With this excellent and Christian feeling, the author of the poem before us pleads for these poor children of nature, who, year after year, are sacrificed at the shrine of the Moloch of England; who are rolled down the yawning precipice by the faithless Prince who promised to protect them,

to feed the insatiable demon to whom he has linked his destiny; or, in soberer language, who are doomed to lose all the sweet vernal season of life, and see its opening blossoms drop off one by one, beneath the hot artificial atmosphere, the unnatural and prolonged labour, the mechanical and wretched employment, of the never-closing manufactory. Over the accursed portals of these abodes of ignorance, sickness, wretchedness, and dependence, should be engraved the noble stanza of the poet

Weave the warp, and weave the woof,

The winding sheet of England's race; Give ample room and verge enough,

The characters of Hell to trace. Taking this as the key-note to his song, the poet of the present lay has conveyed his stern remonstrance in the language of the muse; and has alternately, in strains of great elegance and force, called on our pity and our indignation; has evoked the tardy justice of the land to awake from its slumbers; and has laid before us his touching pictures of injured innocence and Nature mourning over the wrongs inflicted on those she most dearly loves, and who most need her natural protection. We are told,

'A song may reach him, who a sermon flies.'

So we trust that this " Voice from the Factories" will be no vain appeal to the general feeling of society. Humanity has seldom found an advocate in her cause more eloquent or more sincere. We lament that our space will only permit us to extract a very few of the stanzas. We recommend our readers not to be satisfied but with the whole.

And one more fragile than the rest, for whom-
As for the weak bird in a crowded nest-
Are needed all the fostering care of home
And the soft comfort of the brooding breast.
One, who hath oft the couch of sickness prest!
On whom the Mother looks, as it goes by,
With tenderness intense, and fear supprest,
While the soft patience of her anxious eye
Blends with God's will be done'-' God grant
thou may'st not die !'
XXXVIII.

And is there not the elder of the band?
She with the gentle hand, and smooth bright
hair,

Waiting some paces back-content to stand Till those of Love's caresses have their share,

a burgess to Parliament in 1453, for which service he was paid 28. a day; was elected mayor a second time in 1457; re-elected burgess in 1460; and mayor a third time in 1464. During the last year he was deputed by the city of Salisbury to plead her cause against the Bishop before the Privy Council, when, on making use of some offensive expressions, he was put into ward; and the King by letters under his signet, (printed by Mr. Duke, with other curious documents connected with the same affair,) directed the citizens to elect another mayor. However, on the bishop gaining his point, John Halle was restored to his fellow citizens, who received him joyfully, and to mark their confidence re-elected him mayor for the fourth time in 1465. He purchased the premises on which he built his "halle" in 1467; and continued to live there with the respect of his townsmen, until his death on the 18th Oct. 1479. No will is to be found; but two inquisitions post mortem are given, reciting lands he possessed in Wiltshire and Hampshire. In these his property in Salisbury is not included.

"The Halle of John Halle" and Crosby Hall, London, were erected within ten years of each other-their owners were both merchants of the staple-both dealers in wool, and men of great affluence-probably intimate friends.

We cannot allow the Hall of John Hall to compete with Crosby Hall in any particular; not only does the latter exceed in length, breadth, and height, but its windows, roof, and general architectural features, wonderfully surpass "The Halle of John Halle" in beauty. The windows of the Salisbury specimen are not elegant. though fortunately their painted glass still remains. The roof has no pendants like Crosby Hall or Eltham Hall; but the quadrangular compartments, or parallelograms, formed by the intersection of the principals, or main timber, with the purlins, are covered in, the one half of each with a semi-circular and scalloped panelling,

the other plaster. This is said by Mr. Duke to have a beautiful effect.

