mighty root through the Bishop's wall; by the Cathedral organ, whose sound fills all that space, and all the space it opens in the charmed imagination.

THE DOOM OF ENGLISH WILLS. THERE are few things in this beautiful country of England, more picturesque to the eye, and agreeable to the fancy, than an old There may be flaws in this whole, if it be Cathedral town. Seen in the distance, rising examined, too closely. It may not be improved from among corn-fields, pastures, orchards, by the contemplation of the shivering chorisgardens, woods, the river, the bridge, the ters on a winter morning, huddling on their roofs of ancient houses, and haply the ruins of gowns as they drowsily go to scamper through a castle or abbey, the venerable Cathedral their work; by the drawling voice, without a spires, opposed for many hundred years to the heart, that drearily pursues the dull routine; winter wind and summer sun, tower, like a by the avaricious functionary who lays aside solemn historical presence, above the city, the silver mace to take the silver pieces, and conveying to the rudest mind associations who races through the Show as if he were the of interest with the dusky Past. On a hero of a sporting wager. Some uncomfortnearer approach, this interest is heightened. able doubts may, under special circumstances, Within the building, by the long perspec- obtrude themselves, of the practical Christiantives of pillars and arches; by the earthy ity of the head of some particular Foundation. smell, preaching more eloquently than deans He may be a brawler, or a proud man, or a and chapters, of the common doom; by sleek, or an artful. He may be usually the praying figures of knights and ladies on silent, in the House of Lords when a Christian the tombs, with little headless generations minister should speak, and may make a point of sons and daughters kneeling around them; of speaking when he should be silent. He by the stained-glass windows, softening and may even be oblivious of the truth; a stickler mellowing the light; by the oaken carvings by the letter, not the spirit, for his own purof the stalls, where the shorn monks told poses; a pettifogger in the supreme court of their beads; by the battered effigies of arch- GOD's high law, as there are pettifoggers in the bishops and bishops, found built up in the lower courts administering the laws of morwalls, when all the world had been unconscious, tal man. Disturbing recollections may arise, for centuries, of their blunt stone noses; by of a few isolated cases here and there, where the mouldering chapter-room; the crypt, country curates with small incomes and large with its barred loopholes, letting in long gleams families, poor gentlemen and scholars, are of slanting light from the Cloisters where the condemned to work, like blind horses in a dead lie, and where the ivy, bred among the mill, while others who do not work get their broken arches, twines about their graves; rightful pay; or of the inconsistency and indeby the sound of the bells, high up in the corum of the Church being made a Robe and massive tower; by the universal gravity, mys- Candlestick question, while so many shining tery, decay, and silence. Without, by the old lights are hidden under bushels, and so many environing Cathedral-close, with its red-brick black-cloth coats are threadbare. The queshouses and staid gardens; by the same stained tion may present itself, by remote chance, glass, so dark on that side though so bright whether some shovel-hats be not made too within; by the pavement of half-obliterated much on the model of the banker's shovel with tombstones; by the long echoes of the visi- which the gold is gathered on the counter, tors' footsteps; by the wicket gate, that seems and too little in remembrance of that other to shut the moving world out of that retire- kind of shovel that renders ashes unto ashes, ment; by the grave rooks and jackdaws that and dust to dust. But, on the whole, the visihave built their nests in steeple crevices, where tor will probably be content to say, "the time the after-hum of the chimes reminds them, was, and this old Cathedral saw it, when these perhaps, of the wind among the boughs of things were infinitely worse; they will be lofty trees; by the ancient scraps of palace better; I will do all honour to the good that and gateway; by the ivy again, that has is in them, (which is much) and I will do what grown to be so thick and strong; by the oak, in me lies for the speedier amendment of the famous in all that part, which has struck its bad."

VOL. II.

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In this conclusion, we think the visitor of the Registrar. He is shown a very handsome the old Cathedral would be right. But, it is house in the Cathedral-close-a house very important to bring to the knowledge of all superior to the Bishop's-wherein the Regis visitors of old Cathedrals in England, and of trar resides. For, the Registrar keeps a firstall who stay at home too, the most gigantie rate roof over his own head, though he keeps and least known abuse, attaching to those his deeds in a dilapidated Gate-house; at which establishments. It is one which affects, not he takes toll to the amount of seven thousand only the history and learning of the country, a-year; and where, as at other toll-houses, and that powerfully, but the legal rights and "no trust" is the rule; for he exacts his fees titles of all classes-of every man, woman, beforehand. and child, rich and poor, great and small, born into this English portion of this breathing world.

