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UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

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HARROW ON THE HILL.

THE chief interest of HARROW ON THE HILL is derived from its famous School, in which many persons distinguished for genius and great attainments have received their education: but, even before the existence of this establishment, Harrow was a place of some consideration, having been formerly the occasional residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury. In the year 1170, Thomas à Becket, being about to visit Woodstock, to pay his respects to the young Henry Plantagenet, then lately crowned, and associated with his father in the government of the kingdom, received a command, whilst on his journey thither, to give up his visit; upon which the prelate repaired to his manor of Harrow. It is not certain where the site of the Archbishops' mansion was: but Archbishop Winchelsey dates from Harrow in 1300. In consequence of the occasional sojourn of the Archbishops, this place received certain benefits and privileges.

The hill upon which the village is built, rises out of a wide-spread and fertile vale, and is in some degree of a remarkable form, as its brow is considerably depressed in the centre, and rises into two very conspicuous heights at the extremes. The approach from London, from which Harrow is ten miles distant, ascends the more southerly of these eminences: that towards the north is crowned by the church, at the west end of which, on a tower of great elevation, is erected a lofty spire, a prominent feature through. out the whole of Middlesex, and many of the adjoining counties, and a land-mark for the surrounding districts to a great extent.

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The prospects obtained at several points of this hill are various in their character; and, on a bright, clear day, extremely beautiful. Towards the north, the view is comparatively limited; as the high ground in the neighbourhood of Stanmore presents a kind Here, however, rich masses of wood, and frequent inequalities of surface, give a pleasing variety to the landscape. On the west and south-west, the prospect is very extensive, but the neighbouring country is flat. In the distance may be observed Windsor Castle, and parts of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. The view towards the east is terminated by London.

The parish-church of Harrow, so much known and remarked for its elevated situation, is found, on near examination, to possess much of beauty and interest. A church, on this spot, was built in the reign of William the Conqueror, by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury; and some parts of that ancient structure appear to be still remaining. These chiefly consist of circular columns, within the building, which divide the nave and aisles, and of a door-way on the west side of the tower. The church was probably rebuilt in the latter part of the fourteenth century. At the west end is a square embattled tower, from which rises the spire, covered with lead. The interior consists of a chancel, nave, north and south aisles, and two transepts. The roofing of the nave, which is of wood, is curiously carved. Among the ornaments are figures of angels, holding musical instruments.

Several of the monuments are interesting. Within the rails of the communion-table is a flat gravestone, with a short inscription, to the memory of the eminent physician, Sir Samuel Garth, author of The Dispensary. On the floor of the chancel, is a monumental brass of Sir John Flambard, lord of the manor of Flambard, in the reign of Edward the Third. The figure is in armour, with a dog at his feet. There is another brass of John Byrkhed, rector of Harrow, who died in 1418. But perhaps

the most interesting relic of this kind in Harrow church, is a flat grave-stone, to the memory of JOHN LYON, founder of Harrow School. His efligy is in brass, and with it appears the following simple and plain-speaking epitaph :—

"Heare lyeth buried the bodye of John Lyon, late of Preston, in this parish, yeoman, deed. the 11th day of Oct. in the yeare of our Lord 1592, who hath founded a Free Grammar School in the parish, to have continuance for ever: and for maintenance thereof, and for releyffe of the poore, and of some poore schollers in the universityes, repairinge of highwayes, and other good and charitable uses, hath made conveyance of lands of good value, to a corpo ration granted for that purpose. Prayers be to the Author of all Goodness; who make us myndful to follow his good example."

After such a memorial of this truly noble benefactor, we may proceed to mention the excellent school which he founded.

The Free School of Harrow was established in 1571. The person to whose benevolence and care England is indebted for one of her best public schools, was a wealthy yeoman, who had previously spent a considerable sum in teaching poor children. In the year 1590, two years before his death, he drew up a set of statutes for the school, with full instructions for the disposal of the estates, which he intended to appropriate to various charitable uses, at the same time appointing six trustees of his property; the election of successors to be made by themselves as a body. The revenues of Mr. Lyon's estates (to which it is remarkable that not the smallest additional endowment has ever been made), are now considerable. But it has happened, unfortunately for the interests of the foundation, that those portions of his property which have, from their situation, acquired the greatest increase of value, such as certain lands near London, at Kilburn, and in the parish of St. Mary-le-bone, were appropriated by him to other charitable purposes, especially the repairing of roads, in the neighbourhood of his own home.

one.

