Gad's Hill, not far from Chatham, was formerly a noted place for depredations on seamen, after they had received their pay at the latter place. The following robbery was committed there in or verging on the year 1676: About four o'clock one morning, a gentleman was robbed by one Nicks, on a bay mare, just as he was on the declivity of the hill, on the west side. Nicks rode away, and as he said, was stopped nearly an hour by the difficulty of getting a boat, to enable him to cross the river; but he made the best use of it as a kind of bait to his horse. From thence he rode across the county of Essex to Chelmsford. Here he stopped about an hour to refresh his horse, and give the animal a ball;—from thence to Braintree, Bocking, and Withersfield; thence over the Downs to Cambridge; and from thence, keeping still the cross roads, he went by Fenny Stratford, 9 to Godmanchester and Huntingdon, where he and his mare baited about an hour; and, as he said himself, he slept about half an hour: then holding on the north road, and keeping a full gallop most of the way, he came to York the same afternoon; put off his boots and riding clothes, and went dressed as if he had been an inhabitant of the place, to the bowling-green, where, among many other gentlemen, was the Lord Mayor of the city. He, singling out his lordship, studied to do something particular that the mayor might remember him, and then took occasion to ask him what o'clock it was. The mayor, pulling out his watch, told him the time, which was a quarter before, or a quarter after eight at night. Upon a prosecution for this robbery, the whole merit of the case turned upon this single point:—the person robbed, swore to the man, to the place, and to the time, in which the robbery was committed; but Nicks, proving by the Lord Mayor of York, that he was as far off as Yorkshire at that time, the jury acquitted him on the bare supposition, that the man could not be at two places so remote on one and the same day.

I need not remind your numerous readers that the roads in 1676 were in a very different plight to those of 1831; at the former period it would not have been possible for Tom Thumb to have trotted sixteen miles an hour on any turnpike road in England. Even my friend, the respected driver of the Old Union Cambridge Coach to London, can remember, in his time, the coach being two days on the road, and occasionally being indebted to farmers for the loan of horses to drag the coach wheels out of their sloughy tracks.

J.S.W

DIGNIFIED REPROOF

Catherine Parthenay, niece of the celebrated Anna Parthenay, returned this spirited reply to the importunities of Henry IV.—"Your majesty must know, that although I am too humble to become your wife, I am at the same time descended from too illustrious a family ever to become your mistress."

P

L—A—W

The circumlocution and diffuseness of law papers—the apparent redundancy of terms, and multiplicity of synonymes, which may be found on all judicial proceedings, are happily hit off in the following, which we copy from Jenk's New York Evening Journal:—

"A LAWYER'S STORY.—Tom strikes Dick over the shoulders with a rattan as big as your little finger. A lawyer would tell you the story something in this way:—And that, whereas the said Thomas, at the said Providence, in the year and day aforesaid, in and upon the body of the said Richard, in the peace of God and the State, then and there being, did make a most violent assault and inflicted a great many and divers blows, kicks, cuffs, thumps, bumps, contusions, gashes, wounds, hurts, damages, and injuries, in and upon the head, neck, breast, stomach, lips, knees, shins, and heels of the said Richard, with divers sticks, staves, canes, poles, clubs, logs of wood, stones, guns, dirks, swords, daggers, pistols, cutlasses, bludgeons, blunderbusses, and boarding pikes, then and there held in the hands, fists, claws, and clutches of him the said Thomas."

WATERLOO—"FORGET ME NOT."

"On one of these graves I observed the little wild blue flower, known by the name of 'Forget me not'."—Visit to the Field of Waterloo.

No marble tells, nor columns rise, To bid the passing stranger mourn, Where valour fought, and bled, and died, From friends and life abruptly torn. Yet on the earth that veils10 their heads, Where bravest hearts are doom'd to rot, This simple flower, with meek appeal, Prefers the prayer "Forget me not." Forget! forbid my heart responds While bending o'er the hero's grave— Forbid that e'er oblivion's gloom Should shade the spot where rest the brave. Fond kindred at this awful shrine Will oft, with footsteps faltering, Approach and drop the pious tear— Sad Memory's purest offering. And well their country marks those deeds— The land that gave each bosom fire: Deeds that her proudest triumph won, But gaining, saw her sons expire. And ages hence will Britain's sons, As trophied tributes meet their view, Admire, exult—yet mourn the pangs These glories cost, at Waterloo.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 495, June 25, 1831

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Fraser's Magazine

THE GATHERER

GAD'S HILL

J.S.W

DIGNIFIED REPROOF

P

L—A—W

WATERLOO—"FORGET ME NOT."

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