that follows this first imperfect article in the number for December 1852. For the first time there appears on the title-page an assurance that the current number contains "more in quantity and greater variety than any book of the kind and price." It might have said something about quality, too, for the opening article on Tillotson may still be read with pleasure. An original letter, written by Lord Rochester just previous to his death, is promised in the list of contents, but is not to be found in the Magazine itself. It is, in fact, in another number, and is certainly not so interesting as the following anecdote told of Tillotson :“Though he used what in his time was called conceived prayer, and greatly excelled for the readiness and pertinence of his expression, yet, as if this was really a peculiar gift, he could never preach but by reading; and, having once attempted to deliver an extempore discourse on the most copious text he could select, 'We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ,' he was obliged to leave the pulpit, after spending ten minutes in hesitation, repetition, blushes, and confusion." The succeeding articles treat upon Welsh lead, the Jansenist disputes between the French clergy and parliaments, horizontal windmills, the cherubin, Sunday hymns, and English highways. The paper next in succession touches on the alleged miracle at Bishop Fisher's grave, namely, that grass would not grow around it. The writer easily accounts for so facile a miracle:-" Thus, we are told, the popish priests in K. Henry VIII.'s time, poured sope-ashes on Mr. Petit's grave in the church-yard, to prove him an heretick, affirming that God would not suffer grass to grow on an heretick's grave. (Strype's Memor. vol. i. p. 203.)" Between the disquisition on Fisher and a philosophical description of Mount Vesuvius, we have a recipe for curing the glanders in horses; and a similar literary sandwich is served up in a Yorkshire anecdote of dolorous tragedy which is spread between an essay on electricity and a heavy article defending the bounty on exported corn. Magnets, orreries, and the grinding of concave glasses-touching which latter we know something more than is vouchsafed by our friend of a century ago,—

theories on the aurora, observations on eclipses, glances at contemporary satire, reviews of new ideas on natural philosophy and the stone, with some music of merit, some poetry without it, and some notices in the Historical Chronicle that have a peculiar interest,

these form the staple of the number that was issued just one hundred years to-day, "by E. Cave, jun. at St. John's Gate." In the Miscellaneous there is "A Literary Bill of Mortality for 1752:" I would fain transcribe it here, but, if it be witty enough to be composed by Swift, it is also filthy enough in part to have been from his pen, or to have raised his excessive laughter. Urban would not admit it now, however lightly he may have thought of it in his younger days; but

The bard to purer fame may soar,

Mr.

When first youth's past,and that reputation has been gained by our venerable friend. The list referred to affects to give the "casualties among books in 1752." Among them we have "Abortive, 7,000; stillborn, 3,000; old age, 0." 320 are set down as dying suddenly; and the trunkmaker, sky-rockets, pastry cook, and worms are chronicled as having destroyed between three and four thousand. Not less than 2,079 are recorded as having perished in a way and by a malady that only Swift would have thought of, and an admirer approvingly have copied. The casualties of the year among authors show as much wit as those among books. They are numbered as close upon three thousand, more than a third of whom are disposed of under the head "Lunacy." A still greater number, some twelve hundred, are entered as "Starved." Seventeen were killed by the hangman, and fifteen by hardly more respectable persons, themselves. Mad dogs, vipers, and mortification swept off a goodly number. Five pastoral poets died of "Fistula," and under the head of "Surfeit" we find a zero, which contrasts strongly with the numbers said to have been starved.

But here I am exceeding my limits, even before I reach the analysation of the volume I had proposed to myself. I am like the ancient poet who commenced an epic on the siege of Troy, and who wrote six-and-thirty books before he came to his subject, and then

died. The simile is imperfect in the latter respect, and I trust may for some time remain so.

If I have failed in giving interest to the subject of "A Hundred Years Ago," it is the fault of the artist, not of the material. This abounded, and my only embarrassment was that of selection. I believe that, with patience and strong vision, a most amusing paper might be constructed simply out of the slight personal notices scattered through any of these by-gone volumes. Some of these are of great interest. Among them, and certainly not of interest, I was something startled to find the Christian and surname affixed below. Unfortunately my namesake, whoever he may have been, is registered among the offenders, and, for the

mortification of vanity, among the little ones. Had he been a romantic assassin of a very exaggerated fashion, or a highwayman who loved a gallop across a common by moonlight; had he, like the Major Doran recorded by Sir Jonah Barrington, killed a Spanish colonel out of caprice, or, like that other namesake chronicled by the same light historian, been half hanged (as he probably deserved to be) by William's Dutch troopers on the banks of the Boyne, there would have been something noticeable in it! After all, it is as well to be content with the ancestry provided for us. "Probitas nobilitas was an ancient maxim, and he who has the former "n'a pas besoin d'aieux." JOHN DORAN.

