that Roger de Bacheworth, and his ancestors, had then held it from time immemorial. It is the only instance in which I have traced such remote possession in the county of Middlesex. "Harefield Place, situated near the Church, [of both of which a good view is given in Mr. Lysons's Work,] was the antient Mansion-house of the Lords of the Manor, and for many years a seat of the Newdegate family. After the alienation before mentioned, it became the successive residence of Lord Chief Justice Anderson, and the Lord Keeper Egerton. The Countess Dowager of Derby, wife of the Lord Keeper, (and with him joint purchaser of the manor,) continued to reside here during ber second widowhood. Here she was honoured with a visit from Queen Elizabeth, whom she received with all the pomp and pageantry of those days. Sir Roger Newdigate was once possessed of an account în MS. of this visit, with a collection of the complimentary speeches with which, as was customary upon those occasions, she was addressed. The MS, is unfortunately lost+; but Sir Roger Newdigate recollects, that she was first welcomed at a farm-house, now called Dew's farin, by several allegorical persons, who attended her to a long avenue of elms leading to the house, which obtained from this circumstance the name of The Queen's Walk. Four trees of this avenue still remain, and the greater part were standing not many years ago. It was at Harefield Place also that Milton's Arcades was performed by the Countess of Derby's grandchildren. That great Poet, during the time he lived at Horton with his father, (viz. from 1632 to 1637,) was, it is probable, a frequent visitor at Harefield. After the death of the Countess of Derby, Harefield Place was inhabited by George Lord Chandos, her grandson. This Nobleman, during the civil war, attached himself to the royal cause, and behaved with great gallantry at the battle of Newbury, having three horses shot under him. When the republican party bad The Queen was twice at Harefield. In 1601 she visited Sir Edward Anderson there; and in 1602 Sir Thomas Egerton. See the Queen's Progresses, vol. II. 1601, 1609, pp. 20, 21; and Vol. III. Preface, p. xviii. EDIT. Not long before the death of Sir Roger Newdigate, this curious MS. (which had for many years been missing) was found in a volume of "Strype's Annals;" and a transcript of it was made (see LXXVI. 1074; LXXVII. 633.) But both the original and the copy were soon after again mislaid; and neither of them has since been found. EDIT. established themselves in power, he was "Evelyn, in his Sylva, mentions a silver fir, which having been planted at Harefield Place in 1603 at two years growth, had, in 1679, attained the height of 81 feet, and measured 13 feet girth.** The Church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is a Gothic structure of Hint and stone, consisting of a chancel, nave, and two ailes; at the west end is a low square tower embattled. It contains a very handsome monument to Alice Countess of Derby, engraved in Mr. Lysons's work; several monuments of the Newdegate family (one of which, to the memory of Mary Lady Newdegate, is also there engraved; monuments in memory of the Ashbyes, Bishop Pritchett, &c. &c. all of which are fully described by Mr. Lysons; to whose valuable Work I refer your Readers. B. N. Sir Roger Newdigate died in his 87th year, at his seat at Arbury, co. Warwick, Nov. 23; and was buried at Harefield Dec. 5, 1806. See an account of him in vol. LXXVI. pp. 1173, 1174; and a full biographical Memoir of him, by his friend Mr. Archdeacon Churton, in vol. LXXVII. pp. 633, 705. Mr. Mr. URBAN, Jan. 2... As ince, and cranic S Physiognomy is now laughed logy has taken it into his head to supply her place, I cannot forbear to address a few lines to you upon that event; though I must confess, I do it with fear and trembling, lest I should expose myself, by attempting that for which my head was not ori ginally formed. If your head, Mr. Urban, has the came defective organization, which I raiber suspect, and you have not yet attended the Lectures in Rathbone Place, you will probably be unable to comprehend the nature of my alarm: I will therefore explain it. The learned Lecturer (for so I am compelled to style him by the etiquette of literary intercourse) declares that no person can understand bis Lectures, unless he has the organ of Craniology in perfection. If I could admit this dictum in its full force, I should not have presumed to offer any opinion upon the subject; but I rather suspect it to be a little stroke of art, which has amply answered the intended purpose. This age, it is well known, pretends to a more general diffusion of know. ledge than any which has preceded it, insomuch that ignorance upon any subject whatsoever is now considered as disgraceful. To avoid the imputation, therefore, of an imperfection in the head piece, and of that want of knowledge which has been denounced as the necessary consequence, men, women, and children, crowd the Lecture Room; for that want of the organ of Craniology which incapacitates them from understanding what is there de livered, does not preclude their entrance, provided they have previously paid their subscription. This plan of operating upon the feelings of