Royal Society, and her Majesty's Cabinet Ministers. Who, for example, does not recollect such a paragraph as the following, which appeared in the Morning Post of the day on which Mr. Yarrell wrote his account of the Whitebait, September 10th, 1835 :

Yesterday, the Cabinet Ministers went down the river in the Ordnance barges to Lovegrove's West India Dock Tavern, Blackwall, to partake of their annual fish dinner. Covers were laid for thirty-five gentlemen.

For our own part, we consider the Ministers did not evince their usual good policy in choosing so late a period as September; the Whitebait being finer eating in July or August; so that their "annual fish dinner” must rather be regarded as a sort of prandial wind-up of the parliamentary session than as a specimen of refined epicurism.

We remember many changes in matters concerning Whitebait at Greenwich and Blackwall. Formerly, the taverns were mostly built with weather-board fronts, with bow-windows, so as to command a view of the river. The old Ship, and the Crown and Sceptre, taverns at Greenwich were built in this manner; and some of the Blackwall houses were of humble pretensions: all have disappeared, and handsome architectural piles have been erected in their places. Meanwhile, Whitebait have been sent to the metropolis, by railway, or steamer, where they figure in fishmongers' shops, and tavern cartes of almost every degree. Still, the fish to be enjoyed in full perfection must be eaten at Greenwich or Blackwall, where they are taken; and its famed delicacy depends almost as much upon its skilful cookery, as upon the freshness of the bait. The former has been “let out” by Dr. Pereira, who had the opportunity of seeing the mode of cooking as practised at Lovegrove's, at Blackwall. The Doctor appears to have penetrated one of the "bait kitchens," and there to have been informed that the fish should be cooked within an hour after being caught, or they are apt to cling together; they are kept in water in a pan, from which they are taken, as required, by a skimmer. They are then thrown upon a layer of flour, contained in a large napkin, in which they are shaken until completely enveloped in the flour; they are then put into a cullender, and all the superfluous flour is removed by sifting; the fish are next thrown into hot fard contained in a copper cauldron or stewv-pan placed over a charcoal fire; in about two minutes they are removed by a tin skimmer, thrown into a cullender to drain, and served up instantly, by placing them on a fish-drainer in a dish. The rapidity of the cooking process is of the utmost importance; and if it be not attended to, the fish will lose their crispness, and be worthless. To temper their richness, (for rich they are, despite the instantaneous cookery,) lemon-juice is squeezed over them, and they are seasoned with cayenne pepper; brown bread-andbutter are substituted for plain bread; whilst they are "washed down" with champagne or punch, if iced, the better; and this combination of savoury, sweet, and acid, is one of the most delectable treats in the gourmandise of our days.

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To order a Whitebait Dinner, so far as to ensure the enjoyment of the diners, is a point of importance; and the "public" tables of twos, threes, and fours, present many disagreeable illustrations of this difficulty above all things, the superabundance of fried dishes in such repasts is loudly to be protested against, and we, unquestionably, have the diet-doctors on our side; for a less digestible meal than a succession of fried dishes can scarcely be devised, even with the advantage of the acid accompaniments. Mr. Walker ("Tom Walker," as he has been irreverently called), has the following page upon the subject, in his Original, which is somewhat to the purpose :

I will give you, dear reader, an account of a dinner I have ordered, this very day, at Lovegrove's, at Blackwall, where if you never dined, so much the worse for you. The party will consist of seven men besides myself, and every guest is asked for some reason-upon which good fellowship mainly depends; for people brought together unconnectedly had, in my opinion, better be kept separately. Eight I hold the golden number, never to be exceeded without weakening the efficacy of concentration. The dinner is to consist of turtle, followed by no other fish but Whitebait, which is to be followed by no other meat but grouse, which are to be succeeded simply by apple-fritters and jelly, pastry on such occasions being quite out of place. With the turtle, of course, there will be punch; with the Whitebait, champagne; and with the grouse, claret; the two former I have ordered to be particularly well iced, and they will all be placed in succession upon the table, so that we can help ourselves as we please. I shall permit no other wines, unless, perchance, a bottle or two of port, if particularly wanted, as I hold variety of wines a great mistake. With respect to the adjuncts, I shall take care that there is cayenne, with lemons cut in halves, not in quarters, within reach of every one, for the turtle, and that brown bread-and-butter in abundance is set upon the table for the Whitebait. It is no trouble to think of these little matters beforehand, but they make a vast difference in convivial contentment. The dinner will be followed by ices, and a good dessert, after which coffee and one glass of liqueur each, and no more; so that the present may be enjoyed without inducing retrospective regrets. If the master of a feast wish his party to succeed, he must know how to command; and not let his guests run riot, each according to his own wild fancy. Such, reader, is my idea of a dinner, of which I hope you approve; and I cannot help thinking that, if Parliament were to grant me 10,000l. a year, in trust, to entertain a series of worthy persons, it would promote trade, and increase the revenue more than any hugger-mugger measure ever devised.