THE road from Rochester to Maidstone furnishes an extremely picturesque drive. A little above the city, the Medway flows in a narrow valley between two ranges of hills, one of which runs westwardly almost parallel with the Thames, while the other takes a south-eastern direction till it joins in with the chalk-hills behind Folkestone. The road we are pursuing lies along the latter range; the scenery becomes picturesque as we clear the Bridge woods, and after passing the Upper Bell the road runs at a considerable elevation on the edge of the hill, and an extensive view spreads itself before us towards the west. This view is nowhere so grand as at the point just above the celebrated cromlech known by the name of Kits Coty House, where a tolerably good modern inn stands by the road-side.

A cromlech is a rude chamber constructed of massive flat stones, three, forming usually its three sides, the fourth being open, and a fourth flat stone serving for a roof. There can be little doubt that monuments of this description belong to the ancient Britons, because they are certainly not

more modern than the Roman period, while they are as certainly not Roman, and they are found in great numbers in Ireland where a Celtic population was established. The old antiquaries, who were accustomed to form theories without sufficiently examining into facts, called these monuments druids' altars, believed that they were used for human sacrifices, and hazarded strange descriptions of the rites which were supposed to have been celebrated upon them. But the increased knowledge on these subjects has left no room for doubt that the cromlechs are nothing more than sepulchral chambers. The ashes of the dead-for in most of these interments we find that the bodies of the deceased had been burnt-were collected into an urn of rude pottery, and placed, with a few other articles, within the chamber, and the whole was then covered with a mound. In opening many such mounds in different parts of the kingdom, the cromlech, with the sepulchral deposit within, have been found perfect; where the cromlech is now found exposed to view without a mound, it has been robbed of its covering of earth, by accident or design, at some

another property, and therefore that I was trespassing. Disappointed by this information, I proceeded further on the top of the hill into what I knew to be the Preston Hall property, and on the ground just within the limits of Aylesford common I found single stones, closely resembling those of which the cromlechs below are built, but lying flat on the ground. My first impression was that they were the capstones of cromlechs, or sepulchral chambers, buried under the ground, and, having singled out one of them, I set the men to dig under the side of it. When they got under the edge they found they were digging among a mass of flints, which had evidently been placed there by design; I then caused the men to continue the excavation to a greater distance round, and, to my surprise, I found that this immense stone was laid over the mouth of a large circular pit which had first been filled up to the top with flints. To proceed any further without a greater number of men than I had with me would have been useless. But, just as I was leaving it, some of the cottagers on the top of the hill-squatters-informed me that these pits were frequently found on that hill, and that generally they had one or two of the large stones at the mouth. When, a few years before, a new road was made over the brow of the hill, and flints were sought for that purpose, the labourers discovered these pits and partly emptied some of them, which they found much more profitable than seeking the flints on the surface of the chalk. One was shown to me which had been emptied to a depth of about ten feet, and had been discontinued on account of the labour of throwing the flints up. The pit here bore so close a resemblance to one of the open pits on the hills opposite, which I had previously examined, and which was somewhat more than twenty feet deep, with a small door at the bottom leading into a square chamber, that I concluded, if emptied, it would present throughout the same appearance. From this circumstance I am inclined to suspect that the chambers at the bottom of the pits were intended for sepulchral purposes. Tombs of this description have been found in Etruria, and in the east. In the present case, perhaps, the de

ceased was laid in the chamber, and then the pit was filled up with flints, and covered with an enormous capstone to mark the site. Those that are now found open may have been opened for some reason or other in the middle ages. We might indeed presume at once they were sepulchral, from the circumstance of their being here found among the cromlechs.

