petrated by injudicious Churchwardens.-A tomb without an inscription bears the mailed and much mutilated effigies of a man of gigantic stature. The figure is seven feet in length, which is much too short for the current traditions respecting the size and strength of the redoubtable Knight, Sir John Talbot* of Swannington, to whose memory it is believed to have been erected. Sir John died in 1365, in his fortieth year. The Matriculus of 1220 describes Robert Talbois as Parson and William Shawell Vicar, and the latter as paying to the former one pound of aromatic incense.

It is stated in the Magna Britannia, page 1376, that this was one of the places in which Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln in 1235, showed his dislike of impropriations by restoring to the Vicar the great tithes which had been appropriated to his see, and consolidating them to the living for ever.+ Nichols mentions this fact, but thinks it applies to the mother Church of Whitwick; whereas Osgathorpe (mentioned in the Matriculus of 1220, under the name of Angodeston, elsewhere written Angodesthorp, as a Chapelry of Whitwick) is the place intended. It is noticed in 1344,§ " Osgathorpe solebat esse capella nunc verò Ecclesia parochialis," though it is remarkable that the name of Osgathorpe does not appear among the list of the livings whose institution or ordination is extant among the records at Lincoln.||—The living of Whitwick, as parcel of the Honour of Lancaster,¶ belongs to the Crown. The present Incumbent is the Rev. Francis Merewether, M.A.

The village, from its great extent and the variety of trades carried on in it, has lost all the characteristics of a rural population, yet the situation is one of great natural beauty. The Castle Hill-the venerable Church-the Roman Catholic Chapel-some very antique houses, and the bold range of rocks overhanging it on the north and east, are objects of just admiration to every stranger. The environs, as will shortly be seen, are highly interesting -the Geologist finds a fine field for study in the collieries and the porphyry rocks-the * A lane and wood near Whitwick are still called by this name; and the following couplet is a common proverb there :"Nought remains of Talbot's name

But Talbot Wood and Talbot Lane."

The good Bishop regarded appropriations "as robbing God of his honour, the Priest of his maintenance, and the people of their souls." The evil had indeed become very great: for, "from making appropriations to Monasteries, Deans, Prebendaries, &c., the example went on to parish Priests, who in populous and rich places obtained a Vicarage to be endowed-and casting upon them the care of souls, they had the Rectory appropriated to themselves and their successors as a sinecure for ever.”—Magna Britannia, page 1376.

Nichols, Vol. I., page lviii.

§ Nichols, Vol. I., page lxiii.

Nichols, Vol. I., page xcix.

¶ It may not be amiss to add here a brief description of this Honour. "Landed Honours," says Lauder, "originally belonged exclusively to the Crown, but were afterwards granted in fee to noblemen...... That the Honour of Lancaster existed before the Conquest, is demonstrated by an agreement (still preserved) made between King Stephen and Henry Duke of Normandy. Soon after the Conquest three noblemen held the Honour of Luncaster, as it was then termed: but Roger of Poictou-the first person whose name is recorded as its possessor-forfeited it for high treason. Stephen then gave it to his son William. After this it was held by several great personages, till Henry III. conferred it on his second son Edmund Plantagenet (Crouchback), when it became an Earldom, in consequence of the possessor being an Earl by birthright.-The title of Duke of Lancaster was created in favour of Henry Plantagenet, whose daughter and heiress Blanche married John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III., from whom it descended to his son Henry IV., who decreed that the title and revenues should remain to him and his heirs for ever, as a distinct and separate inheritance from the Crown."—(See Sir T. Dick Lauder's edition of Gilpin, Vol. II., p. 25.)— Henry Plantagenet married Isabel, sister of John Lord Beaumont.

Antiquarian revels on the site of the Castle and amid the architectural singularities of the Church-and the lover of unmolested nature finds, from Pelder Tor to "forlorn Gracedieu," scenes which, when viewed for the first time, he can scarcely believe to belong to Leicestershire. In this parish, and about two miles north-east of the village, is the SWANIMOTE ROCK, on which, in early times, the Courts of the Forest were held. The reader or spectator must draw largely on his imagination to bring before his mind's eye a picture of one of these assemblages in such a wild and desolate a scene! Below it is a spot bearing a name the origin of which cannot, perhaps, be more satisfactorily explained than by the following

LEGEND OF LADY ASLIN'S POOL:—

Below the SHARPLEY Rocks, in a low vale,
A mirror to the mountain, lies a lake
Called by the rustics "LADY ASLIN'S POOL."
The milkmaid, when within that spacious field
She herds the kine, to drain their swelling teats,
Ever avoids that spot-and drives her charge
To the remotest corner. There she kneels,
And oft, extracting still the foaming flood,
Turns stealthy looks to where the waters sleep.
Often, perchance, if thro' the bushes flit
White calf, grey colt, or e'en the twinkling rabbit,
She starts-o'erturns her pail, and awe-struck flies
For safety to yon cottage. There she tells
How Lady Aslin's ghost has glided thro'
The bushes of the lakelet! Shepherd boy
Counts his still flock, when pastur'd in that field,
An hour before the time: lest, in the gloom,
The Lady Aslin walk and glide before him.
Of many a grey-haired sire and aged dame,
But last of one who, in a sheltered cot
By CHARLEY'S ancient Priory, has endured
The storms of eighty winters, I inquired
"Who was the Lady Aslin? Why the pool
From her had borrowed its age-lasting name?"
None knew-none cared to know, save the old sire
I spoke of. He, inclined upon his spade,
His bald head all uncovered-the few white locks
That lingered yet below the capital

Of the still fine, but time-worn human column,
Waving like streamers in the mountain gale-
Narrated this, in answer to my quest :-
"Aye, Sir, these hills are rugged-and men's minds,
In these poor school-less spots, are rugged too—
A stranger asked me, not an hour ago,
When, why, or how these craggy steeps were formed
On which we toil to gain our daily bread-
I've had my thoughts, but scholarship and I
Were never close acquaintance. My lost mother-

'Tis sixty years this April since she changed
That house for one on everlasting hills,

Where rain, and storms, and tears ne'er fall”—(and then
He wiped his furrowed cheek.)—"That mother knew
A mort of book-learnt wisdom-would have taught
Me, her sole son, but that I better loved

To spend the livelong day upon these hills-
That ever were a wonder and a joy-

And when came night, or storms, or frost-bound winter,
I loved old stories from her fluent lips,

But sought not lore from books-mens' books to me
Seem'd like the mines I've delved in-
Monstrous masses of earthly rubbish for a little coal.
My mother's tales were music; oft she told
The one you ask-'The hapless Lady's Pool.'
I'm eighty-but remember her sweet tales
Far better than our gifted Pastor's truths
Delivered yesterday." And then he told
The story, which, divested of its length
And somewhat altered from its homely phrase
And age's expletives, I tell to you:-

"There was a Castle in old Whitwick Park,
And Goisfrid Aslin held it of the King;
He was the Bluebeard of those ancient times:
A tyrant, who could steep his hands in blood
And eat, and sleep, and pray without ablution.
He married Gertrude Lyne-if that be marriage
Where a stern father, fearful of the power
His neighbour lord has o'er him, says 'Obey'—
And buys his safety by his daughter's tears.
Goisfrid had paramours-the Castle Court
Abounded with his jillflirts. His poor lady
Was scorned and outraged ere the second moon
Had beamed upon their bridal. Goisfrid toyed
Beneath her window with some flaunting quean,
And gloried in his shame. That night his couch
Was lone! As lone, but colder far the Lady Aslin's-
'Twas in that dark, deep Pool."