verses to the Countess, in his own blood (strange kind of composedness), wherein he bewails and laments his own unhappiness; and when he had sent them to her, as a sad catastrophe to all his miseries, he ran himself upon his sword, and so ended that life which he thought death to enjoy; leaving the Countess to a strict remembrance of her inconstancy, and himself a desperate and sad spectacle of frailty:* but she easily past this over, and so wrought upon the goodnature of the Earl, her husband, that he settled above five thousand pounds a year jointure upon her for life. In his time, she was often courted by the Duke of Lennox, who presented many a fair suppliant; sometimes in a blue coat, with a basket-hilt sword, making his addresses in such odd disguises; yet she carried a fair fame during the Earl's time. After his decease, Lennox and Richmond, with

Sir George Rodney appears to have been that Sir George Rodney, of Stoke Rodney, in Somersetshire, who was son of Maurice Rodney, Esq., who died 1588, and great grandson of Sir John Rodney, Knight. In Collinson's History of Somersetshire, iii. 604, it is said that he married, in his father's lifetime, Anne, daughter of Matthew Smith, of Long Ashton, Esq., with whom he had a fortune of 2000l., and from his father a settlement of the Manors of Rodney Stoke, Backwell, Dinder, Lamyat, Lovington, Twyverton, Saltford, Wintford, and Hallatrow. But, as he died without issue, the estate devolved on Sir John Rodney, son of George, second son of Sir John Rodney by Anne, daughter of Sir James Crofts. His son and heir, Sir Edward, left a daughter and co-heir, married to Sir Thomas Brydges, of Keinsham. But Sir Edward had a younger brother, George, who married the famous Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Lake, of Cannons, and widow of William Cecil, Lord Roos; which George was a poet, and died 1669, and is supposed to have been great grandfather of the late Admiral Lord Rodney. The poetical epistle, written with his blood, supposed to have been addressed by Sir George Rodney to the Countess of Hertford, with the Countess's answer, and Sir George's verses to her before he killed himself, are printed in the "Topographer," i. 398-405, from a MS. in the British Museum.

the great title of Duchess, gave period to her honour, which could not arrive at her mind, she having the most glorious and transcendent heights in speculation: for, finding the King a widower, she vowed, after so great a prince as Richmond, never to be blown with kisses, nor eat at the table of a subject; and this vow must be spread abroad, that the King may take notice of the bravery of her spirit; but this bait would not catch the old King, so that she missed her aim; and, to make good her resolution, she speciously observed her vow to the last.

"When she was Countess of Hertford, and found admirers about her, she would often discourse of her two grandfathers, the Dukes of Norfolk and Buckingham ; recounting the time since one of her grandfathers did this, the other did that: but if the Earl her husband came in presence, she would quickly desist; for, when he found her in these exaltations, to take her down he would say, 'Frank, Frank, how long is it since thou wert married to Prannel?' which would damp the wings of her spirit, and make her look after her feet, as well as gaudy plumes.

"One little vanity of this great Duchess, with your patience, may yet crowd in this story. She was a woman greedy of fame, and loved to keep great state with little cost; for, being much visited by all the great ones, she had a formality of officers and gentlemen that gave attendance, and this advantage—that none ever ate with her; yet all the tables in the hall were spread, as if there had been meat and men to furnish; but before eating time the house being voided, the linen returned into their folds again, and all her people grazed on some few dishes. Yet, where her actions came into Fame's fingering, her gifts were suitable to the greatness of her mind. For the Queen of Bohemia, to the christening of

which child she was a witness, had some taste of them; and being blown up by admiration for this bounty, either by her own design to magnify her merit, or by others in mockery, to magnify her vanity, huge inventories of massy plate went up and down from hand to hand, that she had given that Queen, and most believed it; yet they were but paper presents, those inventions had a non est inventus at the Hague; they saw the shell, the inventory, but never found the cornel, the plate. Such difference there is betwixt solid worth and airy paper greatness. And it is hoped, these slight intermixtures will be no great transgression, because long, serious things, do dull the fancy."

There is a print of this lady, copied from that by Pass, in Harding's Biographical Mirror, ii. p. 116; and there are portraits of her in Lord Orford's gallery, at Strawberry Hall; at the Earl of Stamford's, at Dunham Massey; and a third, in weeds, with the Duke's picture at her breast, at Longleat. The Duchess died in 1639.

THE RAID OF THE CLOUGH.

BEFORE the present extraordinary means of locomotion were invented-when roads were mere lanes and canals were unknown-in many parts of England the lands were much subdivided, and almost every manor had its resident lord, its gabled mansion, and its peculiar rights and customs. Generation passed away after generation, and all was the same. Few changes were made; the great world was at a distance, and each valley formed, as it were, a world within itself, from which the hardy proprietors seldom strayed, living the kings of their own narrow domains, with little inclination to try other scenes, or mingle with other men. But the increase of commerce, the rapid demand for the products of the earth above and below the surface, soon opened veins of communication over the land, and many of the old families of the country were either driven from the homes of their ancestors by the encroachments of trade, or taught to despise them by the acquisition of wealth and influence. The old state of things long survived, however, in those eastern parts of the county of Lancaster, which, bordering on Yorkshire, present a long succession of wild, bleak hills and lovely valleys, stretching for many miles from north to south, till they join the romantic mountains of the Derbyshire Peak. In this district were settled many families dating their

origin from times before the Conquest, and so remote were they from the great political arena, that they were rarely found, except on great occasions, siding very decisively with political parties, or emerging from their retreats in such formidable array as to invite plunder and confiscation. Hence many of those manors descended from father to son for a series of generations, and it was only, as we have before stated, when the mineral treasures of the district were discovered, that some of the old families began to disappear, the estates to be subdivided, and the wild and peculiar features of the country to be lost. Alas! to visit those valleys now, and to hear of what they once were, would draw strongly upon traditional credulity were it not that, favoured spots yet remain, picturesque and romantic beyond description. All the beautiful combinations of wood and water, rock, hill, and dale, are still to be found, but the defiling hand of commerce has, in too many instances, made hideous what was once passing beautiful, and steam-engines, with their lofty chimneys, murky coalpits, immense factories, and dirty habitations, deform or destroy the ancient character of the country. The extensive forests are no more; the deer and other beasts of chase that inhabited them, and afforded neverfailing sport to a hardy and healthy population, are extinct; a squalid-looking race of human beings now throng each black and miserable location; the loyal yeoman of ancient days is now replaced by the palevisaged Chartist; dissent rears its head where dissent was unknown, and the very wealth of the district has proved its ruin by enriching the few and demoralizing the many. Streams in which Diana and her nymphs might have bathed, now run thick and discoloured, fouled with the scum of dye-houses, and reeking with the boiling refuse of steam-engines and factories. And