the Baptist Chapel in Meeting Lane, which connects the main street with the western backway, passing Phoenix Place, &c. The present building was erected in the year 1799, by the exertions of the Rev. H. Penn, for nineteen years Baptist minister in Kingsbridge, in lieu of the former chapel now converted into a cellar and tenement, which stands some feet higher up, nearer Fore Street. It was enlarged and altered in style, and a new roof placed over it, in 1852, and is now one of the neatest and most commodious chapels in the town. The garden adjoining has been used as a burial ground for many years; but the Baptists possess another at Venn, in the parish of Churchstow, which is very seldom used.

The business of the Kingsbridge Joint Stock Bank, established 1842, is carried on at the offices of Messrs. Hurrell and Lidstone, solicitors, at the residence of the senior partner of the firm and manager of the bank.

The Union house for Kingsbridge and twenty-six neighbouring parishes is built on a slope opposite Norden and Bowringsleigh woods, both belonging to W. R. Ilbert, Esquire, of Horswell House. Access to it is obtained by a road branching from Mill Street on the northern side, nearly opposite the entrance to Quay House, passing a pretty villa residence known as the Retreat, built by the late Mr. John Dinnis, of Kingsbridge.

In Dodbrooke, the only building demanding notice is the church, situated in one of the prettiest and most retired churchyards in the county of Devon. Some may think that too fervent a tribute of praise is given to this spot and the sacred building it encompasses; but I have many a cogent reason for fostering more than a common liking and love for this in particular of all God's holy English shrines, as the three parish registers may well testify; and among my remembrances there stands forth in bold relief and vivid colouring the solemn, earnest, gentle, and affectionate ministry of one whom to hear is to like, respect, and love; who

will be spared for many a long year to come, I trust, to his congregation, of which I was once a member, all of whom will, I am sure, without a single exception, but in warmer terms, confirm the little I have dared to say of him.

The church was re-seated, and the interior otherwise restored, in 1846, low pews being substituted for the sleep-encouraging loose boxes that formerly encumbered the aisles. The gallery on the south side was then taken down, those at the west end being permitted to remain for the accommodation of the choir and Sunday school children. An harmonium, played by a very near and dear relative of mine, and an able coadjutor, for some years (whose joint services were kindly and gracefully acknowledged by the congregation by the presentation of a handsome testimonial to each lady) was subsequently substituted for the fiddles, flutes, and bassoons that had long accompanied psalm and anthem in the music loft with due orchestral furore, with all the trillings, roulades, and vain repetitions peculiar to country psalmody, or the tunes affected by country psalmists, from which may I ever be delivered. The church itself seems to have lost the north aisle. The nave is sixty feet long and nineteen broad, separated from the chancel by a handsome old screen, now, in very questionable taste, surmounted with frowning battlements. The south aisle, fifty feet long by sixteen broad, is also separated from another small aisle at its eastern end by a continuation of the screen: this aisle belongs to John Gillard, Esquire, of Well, who is obliged to keep the same in thorough repair. There are one or two monuments on the walls, and incised slabs let into the pavement of the church: that on the south wall is to the memory of Elizabeth, wife of John Beare, of Bearescombe, an estate in the parish of Buckland-tout-saints, formerly called Woodmason. This John Beare was a famous, or rather infamous, persecutor of Nonconformists in the reign of Charles II. His deeds in this line in Kingsbridge are chronicled in a pamphlet revised from an