pride, in order to fill the Lecture Room, brings to my recol lection a similar attempt, to excite the benevolence of a congregation, which was equally successful. A Methodist Preacher, after expatiating on the excellence of the charity which be was then recommending, declared it to be of a nature so superior to all others, that no person could refuse to put money into the plate, unless he were actually in debt. The effect of this upon his auditors may easily be conceived. No one was willing that his neighbours should suspect that These oratorical kinds of swindling are not, as 1 believe, yet provided against by any existing Statute. The Lecturer labours hard to free his system from the imputation of Materialism; but he does it in such a manner as evidently proves, that either he does not understand the force of his own argument, or that, having craniologically examined the heads of his subscribers, he is con vinced they will not detect him. He reasons thus-My system is not Materialism, because man, being a free agent, has power to correct those evil propensities to which the formation of his skull naturally determines him. Here the Lecturer wisely keeps back one half of the argument; and for this plain reason, that the whole would at once reduce his boasted discovery to the baseless fabrick of a vision. For if man, by his free agency, can correct the evil organs, he unquestionably has equal power to pervert the good ones; and in either of these cases the craniologist cannot by any examination of the skull, which will necessarily remain un changed in its form, learn whether the good or evil propensities are unaltered, or still retain their pristine tendency; and consequently, as the Lawyers express it, he will take nothing by the examination. That his Lectures are well attended, does not in the least surprize me, who perfectly recollect what numbers flocked, in former days, to another learned Lecturer, in order to be instructed in the Science of Animal Magnetism. If I were worthy to offer advice to the present learned Lecturer, I would recommend the skull of that profound Physician to his consideration; and I have no doubt but that the examination will somewhat startle the Professor of Craniology. I have myself, Mr. Urban, some little judgment in heads; but, being a native of the Highlands, and gifted with second sight, I do not require to handle men's skulls in order to judge of their character; and, conse quently, I can, without ever having seen the aforesaid Doctor, tell the Professor some things which will oc cur in his examination of the skull. 1 He 12 Craniology. Strictures on Hume's "Essay on Miracles.” [Jan. - He will find the organ of Calocagathy outwardly so perfect, that, without looking any further, he will at once pronounce the Doctor to have been incapable of giving his pupils nonsense as an equivalent for their money. But, if he extend his inquiry, he will discover that the organ of Covet iveness is of a capacity equal to that of Calocagathy; and the real history of the Doctor's life will inform him, that he, being a free agent, perverted the good tendency of the latter, and yielded to the evil tendency of the former, until he persuaded himself that he might honestly take money for instructions in an art which never had existence. The Lecturer must be aware that it is by no means uncommon for men thus to deceive themselves. The above is humbly submitted to the Professor's consideration, upon the supposition that the profound Lecturer upon Animal Magnetism is actually dead. It that be not the case, I must apprize him as a Foreigner, testimony, we may consider Physical Phenomena as divided into two classes: the one comprehending all those of which the course is known from experience to be perfectly uniform; and the other comprehending those of which the course, though no doubt regulated by general laws, is not perfectly conformable to any law with which we are acquainted: So that the most general rule which we are enabled to give, admits of many exceptions. "The violation of the order of events among the Phenomena of the former class the suspension of gravity, for example; the deviation of any of the Stars from their places, or their courses in the Heavens, &c. &c.-these are facts, of which the improbability is so strong, that no testimony can prevail against it; and it will always be more wonderful that the violation of such order should have taken place, than that any number of witnesses should be deceived themselves, or should be disposed to deceive others." From the Edinburgh Review for Mr. URBAN, NONSIDERING the "Essai Philo that it is not quite sale in this country, CON to handle living skulls in order to prove dishonesty, excepting perhaps in Westminster Hall, the Old Bailey, and other Lecture Rooms of the same kind. This, however, need not prevent the Professor from paying due attention to his own skull, and especially to those organs which I have particularly pointed out; and I am clearly of opinion, that a candid examination of them will give him an idea of the state of those organs very different from that which he at present entertains. I remain, Mr. Urban, with the highest consideration for the learned Lecturer, your very humble