with the prerogative of force, it is gone, whether in good or in evil, once and for ever.

Attached to the tomb of Surrey, is a singular bequest, made by the Earl of Northampton, the loving son who brought the bones of his father from their first place of inhumation and placed them beneath yonder stately monument. By his last will and testament, the payment of 2£. is devised annually towards keeping the tomb in a state of repair and cleanliness. Two-thirds of the amount is expended to restore dilapidation, and the other third is conveyed to the clerk, or sexton, as a payment for keeping the monument free from dirt and cobwebs. Surely it is an occupation of pleasure, or rather a labour allied to love this constant task of sweeping the dust from noble Surrey's tomb. Here is no menial office. Many are the sons of genius who would feel themselves exalted and honoured by being selected for the performance of such a duty, for surely to assist in handing down this fine memorial uninjured -undefaced by rusting time-to perpetuate unstained, the monumental remembrance of this one among the many of those noble spirits England bears upon the records of her history, is a high privilege the noblest of our land would desire to possess.

There are other monuments erected in Framlingham Church, to families of wealth and substance. The interest however attached to these more lowly remembrances, fades into insignificance, when compared with those we have been endeavouring to describe. Under the chancel floor, sleep some of the departed rectors of the place, and upon the walls are fixed several slabs recording the passing away of many members of a wealthy family named Alexander, once resident in the town. Let the noble in deed, and the no less virtuous although not so illustrious in name or powerful in actions, rest peaceably together.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE.

It was late upon a cold and snowy afternoon, in the middle of winter, when we paid a visit to this temple of noble tombs,

and the darkness of the hour and season, came on with no stealthy foot, wrapping the ancient monuments in a sombre mantle according with the gloomy spirit of the place. The old sexton, who in person, was one of those antique creatures now almost departed entirely from the world, but whose sombreness of figure, dress, and looks, harmonize essentially with tombs and crypts, finding he had an unusually lingering visitor in the church, sat down upon the step of the altar, uttering a patient Ha-and proceeded to solace, and amuse himself by chipping the stone floor with the end of the ponderous key he held cicerone-like in his hands. At length all grew silent. The chip, chip, chip, of the iron was no longer heard, and the aged man had leaned his head against the railings of the communion table, lost in a reverie of thought. For ourselves, we had long been silent. Filled with the solitariness of the place and surrounded by the tombs of those from whose loins had sprung princes and Kings-knights, brave and without reproach-domiciled for a time with the descendants of such as had fought the Saracen in the Holy Land-gazing upon the record of men who had torn freedom for England from the iron clench of tyrants-and smoothed the rugged path of opposition for the soft tread of the then tender maiden Liberty-we could not but feel placed in contact with all that was worthy of being beloved with an endearing and a sacred affection. In such a mood of mind as this the memory ran through for the hundreth time, the history of that noble race, whose stately castle stands within a stone's throw of their monuments, itself a tomb. There, many a noble Howard lived and reigned. Here many a noble Howard sleeps in peace. The castle of Framlingham was the birth-place of the gallant Surrey. The church of Framlingham canopies his bones. Oftentimes did these now gloomy aisles echo to his knightly tread, and at yonder altar did he bow, and pay his religious vows to the faith he thought based upon eternity and truth. What was the end of his goodness-where the termination of the universal homage paid to him? The rude axe laid him low upon a scaffold, and years after his death, an ever mourning son-we love to repeat

this fact-brought the remnant of his scanty ashes to his native place and enshrined them here in their stately casket. Now the last lord of the domain sleeps the sleep of death. The castle itself is even dropping to the dust. In the court yard where princes, knights, and heroic warriors gathered their forces and urged their councils, decrepit age, and paupers fed by bounty of the charitable, shuffle along or sun themselves beneath the ivied walls that close them round. How is the spell-the dream-the pomp of life broken! And as if to point a moral and adorn this tale, yonder at the door, keeping guard as it would seem over these majestic relics, stands the monument of him who purchased with his gold the priceless possessions of this princely family, and gave their revenues towards the support of old age, and the maintenance of learning and education in an English University. Verily all things have a lesson with their end, and what a lesson is here.