The RULES to be observed in the management of the school were drawn up by Mr. Lyon. These are precise and, in some particulars, extremely curious. The system of education is marked out as a classical The modes of correction are specified. The amusements of the scholars are limited to “ driving a top, tossing a hand-ball, running, shooting, and no other." The twenty-second rule contains the provision" that no girls shall be received to be taught in the same school."

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The practice of Archery was common in the school from the period of its foundation. Every boy was entitled by the statutes to possess bow-shafts, bow-strings, and a bracer, to exercise shooting." Archery was a sport formerly used at many schools. The name which a part of the play-grounds at Eton College retains, that of the shooting-fields, may be attributed to a similar custom: and the term, the Butts will be found in the immediate neighbourhood of other schools besides Harrow. There is an instance of this in the college-school at Warwick, and at other places. The public exhibitions of archery at Harrow, were annual, and can be traced back for more than a century. The last silver arrow was contended for in July 1771. There were good and sufficient reasons for the abolition of this practice, and the more scholar-like and intellectual one of public speeches has taken its place. These are held every year, in May, June, and July.

ill and a mean thing, we are to remember that a proneness If we justly look upon a proneness to find fault, as a very to believe it is next to it.

ELSPY CAMPBELL. THE following interesting narrative is related by the Rev. Philip Skelton, author of some volumes of Sermons, which are surpassed by very few for sound doctrine, fervent piety, and forcible expression. He was a man of unbounded benevolence, a zealous and faithful shepherd of the flock committed to his charge. Upon some future occasion, we may probably give some anecdotes of his life, evincing the sincerity of his principles, in his practical goodwill towards man. When I contemplate the various duties of the sacred office, as supporting the weak, and checking the wilful, visiting the sick, comforting the dying, consoling the afflicted, and unceasingly directing all in the way of salvation, I think I give the highest praise which can be bestowed upon man, when I name the Rev. Philip Skelton as an EXCELLENT PARISH PRIEST,

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A Scotch gentlewoman, whose name was Macdowel, had, in her days of prosperity, been a kind mistress to Elspy Campbell; but, when turned of fifty, fell into extreme poverty, by a total loss of her effects, and the death of all her relations. Elspy, who had been for many years removed from Mrs. Macdowel, tracing her out by the melancholy news of her distress, went to her, wept over her, and said, Though am near as old as you, yet I am a great deal stronger, and can work, which, through your manner of life, and growing infirmities, you are unable to do. Come, then, with me to my little house. It is a warm one; and with it I have half an acre of land, which yields me more potatoes than I am able to employ. After trying what I can do for you, or rather what God will do for us both, you may leave me, if you can do better, or stay with me if you cannot. Take heart, mistress; I am a very sturdy old hag, and shall find victuals for you, if they are above ground; and when they are not, will dig for them under it." "O, Elspy," said the mistress, "I will go with you, and will live and die with you. I am sure the blessing of God will be where you are, Elspy."

This short, but sweet dialogue ended, they set out for Elspy's hermitage, where Mrs. Macdowel found a very little, and a very warm cottage, with a coarse, but clean bed, on the further side of a little fireplace, which was sheltered by a mud wall from the wind of the door. At the other end of the house there was a small window, or hole, for the admission of light, when the wind did not blow that way; when it did, this aperture was filled with a bundle of rushes, and Elspy contented herself with the light from her door and chimney. Soon after, she was honoured with so respectable a guest, she wove a thin kind of matting for curtains to the bed, a better defence against cold than the most costly damask. In this bed lay Mrs. Macdowel, with her feet in Elspy's lap, who could never be prevailed on to lie up beside her mistress, but always at the foot of the bed, bent like a hoop round Mrs. Macdowel's limbs. To the benefactress she ever added the servant, in spite of daily invitations to an equality. Such was her way of endeavouring to prevent a too keen sense of her fall in the decayed gentlewoman.

Good potatoes, a little oaten bread, sometimes an egg, and always milk, were provided in sufficient plenty. The best potatoe, the freshest egg, and the larger portion of the milk were constantly placed before Mrs. Macdowel. An old Bible, and two or three half-worn books of piety and devotion, gave a zest to their entertainments, often unhappily not known among people in higher life.