Mr. William Wallace now learns that, locally, the Registrar is a person of almost inordinate power; besides his seven thouFor the purpose of the object on which we sand-pound-per-annum place, he is Chapter now enter, we have consulted a great mass of Clerk, Town Clerk, Clerk to the Magistrates documents, and have had recourse to the per--a Proctor, moreover, in boundless practice. sonal experience of a gentleman who has made He lives in great state; he keeps horses, carthis kind of research his business. In every riages, dogs, and a yacht; he is-could he be statement we make, we shall speak by the anything else -a staunch tory; he generally card, that equivocation may not undo us. proposes the tory members for the county, and The proof of every assertion, is ready to our has been known to pay the entire electioneerhand. ing expenses of a favourite tory candidate. The public have lately heard some trifling Mr. Wallace, although fortified with a letter facts relative to Doctors' Commons, through bearing the mitred seal of the Bishop of the the medium of a young gentleman who was diocese, feels that he is about to come in articled, by his aunt, to a proctor there. Our contact with a great power; an awful somereaders may possibly be prepared to hear thing that is not to be trifled with; one of that the Registry of the Diocese of Canter- the noblest institutions of our land, who is bury, in which are deposited all the wills a very Miller of Dee, and accountable to proved in that large, rich, and populous district, is a job so enormous as to be almost With a due sense of the importance of this incredible. That the Registrars, with deputies, outside buttress of the Church, Mr. Wallace and deputies' deputies, are sinecurists of from presents himself with the Bishop's letter. The sixteen to seventeen thousand pounds, to seven Registrar storms, and takes it extremely ill. or eight thousand pounds, a-year; that the He appears to confound Mr. Wallace with his wills are not even kept secure from fire; that own foot-boy. He says the Bishop has no the real working men are miserably paid power to interfere with him, and he won't out of the rich plunder of the public; that endure it. He says the Bishop don't know i the whole system is one of greed, corruption, what harm may come of showing wills. He and absurdity, from beginning to end. It is can't make out, what people want to see wills not, however, with the Registry of Canter- for. He grudgingly concedes some obstructed bury that our business lies at present, but search, on the usual terms; namely, two with the Registries and Peculiars of other guineas per day for all the days a clerk-not dioceses, which are attached to the old Cathe-fond of any sort of fatigue-may choose to take drals throughout Great Britain, and of which our readers may be by no means prepared to hear what we shall have to tell.

Let us begin by setting forth from London on a little suppositious excursion-say with Mr. William Wallace, of the Middle Temple and the Royal Society of Antiquaries.

Mr. William Wallace, for the purpose of a literary pursuit in which he is engaged, involving the gratification of a taste he has for the history of old manners and old families, is desirous, at his own proper cost and charge, to search the registers in some Cathedral towns, for wills and records. Having heard whispers of corruption in these departments, and difficulty of search, Mr. Wallace arms himself with letters from the Bishops of those places. Putting money in his purse besides, he goes down, pretty confidently.

Mr. William Wallace arrives at Cathedral number one; and, after being extremely affected, despite a heavy shower of rain, by the contemplation of the building, inquires for

nobody.

in making any particular search. "But perhaps you will allow me to look at the indexes!" asks Mr. Wallace. "That's of no use," is the reply," for a great many of the years are missing; and in those we have got, a great many wills are not entered. We often have to spend two months in finding a will." Our friend then performs a little mental arithmetic :-two months-or, even say fifty daysmeans one hundred guineas, to ferret out one will. Complete indexes would only occasion ten minutes' search, equal to one day, or, according to the Registrar's tariff, two guineas. Mr. Wallace then draws the inevitable conclusion, that bad indexes partly occasion the inordinate income of the Registrar, whose manifest interest it is to keep them as imperfect as possible. One little trait of the very early volumes (the earliest wills are dated A.D. 1180,) is as quaint, as it is productive to the Registrar: the names of the testators are arranged

alphabetically, it is true-but under the Christian instead of the Surnames. Imagine

