his hand again, "I've returned to enrich old England with the Spanish gold, and so let's have another pot, my old Trojan (slapping him on the shoulder), and here's old England for ever, and confusion to all her enemies." The frequent visitations which he made to the flagon, and the potency of the west of England strong beer, which is still celebrated among all who "abhor thin potations," began to make a visible impression on the brain of the speaker, which the landlord perceiving, pressed him to stop all night at "The George," assuring him," he should have a bed that the king his-self needn't be asheamed to lie in ;" and urged his stay by saying, "he was afeard they should have a 'nation wet night o't." But the sailor resolutely persisted in his determination to proceed, alleging, that "he had sworn not to sleep till he had reached Wincanton ;" and added, that "he had been too long accustomed to hurricanes, to be put out of his way by a drop of rain ;" and so taking up his portmanteau, he shook hands with honest Dick Palmer, whom he promised to visit again shortly, when he hoped to introduce an old friend to his notice; and then bidding him good-bye, he was soon out of sight of Castle-Cary, and on the road to Wincanton. Leaving him to his solitary journey, we must beg our readers to accompany us while we anticipate him in his arrival at that place.

Entering the town of Wincanton by the lower or western end, you pass through a small suburb, consisting of thirty or forty scattered houses, to which the inhabitants give the name of Tethern (a corruption of tything), from whence you ascend by a gentle acclivity into the town itself. At the top of this ascent, which bears the name of Tout Hill, stands an old mansion-house, forming, with its two wings, the three sides of a square, and leaving a spacious court-yard open to the front. The main entrance to this building is by a huge iron gate of antique and fantastic manufacture; on either side of this gate stands a stone post of large dimensions and massy strength; each post is surmounted by a stone mastiff, of colossal size, the crest of the family of White, to whom the mansion and its adjoining demesnes formerly belonged, and which, from its formidable canine guardians, took the name of "The Dogs." The family of White, to whom the domain appertained for some centuries, boasted of their high antiquity, and not without reason; for upon turning over the "Doomsday Book" (a survey of the whole country, with a view to ascertain the extent of every estate in the kingdom of England, made by order of the Norman Conquerer, for the purpose of distributing them among his followers), we find the name of Sir Reginald Le Blanc, or Reginald Des Les Chiens, mentioned among the most distinguished of the adventurers who followed the banner of that successful invader. From whence he derived the names of Le Blanc," and "Des Les

Chiens," it is impossible to ascertain with any degree of certainty; but the most probable conjecture is, that the one was conferred on him from the colour of his armour, and the other from his skill in the chase, and his consequent fondness for the animals, employed in that healthy exercise. Be that as it may, we find the family retaining the name of "Le Blanc" till somewhere about the year 1642, when Sir John Le Blanc, its then representative, having joined the sect of the independents, and the party of the parliament, changed that foreign-sounding appellation for the synonymous and more English one of White. At the Restoration, imprisonment and confiscation became the reward of the zeal and activity which he had displayed on the republican side, and he died shortly after, despoiled of all his property, save the old mansion-house and a few surrounding acres, which the intercession of some friendly cavalier had obtained for him. John White (for he indignantly refused to resume the title without the estate), the only son of this gentleman, who was in his infancy at the time of his father's death, joined in the ill-fated enterprize of the Duke of Monmouth, and commanded a troop of horse at the fatal battle of Sedgmoor where he was wounded; but the ignorance of the court with regard to the share he had taken in that unfortunate and ill-concerted expedition-the insignificance of his despoiled possessions the embarrassment in which the detestable tyrant who then filled the throne shortly after found himself-or the good offices of some friend of the family, prevented any inquiry into his conduct in that affair, and he was permitted to retain possession of his meagre inheritance. When the Prince of Orange landed at Torbay, he was among the first to welcome his arrival; and in his progress through the western counties to the metropolis, William honoured the mansion of "The Dogs" with his presence; on which occasion its ancient dining-hall became the scene of a grand entertainment, given by its owner to the neighbouring gentry and the suite of the aspiring Dutchman, to congratulate him on his arrival; but this was the last blaze of its expiring greatness. The expense which he had incurred in his previous campaign under Monmouth, and the effort to entertain his princely guest in a manner suited to the ancient dignity of the "Le Blancs," had compelled John White to mortgage the property to an extent far beyond its real value, and the consequent embarrassment which it entailed on him was the means of shortening his life. William had, indeed, in the first effusion of his gratitude, promised him the restoration of all the property of which his father had been deprived, but the various hands it had passed through since the date of its confiscation, and the multitude of conflicting interests to be considered and reconciled in consequence, made its restitution a matter of considerable difficulty, which the poverty of the new mon