At length we bade adieu to these tombs, and as we passed out of the chancel door into the wide churchyard, the moon was rising in the clearing sky, and her early beams entering by the window, faintly struck upon the tomb of Surrey. It was a fit and pure light, to silver o'er his monument. As the sexton turned his key in the rusty wards of the lock, and prepared to depart the clear note of a robin within the church, rung out its last song to the dying day. It sounded as a requiem for the dead; but oh! how different was that little voice to the pealing organ, and the swelling trump that in their lives, had heralded and accompanied these brave men abroad and at home-in the time of peace, or hour of war. We then left the place, and hurrying to the old rambling inn, with its panelled shutters ornamented with crowns, sat by the fire and thought of the weakness of power-and the nothingness of life.

Sir R. Hitcham.

BUNGAY CASTLE.

BUNGAY CASTLE, once the almost impregnable strong hold of the Bigods, Earls of Norfolk, now stands in the town bearing its name, a moss grown and ivied ruin. Hovels, have clustered round, and other degradations have happened to the building, which it were needless to recite here. It is sufficient to observe that all trace of the castle, as it existed during the time of its prosperity, has long since departed from it, and the remnants left merely serve to shew that such a structure did once exist-the place of baronial power, and military strength.

A Castle upon this spot, is believed to have been erected at a very early period of time, by the proud and impetuous family, whose name we have recorded above, but in consequence of the repeated acts of aggressive warfare waged against the King, by Hugh Bigod, it was ordered to be demolished. This Hugh, was a man of a most austere and valorous character. In the reign of Henry IInd, he espoused the cause of the sons of the monarch against their parent, feasting, and sustaining the Earl of Leicester at his castle of Framlingham, previous to the memorable defeat of that nobleman, at Fornham St. Genevieve, near Bury St. Edmund, when upon his route with a large army of Flemings, to aid his then decaying cause in the midland counties. The reprehensible and treacherous conduct of Bigod, caused the King to deprive him not only of the Castle of Bungay, but also of Framlingham, of which he was lord, and otherwise disgraced him by attaint. Both these strongholds were afterwards

restored to his son, but the Castle of Bungay was in part demolished, chiefly, it is thought, from the belief that it was impregnable, and therefore dangerous to be retained in the hands of a subject. In 1281, Roger Bigod, obtained permission to embattle a house which he had erected upon the site of the ancient edifice, from the reigning monarch Stephen. The embattlement took place, and what remains of the Castle of Bungay, is believed to be a portion of this late structure. Roger, dying without heirs, the property, through his own expressed wish, fell into the hands of Edward, who bestowed it upon his fifth son-Thomas de Brotherton.

Hugh Bigod, who succeeded his father, and of whom mention has already been made, was one of the earliest fortifiers of the castle of which there is any certain mention. The believed unapproachable situation, and the assistance its great strength gave the enemies of the King, determined Henry to reduce it upon the first opportunity which occured. Soon afterwards, the King finding that it was high time to punish his foes, marched against Earl Hugh, as one of the most dangerous conspirators against his power, and demolished sundry places of strength, possessed by the Earl, at Walton and Ipswich. The stones of these strongholds, were afterwards scattered upon the roads of the neighbouring country. After this, the King, still being in the eastern counties, demanded of Bigod, the delivery of the strongholds-Framlingham and Bungay into his hands. This request was not at first complied with. The approach of Henry, however, caused the Earl to surrender the first, but he expressed his opinion, that were he in his Castle of Bungay, upon the waters of Waveney, "he would ne care for the King of Cockney." Henry determined to try the mettle of the Earlpursued him, after dismantling Framlingham, to his boasted place of strength at Bungay, and would have razed it to the earth, had not Bigod consented to save it from destruction, by giving himself up into the hands of Henry, and paying a fine of a thousand marks.

There is an old ballad of considerable merit as a poetical