a common thief, and lowered him in his own eyes. Repentance, however, came too late, and poor Philip had now to learn that when the first step has been taken, it is always difficult, and sometimes impossible, to pause in the career of crime. Laying, however, the flattering unction to his soul, that as self-preservation is the first law of nature, he was justified in violating the laws of property, and that as he knew the name and address of the proprietor, he might hereafter restore every farthing and every article,-an act of honesty upon which he was inflexibly resolved, although the exact time was rather indefinite, he quieted these selfupbraidings, and finally effected a triumph over them by exclaiming"After all, every man will admit that necessity has no law."

From the open letters, some of which were from patients, others allusive to social and domestic matters, and all dated from London, he gathered that Messrs. Davis and Son were surgeons and apothecaries in Bloomsbury, but what was the purport of the sealed letter, and why was it in the pocket whence it had been taken? More than mere curiosity was concerned in the solution of this question, for its contents might materially influence his plan of proceeding, or rather, might suggest a plan, for at present he had formed no scheme whatever. Breaking, therefore, the wax very carefully, so that it might easily be replaced, he unfolded the enclosure, and read as follows:—

My Dear old Friend,—

"This letter will be handed to you by my son and partner-Augustus, who has seen all the letters that have passed between us on the subject of his marriage with your daughter, should she take a fancy to him; in which case, as I have already told you, he is quite ready to settle the whole of her fortune upon her. As they were such good friends when they played together as children-though I dare say they would hardly know one another after so many years' separation, I do hope my dear Susan, of whom I used to be so fond when she was a cherry-cheeked little girl, will soon become my daughter-in-law.

"Augustus's professional engagements, for I can assure you that he is a monstrous favourite with the Bloomsbury ladies, will not allow him to be long absent, but as we know all about each other, and understand one another perfectly, there can be no use in delay, and no objection to hurrying on the marriage, more especially as my declining health makes me anxious to see my dear boy settled. I need not repeat that he will have the whole business at my death. With best love to Susan, I am, my dear old friend,

"Yours, very truly,

"GABRIEL DAVIS."

This was destined to be a day of sudden impulses leading to extraordinary results, for no sooner had the reader concluded the letter than he threw it down on the table, clapped his hands together, and ejaculated in a vehement whisper, "By Jove! the very thing! Hang me if I don't personate the monstrous favourite with the Bloomsbury ladies, marry Susan-I dare say she's a very pretty girl, apply part of her fortune to the payment of the bankers, and the hushing up of that infernal forgery affair, and live like an honest man all the rest of my days! Every thing combines to ensure success; the old folks have settled all the preliminaries; so many years have elapsed since the parties met, that no suspicion will be entertained as to my identity; the father himself recommends that

the marriage should be hurried forward, and if I have any luck I may carry off the heiress before the original bridegroom can supplant me. Poor devil! I wonder what he's about at this moment. Running up and down the river's bank, I suppose, in his birthday suit, ha! ha! ha! No, no, I have it, I have it; that will be ten thousand times better. He will find my old clothes; he will be obliged in self-defence to put them on; he will sneak away to escape observation; the fellow with the handbill when he got to the "Cricketers" will doubtless have raised a general hue and cry for my apprehension; the wearer of my clothes is pretty sure to be encountered, arrested and committed to prison; and in the meantime the wearer of HIS clothes will be fixing the day for his marriage with the cherry-cheeked little heiress. Capital! how romantic, and how dramatic! In short, this adventure is expressly made for me, and I am expressly made for the adventure."

His jubilant soliloquy was interrupted by the appearance of dinner, to which he did ample justice; with the assistance of cigars the bottle was gradually despatched, and feeling thoroughly exhausted, not only from the bodily fatigues, but from the exciting events which had so rapidly succeeded each other he retired to bed at an early hour and presently forgot all his past and future perils in a sound sleep.

A VISIT TO THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF CRESSY AND AGINCOURT.

IN LETTERS ADDRESSED TO H. P. SMITH, ESQ.

BY H. L. LONG, ESQ.

LETTER II.

CRESS r.

Ir was not mere accident or caprice that conducted Edward to the fields of Cressy, as a suitable arena for bringing the quarrel between him and his adversary Philip to the arbitration of the sword. "Here," said he, "we will fight. I am now upon the lawful possessions of my lady mother, given to her as her marriage portion." Edward drew some happy augury from the circumstance of his standing, as it were, upon his own territory, and therefore no longer to be regarded in the character of an aggressor. He was himself Comte de Ponthieu, and when a boy of thirteen, under the title of Earl of Chester, had done homage to Charles-le-Bel for the fief, having been invested with it by his father, in order to escape himself from an act of submission which was insufferable to him. Again in 1328, even when King of England, Edward the Third had done homage at Amiens on the accession of Philip of Valois, as a vassal of the French crown, which at the very time he laid claim to as his own. We may well believe that if these humiliations were disgusting to the English monarch, it was not less offensive to the King of France to have a rival sovereign in possession of territories situated within the precincts of his kingdom, and accordingly we find that while one party was perpetually endeavouring to evade the odious ceremony of doing homage, the other was seeking every opportunity of confiscating the fief, and annexing it to the crown of France. The Comté of Ponthieu was the heritage of Eleanor of Castille, the beloved consort of

