleman, and other friends *, "whose encouragement stimulated and cheered his labours;" Mr. Sharp proceeds to observe that it is remarkable while the History of the English Stage has been in vestigated with a perseverance and minuteness of research, which scarcely leaves an expectation of any additional facts or illustrations remaining to be discovered; our Religious Dramas or Mysteries, the unquestionable groundwork of the Stage, have been treated in a very superficial and unsatisfactory manner" excepting in this general observation, Mr. Markland's highly ingenious Disquisition, printed for the Members of the Roxburghe Club in 1818. He then proceeds by describing the mode in which he acquired so considerable a body of recondite information, viz. by an inspection of the Ancient Documents belonging to the Corporation of Coventry, and the Account Books and other writings of the Trading Companies, whilst collecting materials for the History of his native City; a work which, notwithstanding the worthy Author's disclaimer in one of our former Volumes, we shall hope

in due time to see in the hands of the public.

No two writers have hitherto agreed

as to the derivation of the word Pageant; but Mr. S. brings it (and with good reason) from the Greek Pegma, by a transition at once conformable to the genius of the language, and carrying conviction with it.

The exhibitions of Pageants at Coventry attracted immense multitudes to the City, and even drew Royalty itself within the admiring circle; Hen. V. and other Sovereigns, partaking of what was the fashionable entertainment of their days; though upon these

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occasions the usual routine of performance by the Trading Companies was sometimes changed, and splendid and appropriate Pageants (all of which are noticed) were prepared in honour of their Royal Visitors.

The accounts of each Company are next sifted for information respecting the usual Pageant of these respective communities.

"The subject of the Smiths' Pageant was the Trial, Condemnation, and Crucifixion of Christ, as will appear from the following list of Characters, Machinery, &c. collected from various entries of Pageant charges. The dialogue of the Play is lost, as in fact are the play-books of all the other Companies except the Shearmen aud Taylors, whose Books of Accounts to illustrate the subject of their Play is unfortunately not in existence.

"Characters in the Smith's Pageant. God, (sometimes Jesus). Cayphas.

Heroude.

Pilate's Wife [p'cula, i.e. Procula].
The Beadle, (sometimes the Porter).
The Devil.

Judas.

Peter and Malchus.
Anna (sometimes Annas).
Pilate.
Pilate's Son.
2 Knights.

4 Tormentors.

2 Princes-[Anno 1490 only].
"Machinery, &c.

The Cross with a Rope to draw it up, and

a Curtain hanging before it.

Gilding the Pillar and Cross.

2 Pair of Gallows.
4 Scourges and a Pillar.
Scaffold.

Fanes to the Pageant.

Mending of Imagery.-(Occurs 1469).
A Standard of red Buckram.
Two Red Pensils of Cloth painted and silk
Fringe.

Iron to hold up the Streamer.

"Dresses, &c.

4 Gowns and 4 Hoods for the tormentors.
(These are afterwards described as Jack-
ets of black buckram with nails and dice
upon them.) and other 4 gowns with

"Viz. To Dawson Turner, esq. for much friendly advice, and the liberal contribution of two plates.-To Hudson Gurney, esq. M. P. for permission to copy the Stage-directions to the Morality of the Castle of Good Perseverance, in his possession; and to Francis Palgrave, esq. for his kind services, both in obtaining that permission, and supplying a facsimile of the original. To James Heywood Markland, esq. for the communication of an unpublished transcript of Archdeacon Rogers' account of the Chester Plays.-To the Rev, John Brickdale Blakeway, of Shrewsbury, and the Rev. James Yates, of Birmingham, for literary aid: and, lastly, to his excellent friend, William Hamper, esq. for his constant and highly-valuable assistance during the entire progress of the work."

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