before Mr. Barwell, the Judge of Allipoor.-Sungbaud Cowmuddy.

GROANING TREE IN LINCOLNSHIRE.

I HAVE a letter by me, says Clarke in his "Looking Glass," dated July 7, 1606, written by one Mr. Ralph Bovy, to a godly minister in London, wherein he thus writes :

66

Touching news, you shall understand, that Mr. Sherwood hath received a letter from Mr. Arthur Hildersam, which containeth this subsequent narrative; viz. that at Brampton, in the parish of Toksey, near Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, an ashtree shaketh in body and boughs thereof, sighing and groaning like a man troubled in his sleep, as if it felt some sensible torment. Many have climbed to the top of it, who heard the groans more easily than they could below. But one among the rest, being on the top thereof, spake to the tree, but presently came down much aghast, and lay grovelling on the earth three hours speechless: in the end, reviving he said, Brampton, Brampton, thou art much bound to pray. The Earl of Lincoln caused one of the arms of the ash to be lopped off, and a hole to be bored through the body, and then was the sound or hollow voice heard more audibly than before, but in a kind of speech which they could not comprehend."

The Scrap Book.

AN IRISH WILL.

THE following is a copy of a will made by a miser in Ireland: "I give and bequeath to my sister-inlaw Mary Dennis, four old worsted

stockings, which she will find underneath my bed; to my nephew Charles Macartney, two other pair of stockings, lying in the box where I keep my linen; to Lieutenant Johnson, of his Majesty's fifth regiment of foot, my only pair of white cotton stockings, and my old scarlet great-coat; and to Hannah Bourke, my housekeeper, in return for her long and faithful services, my cracked Hannah, in earthen pitcher." anger, told the other legatees, that she resigned to them her valuable share of the property, and then retired. In equal rage, Charles kicked down the pitcher; and, as it broke, a multitude of guineas burst out, and rolled along the floor. This fortunate discovery induced those present to examine the stockings, which, to their great joy, were crammed with

money.

CANINE NURSE.

IN 1805, a small mongrel bitch, Truro, having a litter of pupthe property of a gentleman in pies, and being detained from them for the space of three or four days, upon her return found that another bitch (her offspring in a former litter, and then about seven months old) had adopted the litter as her own; and, though she never had borne pupadopted children: and so copiously pies herself, actually suckled her did the milk flow from this virgin nurse, that she alone nourished and reared the whole litter, while their own mother abandoned them.

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biographers state "the many various neat tricks Mulled Sack played upon Ludgate-hill, by making stops of coaches and carts, and the money that he and his consorts got there by picking pockets, would have been almost enough to have built St. Paul's Cathedral."

Mulled Sack was detected in picking the pocket of Oliver Cromwell as he came out of the Parliament House; but escaped hanging by the political changes of the times. He next turned highwayman, and was so audacious as to rob Colonel Hewson when marching over Hounslow at the head of his regiment, in company with one Tom Cheney. They were pursued by a body of troopers; Mulled Sack escaped, but his companion, after defending himself against eighteen horsemen, was overpowered and taken: he was tried at the Old Bailey, convicted, and executed at Tyburn. Mulled Sack, afterwards, along with several other of his companions, waylaid a waggon which was conveying £4,000 to Oxford and Gloucester, and seized the money, which they soon spent he also robbed the house of the Receiver-General of Reading of £6,000, which he was preparing to send up to town. For this offence Mulled Sack, who was taken, was tried at Reading, but acquitted; it is said, by bribing the jury. He had not been long at liberty before he killed one John Bridges, for which he was obliged to quit the kingdom, and went to Cologne, where he robbed King Charles II. then in exile, of as much plate as was valued at £1,500. On returning to England he promised to give Oliver Cromwell ome of his Majesty's papers, ut, says his biographer, "not haking good his promise, he

CURIOUS MONUMENT OF VICTORY.

ABOUT two miles to the north of Lambourne, in Berkshire, is White Horse Hill, on the summit of which is a large Roman entrenchment, called Uffington Castle, from its overlooking the village of Uffington in the adjacent valley. And a little below this fortification, on the steep of the same hill, facing the north west, is the figure of a white horse, the dimensions of which are extended over about an acre of ground. Its head, neck, body and tail, consist of one white line, as does also each of its four legs. The lines are formed by cutting trenches in the chalk, two or three feet in depth, and about ten feet in breadth. The chalk of the trench being of a brighter colour than the surrounding turf of the hill, the whole figure, when the midday sun darts his rays upon it, is visible at more than twelve miles. distance. A white horse is known to have been the Saxon standard, aud some have thence supposed, that this figure was made by Hengist, one of the Saxon kings.