In the Text of his Volume, under the shelter of his hero's name, our Author digresses into a series of Essays bearing on the following subjects: the origin and progress of surnames, heraldry, merchants of the staple and merchants' marks; dress and progress of fashion, with dissertations on every part of the male attire-the hat, feather, brooch, hair and beard, partelet, doublet, girdle, anelace,* hose, and shoes. These observations are intermixed with much good humour and dry remark. In his Notes the learned author discusses many a knotty point on which he had not room to dilate in his text. In the latter he was obliged to place a rein on his pen in his notes he has permitted it to caracole around without restraint.

As an instance of Mr. Duke's favourite and novel hypotheses, we may mention that he derives the mercantile sense of the word Staple, not, as has been usually done, from the place where the Staple was established being a stabile emporium, or fixed market, for certain goods; but from these goods being placed in public warehouses, as in bond, under lock and key, secured by a staple or fastening, called the King's staple.

Mr. Duke's researches on the fashions of "beards" led him to examine those of the sepulchral effigies in Salisbury Cathedral, and on the strength of the prevalence of beards in the reign of Henry II. but not in that of Henry I. he is induced to assign a remarkable effigy there to Bishop Joceline de Baillol, who died in 1184; and not, as Mr. Gough formerly did, to Bishop Roger, who died in 1139. The same view, grounded upon general costume, was taken by Mr. Hatcher in his history of the cathedral, from a comparison with the seal of Bishop Joceline; and has also been adopted by Mr. Kempe, in his descriptions to Stothard's Sepulchral Effigies, where this singular effigy (particularly remarkable for its inscriptions, resembling that of Ilbert

de Chaz at Lacock Abbey*) is engraved; as well as another episcopal effigy, which is also very interesting from its low relief, its Norman border of beaded foliage and birds, and the vanquished dragon below the prelate's feet. The latter effigy is assigned by Mr. Kempe to Bishop Roger, in which capacity it is placed first in Mr. Stothard's series, as one of the earliest sepulchral effigies known. We confess there are various considerations, too long for discussion here, from which the appropriation of these two curious figures still appears to us not decidedly proved.

But there is another monument and effigy in Salisbury cathedral which has been generally misappropriated, and respecting which Mr. Duke has followed the ordinary and perhaps long perpetuated, though recently corrected error. It is that which has been called Bishop Richard Poore's; but that prelate was translated to Durham, and is known to have been buried in the chapter-house there. The monument was ascertained, on its being opened, not to be a cenotaph; and indeed there is no difficulty in assigning it to Bishop Bingham, whose death brings it only nine years later in date, and whose interment is recorded to have been on the north side of the altar, which was the old situation of this monument. Mr. Duke seems not to have perceived this observation in the History of Lacock Abbey, though he has more than once quoted that work with commendation; but there is a more important neglect of that work, (though we imagine arising rather from inadvertence than opposition,) that he persists in calling the first house of the Earls of Salisbury by the surname of Devereux. We may say that we consider that Mr. J. G. Nichols has fully demonstrated, in the History of Lacock Abbey, that Edward of Salisbury and

* Engraved in the " 1835.

the Earls his descendants, had never any connection with that surname.

In one of his notes Mr. Duke has given a long dissertation on the sacred monogram IHS, which, in consequence of his noticing, and disputing, what has recently been said on the point in our pages, it is perhaps incumbent upon us to notice. He adopts the modern Roman Catholic interpretation of the letters, as initials of the words In Hoc Signo, and as thus allusive to the cross now generally placed over the centre: or, if the letters are IHC, he could interpret them In Hac Cruce. These versions, with those of the opposite initial party, of Jesus Hc minum Salvator and Jesus Hominum Consolator, are proofs how easy it is for ingenious persons to fabricate significant words to any given initials: though, as we have before observed, we have never yet seen any words found for the correspondent letters XPS. We need not, however, despair; for a thrice ingenious friend of our author's has discovered that the mot of John Halle, left in his "storied windows," and thus written Drebe, is not a single word as it looks for, but actually the initials of Dominus Rex Edwardus, Domina Elizabetha!!! In all old instances, the letters in dispute are found ib's or Th's, either without any capital, or with only one, and at the same time combined as a word, not separated as initials; and so with Ip's (Christus): and the cross produced was accidental, from the scroll of the mark of abbreviation crossing the upper part of the h. In modern examples only is the word found in capitals.