It may be wondered how Elspy could procure all this plenty. For the potatoes, which she herself set, and dug out, I have already accounted. The rest

was earned by Elspy's other labours, particularly spinning, and reaping corn in harvest time, for which she was better qualified than younger women by an involuntary bend in her back, which brought her eyes and hands much nearer to the ground than theirs. At times, when provisions rose to too high a price to be laid in by these means, this admirable woman gathered them from the neighbourhood by begging.

In doing this, her method was most efficacious. She went only to the houses of the most substantial farmers, and standing within the door, she thus accosted the inhabitants. "I am come to ask something not for myself, for I can live on any thing, but for Mrs. Macdowel, a gentlewoman, the daughter of Laird such-an-one, and grand-daughter of Sir James such-an-one." If they helped according to her very moderate expectations, she always said, "The blessing of God, of Mrs. Macdowel, and of Elspy Campbell, come plentifully on this house and

all that is therein."

The reader will easily believe her success in collecting, not only victuals but also old clothes, and pence to buy shoes, &c. must have been considerable, as her ways and means were little short of compulsory with such neighbours as her's. Her mistress continue a gentlewoman, that is, she would never was a gentlewoman, and while served by Elspy must allow her to work, or wet her feet.

One day as this inimitable servant was carrying on her back a cleeve of manure to her potatoe ground, her mistress stole out with a pitcher for a little water, and was returning with it from the well; Elspy spied her, let fall the cleeve, flew to her, seized the pitcher, spilled the water, went and filled it again, and, as she carried it to the house, cried out to her mistress, "Get in you daughter of Laird such-an-one, and grand-daughter of Sir James such-an-one, you shall draw no water while I am alive."

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Having heard these things, and many more of the same kind, I sent her some money; and, as long as she lived, that was for four or five years after I heard her story, when I was asked in company for a toast, always gave Elspy Campbell. The vulgarity of her name generally occasioned an inquiry about my beauty, and my account of her ever began with, 'Elspy Campbell is an old beggar woman.' old beggar woman?"-"Yes, but hear me out." Then followed the substance of the above narrative, and then a collection of crowns and half-guineas. These, frequently remitted to my toast, gave her occasion one day to say to my messenger, save us! who is he that is always sending me money, and yet I never saw him?"

"God

The glorious servility of this heroine was no sudden and short glow of gratitude; but a vigorous fire, which burnt, for upwards of twenty years, in full and equal strength, till death raked it up under the ashes of her body, from whence it will blaze out again with superior lustre in the morning of a day that is to have no end.

WHILE we hear even hardened Pharaoh, under the dread of immediate destruction, not only consenting to let the Lord's people go, according to the utmost demands of Moses and Aaron, but even entreating them to bless him also, we may know what in general to think of the confessions and pious language which are extorted from many wicked men, when death affrights them; and which, being injudiciously attested, as genuine repentance, by some christians and ministers, often give encouragement to others to procrastinate, in hopes of being saved at last in the same -SCOTT.

manner.

SIR Amyas Pawlett, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say, "Stay awhile, that we may make an end the sooner.' -BACON.

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restoration both of the cnuren, and of the whole city laid in ashes. We find him also busily engaged in superintending that noble monument of British gratitude and charity, the hospital for decayed seamen at Greenwich.

Still, after all that has been said, the point in Evelyn's character that is the most striking and pleasing is his piety: a feeling deep and fervent, constantly operating, yet without the slighest admixture of superstition or enthusiasm. In his Diary we have the picture of his mind; and we there trace his habitual devotion in the delight which he received from partaking in the sacred offices of religion,-in his effusions of meek and pious resignation on the death of his children, and perhaps in nothing more than in his remarks, as each returning year brought around any season calculated to excite serious feeling. Our brief limits will not allow us to give many extracts; but we are disposed to give the following as exhibiting a pleasing view of a well-regulated mind, and one that is the more interesting as it concludes his Diary..

"1706, Jan. 1st.-Making up my accounts for the past year, paid bills, wages, and new year's gifts, according to custom. Tho' much indisposed, and at so advanced an age, I went to chapel to give God public thanks, beseeching Almighty God to assist me and my family the ensuing year, if he should yet continue my pilgrimage here, and bring me at last to a better life with Him in his heavenly kingdom."

He died on the 27th of the following month, and was buried at Wotton. On his monument, after a brief sketch of his life, are these words:

Living in an age of extraordinary
events and revolutions, he learnt

(as himself asserted) this Truth,
which pursuant to his intention
is here declared,-

That all is vanity which is not honest,
and that there is no solid wisdom,
but in real piety.

