and again St. Luke records the joy of the Seventy, who returned saying, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. All ground of doubt is at once removed; and indeed the Evangelists themselves make a distinction between diseases occurring in the ordinary course of nature, and those induced by the instrumentality of spirits. Those labouring under diseases and those possessed by evil spirits are mentioned as distinct and separate classes; and, in various places, the power given to the Disciples is this, "to cast out unclean spirits,' " and to heal all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease," and in another passage, "to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils." Here are two distinct functions, power over ordinary diseases, and power over demoniacal possessions. They are mentioned, indeed, in Scripture, as frequently combined, but not always. It is enough for us to know that, at the time of our Saviour's appearance in the world, such evil spirits were permitted to possess, and in various and dreadful manners to torment, the bodies of men, possibly as one means of displaying the Saviour's power. Nothing can, however, evince more strikingly the beneficent tendency of our religion, than that the miracles, that were to fix upon it the seal of divine origin, were chiefly such, as at the same time ministered to the relief of human suffering. The fear of having already intruded upon your pages on a subject, which some may think not strictly within the objects of your timehonoured periodical, prevents me from adding any further remarks for the present, though there are other peculiarities in the Gospel of St. Luke, that might be adduced, calculated to convince an erudite reader of the truth of my position, and in how great a degree the force of previous habits and previous education has shewn itself in the style and phraseology of the medical Evangelist.

Canterbury, to offer their devotions at the shrine of Saint Thomas the Archbishop and martyr, and many distinguished individuals joined in the motley cavalcade; amongst others, no less a personage than the father of English poetry, "thilk grete poet, hight Geoffrey Chaucere."

The custom 1 believe was, for the pilgrims who assembled in the borough of Southwark, to meet those, who came from the western parts of the country, at the foot of Wrotham Hill. Proceeding to Lewisham, (the hamlet in the Lee,) they passed through the village of Lee, in old writings called "the lee way," to Eltham; from thence to Foots-Cray, Farningham, and thence to the foot of Wrotham Hill, where they joined the cavalcade of pilgrims from the west.

At the foot of Wrotham Hill, near to the pleasure grounds of the Rev. Mr. Moore, the traveller who has a taste for old relics, will be gratified to see on each side of the turnpike a fragment of the Pilgrims' Road, a narrow lane, yet sufficiently developed, where the briars on one side meet the briars on the other. This ancient road at this place runs westward, and proceeds almost continuously to Chevening, the seat of Lord Stanhope, at the foot of Morant's Court (now Madamscot) Hill,* and eastward it bends its course at the foot of the chalk hills towards Canterbury.

The Pilgrims' Road was considered, although erroneously, to be the northern boundary of the Weald of Kent; and in an old cause tried at Maidstone in the reign of Queen Anne, in the year 1707, between the Reverend Mr. Spateman, vicar of Leybourne, and Mr. Knowe, a barrister,—the plaintiff claiming a right to the tithe of coppice wood, the the dispute between parties was, whether the Vicar was entitled to the tithe of coppice wood within that parish; it being alleged by the defendant, that the woods in question were within the Weald of Kent, and, as such, exempt from the

* Some years since, there was a design to turn the Pilgrims' Road at this place, but the late Lord Stanhope was averse to it, on the ground of its being an ancient relic, and the boundary of the Weald of Kent.

payment of tithe of wood. The proceedings in this trial, which are preserved in the Remembrancer's Office in the Exchequer, are very voluminous, the evidence consisting chiefly of very old persons as to the line of boundary of the Weald. One deposition states, that Henry VIII. on his taking a survey of the county, when his nobles sat down at the foot of Wrotham Hill, to rest themselves, addressed them, on stepping out of his litter, Gentlemen, you are welcome into the Weald of Kent." This declaration was received as evidence, on the ground that the King's knowledge was infallible, and extended to every part of his dominions, and the several jurisdictions of his kingdom. In this cause, the Vicar of Leybourne was defeated, and Leybourne was found to be in the Weald of Kent, and there fore exempt from the payment of the tithe of underwood; and true it is, that, although all the circumambient parishes pay tithe of underwood, the parish of Leybourne is free from that tithe to this day.

But my present object is to place on record some particulars of a trial of recent date, which took place before the late Lord Ellenborough, and a special jury, in the year 1815; in which Lord le Despencer was plaintiff, and the Rev. William Eveleigh, clk. vicar of Aylesford,* defendant. Two issues had been directed by the Court of Exchequer the 1st. Whether certain woods felled by the plaintiff in the parish of Aylesford, were within the Weald of Kent;"the 2nd. "Whether those woods were not therefore exempt from the payment of the tithe of underwood."

