small, have been accomplished in the face of difficulties with which the lords of Beddington never had to contend.

For the remaining history of the Carew family and of their mansion

at Beddington, we are largely indebted to Mr. Smee's researches. He tells us that Sir Francis, that "grand old gardener " and courtier in one, died a bachelor in May, 1611, at the venerable age of eighty-one, leaving his estates to his nephew, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who

BEDDINGTON CHURCH, FROM MR. SMEE'S GARDEN.

took the name and arms of Carew on inheriting Beddington. It was in the time of this Sir Nicholas that Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded, and it was to him that Sir Walter's widow, his sister, addressed a request to the effect that he might be buried in Beddington Church. It does not appear from history, nor does Mr. Smee inform us, whether this request was refused or subsequently withdrawn by Sir Walter's widow; but, at all events, Sir Walter Raleigh was buried in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, while his head, after being cut off by the axe of the executioner, was sent to his son at West Horseley, in Surrey, where it was interred. The letter itself, as given by Mr. Smee, is well worth preserving, and accordingly we reproduce it here:

To my best B[rother], Sirr Nicholes Carew, at Beddington.—I desair, good brother, that you will be pleased to let me berri the worthi boddi of my nobell hosbar, Sirr Walter Ralegh, in your chorche at Beddington-wher I desair to be berred. The lordes have given me his ded boddi, though they denyed me his life. This nit hee shall be brought you with two or three of my men. Let me her (hear) presently. E. R. God holde me in my wites.

The lands at Beddington remained in the hands of the Carews till the year 1791, when Sir Nicholas H. Carew, Bart. (whose father had been raised to that title in 1715) left them to his only daughter for life, and then, at her death, to the eldest son of Dr. John Fountain, Dean of York; and if he had no son (which in the event proved to be the case), then he entailed them, by his will, on the eldest son of Richard Gee, Esq., of Orpington, in Kent, who took the name and arms of Carew by Royal license, his grandmother having been born a Carew. On his dying a bachelor in 1816, he bequeathed Beddington to the widow of his brother William, Mrs. Anne Paston Gee, and she again, at her death, in 1828, devised the estate to Admiral Sir Benjamin Hallowell, who thereon took the name of Carew. His son, Captain Carew, some twenty years ago, sold the estate, with its mansion, orangeries, park, and deer. The rest of the story may be briefly told. The proud Hall of Beddington, where Queen Elizabeth and her Court were once entertained, is now a public institution; and the old stock of the Carews, in spite of having been bolstered up by entails and adoptions of the name by descendants in the female line, passed away last year, when the last bearer of the name died, homeless and landless, in one of the lesser streets of London. Such are, indeed, the "vicissitudes of families."

We must leave Mr. Smee to tell our readers the history of Beddington parish church, its tower, nave, and aisles, its mortuary chapel, its brasses and other monuments, and its recent restoration under the

present rector. It contains, we will only state here, many monuments of the Carews, which will serve to keep alive the memory of that antique family when the present generation shall have passed away. The cut representing a distant view of Beddington Church. as seen across the park from Mr. Smee's garden is kindly lent to us by the author.

The neighbourhood of Beddington and Wallington is very richly timbered, though many fine trees have been cruelly and needlessly cut down. One tree of historic interest, for two centuries known among the villagers as Queen Elizabeth's Oak, and which bore some resemblance to Herne's Oak in Windsor Park, as Mr. Smee tells us, was "ruthlessly removed a few years since to make way for an ugly new watercourse, and carried to a timber yard in Croydon." It is not difficult to imagine its fate. But its memory ought to be preserved; and we reproduce an interesting outline of it.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S OAK.

It only remains to add that Mr. Smee's handsome and agreeable volume is adorned with several hundreds of exquisite wood engravings, large and small, illustrative of the subjects of which he treatssubjects nearly as many and manifold as were discoursed of by the Jewish King of old, who spake of all trees, "from the cedar to the hyssop on the wall." These illustrations, several specimens of which we have been allowed to transfer to our own pages, range over every possible subject in any way connected with a garden, even down to the minutest of shells, aphides, and fungi, and, shall we say the tiny friends or enemies of the horticulturist ?—birds and worms.

For much of the contents and of the ornamentation of his volume, Mr. Smee, we observe, is indebted to the skill and industry of his accomplished daughter; and the majority of the botanical drawings have been made and engraved by Mr. Worthington Smith, the fungologist, while the geological map of the district in which the author's modern Eden stands, has been supplied from the Ordnance Survey Office by Sir Henry James.

E. WALFORD, M.A.

PLANTAGENET'S WELL;

A TRUE STORY OF THE DAYS OF RICHARD THE THIRD.

BY LADY C. HOWARD.

Around the hall were martial shields,
Which baron bold and knights of yore
Had borne in murderous battle-fields-
Where prince and peasant fell before
The well-aimed blow and hurtled spear.

M. S.

The green trees whispered low and wild-
It was a sound of joy!

They were my playmates when a child,
And rocked me in their arms so wild!

And still they looked at me and smiled
As if I were a boy.

Prelude-LONGFELLOW.

T was the close of a day in early summer. The last rays of the setting sun made the forest trees shine like burnished gold, reflecting them in the depths of still, calm pools, which here and there diversified the scene. Groups of sheep and herds of deer were browsing on the short velvet grass, making, with the sweet notes of forest birds and the ever busy hum of insects, a perfect picture of happy, peaceful English life.

Two people were walking through the sunny forest glades: judging from his dress, one was a priest, the other a boy of some fourteen

summers.

The priest was a man of about fifty-five, tall, and rather inclined to embonpoint. He had earnest grey eyes, hair of snowy whiteness, a Roman nose, rather a weak expression about his mouth, and a broad, intellectual forehead.

A more benevolent looking man was perhaps never seen, and his