The beautiful engraving, of which the portrait at the head of this memoir is a copy, was taken from a painting, by Kneller. Mr. Evelyn thus speaks of it in his Diary:

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"1689. July 8.-I sat for my picture to Kneller, for Mr. Pepys, late secretary to the Admiralty, holding my Sylva in my right hand. It was on his long and earnest request, and is placed in his library. Kneller never painted in a more masterly manner.'

The reader may also be pleased with an extract from one of his letters to his friend Mr. Pepys, which refers to this very picture and shows his modesty, and the playfulness of his style.

"Upon your late communicating to me your desire of adorning your choice library with the pictures of men illustrious for their parts and erudition, I did not in the least suspect your intention of placing my shallow head amongst those heroes, who, knowing my unworthiness of that honour, will in spight of your good opinion of Mr. Kneller, for his skill of drawing to the life, either condemn his colouring that he made me not blush, or me for impudence that I did not. But this is not all: for men will question your judgment, or suspect you of flattery, if you take it not down for in good earnest, when I seriously consider how unfit I am to appear in the class of those learned gentlemen, I am perfectly ashamed, &c."

The excellent memoirs of Evelyn, consisting of his Diary, &c., were published in 1817, by the late W. Bray, Esq., F.S.A., with the able assistance of Mr. Upcott, of the London Institution.

THE present state of the Jews is a great proof of Christianity. It is a surprising thing, to see that people subsist so many years, and always in so miserable a condition; it being necessary, as a proof of the Gospel, both that they should exist, and that they should be miserable, as having

crucified Christ.- -PASCAL.

THE POWER OF TRUTH.

How simply and beautifully has Abd-ool-Kadir of Ghilan, impressed us with the love of truth, in a story of his childhood.

After stating the vision which made him entreat of his mother to allow him to go to Bagdad and devote himself to God, he thus proceeds:—

"I informed her of what I had seen, and she wept: then taking out eighty dinars, she told me that as I had a brother, half of that was all my inheritance; she made me swear, when she gave it me, never to tell a lie, and afterwards bade me farewell, exclaiming, Go, my son, I consign thee to God; we shall not meet again till the day of judgment.' I went on well," he adds, " till I came near to Hamadam, when our Kâfillah was plundered by sixty horsemen. One fellow asked me, 'what I had got?' Forty dinars,' said I, are sewed under my garments.' The fellow laughed, thinking, no doubt, I was joking with him. What have you got?' said another. I gave him the

same answer.

"When they were dividing the spoil, I was called to an eminence where the chief stood: 'What property have you got, my little fellow?' said he. 'I have told two of your people already,' I replied, 'I have forty dinars sewed up carefully in my clothes!' He ordered them to be ript open, and found my money.

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"And how came you,' said he, with surprise, 'to declare so openly, what has been so carefully hidden?' 'Because,' I replied, 'I will not be false to my mother, to whom I have promised that I will never tell a lie!'' Child,' said the robber, hast thou such a sense of thy duty to thy mother at thy years, and am I insensible, at my age, of the duty I owe to my God? Give me thy hand, innocent boy,' he continued, ' that I may swear repentance upon it.' He did so. His followers were all alike struck with the scene. 'You have been our leader in guilt;' said they to their chief, be the same in the path of virtue:' and they instantly, at his order, made restitution of their spoil, and vowed repentance on my hand."-History of

Persia.

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CONDITION OF THE RUSSIAN SERF AND

RUSSIAN PEOPLE.

CONSIDERING the present state of civilization in Russia, and the intimate connexion between a man's desires and enjoyments, I am not inclined to think that the great mass of Russian slaves are less comfortable than the free-born Indians. It is true that they have nothing, but then they want nothing. I have been credibly informed, that a caravan of a hundred boors, carrying sugar from Moscow to St. Petersburgh, will pass a night at an inn, and not spend three halfpence among them, because they cannot muster so large a sum. Wretched as their condition is, if estimated by our ideas of happiness, it is less so in reality, because they see and know no other state. Their master is raised too far above them to excite jealousy or ambition; and between him and them there is no third class. So long as they can satisfy the present cravings of nature they wish for nothing more. Devoid of forethought, they have no anxiety for the future. The stripe inflicted one minute is forgotten the next, and not dreaded for the following.

It is in moral rather than in physical effects that the baneful influence of slavery, and of that ignorance which slavery promotes and perpetuates, is manifested. All that a serf possesses, even his wife, is the property of his lord. A conviction tat the licentious gratification of passion would in most cases lead

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