been altered and enlarged, but it was the residence of the celebrated Jacob Tonson, who published Dryden's works, and who used to keep a sort of open house for men of letters. The old part still remains, and faces the river; and though the situation is beautiful, the house itself has no more attractions than Strawberry Hill. Here the famous Kit-Cat Club was formed, which consisted of men of standing and wealth whose real object was to support the house of Hanover, and to strengthen the hands of the Bentincks, the Cavendishes, the Russells and Grenvilles, and others whose energy did so much to set the House of Hanover firmly on the throne. In those days publishers occupied a more arduous position than they do now, when wealth and business capacity are, of necessity, among the first requirements; for literary men are readily procurable as readers or editors who can relieve them of much of their old duties, and allow them to devote more time to the mercantile part of their calling. There is an amusing anecdote of Tonson which Lord Bolingbroke relates. He was once paying a visit to Dryden, and some one called whose step and voice the poet well knew; he turned suddenly to Lord Bolingbroke, and begged him not to leave until the publisher had gone, for, said he, 'I know it's Tonson;' and he added that if he left before him, he would be alone with the great publisher, and, as he was a little behindhand with some proof, he would be fearfully scolded. Dunton published the Life and Errors' of Tonson, and he speaks about him as a man who has been characterised as a sort of wild Defoe, a coarser mind cast in somewhat a like mould.' He figures in the 'Dunciad,' though not with the same sarcastic satire. that has immortalised Curll in the same publication. Guy, the founder of the hospital, may almost be said to have belonged to the same set. His publishing house was close to Barnett's Banking Company. But the most generally esteemed publisher was Cave, whose memoirs Johnson wrote, and who was for some time in a halfconscious state, owing to lethargic illness; but he woke up before his death just to see and to recognise the lexicographer, fondly to press the hand that now writes this little narrative,' as his biographer says. Cave was brought up at Rugby, under the tutorship of Holyock, and he gave early promise of literary excellence. He was afterwards placed in the office of a timber-merchant, where he again gave great satisfaction, but finally he was apprenticed to Collins, a deputy-Alderman of London, and a printer and publisher of high standing. This change was much to his taste, and he has the credit of founding monthly magazines, to secure the fleeting contributions that had but an ephemeral life in pamphlets and broad-sheets. He had saved enough money in 1731 to found the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' of which there was so great a want at

6

the time that its success became pronounced soon after, and which still flourishes with unabated vigour. He was, as Pope has said of Gay, 'uncorrupted even among the great,' and when clerk of the Frank Office he refused to let an epistle of the old Duchess of Marlborough be forwarded free of expense to its destination on the strength of a frank from W. Plummer, M.P. For this he was summoned to the bar of the House; but he had in every sense the better of the argument.

Maidenhead, or, as it used to be called, Maidenhythe, is soon reached, and it is a neat, clean, comfortable country town, without many claims to being considered picturesque. The bridge is exceedingly beautiful, but the town itself is new, and perhaps hardly dates earlier than the bridge, which was built quite at the end of the last century.

Maidenhead is the nearest station to the celebrated village of Bray, which has gained immortality through its accommodating vicar, who gracefully surrendered his creed to each succeeding monarch. The song which has rendered him famous is an anachronism, for the real vicar lived during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, while the popular vicar is supposed to have published his creed during the reign of George I.; and it is pretty certain that it is a production of one of the members of the Kit-Cat Club. Satirists and historians have shown again and again the laxity and the servility of the parochial clergy; and a chaplain-who in those days was almost as indispensable to a moderately important household as a steward-hardly ranked above a head gamekeeper, nor was he permitted, except under certain conditions (which in the case of the head of the Wynn family are humorous in the extreme, and happen to be before me), to dine with his patron.' If the chaplain was of a congenial turn, and sufficiently instructed to amuse his employer, he would have the family living, or some other family living, when a vacancy occurred, and then of course he was the humble servant to the house. I had some little difficulty in getting a reliable copy of the song, but believe that the following is nearly correct:In good King Charles's golden days, When loyalty no harm meant, A zealous High Churchman was I, And so I got preferment.

