deeds of memorable importance; and others, which are regarded with hope or with dread by the mariner; while many a spot will illustrate the continual war that is going on between the land and the ocean, and the encroachments which they are alternately making on each other's domains. Nor will the people be found a barren page to him who can read them aright; or the works of man undeserving of examination and study. Incidentally, we may be able to notice most of these things; but only incidentally and cursorily, as we pass along from place to place, shall we pretend to notice them.

Our sketch of this district may very well commence from the Isle of Thanet, which has been already described in vol. i., p. 146, et seq.

SANDWICH.

A stranger to the old towns along the south coast will not fail to look about him with some surprise as he paces the streets of Sandwich. You enter it from X.-VOL. II.

Unless on a market morning (which occurs once in a fortnight) you may walk from end to end of the long dreary High-street, and scarcely meet an individual-and if you meet one he is sauntering listlessly along, as though there were nothing in the world for him to be doing. We have seen a cart once or twice in the streets, but it was generally empty-the only exception being the country carts that pass through the town. But there is undoubtedly business done in Sandwich, and, we are told, a good deal too; but when, how, where, or of what kind, is more than we can pretend to guess.

Still, Sandwich is hardly a place that a stranger would pass an hour in without wishing to know something more about. The streets are narrow and irregular; the houses generally rude, mean, and low; but then the streets cover a considerable space, the houses many of them are old, and appear to have been of a better grade, and the churches show signs of having belonged to a more important place and a more active population than they now belong to.

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will be proper to supply so much information respecting them as may suffice for the reader of the present paper, and may serve as supplementary to that contained in the former.

It has been supposed that the Cinque Ports grew out, or were founded in imitation, of a Roman institution formed for the defence of the South-east Coast; and that the Lord Warden was the successor of the Count of the Saxon Shore. There can be little doubt that it was for defensive purposes that the five ports of Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, and Hastings were at first united under a distinct and peculiar government.

Sandwich has a history worth telling in detail: we have neither time nor space for that, even had we inclination, but a sort of outline of it seems needful, in order that we may understand something of the process of decay in these towns :—a nearly similar history belongs to several we shall visit in the present journey. Sandwich, no doubt, came into existence on the decline of Richborough, the Roman Ritupæ; of which an account has been already given (vol. i., p. 149). The name Sandwich, or the Town on the Sands, occurs in early Saxon records. If we turn to the Saxon Chronicle, we shall find frequent mention made of Sandwich. Under 851, is a notice of the first of the many sea-fights that have taken place off here: King Athelstan and Elchere the Ealdorman, fought on shipboard, and slew a great number of the enemy at Sandwich in Kent, and took nine ships, and put the others to flight." At this time Sandwich was undoubtedly the chief port in this part of the country, and hence it was the frequent object of attack by the Danes. Thus we find it recorded in 1006, that "after Midsummer came the great fleet to Sandwich, and ravaged, burned, and destroyed it." Other descents are mentioned down to 1046, when "Lothen and Irling came with twenty-five ships to Sandwich, and there took unspeakable booty, in men, and in gold, and in silver, so that no man knew how much it all was." It was in Sandwich haven-as the mouth of the Stour from the town to the sea is called-that the royal navy, when one was collected, was wont to assemble. In 1008, we are told that Ethelred " commanded that ships should be speedily built throughout the English nation ;" and in the following year that they were got ready: "and there were so many of them as never before, according as books say unto us, had been among the English nation in any king's days. And they were all brought to Sandwich, and there they were to lie, and defend this land against every foreign enemy." Many similar notices of Sandwich occur, but it is needless to quote more. Sandwich appears to have been the port at which Canute embarked and disembarked in his frequent voyages, after his first landing in England. One of his visits here must have had some considerable influence on the town; for, under 1029, it is said, "This year King Canute came home again to England. And so soon as he came to England, he gave to Christ Church, at Canterbury, the haven at Sandwich, and all the dues that arise therefrom on either side of the haven." The archbishop and monks of Canterbury retained the lordship of the port till the reign of Edward III., when they were induced to resign it in exchange for lands granted them elsewhere. In the time of Edward the Confessor there were 307 inhabited houses in Sandwich: at the Domesday Survey there were 383.

The importance of Sandwich before the Conquest is evinced by its being one of the original Cinque Ports incorporated by Edward the Confessor. In our notice of Hastings we gave some account of their origin and nature (vol. i., p. 274); but as all the original Cinque Ports lie within the region we are now to traverse, it

While there seems no reason to doubt-though it has been doubted-that the Cinque Ports were incorporated by the Confessor, it appears pretty certain that it was William I. who formed them into a compact and powerful union. It was one of his first objects, after landing, to secure uninterrupted communication with the continent, and hence he took care to obtain complete possession of the whole tract included within the boundaries of these ports before he marched to London. And, when he had gained the throne of England, he showed of how much consequence he thought it to have this coast under his direct control, by severing it from the ordinary civil jurisdiction of the counties, and placing it under the governance of an officer appointed immediately by himself, and responsible only to him. The Warden of the Cinque Ports, as this officer was called, had supreme civil and military sway within the limits of the Ports, and was also admiral of the coast. The management of the municipal affairs was entrusted to barons and jurats, answering in a great measure to the aldermen and freemen of the towns that retained their Saxon constitution; but the arrangement altogether was somewhat Norman in its character. To these ports were granted very extensive privileges and immunities, in return for which the service devolved on them of maintaining a fleet of fiftyseven ships for the king's use. Some duties connected with the defence of the coast, and other land service, seem also to have been required; but their nature, owing to the loss of the early charters, is unknown. The Cinque Ports continued to furnish the whole of the shipping required for the use of the state, down to the time of Henry VII., when a permanent navy was first established by the sovereign; but the Cinque Ports continued to aid the service with ships till the reign of Charles II. Of the privileges and immunities of the ports, we, perhaps, spoke at sufficient length in our account of Hastings. Nearly all of them that remained to our day, were swept away by the Parliamentary and Municipal Reform Bills.

