as ridiculous. Nevertheless, her complexion and general appearance somewhat favoured the idea. Moreover, there was about her such an air of ineffable goodness as insensibly commanded the respect of the audience, many of whom remarked that the tenor singing with her treated this new Prima Donna with unusual and extraordinary deference.

At the conclusion of the opera, the men rushed pell-mell from the house. But if their object was to obtain another view that night of the Signora Garzoni, they were bitterly disappointed; for she was nowhere to be seen, although some averred they had beheld her step into her carriage closely muffled up, and escorted by a little withered old man. Foremost among the baffled seekers was Lord Edwin Sandford.

"How devilish odd and captious Sandford is becoming," whispered some one to his neighbour in the crowd. "I really think he seems touched in the head."

"No wonder that a man with such a wife should go mad!" responded the other.

Lord Edwin, meanwhile, was prosecuting anxious inquiries as to the new Prima Donna's abode, and at last, after some difficulty, obtained the desired information.

The following morning, as the Signora Garzoni was seated at breakfast, a servant entered to announce that a person requested an interview with her on particular business. "I cannot see any nameless person," was her reply, in very pure English. But the words had scarcely been uttered, before Lord Edwin Sandford, who, fearful of a denial, had unperceived followed the servant, stood before the signora.

"Sir!" she exclaimed rising, while a slight colour overspread her usually marble complexion; "Sir! this unauthorized intru

sion."

"Florence! I cannot be mistaken! Do you not recognize me? Will you not pity and forgive me?"

An expression of compassion passed over her countenance as she listened, but it was so nearly allied to contempt, that he who was watching her closely, seemed in a moment roused to frenzy by it, for seizing a knife from the table, he suddenly sprang towards her. Fortunately the servant, who, fancying he observed something extraordinary in the visitor's manner, had remained on the landingplace, no sooner heard his mistress's agonized shriek, than he rushed to her assistance in time to save her life, probably, but not before she had received a slight wound in one arm.

The maniac was with some difficulty overpowered and conveyed to his residence. After minute examinations, the physicians summoned to attend him pronounced his lunacy to have originated from the circumstance of a bullet, which had lodged within his body in such a manner as rendered its extraction without peril impossible, having recently changed its original position for one which pressed upon a nerve in immediate connexion with the brain. But Lord Edwin, in his lucid intervals, which are not infrequent, insists upon considering his misfortune as a direct judgment from Heaven upon him for his violated oath to Florence Buchan. And the Duchess, who, actuated by her false and ignoble estimate of money's worth, had thus succeeded, after a course of pertinacious intrigue and mis

representation in making Miss Elliotson her son's wife, was punished by being permitted to live long enough to witness the termination of their respective social careers

"The one in madness-both in misery."

For, although Lady Edwin entertained at the period of her marriage a very decided preference towards her husband, she became shortly afterwards alienated and offended by his uniform indifference. The hitherto flattered heiress's vanity was piqued to the full as much as her affections were hurt through this neglect, and she strove, by engaging in a succession of vigorous flirtations, to extort some manifestations of anger, if not expressions of injured love, from Lord Edwin. Displeasure and reproaches would have been far more acceptable to her than such undeviating sullen apathy. But her utmost efforts proved abortive; since, if he saw, he made no sign of seeing her proceedings; and the behaviour Lady Edwin originally adopted in a fit of angry disappointment, she subsequently continued as an absolutely necessary excitement.

It now only remains to mention, that the Signora Garzoni, after an honourable career of several years' duration, which was distinguished, not less by its respectability and unobtrusive beneficence, than by its brilliant success, abandoned the stage, whilst yet in the zenith of her fame, and was soon forgotten by the fickle public, whose darling she had nevertheless been for a considerable period.

About the same time the Stanmer estate in the west of Ireland being offered for sale, it was purchased by Miss Buchan, the niece of the last proprietor, who, to the great joy of the tenantry, announced her intention of making it her permanent residence. Nor was it long after her arrival before they discovered most satisfactory and indubitable proofs that "the raal blood of the Stanmers" flowed in her veins! There she still lives, engaged in an untiring course of well-imagined charity, and in the contemplation of the beautiful scenery surrounding her beloved mother's birth-place, together with the knowledge that it is in her power to diffuse many blessings on her humble but honest and affectionate friends, Florence often forgets the bitter trials of her youth, and may be pronounced almost happy. She is not the less so from having learned that

"Life may have holier ends than Happiness."

