Amsterdam, given up all hope of recovering his paternal estates in England, become heartsick with the controversy, and with the selfishness of man, sick with the noise of sects that filled the country with strife, and had but recently stained its beautiful fields with blood; and sighing for a peaceful retreat, and a pure and unmolested worship, he landed at Plymouth, on May 8th of the year in which he sailed. Here he stayed a few years, and in 1643 removed thence to a more favoured spot, known by the Indians as Sursuit and Mattakeese, the sites of the present towns of East Dennis and Yarmouth.

Richard Sayer, before he left Plymouth, had married Dorothy Thacher. She was a sister of Anthony Thacher, Plymouth, whose name is familiarly known in the Pilgrim annals. The children of this marriage were three sons, Knyvet, Paul, and Silas, and one daughter, named Deborah, married to Zachariah Paddock.

Let us picture to ourselves the primitive manner in which the Pilgrim Father lived, and contrast it with the habits of his ancestors in the olden time, and his descendants of the present day.

On Quivet Neck he built himself a house one story high, roofed with thatch, and fronting south with such precision as to serve as a sun-dial, and indicate the hour of noon. The fireplace was made of rough stone, the chimney of boards plastered over inside with clay. Both the fireplace and the chimney flue were of immense capacity; so that after a rousing fire has been kindled on a winter's evening, the family could occupy both the spaces on each side of it, and look up through the chimney opening, and

gaze at the stars. What visions of other days must have come over the old Pilgrim as he sat there and heard the whistling winds and the roaring on the sea-beach, and saw through his chimney-flue the same planets that twinkled. upon him on the Princen Graat of old Amsterdam!

Richard Sayer survived to be the patriarch of the little colony of Sursuit, and to see his children and his children's children settled around him. "Fields of corn, of beans, and of flax covered the gentle acclivities, and the tall grass waved along the green margin of the brooks; and, without wealth or want, the little community thrived and prospered. Industry and frugality were in the place of riches, and piety brought down the Divine blessing without interruption." Once or twice Richard Sayer was summoned from his seclusion, as Deputy to the Colony Court at Plymouth; but he seems to have found what he sighed after, amid the strifes and tumults of the Old World, -a place far away from the rumours of oppression, deceit, and bloodshed, where he might worship God with a free conscience, and breathe out his soul in peace. He lived to a green and honoured old age, and died in 1676. He had seen eighty-six years ere he rested from his labours; and the people of the village of Sursuit, that grew up around him, followed him to his peaceful grave. Children and children's children were there to talk of his virtues around his bier. His ashes repose in the old Yarmouth churchyard, where one of his descendants, with filial reverence and affection, has erected a costly monument to his memory.

He left behind him three sons, Knyvet, Paul, and Sylas,

the two youngest of whom resided in Yarmouth, where they filled important offices.

KNYVET SEARS, the eldest son, unlike his father, had a strong faith that the family lands in England might yet be recovered. He was in the glow of youth, had experienced none of the proverbial delays and quibbles of English law, and accordingly set out for the old country full of hope, and furnished with such deeds and documents as seemed to him, at least-to place his claim beyond question. He was kindly received by some of his relations, but was not successful in the object of his visit. Yet this failure could not subdue his hopes or his spirits. He made a second voyage, in 1686; but in the same year, and before he had time to bring forward the proofs in his possession, he died at the residence of his relative, Catherine (subsequently Baroness Berners), daughter of Sir John Knyvet, and wife of John Harris, Esq. The evidences that he had brought with him were never afterwards recovered.

From a document filed in the Chapter-House, Westminster Abbey, it appears that the contested manors were transferred about this time, by a legal fiction, to Sir John Marsham, only son of Sir John Marsham, and Esther, daughter of George Sayer, who died in 1577. This Esther was assumed to have been the sole heir upon the failure of the male line in England, and the high position which the American branch of the family was entitled to hold here through the Bourchiers and Knyvets, as well as the Sears', was abandoned for ever. Though thus denied their position in their Fatherland, the Sayers, now Sears', advanced,

step by step, in the country of their adoption, and at this present time, the Hon. David Sears, a Senator for Massachusetts, holds a very high position in the United States.

And thus ends the history of Richard Sayer, the Pilgrim Father, the representative of the ancient house of Sayer, and the lineal descendant of Knyvett, Bouchier, and Plantagenet !

The Heir of Delapre.

Hereditas venit unicuique nostrum a jure et legibus."

CICERO.

AMONG the most recent romances in real life is the career of John Augustus Sheil Bouverie, who, from occupying a very humble station, has established his position as undoubted heir of large estates descending to him from an ancient and honourable family.

Before I enter on this gentleman's personal history, I will briefly glance at the lineage of the noble house of which he is a scion.

The Bouveries, previously to their settlement in England, had for many generations been honourably known in the Low Countries, in the public annals of which their name is frequently mentioned. With the usual incertitude of ancient nomenclature, we find their patronymic differently written De la Bouverie, Des Bouveries, De Bouverie. Their present appellation, Bouverie, has been fixed by act of parliament.

The pursuits of commerce apparently first brought them to England. In 1568, Laurence Des Bouveries, a Fleming, then in his twenty-seventh year, settled at Canterbury, accompanied by his wife, Barbara Van den Hove, descended from a rich family engaged in the silk manufac