Burnham, the cottagers of the hamlet enjoyed the liberty of entering the woods belonging to Captain Sayer, at felling-time, and carrying away quantities of "rough wood," or "lop and top." They were never obstructed by the wood-cutters-indeed, Slaymaker has often seen them assist the poor people (most of them women) to cut up the large pieces: lending them their hatchets occasionally, to facilitate the removal of such wood as they could carry away on their backs. The farmers in the immediate vicinity were in the habit of sending their carts to fetch home to the respective cottages the wood thus collected. Farmer Goldwin, Farmer Bonsey, and Farmer Taylor, all of East Burnham, frequently lent their horses and men for this purpose, so that most of the cottagers possessed a tolerable stack of firewood, to which they added sometimes a little peat, which they cut unmolested when and where they liked, on the common. But as wood was so easily obtained, peat or turf was comparatively little used. Slaymaker mentioned, in relation to these facts, the following anecdote. His master (Goldwin) being then eighty years old, was apt to be somewhat "short" in his temper, and one day a woman named Plumridge coming to his house to beg "that he would be so good as to send a cart to draw home a load of wood belonging to her in Captain Sayer's copse," the old man refused her request.

After a pause, he told her to go and ask some other neighbour-naming Farmers Bonsey and Tayloradding that "he (Goldwin) could not do it;" on receiving this rebuff, the woman went her way, when the old man called after her and said "I'll tell

you

what! good woman; you shall have my cart and horses, provided you give my men a drop of beer and a bit of bread and cheese for their trouble, and that is all it shall cost you." Slaymaker witnessed this colloquy, and recollects it distinctly, though at a distance of some forty years. Slaymaker confirms Buckland's statement that the game of Captain Sayer's manor was very abundant. The whole district was at that time (Slaymaker says) exceedingly retired and unfrequented. Such a thing as a carriage was never seen; poaching was habitually practised, though (as Buckland likewise related) Mr. Sayer would never proceed against the offenders. The wonder is, that the game was not altogether destroyed! Slaymaker's wages, as labourer in husbandry, were 10s. per week; he occupied a cottage, known as "The Orchards," on the skirt of the common; it belonged to the Hutchinson family at Beaconsfield, by whom it was afterwards sold (about the year 1844) to Mr. Grote. While Slaymaker occupied this tenement, he paid a rent of 127.; keeping a cow, sometimes a few sheep, and always some pigs, all of which he pastured on the common and waste.

I pause here, to note the evidence furnished by another old inhabitant of East Burnham, named Plumridge (December, 1857). This man, being now eighty years of age, tells me that he in his youth cut wood for Captain Sayer; that it is true that the cottagers fetched away "rough wood" and "notch ends, and such like," not being saleable as faggots, stakes, or heathers; but, he adds, this wood so fetched away was not had for nothing; it was valued to the woodcutters themselves, and "set off" as part payment of their

L

work; they settling accounts in their turn with the cottagers.

I come now to the period which succeeded to the reign of Mr. Sayer; that gentleman dying, at the age of eighty, in the year 1810. But I must first relate what befel Mrs. Coxe, who came to be an important personage in the locality.

Mr. Coxe died, advanced in years, towards the close of the last century, leaving Mrs. Coxe his estate of Lippiat. She soon found it an unsuitable residence for a single woman however, and, within a brief space, quitted Gloucestershire, making over the house and landed property to Mr. Robert Gordon, M.P., who had married the granddaughter of her late husband by his first wife.

Mrs. Coxe, ever attracted by early associations to the place of her birth, now resumed the occupation of her mansion at East Burnham: spending the greater part of the year there, but repairing to Bath (where she had purchased a house) for the winter months.

With Captain Sayer, who, as has been related, lived at East Burnham during the whole period of his possession of the estates, Mrs. Coxe was on friendly and familiar terms. He used to say to her, "Cousin, I intend to leave you this house and land, and the adjoining wood (Tomkins' Wood); and Popple shall have the estates, and shall inhabit your large house."

In conformity with this assurance, Mr. Sayer made a will, in which the whole of the Eyre estates, manors, &c., were bequeathed to Mr. Popple, for life, and in which the house and land above specified was left to Mrs. Coxe for her life. The whole to revert to the wife of Mr. Robert Gordon, absolutely.

Mr. Sayer being the last male heir of the long line of Eyres, whose property he enjoyed, was, it would appear, master of the same, and competent to will it away to whomsoever he thought fit. The heir in remainder, Mrs. Gordon, was related by blood to the testator, as has been already mentioned; and it was believed that Mr. Sayer had been influenced by personal liking for Captain Popple and his lady in making him his immediate heir; the rather, as he had little or no acquaintance with the legitimate branch of his uncle's family.

Captain Popple, on finding himself invested with the possession of this fine property, came to reside at East Burnham: obtaining permission from Mrs. Coxe to inhabit the house belonging to her (where Mr. Eyre, her father, had lived), as being a more capacious and gentlemanlike residence for the "Squire" of the place. During the first years of his tenure, Captain Popple exercised his rights over his newly acquired property very much to the satisfaction of the neighbourhood;* his steward, a Mr. Hall, held his "courts" at the Manor House, and attended to the maintenance of the roads and highways, the gates upon the waste, and all matters concerning the general interest of the inhabitants. At the courts, "presentations" were made of any neglect of duty on the part of the surveyor of roads, or of nuisances in the hamlet. William Buckland, of whom I have already spoken,

* Towards the latter period of his life, Mrs. Coxe used to reproach her brother-in-law with neglecting his duties as Lord of the Manor, and with allowing the highways and other matters to fall into bad order: Mr. Popple always replying, "Yes, yes, I know it-I will have it done"-and so forth.

told me that his father passed into the service of Captain Popple at the death of Mr. Sayer, as gamekeeper and overlooker of the woods. In Mr. Popple's time, all the woods belonging to the East Burnham estate, except "The Beeches" proper, were fenced about, but never locked. That in winter season all the cottagers used to go and fetch away, at falling time, as much "rough wood" as they chose for firing, without molestation; he, Buckland, confirms Slaymaker's statement in every particular as to the practice of the woodcutters permitting this to be done, lending their hatchets, &c. &c.

Mrs. Coxe having consented to allow her brotherin-law to occupy her house (whether rent free, or otherwise, I am unable to say), Captain Popple besought her to grant him an assurance that in case Mrs. Popple should die before him he should not be disturbed in his occupation as long as he lived; to this request Mrs. Coxe most kindly acceded, though not without some reluctance, having a local attachment to the spot where she had been born and bred. Mrs. Coxe herself took possession of the house and land which Mr. Sayer had left to her, where she spent the greater part of the year, diffusing her bounty over the humble inhabitants of the place, and influencing them in every good direction by her precepts and example.

Now the heiress in remainder to all this fine Eyre property was the wife of Mr. Robert Gordon, M.P., sometime Secretary of the Treasury. (Her grandmother was the first wife of Mr. Charles Coxe, the husband, by second marriage, of Mrs. Coxe, late Miss Eyre.) Mr. Robert Gordon wishing to realize by anticipation a portion of his wife's prospective