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The parish church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, stands to the right of the manor house. It was rebuilt by Sir Henry Heydon, in the reign of Henry VOL. IX.

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VII. and consists of a chancel, nave, and north aisle; on the south side, at the west end, is a low square tower. The windows of this church contain several pieces of stained glass, particularly a representation of a skeleton, in a kneeling posture, with a label issuing from its mouth, intended for that of Sir Henry Heydon, as is evident from a helmet and shield with his arms lying at the feet. In the same window are the figures of the Virgin Mary, and St. Anne, with some coats of arms. In one of the south windows is the crest of Hussey, viz. a boot, with a golden spur, over which are two hands holding a human heart, with this inscription, Cor mobile, Cor mobile." This church is a rectory in the diocese of Rochester, and in the deanery of Dartford.

The manor of West Wickham was in the reign. of Edward the Confessor, held of the king by Godric, at which time it was merely known by the name of Wicheham, in the hundred of Ruxley. It was afterwards granted by William the Conqueror to Odo, bishop of Baieux, and earl of Kent, and was when the survey of Domesday was taken, held of

him by Adam Fitzhubert. In the year 1284, Robert Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells, had a charter of free-warren here; but whether he had the manor does not appear. In the year 1318, license was granted to Walter de Bellingfield, for a market to be held here on Mondays, as likewise an annual fair on the eve and festival of St. Mary Magdalen, both of which, however, have for several years been discontinued.

Not far from Wickham, on a part of what was a few years ago known by the name of Keston Common, but which is now enclosed within the bounds of Holwood park, are the remains of an ancient camp, with double rampires and ditches. which some antiquaries suppose to be that which Julius Cæsar pitched previous to his last engagement with the whole forces of the Britains, in which they were completely defeated. In this parish also, on what is usually termed Hayes Common, is an intrenchment, which, says Dr. Holland, in his insertions to Camden's Brittania, was thrown up by Sir Christopher Heydon, in the reign of Elizabeth, when he trained the country people. J. B

Beath of His Royal Highness the Buke of York.

Two short weeks only have elapsed since we presented our readers with a portrait of His Royal Highness, and a biographical memoir of his life. To that memoir we have now to add, that the Duke of York is no more an inhabitant of this world. The event, for which the public mind had been for some time prepared, took place on the evening of Friday, January 5, 1827. At two o'clock on Saturday morning a Gazette Extraordinary was published, announcing the decease of his royal highness in the following terms :

" ર

Whitehall, January, 5, 1827. This evening, at twenty minutes past nine o'clock departed this life, after a painful and protracted illness, his royal highness Frederick, duke of York and Albany, his majesty's next brother; to the grief of his majesty and of all the royal family."

As we shall again have occasion to resume this melancholy subject, we conclude with the following observations, copied from a respectable evening journal.

(FROM THE STAR.) "We cannot close these brief remarks

MIRROR, p. 433, vol. viii.

upon the loss which the country has sus tained by the death of his royal highness, without adverting with satisfaction to the manner in which this painful subject is taken up by all our contemporaries. The public, too, have not been backward in displaying their grief, and the shops are every where closed, and other signs of respect are shown for the memory of his royal highness, as if it were a domestic loss which every family in this great metropolis had sustained by his death.

In unison with the sentiments we have just expressed, we copy from a MS. poem, on this sad subject, the following verses, written by Mr. Mayne, author of the poem of The Siller Gun.

Although his mortal course is run
Immortal shall his memory be
The fastest friend, the kindest son,

The noblest, best of men was he! "Ask of our hosts and armed bands,

O'er whom the princely YORK bore sway, To them, bis wishes were commands With them, 'twas glory to obey ! "When war had render'd fatherless

The helpless children of the brave, He sought them out in their distress, And stretch'd his friendly arm to save!

"With every social virtue fraught,

Endow'd with every mental grace,
He practis'd what his Saviour taught-
Akin to all the human race."

DEATH AND INTERMENT.