To teach my flock I never missed,
Kings were by God appointed,

And damn'd are those that do resist
Or touch the Lord's anointed.

For this is law I will maintain
Until my dying day, Sir,
Whatever King in England reign,
I'll be the Vicar of Bray, Sir.

When Royal James obtained the crown
And Popery came in fashion,

The penal laws I hooted down

And read the Declaration.

The Church of Rome I found would fit

Full well my constitution,

And had become a Jesuit

But for the Revolution.

When William was our King declar'd,
To ease a nation's grievance,
With this new wind about I steer'd,
And swore to him allegiance.
Old principles I did revoke,

Set conscience at a distance;
Passive obedience was a joke,
A jest was non-resistance.

When gracious Anne became our Queen,

The Church of England's glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory.
Occasional Conformists base

I damn'd their moderation,

And thought the Church in danger was
By such prevarication.

When George in pudding-time came o'er,
And moderate men looked big, Sir,
I turned a cat-in-a-pan once more,
And so I became a Whig, Sir.
And thus preferment I procured
From our new faith's defender,
And almost every day abjured
The Pope and the Pretender.

The illustrious House of Hanover
And Protestant succession,
To these I do allegiance swear
While they can keep possession.

For in my faith and loyalty

I never more will falter,

And George my lawful King shall be
Until the times shall alter.

The real Vicar of Bray is a hero among Fuller's Worthies,' and he seems to have had a decided liking for a quiet life. His name is put down as Symon Symonds; but after carefully looking at an old record where it appears, I hardly think that this is correct. Fuller, speaking of him, says: The vivacious vicar thereof living under Henry VIII., King Edward VI., Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, and then a Protestant again. He had seen some martyrs burnt (two

miles off) at Windsor, and found this fire too hot for his tender temper. This vicar, being taxed by one for being a turncoat and

an inconstant changeling, said: "Not so. I always kept my principle, which is this-To live and die the vicar of Bray." It must not be

supposed that the present beautiful vicarage is the one to which the sturdy vicar so resolutely clung; for it is comparatively a new residence, and has recently been altered. The house shown at the entrance of the churchyard is said to be the genuine residence. Of this I could not form an opinion, but all the inhabitants agreed in saying that it was the traditional vicarage. The church of Bray has not been very much over-restored. The restorations took place a little more than a quarter of a century ago, when ancient buildings were held in much more reverence than they are now. There are some quaint monuments and inscriptions in it, and among others is one of William Goddard, the founder of Jesus Hospital, and his wife.

If what I was thou seekest to knowe
These lines my character shall showe
Those benefitts that God me lent
With thanks I tooke and freely spent
I scorned what playnesse could not gett
And next to treasure hated debt

I loved not those that stirred up strife
True to my friend and too my wife

The latter here by me I have

We had one bed and have one grave
My honesty was such that I

When death came feared not to die.

The part of the Thames we are considering is almost a paradise for swans. We meet them at every bend, and many are the quiet nooks for nesting. We learn from the Penny Cyclopædia' that, according to an old law, no subject could hold property in swans that were allowed to be at large in a public river or creek, unless he held his right from the Crown, and then for a fee the Crown grants a swan mark, or notches in the bill, to identify the birds; and on the first Monday in August, every year, the swan-markers of the Crown, and some of the London companies, go up the river and practise their cruel calling. The markers are called swan-uppers, which has been corrupted into 'swan-hoppers,' and all unmarked swans belong to the Crown; so that if a bird has been missed, it becomes royal property. This accounts for the immense number belonging to the Queen. By a curious old Act of Parliament the following penalty is enforced against anyone who steals a lawfully marked swan in an open and common river. The swan is to be held by his beak until the tail just touches the ground, and as much wheat is to be poured over the swan as will cover him up to the top of his bill. not altogether unlike the way in which muskets were Indians in the palmy days of the Hudson Bay Company.

This is

sold to

A Bir