old work published in 1671, entitled, "A Narrative of the Per secutions against Dissenters in Kingsbridge and other places in Devonshire, under the reign of Charles II." I believe copies of this are very scarce, but the pamphlet is well worth re-printing. The exterior of the south aisle and south porch is of hewn stone, ornamented with battlements on the top of the walls. There was a window of granite and coloured glass at the east end, which was taken out during the reign of a former rector more famous for whiskers than wisdom, who read prayers and preached at railroad pace, and was wont to boast that he would give any parson living-archbishops, bishops, deans, and deacons all included-as far as the end of the Belief, and beat them hollow. A window in the worst style of churchwardens' architecture was substituted, wood for granite, plain panes for glass of richly varied tints, which it is to be hoped that the good taste and better judgment of the parishioners will cause to be removed to make room for something better. The tower possesses five bells, and was formerly surmounted by a steeple, which was taken down in 1785. Would that the steeple, north aisle, and east window could be speedily restored. There are many handsome monuments and railed graves in the churchyard; but that which will cause the saddest reflection and call forth the warmest sympathy is one on the north side, to the memory of a little girl called Huxtable, who, in former days, when there were barracks in Kingsbridge and soldiers in them, was decoyed from her home and companions by a ruffian in scarlet, with a sin-blackened soul, never to see that home again: for in a short hour or two he had crushed out the life of his little victim, and left her, so lately blooming with life and health, and revelling in all the wild abandon and joyous spirits of a child, a mutilated corpse, which told too well the sad and sickening story of the struggle which heralded her entrance to another and a better world.

CHAPTER III.

OLLA PODRIDA.

MANY will doubtless think that "Olla Podrida" is an uncommonly odd title for a chapter of any book in the English language, until they learn that, in the land of the Cid, it names a dish savoury beyond expression, in which scraps of fish, flesh, and fowl mingle in appetizing contiguity. It is the patchwork of the cuisine, an omnium gatherum of edible delights, and, by a desperate stretch of imagination and fancy, may be compelled to figure forth the odds and ends of the present chapter, the last few rags and scraps of recollections which are lurking at the bottom of memory's wallet, which I must pull out and piece together to furnish the closing pages of these desultory notes and jottings about my

native town.

I find I have said nothing about the contribution that the churchyard of Kingsbridge can offer to any future collection of quaint epitaphs which some ardent admirer of such matters may henceforth cull from British burial grounds. The memorial to which I allude is cut on a headstone close to the chancel door, and runs as follows:

"Underneath Lieth the Body of Robert, commonly called Bone Phillips, who died July 27th, 1793, Aged 65 years; At whose request the following lines are here inserted.

Here lie I at the Chancel door

Here lie I because I'm poor;

The farther in the more you'll pay;

Here lie I as warm as they."

It seems that the said Robert Phillips, so signally distinguished

by the epithet "Bone," was a drunken old vagabond, a cooper by trade, who strung together the above doggrel lines for his tombstone, and was so enamoured of his effusion that (teste Hawkins) "he was in the habit of repeating them to all ranks and degrees in his mendicant vagaries," whether drunk or sober. What a social evil old Bone must have been! what a dreary nuisance, both in his cups and away from his cups! and how people who knew and dreaded what was coming must have fled at his approach down the nearest run to western or eastern backlet! which last, by the way, is bordered by a leat, not the cleanest I have ever seen, in which the early stages of the manufacture of tripe used to be repulsively performed by a colossal woman, fatter than Falstaff, familiarly known as Mary Anne.

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It was always a matter of speculation with me as to who the strong-minded men and women could possibly be who devoured the intestinal dainties that came fresh from the fingers and watery laboratory of Mary Anne; but I never wondered at the desire existing in the thirsty souls of the town for a local liquor known "white ale," brewed in Kingsbridge and Kingsbridge only, I believe, the fame of which has not yet spread beyond the neighbouring towns and villages, although it was in vogue years before the dusky streams of Guinness's stout and the sparkling bitters of Burton and Bass bubbled o'er the delighted palates of a drouthy world. It is good in summer, mixed with ginger beer, in equal parts; it is better in winter, mulled with eggs and sugar, and tuned with a full glass of old Jamaica rum: alone, without any qualifying additions, I cannot conscientiously recommend it, although it appears grateful to the dura ilia of boatmen, workmen, and porters, who loaf about on Lazy Bridge, hard by the Anchor, of whom one Tom Pepperell seems to be the head and chief, as swart and saucy as any of Murillo's gipsies, who will take you down the river whenever you wish to view the beauties of Kingsbridge from the water, for hire duly agreed on, and