Servant, PERICRANIUM. Strictures on an Article in the last Number of the Edinburgh Review. "Conformably to the principles contained in Mr. Hume's Essay on Miracles,' and also to those in the Essay now before us, if we would form some general rules for comparing the evidence derived from our experience of the course of Nature with the evidence of * 1 translate for your Country Readers, Calocagathy is Honesty. Now-a-days terms of Art are not looked at unless they be derived from the Greek. sophique sur les Probabilités" of M. L. Compte Laplace, as by no means likely to obtain a general circulation in this country, and the once much vaunted reasoning of Mr. Hume in his Essay on Miracles, as already sufficiently confuted; I certainly should not have deemed it necessary to notice the sceptical opinions of either of those Writers, on the momentous subject referred to in the preceding extract, were there not perceptible, throughout the whole critique of the Edinburgh Reviewer on the former work, a more than tacit approbation of the Deistical doctrines therein maintained. It is true, indeed, that the Reviewer, when speaking of Mr. Hume's Essay on Miracles, has been pleased to qualify the high eulogium pronounced upon its Author, for his deep thought and enlarged views," by piously admonishing ns "not to stretch the principles contained in it so far, as to interfere with the truths of Religion." But how we are to avail ourselves of this friendly caution; or by what kind of mental ingenuity we can possibly contrive to admit at the same time, both the soundness of Mr. Hume's philosophy, and the diviné pretensions of the Gospel; I have, for for my own part, still to learn; it be ing, I conceive, to all reflecting minds indisputably clear, that as far as the credibility of Revealed Religion is made to rest on the evidence of miracles, so far is it in reality the avowed and exclusive aim, as well as the obvious and necessary tendency of Mr. Hume's Essay, totally to subvert the very ground-work of the Christian faith. Viewing the subject in this light, it will be, trust, permitted me to plead its supreme importance, as a sufficient excuse for the unusual length, both of the preceding Extract, and of the ensuing Strictures. I shall begin with noticing a general position of the Reviewer; to the truth of which, every unbiassed mind will, I doubt not, readily subscribe: viz."That there is not a particle of water, or of air, of which the condition is not defined by rules as certain, as that of the Sun or the Planets," (page 320.) But, having once acknowledged the philosophical justness of this doctrine, are we, by necessary implication, in reason bound to yield an equally unqualified assent to the following immediate deduction from it? "So that nothing but information sufficiently extensive, and a calculus sufficiently powerful, is wanting, to reduce all things to certainty, and, from the condition of the world at any one instant, to deduce its condition at the next." Before we can reasonably allow ourselves to concur in opinion with the Reviewer respecting the legitimacy of such an inference as this, we must needs be thoroughly persuaded, that the very same rules, which of necessity define the present and regulate the future condition of every material substance connected with this earth, define and regulate with equal certainty both the present and the future condition of every spiritual substance so connected. Since, if there really exist, both in Heaven and on Earth, Beings in native dignity, infinitely superior to any portion of the inanimate creation, whose appropriate function and continual employment it is, to exercise over every part of the material world, provident and irresistible do minion; what can possibly be more evident, than that, through the practical controul and agency of these superior Beings, that perfect uniformity in the order of physical phenomena, which might otherwise have been with certainty anticipated, will now be liable to frequent and almost perpetual interruption. And should it even be asserted, that neither man, nor any other intelligent creature, is actually invested with the power of varying or influencing, in any degree whatever, the wonted course of natural phenomena; yet will no one, most assuredly, but the avowed Atheist or Fatalist, pretend for a moment seriously to question the physical power and rightful authority of the Supreme Being, either to alter, to suspend, or to supersede entirely (whenever be shall be pleased to do so), the pre-established order of all sublunary events, and the wonted operation of all secondary causes. If, however, we feel ourselves thus constrained to own, that it is at all times, and in all circumstances, alike possible and easy for the Divine Being to vary or annul the general laws of material nature (such, for example, as that of gravity); who among us will have the presumption to affirm, that it is not, both in all real and all imaginable cases, equally possible and easy for that Being to give mankind indisputable evidence of such extraordinary interposition by means of indirect communication? And if none among us, retaining a sober mind, will dare avow so impious a thought, what is there (we may further reasonably ask) in the