flying over from, the sea, and hear the rushes
rustling and shivering in the broad open
ditches. A few straggling labourers are
at work, an aroma of tar meets you from
the river side; you see a bridge, the ribs
of a small schooner on the stocks, another
vessel and yet another. Signs of business,
of life, of colour, begin to meet you; boys
and girls trooping back to school with
hands and pinafores full of daffodils,
primroses, and wallflowers; you see a bright
red house over which a peach tree is
blossoming; you climb a steep little hill; you
pass under a grand old gateway, studded
with tufts of golden wallflowers, and you
are in Rye. As well might you have
stepped across the Channel into some little
French town—the pavement, the gateway,
the outside shutters, all is French in form
and tone, and, to complete the illusion,
occasionally a French name is conspicuous
over the shop windows.

The sea once broke against the cliff on
which to this day stands the tower built by
Guillaume d'Ypres, Earl of Kent, in the
reign of Stephen, with its four grey towers
and its modern additions of a red-brick roof
and a tall chimney; this old fortress being
now the common gaol, while the name of its
martial founder lingers enigmatically on
the lips of the natives who call it the
"Whyprees tower." A dreary extent of
marsh now lies between this tower and the
sea, now nearly two miles off.

In the town are many quaint points and
mediaeval relics; queer old merchants'
houses with deep doorways, porches, and
fantastic mouldings, grim little windows,
crypts and vaults and low-roofed
passages, where smugglers stored away their
ill-gotten wealth and fought hand to hand
with the revenue officers. Very French
was Rye after the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, when it numbered no less than
fifteen hundred and thirty-five refugees
among its population.

There is a street called Watch Bell-street
—does not that sound a ghost in itself?—
and there also is the ruined chapel of the
Eremite Friars near the old gateway,
surrounded by a garden, where the old monks
hid away their treasures, and where, at
last, they were themselves hidden away, as
the bones and skulls which are occasionally
dug up fully testify.

Such are Winchelsea and Rye, interesting
to archaeologists and historians,
interesting to many who are neither
archaeologists nor historians, but to those who may
remember that it was here Mr. Thackeray
drew the scene of his last work—Denis
Duval. Alas! only the fragment of a story
so sadly and so fatally interrupted! Even
that fragment has infused a fictitious life
into Winchelsea, reviving from out of the
dust a forgotten generation to walk before
us in their own dress, speaking their own
language, and making us familiar with
their habits, mixing in their society, and
carrying us back, as it were, a hundred
years in the world's history. This is the
charm with which Thackeray has invested
the towns of Winchelsea and Rye. He has
resuscitated them from the grave, peopled
the locality with characters once known
and actually moving there. His curious
research picked up incidents, his genius
wove them into narrative, and his keen
glance took in and adapted every spot to
the texture of his tale. No spot more fit
than weird, lawless Winchelsea for a plot
such as he had conceived and laid, in times
bristling with foreign wars and domestic
feuds. Very many of the personages
introduced into his story were living facts.
The wicked Squires Weston, gentlemen,
smugglers, and highwaymen actually
resided in Winchelsea; the old glebe house
still stands, as it did when Denis Duval
used to drink tea with kind Dr. and Mrs.
Barnard; a lovely and unfortunate French
countess really lived, died, and was buried
there, in the manner so graphically
described; the ancient gates, which the little
Denis pointed out to the French chevalier
as he trotted by his side, are still standing;
in fact, all Winchelsea is now much as it
was at the time of the story, 1769, with
this difference, that Thackeray has quickened
it into life and motion.

MR. DICKENS'S NEW WORK.
Just Published, PRICE ONE SHILLING,
PART ONE OF
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY S. L. FILDES.
To be Completed in TWELVE MONTHLY Numbers,
uniform with tbe Original Editions of "PICKWICK"
and "COPPERFIELD."
London: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

Now Ready, price 5s. 6d., bound in green cloth,
THE SECOND VOLUME
OF THE NEW SERIES OF
ALL THE YEAR ROUND.
To be had of all Booksellers.