After leaving the single stone under which we had been digging, I accidentally discovered, a little below, in a sheltered nook of the hill, extensive traces of Roman buildings, which deserved a much more careful examination than I was then able to give them. The spot was a short distance to the south of that on which Mr. Charles, of Maidstone, had discovered a Roman burial ground, and was evidently the site of a villa. The cottagers or squatters on the hill told me that they found coins and pottery over a large extent of surface round this spot, which was then covered with low brushwood, and had never been disturbed by the plough. I uncovered a few square yards of a floor of large bricks, which had evidently been broken up, and were mixed with roof-tiles, and others which appeared like cornice-mouldings. They were literally covered with broken pottery of every description, among which I picked up several fragments of fine Samian ware, mixed with a few human bones, some small nails, and traces of burnt wood, which seemed to indicate that the buildings had been destroyed by fire, perhaps in the wars which followed the departure of the Roman legions from the island. The floor lay at a depth of from a foot to a foot and a half below the present surface of the ground, and was only two or three inches above the surface of the chalk. Near it we traced, for a short distance, a transverse wall.

A pleasant country lane leads from Kits Coty House down to the village of Aylesford, which is pretended to be the site of a great battle between the Saxons and the Romano-British population, but it is by no means improbable that this battle is a mere legend founded upon the number of sepulchral monuments scattered around. The cromlechs and other sepulchral remains are by no means confined to this spot. As we proceed along the valley to the

west we again meet with these monuments. My attention was first called to them by a friend who is well known for his antiquarian and historical researches relating to the county of Kent, the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, vicar of Ryarsh, who, having lived among them since his childhood, was to me not only a learned but an experienced guide. A short time before my attempted excavations on the hill behind Kits Coty House, we had made an antiquarian survey of the two parishes of Ryarsh and Addington, in which these remains principally lie. In the park of the Hon. J. Wingfield Stratford, in the latter parish (which adjoins that of Ryarsh on the west, and is situated about a mile from the Vigo chalk hill, part of the ridge which bounds the valley of Maidstone to the north,) are two circles of large stones (long known to antiquaries), and near them is an isolated mass of similar large stones, which appeared to me to be the covering of a subterranean structure. Within the smaller circle are traces of large capstones, which probably form the coverings of cromlechs or sepulchral chambers. It should be remarked that the ground within this smaller circle appears raised, as though it were the remains of a mound which perhaps was never completed. In the southern part of this parish are several immense cones of earth, veritable pyramids, which have every appearance of being artificial, and ought to be excavated. To give an idea of their magnitude, I need only state that the church of Addington is built on the top of one of them. Mr. Larking has since made some excavations at one of the cromlechs of the parish of Addington, the only result of which was the discovery of some fragments of rude pottery, but they were attended with a circumstance which shows how long the ancient superstitions connected with such monuments have lasted. He had fixed on the site for excavating one afternoon, when the keeper happened accidentally to be present. Early in the forenoon of the next day, Mr. Larking, with some workmen, proceeded to the spot, and he was rather surprised to find the keeper and an assistant waiting for him with picks and spades, and to see them work with extraordinary vigour and earnestness.

As the day passed on, and nothing but a few bits of pottery turned up, disappointment was visible in the features of the keeper, which became still more apparent when they all quitted their work and prepared for their departure. Before they separated, however, he communicated to my excellent friend the cause which made him work so diligently-in the preceding night he had dreamt that the cromlech contained a large crock of gold, and he was in hopes to be the fortunate discoverer of it!

From the two circles in Addington Park we continued our walk towards the north. At no great distance from them, in a field at the foot of the hill adjacent to a farm named Coldrum Lodge, is another smaller circle of stones, and similar appearances of a subterranean cromlech in the middle. At the top of the Ryarsh chalk hill, just above Coldrum, we observed two large stones, resembling those which form the circle below, lying flat on the ground, and near them is the mouth of a circular well about twenty feet deep, and not less than ten in diameter, with a doorway at the bottom leading into a chamber cut in the chalk. This is the pit already referred to. The two stones may have been removed from its mouth, or they may cover pits not yet opened. In the wood behind this pit, which runs along the top of the hill, and is known by the name of Poundgate or White Horse Wood, there are said to be other masses of these large stones. The ground is covered with underwood, and on the occasion of my visit we did not attempt to penetrate it.

Proceeding from the circle at Coldrum, towards the east, we observed single stones, of the same kind and of colossal magnitude, scattered over the fields for some distance; and it is the tradition of the peasantry that a continuous line of such stones ran from Coldrum direct along the valley to the hill of Kits Coty House, a distance of between five and six miles. Mr. Larking and myself traced these stones in the line through a great portion of the distance, and their existence probably gave rise to the tradition. I was informed that they had even been found in the bed of the river, where there seems to have been an ancient ford.