Sandwich, in the first instance, appears to have furnished five ships, as its proportion of the fifty-seven ; in the reign of Edward III. it is said (but perhaps erroneously) to have contributed twenty-two ships; somewhat later, its proportion was ten and threequarters; in the general charter of Charles II. its contribution is again reduced to five. For some centuries the Cinque Ports navy seems to have commonly

assembled at Sandwich, and we find it mentioned as the usual place where the army embarked for the continent. The visits of royal or eminent persons, on their way to or from the continent, are also of frequent occurrence, and sometimes under unusual circumstances. Thus, on the 20th of March, 1194, Richard I., on his return from imprisonment, landed here, and, in token of gratitude for his deliverance, walked on foot from hence to Canterbury. Here, too, it was that Edward the Black Prince landed in 1359 with his royal captives. It was from Sandwich that Thomas à Becket took boat, on his flight from England in November, 1164; and here he landed on his return, thirteen months afterwards. Nor did the town escape hostile visits. It was burnt in 1217 by Louis, who is said to have landed here with 600 ships. It was also plundered and burnt by the French in the reign of Henry VI., but, if we may believe old Hall, with little outlay of courage on the part of the assailants, and with small gain from their adventure.

But, before this landing, Sandwich had lost much of its former consequence. The old haven in which the British navy was accustomed to ride was gradually filling up by the accumulation of sand, and the channel no longer permitted the ascent of vessels of large size. It continued to silt up at such a rate that, in the reign of Edward VI., the mayor and jurats, in a supplication which they presented to the king, declare that "the haven at this present is utterly lost and destroyed;" and with the haven, of course much of the commerce of the town was lost also. Attempts have at various times been made to improve or restore the haven, but they were unsuccessful; and there is now no hope of its restoration, except by some physical change. Only vessels of small draught can now get up to Sandwich, and the commerce of the place has accommodated itself to the change.

The town of Sandwich has now as little as any town well can have to attract the stranger. There are many streets, but they are narrow, ill-paved, and dirty. The houses generally are of the most ordinary description, though, of course, here and there, one of a rather superior kind is met with. About some of the narrow streets are a few old houses with projecting upper stories; but they have been repaired, and altered, and whitewashed, till all that was good-looking or venerable has been removed or hidden. The natives have, indeed, small care about such matters: they regard with utter indifference the destruction or mutilation of their antiquities. The old town was walled, and the entrances into it were by four fortified gatehouses. No very long while back they were all standing,-now, only one of them is left. They were destroyed apparently out of wantonness-for they could not have stood in the way of the traffic. It is probable, however, that they were displeasing to the tasteful eyes of the magnates, which may account also for one being left-it being now in a low quarter, out of sight, from the road having been diverted: it may also be found to yield more, let out as it is as a mean tene

ment, than could be obtained by the sale of the materials. The churches have been botched and damaged as much as the ingenuity of the inhabitants, or the taste and skill of the churchwardens, would allow. The fine old Norman tower of St. Clement's, for example, has been surmounted with a wooden balustrade. The interior is lumbered up with enormous pews, and plastered over with whitewash and paint; and the old windows have been injured or removed. The other church is in even a worse condition. In short, out of the narrow and crooked streets, and beetling houses, and old churches, and fragments of antiquity, it is not possible to find a spot where you would say, "How antique!" or "How picturesque ! " or even "How odd-looking!"-to say nothing of the pleasing or the beautiful.

Yet, unpromising as Sandwich would appear to be, we fancy that, as in many other of our old towns, there yet remain a good many relics that might be discovered on a diligent search. Without any very careful inquiry, we found in a couple of the old houses some signs of its former prosperity. In Fisher-street we saw one, now of humble external appearance, that very had evidently been of a better class. On the groundfloor is a fireplace of good design, with the royal arms and the initials I. R. in bold relief over it. The ceilings, both of the ground-floor and the room above, are of the time of James, and are elaborately ornamented in stucco. The pattern is bold, and handsome; in the course of it a griffin, rampant, is often repeated. Another house (now in the occupation of Mr. Standley) has round the walls of the first-floor a series of paintings representing the procession of Charles II. and his Queen through Sandwich; * and also the sea-fights between the English and Dutch, as well as portraits (of three-quarter size) of Charles and his Queen; the Duke of York (afterwards James II.), who was Warden of the Cinque Ports; and of the Mayor of Sandwich (Thomas Browne), who is distinguished by his badge of office, the black-knotted stick. The pictures are evidently of contemporary execution, and though not exactly to be classed with Vandyke's, are not despicable as specimens of provincial art. If there were a museum or a public building in the town, or even a good inn, we might hope for their preservation; as it is, they will probably be soon destroyed, as the property will shortly be sold.

There are two or three charitable institutions at Sandwich that deserve notice, and will be found worthy a visit. In the town are the hospitals of St. John and of St. Thomas. St. John's had a harbinge' for the entertainment of strangers very similar to that which some of our readers may have visited at St. Cross, near Winchester. At St. Thomas's are a few curious remains of the old buildings. But the most interesting is the hospital of St. Bartholomew, a short distance

*The visit of Charles occurred in 1658; on which occa

sion, as the town records testify, "the mayor presented his Majesty with a glass of sack at the Bell Tavern' door, which his Majesty drank on horseback."