he heard his father say he knew when there were but seven houses in the place.' This evidence, such as it is, is confirmed by the far higher authority of Sir John Oglander, who says, in his manuscript Memoirs, 'I knew when there were not above three or four houses in Cowes, and I was, and am persuaded, that if our wars and troubles had not unfortunately happened, it would have grown as famous as Newport, for it was by all the western parts of the world much approved as a place fit for them to victual and make a rendezvous, where I have seen 300 ships at anchor; and if the country had but so much discretion as to make use of that harbour-as first to have an honest man to be captain there to build storehouses, to have a joint stock, a magazine of provisions, and to deal with the Dutch to have their rendezvous and to victual there, they need no other market or means to make the Island happy or fortunate.'

Cowes probably has fared none the worse because instead of being a trading seaport town it has become the station for the graceful and beautiful vessels belonging to the Royal Yacht Squadron. The presence of that distinguished club attracts to Cowes many lovers of the national recreation of yachting, and supplies the roadstead with the spectacle of one of the prettiest fleets of pleasure vessels that any naval station can show.

The description in Leland's Itinerary of the two forts

The two great Cows that in loud thunder roar,

This on the eastern, that on the western shore
Where Newport enters stately Wight,'

belongs to a much earlier date than that of these Thorold papers, and must be reserved for a letter on the Castles and Forts of the Isle of Wight.

May 22, 1886.

GATCOMBE.

GATCOMBE is just one of those villages which the writers of church novels, who began to flourish in my younger days, would have chosen as a framework in which to set their wholesome and graceful fictions. That race of novelists, with a few exceptions, such as Miss Yonge and Miss Sewell, who may respectively be claimed for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, has made way for the authors of more sensational stories. Gatcombe still remains to supply materials for any enterprising artist, whether with pen or pencil, who wishes to draw a picture of a sequestered, homely, English village. Gatcombe is no more modern than it was a century ago, which cannot be said of most of our villages. It has not even any school building, whether Sunday or weekday, that peculiar growth of the nineteenth century, which happily catches the eye even in the most thinly peopled village, for the Gatcombe children may be seen with shining morning face' creeping not 'unwillingly' to their school in the neighbouring hamlet of Chillerton.

The most conspicuous object is Gatcombe House, standing in the hanging woods which clothe the lower slopes of the downs behind. It was erected in 1750 by Sir Edward Worsley, and is a very good specimen of the country houses of the days of George III, which were built upon the principle of the golden rule laid down by Sir William Chambers, who stands in the first rank of the architects of that period, 'that in providing the elegant and the durable, the comfortable and commodious may be secured.'

I remember on one occasion discussing the beauties of what the late Mr. Edmund Peel, a poet measured in his epithets and averse from exaggeration, called the 'Fair Island,' with a member of that class, which, as Sterne says, can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry 'tis all barren.' The argument was wound up with the triumphant query, 'Where is your timber?' In an island of course we cannot look for such forest giants as grow in Warwickshire or other midland counties; but to those who decry the trees of

the Isle of Wight Gatcombe may be pointed out. Listen upon this subject to Mr. James Thorne: the leisurely traveller,' so he says, speaking of Gatcombe (The Land we Live in, vol. ii. p. 290), as he wanders about here, will find himself involuntarily staying to admire the uncommon gracefulness of form, and rich, full foliage of the trees. The soil is fitting, the climate mild and balmy, and their growth is answerable. Then they stand in an ample space, and are left unclipped by the pruning-knife of science, and they send out their free arms with that buoyant vigour only seen under such circumstances. Many of them are as grand and symmetrical in form as any Claude ever painted, and they have a free sweeping play of branches and spray such as he never had a glimpse of. As they stand alone, or in a grove on a grassy slope, or beside a dark pond or a glancing streamlet, they make pictures that the eye cannot but rest upon.'

