festooned, and occasionally covered with fine scarlet cloth, trimmed and edged with rich aureo-silken lace and fringe, which, at a short distance, appears like broad gold lace, and fringe. The old clock and thermometer are removed, and replaced by new ones, in neat cases of an uniform and classic design; and the covered iron railings are replaced by neat copper railings, richly gilt. The old ta pestry and chandeliers only remain; of these, the former, though once brilliant, and admirably executed, and picturesquely recording an historic subject justly dear to English hearts (the Spanish Armada,) has now, by the contrast of surrounding brilliant and superb decorations, been rendered gloomy and obscure.

Practical Politician," (p. 209,) would receive at least "a few swivel shot from the main-top" of some one; and I find my expectations are real. ized by a Correspondent in your last Month's Magazine, p. 327: really, it is but aswivel-shot, and not "a lowerdecker" to "hull him;" if we go on in our modern improvements, as we have done of late, "we shall all be Admirals, and there will be no one to heave the water out of the longboat." If your readers should think this style of writing not quite correct in the Gentleman's Magazine, they will please to recollect that we are ISLANDERS, and to that circumstance, we have now a Gentleman's Magazine to read. When we forget our local situation, and mix as it were our politics, our commerce, and our views, closely with the Continent, the poor little Triangle, and its sister Isle, will soon be blotted out as an independent state from the Map of Europe, and from being as it were her left arm*, and leading to the heart (look at the Map) we shall not find ourselves equal to a little finger. But to the subject," Modern Improvement," and "General Education." Advocates for it, with warm imaginations, carry their ideas to mysticism, for us all to become every thing "good, great, and lovely" those against it think just the reverse-as productive of evil, mischief, radicalism, and finally, a Provisional Government at the Man

The outline or general shape of Europe is said to be like a lady sitting.

sion House! I for one, having twice carried my knapsack and "Brown Bess" on my shoulder, am willing, for the third time (though a Sexagena rian) to do it again, rather than such a circumstance should take place: but let us contrive to take a "fresh departure," and "steer a middle course;" suppose the "dashing principles" of the times, in Politics, and Commerce, and Education, which have gained ground upon us these last twenty years, are lulled," and we become a little "calmer." Let the Politician conceive of himself that he is not infallible any more than another; the Man of Business go on Change, and he will soon learn how to appreciate Modern Speculation, though it is ten to one but he feels powerfully its effects; and let the great advocate for modern instruc tion, and reflect, that without well-grounded religious instruction, the evil must overbalance the good.

Your last Correspondent, p. 398, draws a parallel between savages, i.e. men in a state of barbarism, and the unenlightened educated European; permit me to state, that from actual observation and intercourse, I have found this educated (I mean the light mode recommended, or now adopted European, a greater Savage than an Indian. I have encamped amongst them, and I have found the intercourse, when formed between these two, to increase the danger, and add to the terrors of savage life. I have found the European teach the Aborigene of America to be capable of doing more mischief. I have known the conversation turn on the dreadful subject, what part of a human being is best flavoured for the taste or to the palate—an educated refinement with a vengeance! To be brief then, permit me to add, that my feelings accord with the sentiments of our late revered Sovereign, "that every one should be able to read the Bible;" but be it remembered, that something more is necessary than merely reading it-that a religious duty is to be impressed with it, and that the old-fashioned way of instruction, by gradual steps, and not by hasty procedure, forms, in the juvenile mind, the only permanent impression; and much, very much is to be done more, than making with our T. W. fingers letters in the sand.

Mr.

is

a manor and hamlet in Kent, lying at the Southern extremity of Gillingham parish, uext to Bredhurst; part of it being in the parish of Chatham. This estate was formerly the inherit. ance of the antient family of Sharsted; Simon de Sharsted held it at his death in the 25th of Edward I. Sir Henry de Leyborne was possessed of it in the next reign of Edward II.; in the fourth year of which he obtained charter of free warren for his lands in Lydesinge and elsewhere. In. Edward III's reign, it came into the fa mily of Say; for Sir Roger de Say, in the 30th year of it, granted to his brother Sir Jeffery de Say his manor of Sharsted and Lydesinge, with their appurtenances, to hold in perpetual inheritance. He seems to have alienated these premises to Robert Belk. nap, who in the 50th year of King Edward III. anno 1375, granted, among other premises, a moiety of this manor of Lidesinge, lying in Chatham, to the Prior and Convent of Rochester, on certain conditions therein mentioned; the other moiety of this manor continued longer in the name of Belknap. Robert Belknap, above mentioned, was afterwards knighted, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; but favouring too much the designs of King Richard II. for the extending his prerogative, he was, in the 11th year of that reign, attainted and banished to Ireland, by the Parliament; and though he was by the same power permitted to return again in the 20th year of it, yet his attainder still continued, and his lands remained forfeited as before. Notwithstanding which the King, who considered him as a martyr to his in terest, granted him several of his estates again, and among others, this moiety of Lidesinge, in his 22d year. But it did not continue long with him; for by his deed in the 2d year of King Henry IV. he gave it to the Priory of St. Andrew in Rochester, for one Monk, being a Priest, to cele. brate Mass in the Cathedral there for ever, for the souls of himself, his predecessors, and successors. The Priory of Rochester becoming thus entitled to the whole fee of this manor, conLinued in the possession of it till the dissolution of the monastery in the GENT. MAG. June, 1820.