arch's exchequer, and the natural coldness and apathy of his disposition, contributed in no small degree to augment; and thus, after dancing attendance day after day, and feeling in its keenest force that "sickness of the heart" which arises from "hope deferred," the unfortunate descendent of the renowned "Le Blancs" died of a broken heart, leaving a widow and two sons, John and William, to inherit his poverty and despair. His widow, who was the daughter of a wealthy attorney of Wincanton, whom with the other members of her family, she had offended by her marriage with the portionless possessor of "The Dogs," supported herself on a scanty pittance, extorted from the pride, rather then the generosity of her brother; her slender income was rendered still more so by the grovelling and indolent disposition of her eldest son John, who chose rather to exist in this state of miserable dependence on the precarious bounty of his purse-proud uncle, cherishing the fallacious expectation of gaining possession of the estate of his ancestors, which all the exertions of his father had been unable to obtain, than to seek in some honourable employment a way to extricate himself from the difficulties in which he was involved. His younger brother, William, a spirited youth, who was born but a short time before the death of his father, whose ill-requited enthusiasm had bestowed on him the name of William, in honour of the reigning monarch, disdaining the servile condition in which he saw himself placed, entered, at the age of sixteen, on board the Rover privateer, than fitting out at Plymouth for service against the Spaniards in the West Indies, as we have already learnt from "mine host" of " The George." Since that time every attempt to gain intelligence respecting his fate had proved unavailing, and it was concluded he had fallen a victim to the climate, or to the chances of the dangerous employment which he had embraced. Shortly after his departure, "The Dogs" became the property of an old usurer of the name of Mogg, to whom it had been mortgaged by the deceased John White, on the express condition of becoming his property, if not redeemed within a certain number of years; which term having elapsed, the grasping mortgagee proceeded to eject the unfortunate widow, who, driven from home, soon became a victim to the melancholy and despair to which her ruined fortunes, the neglect of her family, the degradation of one son, and the mysterious fate of the other, on whom she doated, had reduced her. The pitiful allowance which her necessities had wrung from her unfeeling brother ceased at her death; and the contemptible and spiritless heir of "The Dogs," the lineal descendent of the proud "Le Blancs," was contented to drag out a miserable existence on the few pence obtained from occasional passengers whom he assisted in entering or dismounting from the stage coach to and from its way to London, through that

town where his haughty ancestors had formerly reigned in the almost regal splendour of feudal dominion. After continuing for some years in this degraded condition, the kindness of Richard Palmer (who had recently become the occupier of "The George," in the neighbouring town of Castle-Cary,) and the respect he felt for the memory of his lost schoolfellow William, induced him to prefer the wretched John, or as he was then universally called Jack White, to the rather more respectable, and at all events less precarious situation of ostler to the inn; but the habits of dissipation in which he indulged, rendered him unfit even for this occupation, and the goodnatured landlord tolerated him solely from the lingering affection which he felt for the memory of his brother; and our readers will doubtless have already recognised him in the suspicious-looking individual whom the display of the stranger's treasure in the hall of" The George" had so strongly attracted.

In all the county of Somerset there is not a more flourishing town than Wincanton is at the present moment, to which the goodly number of handsome inns, which adorn the principal or high street, bear unequivocal testimony. Situate on the slope of a hill, that street runs in a gradual descent of about half a mile, and in nearly a straight line to the market-house and place, from whence it strikes off in three branches, forming a figure somewhat resembling a trident; of these the left branch is denominated" South Street," at the bottom of which stands the already-described mansion of "The Dogs;" the right leads by a very rapid descent to the mill and dam, and from that circumstance has obtained the name of " Mill Street;" and the middle division, or " Church Street," leads by a less abrupt declivity to the building whose name it bears. Of that structure it is now my business to speak.

The church of Wincanton is a plain specimen of that kind of Gothic style which universally prevailed in the ecclesiastical architecture of the middle ages; it is surrounded by a spacious buryingground, which on the day following that on which we have introduced to our readers the landlord of " The George" and his guests, was occupied by an immense number of the towns-people, who were all eagerly pressing, with one accord, towards the principal porch or entrance to the church. The cause of all this stir soon became appa rent. A man, whose dress denoted his profession to be that of a sailor, had been found lying bereft of life, on the road between CastleCary and Wincanton, and from the wounds he had received it was very naturally concluded that he had met with a violent death; the persons by whom he had been discovered were in the act of placing the body, according to custom, in the church porch, for the purpose of establishing, if possible, his identity. The superstition of the times

exacted from every one who wished to purge themselves of the suspicion of murder, a declaration of innocence, made with the right hand resting on the breast of the corpse, under the expectation that the insensate clay would be permitted by Providence to proclaim the presence of the murderer by some miraculous sign of recognition; and, however the philosopher may be disposed to rejoice in the dissipation of that superstition, which at once degraded the purest feelings and cramped the noblest energies of human nature, the philanthropist and the patriot will be compelled to regret the decay with it, of much of that horror and detestation with which crime was formerly regarded, by the illiterate and unsophisticated rustic; and the Christian cannot but deplore the extinction of that feeling, and of that salutary awe, by which the murderer and the ruffian, after indulging in the contemplation of a guilty deed, was often deterred from its commission, by the fear that the finger of Providence would thus be specially exerted to point out its discovery. The customary presence of the clergyman and the magistrate, who dictated the adjuration, added to the solemnity of the proceeding, and strengthened the impression which the awful ceremony was so well calculated to convey to the minds of the vulgar; and although education had placed these officials above the influence of its terrors, they gladly availed themselves of the popular prejudices, to assist them in discovering the unknown perpetrator of the deed of darkness. On the present occasion the venerable rector, Mr Plucknett, reverend alike from age and office, and who was at once both minister of religion and secular magistrate, presided at this tribunal, which the undisturbed prescription of ages had established.

The report of the commission of a crime of such magnitude, and which at that time was happily of very rare occurrence, soon drew crowds from the neighbouring towns and villages, who flocked together, partly from curiosity, and partly from the more laudable desire of establishing their innocence by undergoing the customary ordeal. Among the rest came Richard Palmer, and several of his fellow townsmen, the usual frequenters of "The George." The arrival of Palmer was hastened by the misgivings which he felt, on account of the reported resemblance which the murdered man bore to the stranger, who so shortly before had quitted his hospitable hearth. A moment's glance served to convince him that his fears were but too well founded. There indeed lay the unfortunate traveller, whom he had seen but a few hours before, in all the pride of health and strength, rejoicing in the termination of years of toil, and looking forward to the enjoyment of his hard-earned wealth in the peaceful bosom of his native country. Among those who attended the inn-keeper on this occasion was his ostler, Jack White, whom he