We have a few parting words upon the neglected Twaite Shad, which is found in the Thames about the second week in July. In former times the Shad was caught as high up the river as Putney: it now rarely passes London Bridge, and is caught in the greatest abundance a little below Greenwich. Its flesh is dry, and therefore not much esteemed for the table.

Shad Thames, a narrow street along the water-side, is thought to have taken its name from the quantities of Shad-fish formerly caught in the river at this spot; and Mr. G. R. Corner, F.S.A., was informed by his friend Mr. W. W. Landell, that his mother recollected, in her youth, the Shad-fish caught in great numbers in the Thames off Horselydown, being cried about the streets, as herrings, mackerel, and sprats, now are.

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF

BRAMBLETYE.

FEW of the favoured districts of happy England present so many of the homely charms of its rustic beauty as "the Weald of Sussex," in many respects unspoilt by the hand of art; although history points to this portion of our island as one of the earliest cradles of its civilisation. It remains one of the most primitive of the "shires;" for although the Conqueror landed in the county, which he parcelled out among his followers, they succeeded no better than their predecessors in winning over the common people, whose Saxon origin is still very strongly marked.* It was in this most uneven tract of graceful hills and luxuriant selfgrown woodland, that I first "drank the pure pleasures of the rural life." Many a time and oft have I stood upon the high grounds about East Grinstead, and upon points of the range of chalk hills, and with the mind's-eye viewed the coit-andred-the mighty wood—of the Britons, the Anderida Sylva of the later Romans, and the Andreds-Weald of the Saxons. Into this wide forestial region, the Britons were, doubtless, driven by their early invaders; their forests were their cities, their thick woods their towns, fortified with ditch and rampart. There are many such tracts to this day darkening the Weald, as any one must remember who has viewed it from the hill of the Devil's Dyke, from the heatherclad heights of Leith Hill or Anstiebury, or from the nearer points about East Grinstead, one of the most picturesque parts of Sussex. The latter commands noble views of Ashdown Forest, once possessed by John of Gaunt, and hence called "Lancaster Great Park." The scenery is wild, and broken with deep gills and glens. Upon the borders of the forest lies the manor of Brambletye, which, in past ages, was holden of the King as of his Duchy of Lancaster by military service, and was worth 100s. a year. It formed a part of the large possessions of the St. Cleres, till the death of Thomas St. Clere, on May 6th, 1435, when Brambletye came to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, whose second husband, Richard

* In Sussex, the majority of inhabitants would appear to belong to two races: the Saxon, and a race with harder and more angular features, to which, perhaps, the term Belgic may be applied. They are generally extreme Calvinists in religion; and throughout Sussex there is a tendency to Fatalism. This is markedly shown in the epitaphs, of which the following, in old Brighton churchyard, is an example::

His fate was hard, 'twas God's decree

He should be drownéd in the sea.

The principal exceptions to the prevalence of Saxon types in Sussex are to be found in the towns where manufactures of various kinds were introduced by the Flemings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.-W. D. Macintosh's Ten Years' Ethnological Observations, 1861.

Lewknor, is the first person described as of Brambletye. He sat in Parliament, was Sheriff of Sussex in 1495; and he, most probably, built in one of the forest glens the moated mansion, known as “Old Brambletye House," which, with its gables and clustered chimneys, and its moat and drawbridge, long remained an interesting specimen of the fortified manor-house of the reign of Henry VII.

Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, Brambletye came into the possession of the Comptons, an ancient and distinguished family; and here Sir Henry Compton built himself, from an Italian model, Brambletye House. I shall not stop to inquire as to the etymology of the name: whether it be from Bramber, the name of one of the great divisions of the county, which the country people may have naturally corrupted to Bramble, of as old a stock as Bramber-being from the Saxon, Brembel.