(For the Mirror.)

verential awe in the contemplation of obWE feel ourselves impressed with a rejects which have been appropriated` to religious exercises through a long succession of ages.

The British cathedrals being generally the most ancient structures in the island, thus influence the imagination, and the mind is affected by the description of scenes where truths the most important to the happiness of mankind have been delivered, and where contrition has awakened many generations to the practice of virtue and piety. Next to the tombs of our ancestors, a view of the sacred mansions of devotion is calculated to inspire the soul with moral reflections. It resounds, so to speak, in our ears the collective voice of departed millions, echoing the doctrines of Christianforsake the paths of folly and irreligion. ity, and crying aloud to their posterity to A walk amongst the tombs, especially in an ancient venerable edifice, naturally tends to suggest reflections of a pleasing though melancholy nature, truly interesting, useful, and instructive. The long

drawn aisles and dreary pensive vaults diffuse over the mind a pensiveness and solemnity of feeling not unpleasing; while the wandering eye is attracted on every side by the storied urn and animated bust, which commemorate the virtues of the mouldering dead, such as the great abilities of the statesman, or achievements of the martial hero.

"We read their monuments-we sigh-and while We sigh, we sink, and are what we deplored: Lamenting or lamented all our lot."

Spelman says, "Much more joyous was the ceremony of sepulture among the Anglo-Saxons than that of marriage. The house in which the body lay till its burial was a perpetual scene of feasting, singing, dancing, and every species of riot. This was very expensive to the family of the deceased; and in the north it was carried so far, that the corpse was forcibly kept unburied by the visiting friends, until they were certain that they had consumed all the wealth the deceased had left behind him in games and festivity. In vain did the church exert itself against such enormities. The custom had prevailed during the times of paganism, and was much too pleasant to be abandoned by the half Christians of the early centuries."-The funerals of the Anglo-Normans were magnificent. Paris tells us that the body of Henry II. was dressed in the royal robes, a golden crown on the head, and shoes wrought with gold on the feet. In this manner it was shown to the people with the face uncovered. The same author describes the pompous ceremonies and dresses used at the interment of each church-dignitary; and has even left a drawing by his own hand to illustrate the subject. Stone coffins and large wooden chests, says Strutt, were used to enclose the bodies of the deceased. It was also the custom with the Anglo-Norman race to celebrate a solemn dirge, and to mourn for the decease of foreign princes.

M.

The terrific honours which the ferocious nations paid to their deceased monarchs are recorded in history by the interment of Attila, king of the Huns, and Alaric, king of the Goths. Attila died in 453, and was buried in the midst of a vast champaign in a coffin, which was enclosed in one of gold, another of silver, and a third of iron. With the body were interred all the spoils of the enemy; harness embroidered with gold and studded with jewels; rich silks, and whatever they had taken most precious in the palaces of the kings they had pillaged; and that the place of his interment might for ever remain concealed, the Huns deprived of

The

life all who assisted at his burial! Goths had done nearly the same for Alaric, in 416, at Cosenca, a town in Calabria. They turned aside the river Va senta, and having formed a grave in the midst of its bed where its course was most rapid, they interred this king with a prodigious accumulation of riches. After having caused the river to re-assume its usual course, they murdered, without exception, all those who had been concerned in digging this singular grave.

Men, says lord Bacon, fear death as children fear the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by frightful tales, so is the other. Groans, convulsions, weeping friends, and the like, show death terrible; yet there is no passion so weak but conquers the fear of it, and therefore death is not such a terrible enemy. Revenge triumphs over death, love slights it, honour aspires to it, dread of shame prefers it, grief flies to it, and fear anticipates it. The same noble author thinks it the office of a physician to procure easy deaths as well as to restore health. In like manner it is the business of true philosophy to communicate serenity of mind amidst the care, the anxieties, the tumult, and turmoils of the world.

