1553. A large handsome monument on the North wall in memory of Captain John Bennett, who died in the year 1706, aged 70 years and 8 months; it has a finely executed bust, surrounded with emblematic carvings, head and stern of a ship, &c. In a guideron shield in the pediment are the arms, three lions demy. Another on the North side of the chancel to Francis Fuller, who died March 10, 1636, aged 76.-The only vestige of antient work left inside the Church is a very beautiful Holy Water Recess, at the West end of the principal aile near the Tower; the lower part has been entirely cut away, and the ornaments of the upper much disfigured by whitewash. The exterior of the Church is nearly as much bereft of antient work as the inside, every window (excepting the West) being altered, and the arches of those that remained blocked up. In the North wall over a doorway are several very antient ornaments worked into the masonry. The West door, and a similar one under the North porch, square-headed, remain perfect.

The Town of Barking has still several picturesque old houses remaining in it. The Market-house, of this kind, is very spacious, with rooms over it, and was built about the time of Queen Elizabeth. A large convenient Workhouse was erected in the year 1787, in which are appropriate rooms for the education of poor Children. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

J. C. B.

Oct. 3.

M1 IDDLEHAM Castle, Yorkshire,

stands in the Wapentake of Hang-West, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and was the head of the honour of Middieham. It was built about the year 1190, by Robert, surnamed Fitz Ranulph, grandson of Ribald*, younger brother to Alan Earl of Brittany, to whom all Wensleydale was given by Conan Earl of Brittany and Richmond. It remained in his posterity till the time of Henry

the IIId; when Ralph, or Ranulph†, the second of that name, dying with out issue male, this Honour and Castle came to the Lord Robert de Nevil, in right of Mary his wife, eldest of three daughters, left by the above named Ranulph.

This Robert de Nevil, being detected in a criminal conversation with a Lady in Craven, was, by her enraged husband, emasculated, of which he soon after died; in his descendants it continued till the reign of Henry the VIth, when the male-line failing in Ralph de Nevil, Earl of Westworland, it devolved to his uncle Sir John Nevil: the Castle was at that time in the hands of Heary the Sixth; but Sir John having always sided with the House of Lancaster, was appointed Constable thereof for life.

In this Castle Edward the Fourth was confined, after being surprized and taken prisoner in his Camp at Wolvey, by Richard Nevil, Earl of Warwick, surnamed the King-maker, who put him under the care of his brother, the Archbishop of York; but that Prelate suffering Edward to take the exercise of hunting in the Park, he made his escape; raised sufficient forces to reinstate his affairs, and shortly after vanquished and slew the Earl of Warwick at Barnet near London. The Estates of this Earl being forfeited, and likewise those of his brother John Marquis of Montague, proprietor of this Honour and Castle, they were, by an Act of Parliament, 11th of Edward IVth, settled upon Richard Duke of York, and his heirs legally begotten, so long as any of the heirs male of the Marquis of Montague should remain.

Edward, the only son of Richard IIId, was born in this Castle: his premature death is, according to the superstition of some later writers, considered as a judgment on Richard, for the imputed murder of Edward Vth and his brother..

From that time to the present, this Castle is scarcely, if at all, mentioned

in History. Leland, in his Itinerary,

Mr. URBAN, Beaconsfield, Oct. 4.

HE friends of the late Mr. Burke

dleham Castel (says he) joyneth hard to the town side, and is the fairest Castel of Richmontshire next Bolton, and the Castel has a parke by it, caullid Souskne, and another caullid West Park, and Gaunlasse be well woddid:" and again, " Middleham is a praty market town, and standith on a rokky hille, on the top whereof is the Castel meately well diked. All the upper part of the Castel was of the very new setting of the Lord Neville, caullid Darabi, the inner part was of an auncient building of the Fitz andolph."

*

It was inhabited so late as the year 1609, by Sir Henry Lindley, knt. an appraisément of whose goods, he being then lately deceased, was taken in that year; the inventory was in the hands of the Dean of Middleham, 1773.

The leaden pipes, for the conveyance of water, were taken up within the memory of the Mother of a person now living.

In 1663, it appears as if the Castle was the property of Lord Loftus, who

obliged to your Correspondent Mr. Harford, for an accurate Sketch of his late residence; but, I may venture to say, that the one he has sent you bears little, if any, resemblance to it.

Butler's Court, or (as it was originally called) Gregories, the house which Mr. Burke inhabited near Beaconsfield, consisted of a center and two wings, connected on each side by a colonnade, and was built upon a plan very similar to the Queen's Palace, Buckingham House, and to Cliefden House in Buckinghamshire, the resi-> dence of the Countess of Orkney, which was also destroyed by fire about nineteen years ago.-Butler's Court was not the residence of Mr. Dupré at the time of its destruction, though it was his property; nor did the loss sustained amount to a fourth part of the sum mentioned.-Is any good View or Print of Butler's Court to be met with? CLERICUS.

Mr. URBAN,

Oct. 6. WAS much pleased with the View

Crown, where the property seems to be. The entrance into this Castle was by a very strong arched Gateway on the North side. The remnants of a moat now appear on the South and East sides, but the ditch is daily filling up with weeds and rubbish.-The Castle is a right-angled parallelogram, 210 by 175 feet, with a tower at each angle, and a round one at the South-west.

By

The Deanery of Middieham is a Collegiate Deanery by Royal Charter under the Great Seal, with Statutes under the same authority; also with peculiar and exempt Jurisdiction by the King, the then Pope, (by a now existing Bull or Licence), and by Cession of Jurisdiction from the Archbp: of York, the Bishop of Chester, and the Archdeacon of Richmond. Charter it has six Chaplains. It is also entitled to a Chancellor, Registrar, and Surrogate: the two last it has always had. But, as the intended endowment in land was frustrated by the death of Richard the Third, it has no other than the Parochial Revenue. The presentation from the Crown is directed to the Chaplains for the instalment of the Deant.

* Qu. utter or outer.

Y. Z.

+ Of the late very learned and worthy Dean, see this Month's Obituary. EDIT,

Statesman Edmund Burke; and beg you to insert the following account of it, from Messrs. Lysons's valuable Work:

"GREGORIES, in this parish [Beaconsfield] which belonged to the Wallers, has of late years acquired much celebrity, as the seat of Edmund Burke; who, for critical taste, and brilliancy of language, will ever be ranked in the first class of English writers; whose manners were so engaging, whose conversation and talents were so fascinating, that his

company was eagerly sought after by all who could make pretensions to kindred genius; and Gregories was the frequent resort of the most eminent literary and political characters of the age. Mr. Burke died at Gregories in 1797, and was buried in Beaconsfield Church, where a marble tablet has been put up with this short Inscription to his memory:

"Near this place lies interred all that was mortal of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, who died on the 9th of July, 1797, aged 68 years.'

"The Inscription records also his only son, Richard Burke, who represented the Borough of Malton in Parliament; and his brother, Richard Burke, Recorder of Bristol: they both died in the year 1794*." B. N. Lysons's Buckinghamshire, p. 508. Mr.