the first Edward. It descended to her as the heiress of a long line of ancestors of different houses, among whom Robert-le-Diable enjoys an unenviable distinction. This comté boasted itself as the most ancient fief of the Frankish monarchy, claiming an existence as early as the middle of the seventh century. Various are the derivations assigned to the name of "Pagus Pontinus," or "Provincia Pontina," some deducing it "à multitudine Pontium," and one author, less felicitously, discovers it to be a translation of Portus Itius, "mot-à-mot Pons Itieu, et par contraction, Ponthieu," and yet the early title of "Dux Franciæ maritimæ seu Pontica," seems to offer no objectionable origin for the name. Be that as it may, Eleanor of Castille transmitted the honours and embarrassments of Ponthieu to her son Edward the Second, who settled its revenues as pin-money upon his wife, Isabella of France, and she, who survived until the year 1357, was the undoubted possessor of Ponthieu at the time when her chivalrous son and more chivalrous grandson marshalled an army at Cressy to defend her rights.

Cressy itself was in those days a place of far greater consideration than the mere "chef lieu de Canton" into which it is now dwindled, and in still earlier times is ascertained to have possessed one of "ces immenses fermes," described by Thierry, "où les rois francs tenait leur cour et qu'ils preféraient aux plus belles villes de la Gaule." Here, too, they had one of their strongholds. "Il existe encore à Cressy des restes, des fondations de cette maison royale." Subsequently the Comtes de Ponthieu occasionally resided at Cressy. (See also " Account for repairs at Cressy," Chapter-house Library at Westminster, 1. i. 4.)

Etymology, even in our native tongue, is somewhat of a service of danger, but to attempt it in a foreign language is like playing with edged tools. I shall venture, however, to hazard a conjecture that Estrées-les-Cressy derives its name from the same source as the "strats" and "streets" embodied in the names of places in our own country, and that les-Cressy may be a corruption of les-croissées, indicating a situation where two roads cross, where the streets-or viæ strata-se croissent-the great Roman military highway from Lyons to Boulogne, laid down by Marcus Agrippa during his command in Gaul in the year after the battle of Actium, crossed the Somme at Amiens, and the Anthie at Ponches (Pontes), and in its passage straight across the intermediate country, runs close to Estrées-les-Cressy, bearing in many places the not unusual appellation for such works, that of Chaussée Brunhault. The other intersecting road, one, perhaps, of Gaulish origin, and anterior to that of the Romans, pointed, and still points away from the ford at Blanquetaque, traversing the forest as the "Chemin Vert," from Noyelle to Cressy, which it approaches near an ancient farm called "le Donjon," and leads to Therouenne, the ancient capital of the Morini, having crossed the Anthie at La Broye. These roads have now yielded in importance to the various routes royales which concentre themselves at Abbeville; but Abbeville sprang into existence, or at least is noticed in history, not earlier than the year 861, whereas Amiens was found by Julius Cæsar a town of importance sufficient to induce him to select it, on his return from Britain, as the rendezvous for the general council of the Gauls. While therefore Amiens existed uneclipsed by Abbeville, its road to Boulogne would have been one of the most important in Gaul, and Estrées-lesCressy, placed at a point of union with another considerable highway, would have been conveniently situated in those times of deficient com