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the number of days, or couples of guineas, that Jerusalem when they wept. Wherever he would drop into the Registrar's coffers, for turns his eyes, he sees black, barbarous Ruin. picking out one particular John Smith from In one corner, he observes decayed boxes filled the thousands of "Johns," under the letter with rotten wills; in another, stands a basket, "J" Since the year 1800, the index is better: containing several lumps of medieval mortar, indeed it is almost as available as the old and a few brick-bats of the early pointed style catalogues of the British Museum, though the edges, possibly, of some hole in the wall not quite so perfect. too large for even poor seven thousand a-year All this was despair to Mr. William Wal- to shirk the stopping of. Despite the hints lace, who modestly hinted that his archæolo- of the clerk that his time is valuable, Mr. gical necessities pressed him to ask admission Wallace is contemplating these relics with the to the actual depository of the wills. The eager gaze of an F.S.A., when he descries, Registrar was petrified with astonishment. hanging over the edge of the basket, someHis figure expanded with a burst of indig- thing like an ancient seal. He scrutinises nation, which presently exploded in the in- it intensely-there is a document attached to terrogative interjection, "What?" that went it. He rescues it from the rubbish. off, like the sharp crack of a rifle.

"What can this be?" asks Mr. Wallace with glistening eye.

"Oh!" answers the clerk, with listless indifference, "nothing of any consequence, I'm sure.'

What? Exhibit, to any living soul, the dilapidative neglect, the hideous disorder, the wilful destruction of documents, involving the transfer of the property, personal and landed, of seven counties; and which he, the By this time, Mr. Wallace has found out Registrar, obtains seven thousand pounds per that this "nothing of any consequence," is annum for preserving carefully, and arranging a Charter of King William the Conqueror ; diligently! Why, only last year the Archeo- the identical instrument by which the See of logical Institute of Great Britain, itself, was Dorchester was transferred to Lincoln-that's peremptorily refused admission; and was it all! The broken seal is not of "much conlikely that the Registrar would allow Mr. sequence " either. Oh, no! William Wallace-the friend of a mere Bishop -to be turned loose, to browse at will upon the waste the Registrar and his predecessors had committed and permitted?

Now it happens that there is only one impression of the great seal of the Great Norman extant, and that is in the British Museum, broken in half; this, being a counterpart, supplies the entire seal! Such is the priceless historical relic found in the year 1850, by chance, in a lime-basket, in the very place where it ought to have been as zealously preserved as if it had been the jewel of a diadem!

But what will not an enthusiastic antiquary dare, in his loved pursuit? Mr. Wallace was bold enough to hint that a Bishop had perhaps some power in his diocese-even over a Registrar. This appeared in a degree to lull the tempest; and after all storms there is a 1 calm. The Registrar reflected. There was But, other treasures-equally of "no consenothing very formidable in the applicant's quence," and about to be carried off by brickappearance; he had not the hungry look of a layers' labourers, to where rubbish may be legacy or pedigree hunter-a foolish young shot-are dug out by Mr. William Wallace: fellow, perhaps, with a twist about old man---Item a bundle of pardons from King John to ners and customs: and, in short, he may take a look at the repositories.

certain barons and bishops: Item a Confession of the Protestant Faith made on his deathUp a narrow stair, under the guidance of a bed by Archbishop Toby Matthew, hitherto grumpy clerk, our persevering Middle Templar supposed by his biographers to have died a wends. In a long room, over the arches of the Catholic: Item, a contemporary poem on gateway, he sees parallel rows of shelves laden the Battle of Bosworth. The Registrar's clerk with wills: not tied up in bundles, not is of opinion, when these are shown to him, docketed, not protected in any way from dust that "they an't worth much," but growlingly or spiders by the flimsiest covering. Only saves them, on remonstrance, and bundles the modern wills are bound up; but not to them into his desk; where we trust they still encroach upon the Registrar's hard earnings remain; and whence we hope they may be -the backings of the bindings are composed rescued by the proper authorities. of such original wills as were written on parchment. These are regularly cut upthat is, wilfully destroyed-for bookbinding purposes !

As Mr. Wallace follows his surly guide up the stairs of the Gate-house, the rain patters sharply against the casements, and a fusty, damp odour emerges from the upper story. Mr. Wallace sees, at a glance, that he may Under a broken roof, and a ceiling being as well try to find a lost shell on a sea-shore, unplastered in huge patches by time and rain, or a needle in a haystack, as attempt to dis- in the top room, lie or, more correctly, rotcover what he is desirous of picking out of the wills of the Archdeaconry of Blowe; a this documentary chaos. He looks round in "Peculiar" of the diocese. The papers below mute grief; his archaic heart is heavy; he stairs are merely worm-eaten, spider-woven, understands, exactly, how Rienzi felt amidst dusty, ill-arranged; but, compared with those the Ruins of Rome, or the daughters of which Mr. Wallace now sees-and smells—