The chancel or East end of this Chapel was rebuilt some years since with brick, at the expence of the late Vicar, R. B. S. the Rev. John Jenkinson. Mr. URBAN, Bromley, Kent, May 31. HE accompanying sketch (see

a view

of the remains of the Archiepiscopal Palace at Otford in this County, which belonged from early ages to the See of Canterbury. The place derives its name most probably from the combination of the Saxon words "o de fond-ut the ford," an etymology well justified by the stream which waters it.

In the year 774 of the Christian æra, the powerful Mercian King Offa invaded Kent, and defeated Aldric with his army at Otford, rendering apparently the Kentish King tributary to him; for we find that seventeen years after this battle, Offi conferred the manor of Otford on the See of Canterbury. The engagement seems to have been a very sanguinary one; the following allusion to it occurs in Roger de Hovedene: "Kinewulfi regis anno vicesimo pugnavit Rex Offa, cum Mercensibus, contra Kentenses apud Ottanforde; clade autem horrendâ utrinque peractâ, belli successibus Offa clarus effulsit."-Decem Scriptores. One Werhard, a powerful Priest, found means, some time after, to alienate the manor of Otford to his own use, but restored it at his

death, by command of the Archbishop. Lanfranc, on dividing the possessions of the See between himself and his Monks, for they had before been enjoyed in common, retained Otford to the Archbishop's share. The antient mansion was rebuilt by Archbishop Dene, alias Denny, in the 16th of Henry VII. but not in a manner to satisfy the magnificent taste of his successor Warham; for he, pulling down the whole, except the great hall and chapel, re-edified it at the enormous expence of 33,000. This honour he had intended for the archiepiscopal seat at Canterbury, but a dispute arising between him and the citizens concerning a track of ground which he wished to have added to its site, he made the palace at Otford the object of a princely munificence. Cranmer, apprehensive of the envy which this splendid residence might draw upon him, exchanged it and the inanor on the 30th of November, in the 29th of Henry VIII. with other lands; during the interregnum, the manor of Otford was sold to Edward Sexby and Samuel Clarke, but was at the Restoration repossessed by the Crown.

Of the sumptuous labours of Warham there now remain but two towers of the outer court, connected by a cloister, composed of pointed arches in the obtuse style, which characterized the debasement of the "gothic" in his day. The tower viewed in the sketch is drawn from 'the West side, and is the most considerable of the two which are standing; no view of it from this point has hitherto been engraved. It is of octangular form, constructed of brick, with free-stone coins. Although roofless, and open to the assaults of the weather, the stucco which covered the walls, in many parts still remains, and is painted with broad alternate black and white stripes. The remains of the other tower, Eastward of this, are much inferior in extent and preservation. The ruins of the buildings of the inner court present various foundations, from which the extent of the whole fabrick might be traced with tolerable precision. It must have occupied more than an acre. About a furlong distant, towards the East, in the precincts of what was termed the old park (for there were two attached to the Palace at Otford), rises

a spring, clear as the brightest crys tal, and which discovers through its pervious medium the moss-grown stones with which the bottom of its chamber is paved, as this lucid fountain has been formed into a bath about twenty feet long. Here the invalided devotee bathed, transferring the invigorating power of the water to the merit of its patron saint, Thomas of Canterbury, for this is "Beckett's well." The progress of intellectual light has robbed the influence of St. Thomas of this healing reputa tion, which was lately restored to the water, by the cure of an old man, who, crippled by rheumatism, was completely renovated by this bath to health and action; a circumstance witnessed by the late Lord Stanhope and several of the neighbouring geotry. The stream flows from its head through the outer court of the Palace, formerly supplying the offices with water collected in capacious cisterns, in the same manner as may be seen at this day in the ancient and curious kitchen at Hever Castle in this county, where the waters of the Eden are turned to a similar purpose. The rivulet then pursues its course to augment the river Darent. The miracles of Becket, who banished the nightingale for ever from Olford for disturbing his devotion, and his cursing the blacksmith, who shod his horse amiss, in such a manner, that Done of his trade have ever since flou. rished in the place, are matters of trite repetition. Equally well known is the story of the image of St. Bartholomew at the Chapel here, to whom pregnant women offering a cock or a hen, insured the sex of their offspring should be according to their wish, and similar to that of their gift.

The Chapel, an appendage to Shoreham, stands at a short distance to the North of the ruins; it has a low square tower at the West end, and bears the marks of antiquity, at least as high as Edward 1. In the centre of the village is a beautiful basin of water, supplied, I imagine, from Becket's Well. The bigh surrounding hills which shut in the "unconquered valley of Holmesdale" form a back ground towards the

* So called in antient maps of Kent; it is in fact the upper part of the Medway.

East