munication; moreover, Cressy enjoys some peculiar natural advantages, enough to allure more fastidious tastes than those of the barbarous Frankish sovereigns. The bourg is enjoyably seated on the south slope of its hill, on a good dry soil, overlying chalk; the air is said to be particularly pure and salubrious; the clear little stream of the Maye flows through the meadows before it; on the north, behind it, expands a high undulating, agreeable extent of open country, while to the south the grand forest of Cressy held out irresistible attractions to the mighty hunter, whether Merovingian, Carlovingian, Norman, or Bourbon, all enthusiastic devotees of the chase. This royal forest still abounds with roedeer; the wolf, the boar, and the red-deer are become extinct, but wolves during the middle ages existed in such formidable numbers that the municipal authorities at Abbeville offered rewards "aux veneurs et sergents de la foret de Crécy et aux veneurs de plusieurs nobles pour les engager à redoubler de vigilance contre les loups, afin que iceux leux ne foissent dommages aux bonnes gens du pays et aux bourgeois qui avoient bestes à laines." These animals, assembling in troops, penetrated into villages, and sometimes even into towns." Ils infestaient tellement les routes que le chapelain de l'Hotel Dieu, qui allait dire la messe à Saint Nicholas-des-essarts, était obligé de se faire accompagné par un dogue pour se défendre contre leurs attaques ou contre les voleurs." M. Louandre records the chase of a stag, extracted from "Le Parfait Chasseur" (Paris, 1683) which would have excited the envy of our Plantagenet Nimrods. "Au XVII siècle il y avait encore dans la forêt de Crécy des cerfs d'une force vraiment extraordinaire. L'un de ces animaux ayant été attaqué, dans cette forêt, par le Duc D'Angoulême, Comte de Ponthieu, en fit deux fois le tour, passa l'Anthie et ne put être atteint que dans le Boulonnais. Il s'y defendit encore de telle sorte qu'il blessa un des piqueurs, en abattit un autre, et que tous les chasseurs furent obligés de l'attaquer avec précaution, et à la faveur des arbres. Il avait le plus beau corsage et la plus belle tête qu'on pût voir. Le Duc d'Angoulême dit qu'on n'en avait jamais rencontré qui eussent fait une plus belle course que celle-là, car elle dura plus de sept heures. Il y a peu de forêts, dit Lelincourt, ou les cerfs aient de semblables forces." It is not likely that these attractive sports would have been overlooked by the English Comtes de Ponthieu, or that Edward while he resided during his youth in the comté would have failed to visit Cressy and enjoy the sports of the field over the very ground where in his manhood he afterwards engaged in the more desperate game of war. I observed several partridges in walking over the fields of Cressy, as well as among the low coppice wood of the Grange, and the quail, just arrived from Africa, was beginning to make itself audible among the young green corn. So this description of game has re-established itself, although our countrymen are accused of having exterminated it during their occupation of Picardy in the days of Henry VI. There is rather an amusing account of their proceedings in this respect extracted by M. Louandre from a manuscript of the fifteenth century, by Pierre C. Pietre, Abbot of St. Ricquier, which is preserved in a private library at Abbeville. From this ancient "Cronique" it appears that the English, holding possession of St. Ricquier, committed great devastation in the vicinity. "En abattant arbres en gardins, et alléeset tout le bas à carpenter et plusieurs méchants maisons de ladite ville... Et faisant merveilleux dommage, au bas de l'abbaye... copant et abattant tous les plus beaux arbres sans pitié. . . les dits Anglois durant l'iver

mangèrent même tous le cats de ladite ville et disoient en leur langage qu'il les aimoient mieux que conins (lapins) et si prindrent par engins tous les lèvres, conins, et pertris du pays environs, car ils avoient gens à ce propices et savoient la manière de les prendre."

upon,

We may gather from this old Chronicler's story, if it can be relied that the practice of eating cats, with which we rally our continental neighbours, is, after all, the result of a lesson taught by the English, who if they have now abandoned this taste, have kept up the art of trapping hares, rabbits, and partridges in undiminished perfection.

The town of Cressy, as we drove along its broad street, rather reminded me of Alton, although I fear our Hampshire town would not be much flattered by the discovery of any resemblance. There are the substructures of the fortress of the Frankish feudatories said to exist still, and the church, composed principally of chalk, and exhibiting the various architecture of all ages since the twelfth century, may possess the lower portion of its tower, its doorway, and the columns of its nave, co-eval with the time of Edward, but not a vestige of a monument of any victim of the great battle remains, and the good-humoured old curé and his assistant assured me that no memorial whatever of that great event could be discovered. But on the hill above the town stands the tower, now a windmill, but once intended for other purposes, which, with its walls of solid masonry, seven feet thick, coated externally with chalk, is in all probability the identical building that formed the key of Edward's right flank, and from the summit of which he surveyed the field of battle.

The original purport of this tower may be questionable, but it appeared to me not unlikely to have been erected as a sort of look out in those days of constant alarm, to give notice to the palace below of any hostile approach; perhaps too as a kind of Pharos, like that described by Mr. Pusey, in his account of Lincoln-heath, or what we still see at Woking, amid the wide wastes of Surrey, to guide the night-wandering traveller along the "Chemin vert," or the belated hunters, whose pursuit of some one of the great stags of Cressy had led them far away into the Boulonnais or Artois.

The brilliant sunshine and bracing air, which attended our visit to Cressy, together with the exhilarating influence of a springy April day, may have assisted in producing the favourable impression, but Cressy struck us as being most happily situated, combining all the enjoyments usually sought for in this country, and amply justifying the preference shown it by the Merovingian monarchs over "les plus belles villes de la Gaule." What the then "belles villes de la Gaule" may have been, we may conjecture by the circumstance of the odoriferous mud of Paris having been perceptible at some leagues' distance, while Cressy cannot have been less agreeable then than it is now, and one great satisfaction in imagining it consists in the security we feel that the aspect of the country has undergone no change. The town of course has suffered various transformations, but we may confidently assume that the Grange, and the wood of Estrées on one side, as well as the meadows of the Maye, on the other, remain unaltered in appearance, and that the interjacent

* There are three or four windmills on the hill of Cressy, but they are of wood, and totally dissimilar to the massive masonry of the old tower. Nevertheless, some such mill existed at the time of the battle. In a MS. (No. 7136) in the “Bibliothèque du Roi," the Prince of Wales is described as placed "amont les champs près d'un moulin et par derrière un bois."