A VISIT TO STERBURGH CASTLE.*

IN the ninth year of Edward I., A.D. 1281, William de Hevre, of Hevre Castle, in the parish of that name, and sheriff of the county of Kent, obtained a grant of free warren for his demesne lands generally, those of Lingfield among others.

The Hevre family were originally seated at Hevre Court in Ifiedl, near Gravesend, and were of some note in their day. William de Hevre was at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, with Richard I., and Walter de Hevre was one of the Justices of the Great Assize, in the seventh year of King John. Richard de Hevre accompanied Edward I., in the nineteenth year of his reign, to Newcastle, when he summoned the claimants of the Scottish crown to appear before him, and to give an account of their pretensions; the last of the name, William de Hevre, having built a mansion at Hever, died there, leaving two daughters, his co-heirs, Joan, who married Reginald Cobham, and Margaret, who married Sir Oliver Brocas.

Reginald Cobham was a grandson of Henry de Cobham, of Cobham in Kent, one of the Justices of the Great Assize, in the first year of King John; and a son of John de Cobham, by his second wife Joane, daughter of Hugh de Neville.

This Reginald had a son, and also a grandson, of the same name; the son had a grant of free warren in the seventh year of Edward II. ; and Reginald, the grandson, born about the year 1300, married Margaret, whose mother was co-heiress with his grandmother Joane; and, by this marriage, the large possessions of the Cobham and Hever families became united-these comprised manors and lordships in numerous places in Kent. This Reginald was high in the confidence of Edward III., who employed him as a special ambassador to foreign states, made him admiral of his fleets, gave him high command at the battle of Poictiers, created him a knight banneret, gave him a grant of free warren over all his estates in Kent, and his lands in Grinsted and Hartfield in Sussex, and, in the fifteenth year of his reign, granted him a licence to embattle and fortify his house at Prinkham, which from that time was call Sterburgh Castle. In the same year the King summoned him to Parliament, by the style and title of Reginald Lord Cobham de Sterburgh, and he was with the King at the battle of Cressy, and had entrusted to him the treaty of Bretigny.

He married Joan, daughter of Thomas Lord Berkeley, who brought to him two thousand pounds, and the lordship of Langley.

In 1343 he obtained the Bishop's licence for a chapel in his house, and on the 13th of April, 1358, he had a marriage solemnized between Joan, his daughter, and Henry de Gray, in the said chapel, in Sterburgh Castle-dying of the plague in the year 1362, he was buried at Lingfield.

Joan, his widow, held these manors for her life, and died seised thereof 43rd Edward III., when it was found that she held, jointly with her husband, the manor of Prynkeham, in Lyngefield, and that there was in the capital messuage of the said manor quoddam forcollet, ad modum castri firmiss. muro confirmat." with a hall, chambers, a new garden, four hundred and fifty acres of arable land, thirty

* In the parish of Lingfield, county Surrey, about two miles above Eden Bridge.

acres of meadow, thirty acres of wood, a park one leuca in circumference, rents of assize of free tenants eight pounds eleven shillings and ninepence per annum.

His son Reginald, who was also Lord of Sterburgh Castle, had a summons to Parliament; he was twice married, first to Elizabeth, widow of Fulk le Strange, and secondly to Alianore, widow of Sir John Fitzalan; he died in the fourth year of Henry IV., A.D. 1403, and was buried at Lingfield, at the head of his father's tomb: his brass, a very fine one, and nearly perfect, may still be seen on a large table monument in that church, and a view of it in the Rev. C. Boutell's beautiful volume of monumental brasses.

Hitherto this branch of the Cobhams had borne the usual arms of the family, gules on a chevron or, three stars azure, which this Reginald, for a difference for the Sterburgh Cobhams, changed to gules, on a chevron or, three stars of six points sable; and this difference is seen in the various shields on the splendid altar-tombs of this family, which remain in front of the high altar at Lingfield, and in the chantry adjoining.

Another Reginald succeeded to the noble possessions of his father; he was twice married, first to Eleanor Colepeper, who died in 1420; and secondly to Anne Clifford; and it was his daughter Eleanor who figures in history as the wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, after his divorce from Jacqueline of Haïnault. Not daring directly to attack the Duke, his enemies accused the Duchess of witchcraft and malpractices against the life of the King, that her own husband might reign, and tradition still points to the site of a cottage about a mile from the castle, where Eleanor was accustomed, so it was said, to meet the witch of Eye, and the priest Bolingbroke, to practise therein, and to perfect her incantations.