are in fastidious glass-case order. After
dodging the rain-drops which filter through
the ceiling, down among the solemn injunctions
of the dead, Mr. Wallace is able to examine
one or two bundles. Mildew and rot are so
omnipotent in this damp depository, that
the shelves have, in some places, broken and
crumbled away.
A moment's comparison
between the relative powers of wood and
paper, in resisting water, will give a vivid
idea of the condition of the wills in this Arch-
diaconal shower-bath. The corners of most
of the piles are as thoroughly rounded off, as if
a populous colony of water rats (the ordinary
species could not have existed there) had
been dining off them since the days of King
Stephen. Others are testamentary agglo-
merations, soddened into pulp,-totally ille-
gible and inseparable; having been converted
by age, much rain, and inordinate neglect, into
post-mortem papier maché.

ZOOLOGICAL SESSIONS.

(EXCLUSIVE.)

A PRODIGIOUS number of complaints and other noises at unseasonable hours, from that large class of our fellow-creatures of the earth so erroneously called "dumb" animals, having seriously disturbed the habitual good order and peaceful content of the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park, during the last week or two, the Secretary, Mr. Mitchell, considered it necessary to institute a close inquiry into the cause. He was not long in discovering this. Some of the "dumb" creatures did not at all mince the matter with him, but spoke out boldly at once.

The complaints and disturbances took the usual form of growls, roars, bellowings, barkings, chatterings, gruntings, gnashes, squeaks, hootings, hisses, yells, screams and squawks; but each and all of them had direct reference All these, are original wills: no such copies to the same special cause of grievance. The of them-which Registrars are enjoined to pro- nature and tendency of this having been ascer vide-having been made by the predecessors tained, Mr. Mitchell, not being able to remedy of the present pluralist. In order that the the alleged evil, saw no alternative but to condurability of parchment should be of no avail vene an extraordinary meeting of the Members in arresting the most complete destruction of the Council to a Special Court of Sessions to within the scope of possibility, it is the sheep- be held in the Gardens, with a view to giving a skin testaments of this collection that are full and dispassionate hearing to the causes of regularly shredded to bind up the modern dissatisfaction and complaint from the diffewills ranged in books below. rent plaintiffs inhabiting the Gardens, or those deputed to appear professionally in their behoof.

The very sight of this place, shows the futility of anything like research. Mr.Wallace examines a few of the documents, only to see their extreme historical as well as local importance; turns away; and descends the stairs.

The day being fixed, and eight o'clock in the morning named as the hour most suitable, because no visitors are admitted till nine, the Members of the Council duly repaired to the "Thus, then," says Mr. William Wallace Zoological Gardens, and entering the mar solemnly, as he takes a parting look at the quee erected for the occasion, in the enclosure ancient Gate-house, "are documents, involving of the Elephant's house, took their seats in the personal and real property of Seven regular form. Lord Bumbleby had already English Counties, allowed to crumble to de-arrived, and was unanimously voted into the struction; thus, is ruin brought on families chair, in virtue of his position as a man of by needless litigation; thus, do Registrars roll in carriages, and Proctors grow rich; thus, are the historical records of the great English nation doomed-by an officer whom the nation pays the income of a prince to be their conservator-to rottenness, mildew, and dust."

Mr. Wallace having added nothing to the object of his pursuits and inquiries, in the Registry of this Cathedral number one, departed at once for Cathedral number two. How he fared there, the reader shall soon learn.

GENTLE WORDS.

USE gentle words, for who can tell
The blessings they impart !
How oft they fall (as manna fell)
On some nigh-fainting heart!

In lonely wilds by light-wing'd birds
Rare seeds have oft been sown;
And hope has sprung from gentle words,
Where only griefs had grown.

science, no less than in deference to his great legal knowledge and experience. Professor Owen, by the express wish, it was understood, of His Royal Highness Prince Albert, attended to take notes for certain learned so cieties in Paris and Berlin. We also observed Mr. Justice Broderip of Westminster, author of "Zoological Researches," in company with Mr. Yarrell, and close to them Mr. Thomas Bell, on the part of the Royal Society, and Mr. John Edward Grey, head naturalist of the historical department of the British Museum. The editors of all the chief journals of natural history soon after entered, together with Mr. Edwin Landseer, and several other artists of eminence, among whom were Doyle and Wolf, as matter of course. In company with these we also noticed Mr. Van Voorst, and Messrs. Reeve, Benham, and Reeve, who all took their seats with very grave countenances. We should not forget to mention that Mr. Poot, the great pigeon-fancier, was present, evidently in a somewhat perplexed state of mind in con

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