I took a note of this curious trial, in which, if the plaintiff had succeeded, the incumbents of no less than 20 parishes, chiefly lying within the vale of Maidstone, would have lost their rights to the tithe of underwood. The then Solicitor General, Mr. Serjeant Shepherd, one of the most acute and certainly one of the most honourable of advocates,, was retained specially on the part of the plaintiff. He opened his pleadings by stating that the plaintiff was not bound to render the

* Wm. Eveleigh was brother to the .ate amiable Provost of Oriel.

tithe of underwood, because the woods in question lay within the Weald of Kent, and that there had been an immemorial custom, that tithe of underwood was not payable within the Weald. He then proceeded to state, that the question between the parties was, What was the real boundary of the Weald? He contended for the chalk hills on the north; his learned friend would contend for a line of boundary six miles southward,—the red or gravelly hills. It would be tedious to go through the whole of the arguments of the learned advocate, and it may be sufficient to state that, beginning at Westerham, and travelling eastward through Brasted, Sundrich, Chevening, Kemsinge, Seal, Ightham, Wrotham and Leybourne, he proved, by the testimony of more than 20 witnesses,† that the Chalk Hills were the boundary, and that the clergy had never taken the tithe of underwood within those parishes, and that they were at that time wholly exempt from the payment of tithe of wood.

As auxiliary evidence, the Solicitor General also gave ample proof of a custom peculiar to the Weald, that wherever the Weald was, it was the privilege, when any timber trees grew on the waste or common, for the freeholder whose lands were the nearest to those trees, to cut down and appropriate them to his own use, in preference to the Lord of the Manor, a custom denominated" Land Peerage," and which custom, he shewed, prevailed in those parishes. He then offered the decree in the old cause of "Spateman agt. Knowe," as decisive evidence that Aylesford was within the Weald of Kent, but this was rejected by Lord Ellenborough.

Lord Ellenborough.-"You have gone a good deal into this subject, do you mean to vary it? I should think whether there are 10, 20, or 30, it would make very little difference if they all speak to the same fact; you

+ His chief witnesses were the late Lord Stanhope, John Warde, esq. Lord of the Manors of Westerham and Edenbridge, George Golding, Esq., Henry Woodgate, Esq. Chr. Cooke, Esq., Alex. Evelyn, Esq. George Children, Esq. and Henry Streatfeild, Esq. Lord of the Manor of Chiddingstone.

cannot get any great good by going too far, and you may draw a blank by drawing too long-you will not understand me as intimating any di rection, but you certainly have given an immense mass of powerful evidence, as to the Pilgrims' Road being the boundary."

Mr. Solicitor General.-"I have closed my evidence. I have offered the depositions in the former cause, in order to have your lordship's judgment for or against me.'

Lord Ellenborough.-"I thought I had decided for the rejection of that as part of the evidence in this cause, on the ground that it was proof given in a cause between different parties, and where the issues were not the same."

Mr. Serjt. Best, (the present Lord Wynford,) leading counsel for the defendant, commenced his reply about 2 o'clock. He congratulated his learned friend the Solicitor General, on his success in the study of the Saxon language; he had with great solemnity told them that a Weald was nothing more or less than an immense wilderness impervious to man and beast. If it were so, it was most extraordinary; for Maidstone, the capital of the county, and West Malling, a town of some antiquity, were placed within their line of boundary of the Weald, and must have been at some time or other impervious to man and beast; consequently there must have been a time when the assizes could not have been held at Maidstone, and when neither judge nor jury, counsel nor suitors, could have found their way into a place impervious to man and beast!

The learned advocate then proceeded more directly to the question between the parties; he said that all the evidence given by the plaintiff, had reference to about seven parishes, which were at a great distance westward from Aylesford, and that if the jury would take his plan in their hand, he would travel with them through Aylesford, Ditton, East and West Malling, Mereworth, Teston, Barming, West Barming, Offham, East Farleigh, Loose, and other parishes, down to Romney Marsh, every one of which parishes paid tithe of wood; and from thence to the sea,

where he hoped to drown the plaintiff's case. He then combated the plaintiff's position as to the custom of "Land Peerage," one of which he said not a title of evidence had been given as applicable to Aylesford or the long bead-roll of parishes he had adduced, and which had invariably rendered tithe of wood. He would produce terriers and endowments, leases, and other ancient documents, to shew that tithe of wood had been taken for centuries past in all these parishes to the present time, which surrounded the very locus in quo. He said that his learned friend never came near the locus in quo, but, like a steady pointer, whenever he snuffed the game, he stood stock still at a most respectful distance; and the Serjeant concluded a brilliant speech by observing that the Revd. defendant was no innovator; that, in those places where tithe of wood had never been paid, they never would be paid; but that where it had been paid from time immemorial, nothing could deprive the vicar of his right.