nature of human teslimony, which renders it in the least improper to be made, by Divine appointment, the ordinary and most effectual medium of such communica tion? Will it suffice to answer (conformably with the leading principle of Mr. Hume's deistical philosophy) that the most decisive test of truth is men's experience? that a miracle is confessedly an event eutirely contrary to such experience; whilst the deceitfulness aud fallibility of human testimony are but too indisputably proved by every man's daily observation; and consequently that to believe, in any given instance, an asserted miracle, merely in deference to human testimony, is (truly speaking) to reject the stronger evidence, and admit the weaker? What real force there is in this (formerly) much boasted argument, will be, I conceive, best shewn by a brief enumeration of all the several meanings which can be consistently annexed to the term experience, as used in the preceding passage. Now these (it is sufficiently obvious to every competent understanding) are no more than the three following. We must needs understand by the term experience, as used above, either universal, individual, or general experience. To say, however, that in no case can we ever consistently or reasonably admit the truth of any assertion, or the reality of any fact, which is contradicted by the universal experience of mankind, is (in the judgment of every reflecting mind) in no degree to prove, but only gratuitously to assume, the utter incredibility of mira cles; it being to every such mind abundantly manifest, that in the firm belief of any asserted miracles, there is necessarily implied a positive denial that miracles are contradicted by the universal experience of mankind. Passing on, therefore, to the consideration of the second meaning above ascribed to the term experience (that is, understanding that expression as denoting solely, what has been sensibly witnessed and observed by the individual whose judgment is to decide on the truth or falsehood of any as serted or recorded miracles) it is obvious for me to remark, that if men's personal experience (thus defined) be indeed to them in all cases, and on all subjects, the incomparably surest, and almost the only test of truth; then must we of necessity acknowledge, that as on this principle of reasoning we can none of us at present consistently admit, as well authenticated, any of the numerous miracles related in the Old Testament or in the New; so, on the very same ground of argument, must we equally maintain, that with respect to the periodical conversion of water into ice in many regions of the earth, all the untravelled natives of the warmer climates are in reason bound to remain for ever equalBy incredulous with the memorable King of Siam, alluded to by Locke. A mode of reasoning directly leading to, and fully warranting, an inference thus palpably absurd, must, doubtless, be regarded by every sober mind, as neither meriting, nor requiring formal confutation. And should the advocates of Mt. Hume's philosophy, for the purpose of obviating this glaring inconsistency, be disposed to allege upon the subject, that, by the experience so much insisted on in the Essay on Miracles, as affording men in all cases the infinitely best criterion of truth and falsehood, we are by no means to understand, in any instance, the limited experience of the individual whose judgment is to pronounce on any specific ques tion, but the more enlarged experience and observation of mankind in general: To this our ready answer is, by none of us can it, in the natural course of things, ever possibly be ascertained what is, or what is not, in any given instance, the actual result of men's general experience and observation, unless it be permitted us (after due discrimination exercised) to repose full confidence in the fidelity of human testimony. Withhold the aid of this grand medium of general information to mankind, or assert its total insufficiency when considered as the test of truth, and source of rational conviction; and the practical demonstrations of a Newton, it is abundantly manifest, will, in most instances, immediately dwindle into the fanciful hypotheses of a Descartes. For with regard even to the princi ple of gravity itself (through the constant and all-pervading influence of which we are now so firmly and so rationally persuaded that the admirable order of all this solar system has been so long preserved): who is there among us, retaining a sound judgment, that will pretend to build solely on the narrow basis of his own partial experience and observation, a well-founded confidence in its universal agency? Without an entire reliance on the general accuracy of what has been written and related on this head by others, no individual of mankind (it is self-evident) could ever possibly attain to a fuil and rational conviction of this truth. If, however, the fidelity of human testimony must be thus presumed, before we can pretend to make the least proficiency whatever in the science of natural philosophy, or arrive at any general conclusions with regard even to the most obvious physical phenomena; why is the correctness of such testimony to be thus impeached, and its authority thus denied, |