"Unhappy mortals!" says Lucian, "why do ye lament and grieve for your departed friends? they are more fortunate than you; their sorrows are at an end. Why then do you term them wretched ?" And the emperor Adrian, on his death bed, said, "Alas! my soul! thou fleeting companion of this body! whither art thou flying? To what unknown region? Thou art all trembling, fearful, and pensive. Now what has become of thy former wit and humour? Thou shalt jest and be gay no more." Death, it has been said, only closes a man's reputation, and determines it as good or bad. Thus Epaminondas being asked whether Chabrias, Iphicrates, or he himself, deserved to be most esteemed, replied, "You must first see us die, before that question can be answered." Cæsar thought that the quickest death was the most desirable, because it freed the mind from dreadful apprehensions. "It is impossible," says dean Swift, "that any thing so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind." Mason on SelfKnowledge remarks, "If our hopes and joys centre in this world, it is a mortifying thought, that we are every day departing from our happiness; but if they are fixed above, it is a joy to think that we are every day drawing nearer to the object of our highest wishes." Dr. Franklin's idea is perhaps as beautiful as the foregoing:

"I look upon death," says he," to be necessary to our constitutions as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning." A man of true wisdom is conscious of bis inability to see into futurity; he knows that things to come are, for wise reasons, hid from him; and to enjoy life with cheerfulness and innocence, he wisely looks upon every day of health and ease as so much real gain, amidst the unavoidable calamities which are, of themselves, but too many. The ancient philosophers were of opinion, that virtue was the summum bonum of man; and this has been adopted by Pope

"Know thou this truth, enough for man to know,

Virtue alone is happiness below."

It is its own reward in this life, by the tranquillity of mind and the general esteem which are annexed to it. God hath blessed the ways of the virtuous from the beginning, and he will assuredly not desert from his promises :

"Full on his promis'd mercy I rely,

For God hath spoken, God, who cannot lie." MONTGOMERY.

And, says the learned Dr. Young, both the ancients and moderns, in seeking the summum bonum, have been unsuccessful; it was not discovered by man, but revealed from heaven at last.

SPIDERS.

F.R. Y.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.) SIR,-Perhaps the following anecdote on this subject is not known to your correspondent A. B. C., and may be interesting to your readers.

Mr. d'Isjouval, who is alluded to in your correspondent's letter, (and better known as Mr. Quatremère d'Isjouval) was a state prisoner in Holland in the latter part of 1794, when the French army under Pichegru invaded that courtry.

He found means to carry on a correspondence with the French general, and, having carefully watched the opera tions of his spiders, he wrote to Pichegru that he was here; and from his observations upon the spiders, that a severe winter was at hand, which would, of course, facilitate the operations of the invading army. The French general, who had already thought of retreating, acted upon the hint, and in a few days after took possession of the whole country, which

would have been inaccessible to him had it not been for the ice, which was soon sufficiently strong to allow the French army to cross the rivers. I am, &c. B. H.

ON FROST. (For the Mirror.)

THERE is perhaps throughout the “va ried year" no scene more impressive to a philosophic mind, than that which is produced by a severe frost;-what an admirable field is thrown open to the painter and the poet-what soul-stirring emotions must then be raised in every feeling breast to behold a fellow-creature suffering the still intense chills of poverty in addition to the "pitiless pelting of the storm."

During a sharp frosty night, the stars commonly glitter with peculiar brilliancy, and when at last the tardy morning opens, all nature seems disguised-observe the icicles suspended, like pearls, from the cave-see the windows all encrusted over with white film, fancifully sketched out in mimic landscapes;-the fields and orchards, so recently gay with the treasures of Pomona and Ceres, are now barren as a rock and nearly as hard -the limpid streamlet no longer glides over its pebbled path, but seems magically chained to its banks-and yonder river, where the finny shoal were recently roving, upholds on its crystal surface a dull prosing: let us try a hand at a crowd of nimble skaters. But enough of rhyme or two.

