the Abbot of Selby, in the reign of Edward the First, at Croule. The Market Place was, where now

The Red Lion staring o'er the way,
Invites each passing traveller to pay.

This market must, in former times, have been chiefly frequented by people who came in boats. As the town stood close to the navigable river Don, it was easy of access from many towns in the Isle, as well as from those on the other side of the Trent, and on the Ouse.

In the composition made between the Abbot of Selby and Sir John de Mowbray, concerning his right in the Soil and Manor of Croule, the advowson of the Church in Gerlthorpe is mentioned. This, however, is unsupported by any other document which I have met with, and is probably a mistake either of Dodsworth, who transcribed it from the Coucher Book of Selby, or of Johnson, who transcribed from Dodsworth, or of Burton, who, from these authorities, has mentioned it in the Ecclesiastical History of Yorkshire. It is, however, to be observed, that this composition was made forty-nine years after an examination had been made in the register of Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, as to the right of presentation to ecclesiastical benefices in this parish, and no mention is made of any but the vicarage of Luddington.

In the year 1745, Mrs. Mary Ramsden left an estate, situated in this place, also in Luddington and Eastoft, as well as in the Yorkshire villages of Fockerby, Adlingfleet, and Haldenby, and also Norton, in the parish of Campsall, all of which she inherited from her father, to the Master and Fellows of Catharine Hall, in the University of Cambridge, for making additional buildings, and for the support of six fellows and ten scholars, out of regard to the memory of her kinsman, Robert Skerne, who had heretofore been a benefactor to the same College; and that the natives of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire should have preference.

When I visited Luddington and Garthorpe it was on the first of May, in the cold spring of 1857, and though the Commons have been warped and inclosed, and the country well drained, these towns had a very cold and comfortless appearance, especially Garthorpe. The walls of the houses seem

infected

infected with the very leprosy of damp, and the orchards and gardens, built in
the old channel of the Don, looked dismal and dirty. What must it have been
formerly? Shall we suppose that it was the favourite abode of those demons
and hobgoblins with which superstition used to people such situations, and
which caused hermits and monks to select them as their residence, that while
they forsook the haunt of men, they might attack the devil in his strong-hold.
One demon, however, if I may be allowed thus to personate disease, dwelt
there, and that was the ague, whose powers to torment those of whose bodies it
gained possession were of no mean order.

But even in its present improved state, and now that this monster has been
exorcised by drainage and cultivation, I feel strongly reminded of the effect
produced upon the captive Jews, by their transportation to the Plain of Shinar,
from the mountains of Judea, so beautifully expressed in the Psalm,—“ By
the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,—yea, we wept when we remembered Sion;
we hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof."

Certainly nothing could be more calculated to make persons who were ac-
customed to the bracing air of a hilly country," a land of fountains and depths
that spring out of valleys and hills", feel sorrowful and dejected, than the
heavy atmosphere of a marshy district, the sluggish streams which creep
through it, and the willows which hang over them.

INDEX