Over the principal entrance to the mansion were the almost obliterated remains of the coat-armour of Compton, with the arms of Spencer, in a shield, on the dexter side; and on the upper story was sculptured, in stone, C. H. M. 1631. This, says a resident in the neighbourhood, would seem to fix the period when the house was built; and when Sir Henry Compton, who had before inhabited the old moated dwelling in the neighbourhood, abandoned it to take up his residence in this once elegant and substantial baronial mansion. From the court-rolls of the manor, it does not appear who succeeded the Comptons in the possession of the property; ; but thus much is certain, that Sir James Rickards, in his patent of baronetcy dated 26th of February, 1683-4, is described as of Brambletye House. Our informant continues :-"A proprietor of this mansion being suspected of treasonable purposes, officers of justice were dispatched to search the premises, when a considerable quantity of arms and military stores were discovered and removed; the owner was out hunting at the time, but receiving intimation of the circumstance, deemed it most prudent to abscond."

The Comptons, from their courage and loyalty to the Stuarts, were heavy sufferers both in purse and person during the Civil Wars. One of them was put to death at the battle of Hopton Heath, and two others accompanied Charles in his exile. Sir John Compton, a branch of his family, having preserved much of his property from the committee of sequestration, displayed rather more splendour than fell to the lot of most of the Cavaliers who took an equally conspicuous part against the Parliament armies. Although never capable of any regular defence, yet Brambletye being partially fortified, refused the summons of the Parliamentary Colonel, Ókey, by whom it was invested and speedily taken.

* In East Grinstead Church, preserved from the earlier building, is a brass of Katherine, second wife of Richard Lewknor, of Brambletye, who died in 1505. See an interesting communication to the Sussex Archæological Collections, vol. ix., on "The Chantry of Brambletye, and Sedition in Sussex, temp. Elizabeth, 1579," by William Durant Cooper, F.S.A.; and, by the same painstaking antiquary, a letter to the Brighton Herald, 1860, on "Old Brambletye House."

By a subsequent freak of fortune, the mansion became deserted, and long presented an interesting, though not time-worn ruin.

Sad havoc was committed here by the soldiery, nearly all the armorial bearings, and every symbol of rank and gentility, being wantonly mutilated or destroyed. A drawing in my possession shows the mansion in 1780, nearly entire, as regards the principal front: this consists of three square towers, of three storeys each: the entrance doorway is in the central tower, and the lozenge bearing the date is above the window in the third storey; the two wings have handsome bay-windows in their two storeys; and the towers are surmounted with cupolas, terminating with a pinnacle and weather-vane; one of the wing-towers has half its cupola apparently shattered away. In front of the house are a court-yard inclosed by a wall, and two entrance-gates, the principal of which is flanked by two massive square towers, with cupolas corresponding with those of the mansion; and the entrance is beneath a circular arch, surmounted by a pediment. I possess also a pencil sketch of the moated mansion, "Old Brambletye House," which was taken down about thirty years since.

My recollections of Brambletye are blended with interests of a more personal characetr than the above. On the estate, adjoining the grounds of the mansion, is a substantial farmhouse; and upon the opposite side of the road, upon one of the forest streams, is a flour-mill, and at some distance beyond it is a second mill. To Brambletye farm, when about seven years old, like another puny plant, I was removed from a London atmosphere. My journey to East Grinstead, in a long-bodied coach, much resembling the omnibus of the present day; my quarantine in the market-room, while I was handed round to the farmers by my uncle, as "his nephew;" my jolting ride to Brambletye; the smothering caresses my four maiden cousins; and my astonishment at the bright dogs, blazing logs, and "pothooks and hangers,' -are matters of trivial interest to the reader. At that time, Count Rumford and his stoves were not so well known in the wilds of Sussex, as they are now in the back settlements of North America, and it was some time before I became reconciled to the comforts of chimney-corners in place of stove-grates; but this reconciliation was mainly brought about by the crackling faggot, which, with its bright flame, lit up every corner of the room and gleamed along its polished oak tables and benches.

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The family at Brambletye consisted of my uncle, a good specimen of the sturdy yeoman; his wife, a portly dame, on the shady side of fiftyeight; three daughters; and a son, then a half-grown youth. Another inmate was a land-surveyor, who was considered as one of the family; and had he only repaid them with his company, they would have been gainers, for he was the life and soul of all our little festivals. To please my vanity, he drew a plan of an estate, to which he attached my name and title, but whether the property was like the Atlantis of the ancients, or whether I forfeited my claim by losing the rent-roll, I am unable to determine; I only know that I never gained possession. He also made