Close to Gatcombe House, with its graveyard about it, the church lifts its tower heavenwards in a quiet green glade, half buried among the foliage of the dark mass of tangled trees. This house of prayer, which has no great architectural pretensions, is dedicated to the Norse saint, Olaf, or Olave, who, having in his youth, like the northern princes in general, passed his life as a sea-rover, died in battle in the odour of sanctity, surrounded by his soldiers, whose shields and helmets were emblazoned with the sign of the cross, and Olave's own watchword, 'Onward, warriors of Christ; the cross and the king' (Neander, Church Hist. vol. vi. p. 39). One lancet remaining on the south side attests that the church was built in the thirteenth century. Its best feature is the pinnacled tower of the same character as those of Carisbrooke, Chale, and Godshill, and therefore of the fifteenth or early portion of the sixteenth century. The tower arch is very good, and beneath it is some fair screenwork. Nearly all the windows are late Tudor, containing fragments of stained glass. An interesting object inside the church is the cross-legged wooden effigy of a knight in complete armour, under a semi-circular arch on the north side. This monument has no inscription, and the only clue to its clate must be sought for in the fashion of the armour. In the

reign of Edward I there was a decided improvement on the clumsy haburgeon' or 'hauberk,' i. e. the armour for the neck and breast, of the early Norman era. In the same reign the surcoat' or upper coat of silk or rich stuffs, worn over the skirt of chain, began to be emblazoned. From these indications the Gatcombe tomb may be assigned to the end of the thirteenth century. The paten and one of the chalices are well worthy the attention of those who are interested in church-plate, as they probably belong to the Pre-Reformation period, when the sacrifice of the mass was offered in Gatcombe Church. Their preservation may be attributed to the circumstance that Gatcombe seems to have escaped the notice of the commissioners appointed by Edward VI in 1547 to make an inventory of the plate, bells, and vestments of the churches, and compel a forced sale of the same. In Appendix No. xxxviii, Part II, of Worsley's History, will be found a list of the different churches in the Isle of Wight in which these goods belonging to the church were sold, viz. Carisbrooke, Newport, Shorwell, Brixton, Mottestone, Freshwater, Shalfleet, Chale, Calbourne, Godshill, Whitwell, Saint Lawrence, Arreton, Newchurch, and Brading. Gatcombe does not appear in this list, probably preserved by its obscurity.

On a gentle ascent above the church is situated the Rectory House, 'wearing,' according to Mr. James Thorne, 'a charming air of refined rusticity'; not far from it is a little lake of water. When the sunlight streams upon this intermingling of whatever is beautiful in park scenery, although, excepting the trees, on a small scale, the whole forms a study for a painter. Near the church and at some little distance from it are farmhouses, surrounded with all the signs of modest prosperity. The main road as it continues to the Vale of Chillerton, that characteristic specimen of a chalk-down gorge, passes by the iron gates which mark the entrance of the fine old gabled manor-house of Sheat, which contains some good Jacobean carving. Sheat was one of the properties mentioned in Domesday Book as belonging to the proprietors named the King's Thanes,' and its possessor, Alric, is put down there as having held the same lands under Edward the Confessor. The village street with its small line

of cottages is grouped about the sides of a pretty hollow lane which leads up to the church.

The passing visitor as he gazes at the church, in which upon every Sabbath day the villagers worship, is disposed to think that the 'honest doubt' which has so much faith, according to the Laureate, does not trouble the inmates of these cottages, and that content to believe as their forefathers believed they live out their little day, looking forward to their sleep in the churchyard, where so many of their name already lie. They who know something of the inner life of these small agricultural villages are aware that the same difficulties and doubts, in principle though not in form, which underlie the last new doctrine of the sprightly review article, proclaiming the speedy obsequies of the Christian creed, beset the minds of labouring men. Really wiser than their more cultivated associates in the perplexities which spring from 'the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world,' the simple cottagers rarely allow their inward questionings to land them in the dreary conclusion that this life is the end of all and that there is no God to wipe away all tears from all eyes.

How interesting the history would be if it were only known might be said of every old parish in the Isle of Wight. A good deal is known about the past history of Gatcombe. In the time of Edward the Confessor the manor of Gatcombe was held by three brothers, and when the Domesday Survey was made it formed part of the possessions of William the son of Stur, and to members of this family it seems to have belonged till the reign of Edward II. In the charter of Baldwin de Redvers, Lord of the Isle of Wight 1135-1156, Jordan de Estur appears as one of the chief witnesses. The Anglo-Saxon or Norse name of Stur, that is 'strong,' has been changed to the Norman Estur. Jordan was one of those old Frankish names which appear often in charters, taken presumably from the river, and which the Normans adopted from the Bible (Ferguson, Surnames as a Science, p. 135). In the charter of Richard de Redvers, 1156–1162, the family returned to the good old English spelling of their name, since one of the signatories is William, son of Stur, and so it is spelt in the charter of William de Vernon, 1184–