in England, and bankruptcy is looked on as a sufficient ground for degradation. A dozen profligate Peers might be mentioned, who, after running through their property, were either not called to the Upper House or had their names taken out from the list of members. In earlier centuries wars, in later revolutions and treasonable conspiracies, have made great gaps among them. The war between the Red and White Roses asked for whole hecatombs of noble victims: it was strictly commanded before the battle that the nobles should be killed, the commoners alone spared. Thus in thirteen engagements, from St. Alban's day, in the year 1455, to the day of Bosworth, in 1485, two kings, four princes, ten dukes, two marquises, twenty-one counts, two viscounts, and twenty-seven barons fell, either on the field of battle or afterwards by assassination. Attainder, too, since the time of the Conqueror, has considerably thinned the ranks of the nobles: no less, indeed, than eighty lords have died under the hands of the executioner or common hangman.

Little trace now exists of the great Norman nobility of William, as little of the creations of Lackland. Among England's oldest titled families, three can trace their genealogy to the time of Henry III., and three to that of the first Edward;

but these, strangely enough, are in the lowest ranks. of the English Peerage, while its higher dignities point back invariably to a more modern origin. Scarce a sixth of the present sitters in the Upper House held their titles at the time of the Revolution in 1688, and in thirty years the list of the Peers has been increased by over sixty names. Out of twenty dukedoms, one only comes from the fifteenth century, and the oldest marquisate is not older than the sixteenth. Of 108 earldoms, two only came from the fifteenth century, thirty-one from the eighteenth, and fifty-four from the nineteenth. Only one viscount dates from the sixteenth century. Baronies go back as far as the thirteenth century, of which there are six, and four from the fourteenth of the former, three are Peeresses in their own right. One of these, Baroness Boscawen, represents the Barony of Despencer; she and the Baroness de Ros are of the two oldest noble families of England, created in the year 1264. Beyond this can none of the Upper House trace their descent, whilst the name and family of many of the gentry is in the 'Doomsday Book,' as that of the famous Millais, the painter of the 'Bride of the Huguenot.' But the squire was quite a different being from his descendant the country gentleman, yet not more so than the life

He who

of the present from that of the past. would know him in his rough, sometimes too rough, yet always genial humour, must read some romance of the last century, as, for instance, 'Tom Jones,' where Fielding has given us so delightful a picture of the two worthy neighbours, Squires Western and Allworthy, of whom the last does nothing but make others happy, while the first-a far truer picture of his time-does nothing but hunt, curse, and become fuddled with the parson.

Not less ancient than the dwellings of the landed proprietors in Kent are its towns. Dover claims precedence, as being the first entered by any one landing in that county, with its old Norman castle, clavis et repagulum totius regni, as Matthew Paris describes it. As Kent was the nearest point to the Continent, so all England's conquerors landed here. Julius Cæsar and the Romans at Dover; the Saxons at the Isle of Thanet, now no more an isle; and lastly the Danes. So these coasts were strictly watched in the time of the Normans, and the Cinque Ports especially constructed for their defence, of which, however, some, like Sandwich, for more than a hundred years have been part of the mainland. The governor of these five havens is called Lord Warden, a post which, since the havens disappeared, has become a sinecure,

and is given to deserving statesmen, as last to the Duke of Wellington and Lord Palmerston. The residence of the Lord Warden is Walmer Castle, an old castle by the sea, not far from the village of the same name, in which I, in the beginning of 1860, lived, and saw the then Lord Warden Palmerston riding merrily with his groom behind him. It is a lovely residence: the perfume of the fields mixes itself with the salt breeze of the sea; on the left lies the little picturesque village of Deal, and opposite in the sea the dangerous Goodwins, "that fearful sandbank where the skeletons of so many stately ships lie buried" (Merchant of Venice,' iii. 1), once, in far back days, the possession of the Earl of Goodwin, father of that Harold whom William conquered at Hastings. So has the sea, ever labouring-here washing away, there adding-buried in its deeps part of the mainland, and elsewhere made islands, as that of Thanet, or havens, as that of Sandwich, part of the present Continent.

Sandwich, now a quiet little rustic town, lies not far from the ocean, which, however, can only be seen from the top of the old crumbling tower of the church, surrounded by its graves. To the stranger who passes through its empty streets it must seem a city of the dead, a realm reigned

over by sleep and dream; there are few traces to remind him that active life once dominated here. Three hundred years ago Sandwich was the object of a peculiar invasion, friendly, however, and welcome -that of the Protestant Flemings, who sought a refuge here, when, flying from Alba, they determined rather to give up their home than their creed. The exodus of Belgium's richest merchants, most excellent fabricators and most diligent manufacturers, lasted for a year. They wandered in all directions, but those who turned to England and greeted its coast as Asylum Christi first settled in Sandwich, where we find a great number of them in the year 1561. Their artistic knowledge, and their love of freedom, they brought with them wherever they went; and well might one say of them here in England as later was said in the Mark Brandenburg, that "those towns in which they dwelt were happy, for God followed them with His blessing." In spite of Papal Bulls, Queen Elizabeth secured them a hospitable reception. The mayor and council of Sandwich were advised to receive them in a friendly manner, and to give them especially every assistance in the prosecution of their trade, linen and cloth weaving, which they brought with them to our shores. This was done. Two weekly markets were or