But Mr. Wise, the author of a etter on this subject, addressed to Dr. Mead, and published in 1738, brings several arguments to prove, that this figure was formed by order of Alfred, during the reign of Ethelred his brother, as a monument of his victory gained over the Danes in the year 871, at Ashdown, now called Ashen, or Ashbury park, near Ashbury, not far from this hill. Others, however, suppose it to have been partly the effect of accident, and partly the work of the shepherds, who observing a rude figure somewhat resembling a horse, as there are in the veins of wood and stone many figures that resemble trees, caverns, and other objects, reduced it by degrees to a more regular figure. But however this be, it has been a custom immemorial for the neighbouring peasants to assemble on a certain day about midsummer, to clear away the weeds from this white horse, and trim the edges, to preserve its colour and shape, which they call "Scouring the horse," after which the evening is spent in mirth and festivity.

At the foot of White Horse Hill, and almost directly under the horse, is a large barrow, which the inhabitants there call Dragon-hill, and their tradition is, that" Here St. George killed the dragon." They shew besides a bare place on the top of it, which is a plain about fifty or sixty yards over, where the turf does not protrude, which they say proceeds" from the venomous blood that issued from the dragon's wound." That this was a funeral monument can hardly be doubted, and it is most probable it was erected by the Britons, to the memory of one of their kings who was killed in battle.

H.

THE TERRIBLE "VADE IN PACE. In the monastery of the Predicant Friars, at Toulouse, lived a young and lively monk, named Agostino, whose skill in music enabled him to play some most delightful airs on the organ, with which, on religious festivals, he accompanied the pious psalmody. The Superior accordingly relaxed in some degree the severity of the usual discipline, and permitted this youth occasionally to go out of the monastery for the purpose of perfecting himself in this elegant accomplishment; and Agostino, by his frequent visits to the house of his music-master, became intimate with one of his daughters, to whom, at the request of the father himself, he gave a few lessons on the harp. A young man who had an attachment to this damsel became jealous of the Monk, because such opportunities of familiar intercourse were allowed to him.. while he himself could only gratify his curiosity by watching the steps of his beloved as she walked to church, or to the theatres. At length he plotted a dark scheme against his imagined rival; and after some time, when the young lady happened to be indisposed, he suborned the principal physician in the town, with whom he was on intimate terms, to declare, when called in to give his advice, that it was a case of pregnancy. The father was fired with indignation; and without inquiring into the reality of the imputation, immediately visited the Superior, and charged the Monk with the deed. The latter, in utter astonishment, appeared in the presence of the incensed Prior, and maintained his innocence without shrinking; honestly confessing that he ad mired the beauty of this fai

samsel, but asserting that he was entirely guiltless not only of any action but of any expression bordering on vice; and asseverating that the very thought of such a prostitution of religion, of such an act of treason to the rights of friendship and hospitality, filled his mind with horror. The Prior made no reply, but, darting on the Monk a penetrating and freezing glance, he ordered him to retire to his cell, and there await the punishment which he deserved. A cold chill ran through the blood of the poor youth, who, pale and trembling, with a confused vision before his eyes, sank down senseless on his pallet.

In the mean time, the Superior assembled all the members of the convent, related to them the particulars of the charge, and maintained that one who had thus dared to violate his vows merited condign punishment. Those whose rank and age qualified them to pronounce their judgment answered, that the delinquent ought to be closed in the Vade in pace, that subterraneous prison in which fated culprits are doomed to expire. No consideration of Agostino's youth, of his amiable manners, and of his elegant accomplishments, could touch their unfeeling hearts with pity. The Monks rushed to the cell, where he had scarcely recovered the full use of his senses, and dragged him again into the presence of the Superior, who in a loud voice pronounced the sentence, Vade in pace. Agostino was scarcely yet in possession of his faculties, but when he heard those awful words, he exclaimed in phrensy :-What-without inquiry, without trial, am I, who am innocent, condemned to a den of darkness, there to be buried alive, and to suffer an exence worse than a thousand

deaths? and are ye the ministers of a merciful God? the chosen of a meek Redeemer? Do you call yourselves my brethren, you who are my executioners ? Blasphemous wretches'-More he would have said, but the Munks thundered forth a psalm, covered his face with a black veil, tied his hands, and commenced the horrible procession which was to conduct him to a living sepulchre. One monk went before the others, carrying a cros: wrapped in mourning; the rest followed, chaunting in a deep and dismal tone the De profundis; in the middle was the miserable Agostino, and the Prior walked last in the funeral procession, In this order the monks descended the dark subterraneous passages of the monastery, and arrived at the mouth of a deep vault, just wide enough to admit a single body, from which not only the light of the day but every breath of healthful atmosphere was excluded. An iron portal barred the access, above which was a small aperture where they placed the pittance of bread and water with which the poor wretch, when deposited beneath, was for a time to be supported. The procession advanced towards this abyss of death, when the Prior seized the hand of Agostino, who stood like a victim at the altar, and, with the assistance of the other monks, hurled him downwards, closing over him the dismal portal. Agostino heard the grating of the rusty hinges, and the shutting of that door which to him would be shut for ever. After some few days had elapsed, in a fit of phrensy he dashed his head against the wall; his eyeballs burst from their sockets, and his brains from. his skull; and his body lay weltering in his blood, a pitiable spec