He then produced the depositions of six witnesses, whose testimony had been given in the Court of Exchequer, and about 20 witnesses then present, proving that tithe of wood had been rendered from time immemorial in the several parishes he had stated, including the locus in quo. He also produced terriers from Lambeth Palace, and the Church of Rochester, from the year 1634 to 1775, in which tithe of underwood was given to the vicars; and an old lease in the reign of Henry VIII. from the then vicar of East Malling, to an individual, of the tithe of wood in that parish.

Lord Ellenborough.-"How many parishes have you given that pay the tithe of underwood?"

Mr. Lawes.-"Twenty parishes, my Lord."

Lord Ellenborough." And tithe of wood taken in all-they have not, Mr. Solicitor, kept at the respectful distance from you which you did from them. I have been very much surprised by the evidence which has been given by the defendant in this case."

After the Solicitor General had replied, Lord Ellenborough charged the jury, and said, The present defendant, Mr. Eveleigh, as vicar of the

common

parish of Aylesford, has a law right to the tithe of underwood: the person who resists that claim is bound to shew some ground of exemption upon which he can resist it with effect. The ground upon which the plaintiff contends that he is exempt from the payment of tithes, is because the parish of Aylesford is situated locally within the Weald of Kent. Now, it is most unfortunately the case of Lord le Despencer, that, so far from the evidence establishing the fact that there is an exemption from wood tithe in the parish of Aylesford, it proves that not only within the parish, but that in all the immediate circumambient parishes, with the exception of Leybourne, tithe of wood is taken; that is a fact which comes upon me I confess by surprise, for it was stated on the part of Lord le Despencer, that the great discriminating feature in the case by which these lands were to be ascertained to be within the Weald of Kent, was a total exemption from tithes; and, if I find that, so far from its existing, it is a place where tithe of wood has always been taken, and when I find the strong evidence that tithe of wood has been paid by Lord Westmorland, before the property came to the enjoyment of the present possessor, I cannot but think that, with respect to the lands in question, such evidence is utterly destructive of the discriminating criterion of its wealdship. It is a weald without any of the privileges of a Weald; it appears too that there is no satisfactory evidence as to this custom of Land Peerage in this parish; so that it stands upon the supposition of what were the ancient limits of the district called the Weald of Kent, and the inference that, because it is to the south of the Chalk Hills and Pilgrims' Road, that it must necessarily be within those limits. The Pilgrims' Road, it should appear, is as singular as it is an immaterial description of the boundary of the Weald of Kent; because it is a place, which from its denomination originated in the superstitious attendants of pilgrims at the shrine of Thomas à Becket. We know that it cannot be an immemorial rescription, but must have had its origin in the time of Henry II. may be supposed to run in a similar

It

line with the ancient boundary, but Pilgrims' Lane never could have been the original denomination: they may say that the Chalk Hills are the boundary; if they are, how does it happen that there are all these parishes, with respect to which evidence has been given to you so much in detail, in some of which there are endowments and terriers, and a multitude of others, in most of which it is clearly proved that tithe of wood has been taken, for instance in Mereworth, in Malling, Sevenoaks, Offham, and many others, which have been stated to you in detail.

On the close of his Lordship's charge, the jury immediately returned their verdict, finding both the issues in favour of the defendant.

Thus ended this important trial, in which no less than 20 parishes, several within the vale of Maidstone, were involved; and if this report be not sufficiently explicit, let it be distinctly understood that the right of the clergy is limited to the tithe of UNDERWOOD only, sometimes called Coppice Wood or Cord Wood, including planted wood for hop poles, &c. and known and distinguished in terriers as Silva Cedua, and generally cut once in 14 or 15 years; but no tithe can be claimed of timber trees, nor of any wood which may spring from what is called the stools of timber trees that have been cut down. As to the locality of the Weald of Kent, as Lord Ellenborough justly observed, it is not known "by any municipal division ;" it was originally one immense forest, covering a large portion of the surface of the county, and in remote days approached to the Chalk Hills; and the Pilgrims' Road was most probably formed under these hills, by the margin of the Weald, as a sheltered way. As population increased, the hurst wood became more and more narrowed, and large portions were gradually cut down and the land cultivated.

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