Her father meanwhile, had, in the ninth year of Henry VI., A.D. 1431, obtained licence from the King to found a college, and to change the parish church of Lingfield into a collegiate church, and to purchase lands to the value of forty pound per annum; and a licence was also granted to the Abbot of Hyde to appropriate the advowson to that purpose; and the college was in consequence founded, endowed and built by him, at the west end of the church-yard, for a master, six chaplains, and an indefinite number of clerks of the Carthusian order; and Reginald, Lord Cobham of Sterburgh, dying 24th Henry VI., was buried in the collegiate church.

Three years subsequently, licence was granted to Anne Cobham, Lady of Sterburgh, John Fortescue, Chief-Justice of the Bench, Edward Sackville, John Gainsford, and others, to convey to the college the manors of Hexted and Ballyshershe, with certain rents and tenements in Lingfield, and that Thomas Cobham might convey to the same three messuages, and thirty-eight acres of land in Lingfield.

The seal of the college had, on the one side St. Peter with the crosier and the keys, and on the other the Virgin Mary.

The first-master or provost was John Acton, the last Edward Colepeper, LL.D., who was admitted 20th of July, 1524, on presentation of Sir Edward Burgh, in right of his wife; but on the 26th of April, 1544, 36th Henry VIII., Dr. Colepeper, together with Anthony Shaw, priest, Richard Augur, clerk, Maurice Well, Richard Rowell, and Thomas Woody, surrendered this house per force to the King's Commissioners.

It was very quickly granted away to Thomas Cawarden, an agent of the Privy Chamber, and his son sold it to William Lord Howard, Baron of Effingham. Its total net income at the dissolution was seventy-five pounds.

Until the reign of George I. the college buildings remained entire, the greater part were then pulled down, when a farm-house was built upon the site. Aubrey, who saw the college buildings, says, "the first story was of free-stone, above that brick and timber; within was a square court with a cloister round it."

Of the masters of the college there are several brasses still remaining in the church, with other brasses of knights and ladies, and there are four table monuments highly sculptured, having brasses or stone effigies of the Sterburgh lords and their wives. One of these, a beautiful and nearly perfect brass, seven feet in length, represents a knight in full plate-armour with chain cerviliere, with this inscription

"De Steresburgh domin de Cobdam sir Regindus hic jacet. vir validus miles fuit ut leopardus... horis. In cunctis terris famam predavit honoris dapsilis in mensis formosus moregerosus largus in expensis inperteritus generosus. Et quando placuit Messie qd moreretur expirans obiit in celis glorificetur mille quadringen ... migravit celo sit ubi vera quies. Amen. Pater noster."

Another of the brasses had an effigy, three and a half feet long, but the effigy is gone, leaving the inscription.

"Hic jacet Isabella Cobham, nup uxor Reginaldi Cobham de Gatewyk, Armig. que obiit ii die Aprilis, A Dni M.CCCC.LX. cui aie ppiciet Deus."

A third brass, seven feet in length, is of Eleanor Cobham-the effigy, which has lost the head, is placed within a highly ornamented architectural niche, and the five armorial shields are lost also; the inscription is,

"Hic jacet quondam uxor Reginaldi Cobham militis, filie Thome Colepeper militis, que obiit quinto die mense Novembris, Anno Dni millmo cccc.xx. cuius anime ppicietur Deus. Amen."

There is also a six feet brass of a female, but the inscription is lost, and several of the table monuments have also lost their inscriptions; but some of these are ornamented with shields, which are covered with armorial bearings and quarterings, and the armour of the knights is besides so well preserved as clearly to mark the dates.

Among the other brasses with inscriptions are the following: a knight in plate-mail with his armorial bearings on brass shields.

"Hic jacet Johes Hadreshm, que obiit in festo Aplo Simonis et Jude, Anno Dni millo cccc.XVII., cui aie ppicietur Ds. Amen."

"Hic jacet Dns Johes Wyche qndm Magist isti collegii sci Petri de Lynfeld, qui obiit xxii die mense Maiis, A Dni M.CCCC.XLV. cuius aie ppicietur Deus. Amen."

"Orate p aia Johis Swetecor, nup mri istius collegii que obiit xix die Maii, A Dni millmo CCCC.LXIX. cui aie ppicietur Deus. Amen."

"Here lyth Master John Knoyll, sumtyme Master of this Coleg, which Master John decessed the iiii day of July, the yere of our Lord thousand ccccc.III. on whose soul Jhū have mercy. Amen."

"Hic jacet Dns Jacobus Veldon qnda presbit isti Collegii q obiit xxix die Maii, A Dni M.CCCC.LVIII. cui aie ppiciet De. Amen."