Adieu! engaging scenes of nature's pride, Winter's stern reign begins with rapid stride; Disrob'd of verdure all the trees are found, Sharp, hoary frost has whiten'd o'er the ground! Keen, chilling winds transpierce the human frame;

Conceal'd by snow, the roads scarce seem the

same:

Hush'd is the music of the groves, and still

The murm'ring bubbles of th' adjaceut rill:

One solid mass congeal'd the streams appear,
The eye no more discerns yon fountain clear.
In icy chains the rivers' currents bound,
Are frozen firmly as their banks around :
'Tis here, the old and young in crowds resort,
And brace their half-chill'd limbs in manly sport:
Too oft, the dang 'rous track they madly brave,

Too oft, incautions meet a wat`ry grave.
Herbs, flowers, and fruits forsake their usual

spot,

effects, (even to our very fingers' ends) the cause, how fluids are thus by cold converted into solids, has hitherto baffled the researches of the learned. Dr. Gregory conjectures "that it arises from the air, then abounding with nitrous and saline particles, which enter into the pores of water and other fluids, by which means they become hard." The process of freezing is always attended with emission of heat, and it is also observed that water loses in weight by being frozen : it evaporates very nearly as fast when frozen as in a fluid state.*

Water when exposed to an atmosphere colder than itself gradually loses in weight and temperature, till reduced rather be low 32 degrees of Fahrenheit. Before that, no part has, strictly speaking, commenced to freeze: the surface then appears as if wrinkled in parallel lines, though more commonly they make angles of about 60 degrees to each other; sometimes they resemble rays proceeding from the centre to the circumference.

Water which has been boiled freezes more readily than that which has not, and a trifling motion given to the fluid when nearly cold causes it to freeze more speedily. Water covered with olive oil over its surface, freezes with considerable difficulty, and when it is has been covered with nut oil, it requires a very intense frost indeed to congeal it.

It is very remarkable that water cooled to within 9 degrees of the freezing point, not only ceases to be farther condensed, but is actually expanded by greater diminutions of heat, which expansion goes on as this heat is diminished, as long as the water can be kept fluid. It is also observed that though when water is above blood heat the expansion is very considerable, yet near the freezing point it is very small.

JACOBUS.

hounds" in the country; but Mr. Gifford's father was brought up at the grammar-school at Exeter, and was alternately a seafaring man, a vagabond follower of Moore Carew, and his gang of gipsies, and at length a plumber and glazier at South Molton. Mr. Gifford's mother was the daughter of a carpenter of the same town. At eight years of age, William was placed at the free-school, at which he made little progress in his studies; and in three years after his dissipated father died, leaving his mother in extreme penury, with the task of supporting two sons upon her husband's inadequate business. In less than a year, this unhappy woman (whom Mr. Gifford always spoke of with great tenderness) followed her husband to the grave, and her two sons were left absolute paupers. The furniture of the mother was seized for debt by a remorseless creditor; who was afterwards stimulated by the reproaches of the town to put his godson, young William Gifford, to school. He was then thirteen; and the younger child, aged about two, was sent to the alms-house. But in three months, this godfather became tired of the expense of the lad's schooling, and he forthwith put him to the plough. From the plough he was removed to a small coasting vessel belonging to Brixham, in Torbay ; and he was now not only a ship-boy on the high and giddy mast, but obliged to perform every menial office in the cabin. But the women who twice a week carried fish from Brixhan: to Ashburton, continually spoke of the denuded and wretched state of this unfortunate lad; and the reproaches of the inhabitants of Ashburton against the godfather, at length induced him once more to put the boy to school. His progress was now very rapid; and at the age of fifteen, the godfather told him that he had learned quite enough; and he accordingly took him from school, and apprenticed him to a shoe-maker. The apprentice possessed but one book in the world-a Treatise on Algebra; of paper, ink, slate or pencil, he was totally destitute, and without a penny to buy any. Being partial to the mathematical sciences, he sat up, night after night, at his studies, and beat out small pieces of leather to a smooth surface, upon which he contrived to work his algebraic problems. But Crispin found out this practice; and conceiving it a loss both of time and of leather, he severely chastised the votary of the sciences and bade him mind his cobbling of shoes. But some doggerel verses of the lad had attracted the attention of a Mr. Cookesley, a surgeon. This gentleman set about "a subscription for the