However, we have no wish to restrict our friend's fancy; at the same time, we cannot follow it.

We may add that Mr. Duke does not appear to have met with the usual monogram of the Virgin's name, which often occurs in the quarries of church

windows, and in other situations, with that of the Saviour, as in the flintwork of the Suffolk churches, particularly at Woodbridge. It was an m with the other letters of Maria formed into a single cypher.

After a long dissertation on the progressive advance of St. Thomas's church, Salisbury, is a disquisition on five little crucibles found built up in a room over the porch-the working implements of some Alchemist; this leads Mr. Duke into a long explanatory note on the occult sciences. By the way, a curious specimen of this kind of crucible, with nativities engraved on it, was found on digging the foundations of the present Newgate, London, and is engraved in Gent. Mag. for May 1793.

The representations of St. Christopher in our parish churches, form the subject of a very long and elaborate disquisition; in the course of which the author gives an account of his discovery (not accidentally, but by actual search-in the place where the figure was usually placed, opposite the south entrance) of two paintings, one beneath the other, of Saint Christopher, in his own church of Wilsford and Lake, Wilts; the under one, (of which a print is given) is superior to the upper one in point of execution and effect. On this subject Mr. Duke's hypothesis is, that the gigantic figure of Saint Christopher must be regarded "as the enigmatic-the symbolic Christophorus-the bearer of Christthe personified cross; then give to this cross the secondary consideration, and regard our Saviour borne triumphantly thereon through the waters of affliction-in short, we have our Saviour on the vivified and vivifying cross." p. 572.

among the latter we notice an interesting memoir of the Rev. Joseph Townshend, author of "Free Thoughts on Despotic and Free Governments;" and another of the late eminent physician, Dr. George Maton, with which we shall grace our pages.

"This eminent physician was born in the year 1774 in the City of Salisbury. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford. He subsequently became eminent in his profession, and practised with much success in the metropolis.

"Dr. Maton was imbued with a thirst for knowledge and an ardent love of research. He was a member of the principal literary societies. The public are indebted to him in the early part of his life for a pleasing work in two vols. 8vo. entitled Observations relative chiefly to the Natural History, Picturesque Scenery, and Antiquities of the Western Counties of England, made in the years 1794 and 1796. In the year 1805 he published a re-edition of "A general view of the writings of Linnæus, by Richard Pulteney, M.D. F.R.S. To this work his own pen supplied the Prefatory Memoirs of Dr. Pulteney, drawn up in so pleasing a manner that it renders it a cause for regret, that the literary world has not been gratified by further writings. It is stated by my friend G. Matcham, Esq. in his able History of the Hundred of Downton (incorporated in Sir R. C. Hoare's Modern Wilts) that, prior to his death, Dr. Maton had purchased Redlynch House in the parish of Downton. He proceeds to say,

that he left behind him in a MS. a view of the Botany and Natural History of the country in a circuit of 10 miles round Salisbury, purposely for the Modern History of Wilts; and I do not anticipate, Mr. M. adds, any objection from his representatives to give it to the public.' May they do so.

Amongst my various friends, no one more strongly urged me to this work than Dr. Maton, and an accorded tribute of satisfaction from him, had the Fates per

Rufus. No reliance is to be placed on the windows being round-headed. All painters represented their windows round to the latest period of Pointed architecture.

Such are the remarks we have to make on a portion of Mr. Duke's multifarious notes. In others are collected many biographical particulars of eminent men, long since dead, and of others recently deceased:

A

cation. The decease of Dr. Maton is a recent and lamented occurrence. monument to his memory, well conceived, and as well executed by the chisel of Mr. Osmond, has been recently erected in the Cathedral Church of Salisbury. It bears the following just tribute to his character.

Sacred

to the memory of

WILLIAM GEORGE MATON, A native of the City,