ROTHERHAM CHURCH, in the deanery of Doncaster, Yorkshire, is a building of far higher character than might be expected to be seen in a small town. From whatever point it is viewed, it dignifies the landscape, and gives an additional charm to the scenery of an interesting neighbourhood. The town of Rotherham is situated near the junction of the little river Rother with the Don. Baxter has given the etymology of the name of the former stream: the Celtic name signifies a limit or boundary, and of the three streams named Rother, in England, one divides the counties of Sussex and Kent; another separates Yorkshire from Westmoreland; and the South Yorkshire Rother, in a small part of its course, marks the boundary of Yorkshire on the side towards Derbyshire.

A Roman origin is claimed for Rotherham, and there indeed appear to be indisputable traces of the works of that people in the immediate vicinity. About half a mile from the town is a rectangular encampment, which has long been known as Templeborough (in the earliest notice it is called Temple-barrow). The intrenchments thrown around this military station have been gradually filling up, but they may still be distinctly traced round nearly the whole area originally occupied by them. This encampment is on the banks of the Don, and from

VOL. XXIV

the eminence it occupies, a lovely view is obtained of the surrounding country.

Rotherham itself, is an old and irregularly-built town. In some of the principal streets a few modern houses are observable; but, generally speaking, the buildings are low and inconvenient. In the neighbourhood of the church, some superior houses have been erected; yet little else than that noble structure will attract the attention of a visitor at this place. The situation of the church adds to its majestic appearance; it occupies an elevated knoll, below and around which the principal parts of the town are built, so that the very foundation stones are, for the most part, higher than the adjacent houses. From a bridge over the Rother, a fine view of the western end of this edifice is obtained; but it is from an old bridge over the Don, that the most complete landscape is seen, with the church not rising from among the dwellings, but placed in majesty above them. Rhodes, in his Yorkshire Scenery, says of this spot,

I well recollect this view of Rotherham Church, when it was even more beautiful, and more picturesque than it now is.

The space occupied by the stream of the Don is here of magnificent dimensions, and it is often filled even to its utmost limits. At the time to which I particularly allude, from the weir nearly half-way downward to the bridge, a

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row of lofty elms interposed a thick screen of foliage. A jutting roof, and here and there a chimney-top, were seen through openings amongst the branches: over these, wreaths of light and almost transparent smoke, rising from the dwellings below, united and harmonized the various masses; and on an elevated knoll beyond, the north and west fronts of the church, thrown into perspective, displayed the whole of their architectural grandeur. The humbler dwellings that intervened between the river and the higher parts of the town, were excluded from the picture, and all that was beheld was full of beauty. A little on the right, a weir thrown obliquely across the river, is a good feature in this part of the landscape. The water, dashed into foam, rushes impetuously over it, and circles into a thousand eddies in the capacious basin below, from whence it flows along the ample space that forms its channel in limpid shoals, and sparkling rapids. Above the weir, the eye follows the stream along the line of the Don, to where the Rother pursues its loitering course through the flat meadows of Bradmarsh, and falls into the Don at Bow-bridge. The plantations at Moorgate, and the bold eminence on which Boston Castle stands, occupy the left side of this rich landscape, and the woods of Canklow cover the remoter part of the hills, and fill up the distance.

The

The edifice, which forms the principal attraction in this landscape, is one of the most beautiful in the diocese, and is commonly known as the church of All Saints or All-hallows. It was erected in the reign of Edward the Fourth, and a principal contributor to the work, if not the sole founder, was Archbishop Rotherham, whose heraldic insignia still appear upon it. church is built of the red stone of the neighbourhood. It presents a complete model of the ecclesiastical architecture of the sixteenth century, when a more adorned style was taking the place of the simplicity of early Gothic architecture, but had not yet reached all that minuteness of ornament, which subsequently characterized it. Entering by a noble porch on the south side, the visitor arrives at a lofty and spacious nave with side aisles. At the intersection of the nave with the chancel and transepts, rises a tall and graceful spire, with pinnacles rising from its base, and accompanying it about one-third of its height, and crockets to the top. The head of the cross is so constructed, as to afford private recesses for the chantries, which were founded in this church, and opportunities for processions to the high altar, by having two chapels. The chapels are of the same height with the side aisles, and the clerestory windows of the nave have others correspondent with them, through which light is admitted into the chancel.

The precise date of this building has not been ascertained. Its founder, Thomas Scott, otherwise Thomas of Rotherham, (from being born there,) was made Archbishop of York in 1480, and lived to enjoy his see for a period of twenty years.

Anxious to promote the interests of his native place, the prelate founded a college at Rotherham, which was called Jesus College. A provost, five priests, six choristers, and three schoolmasters, were there maintained, and the parish of Rotherham is still entitled to a fellowship at Oxford, secured to it by the Archbishop. This college at Rotherham rose, flourished, and decayed, within a century. Camden, in his Britannica, praises Archbishop Rotherham, "who founded a college with three schools in it, to teach children writing, grammar, and music, which the greedy iniquity of these times," says he, "hath already banished." Part of the college buildings are now employed as an inn, and stables conpected therewith.

Rotherham is a place of little note in history; the only public event being the siege of the town during the contentions between the royal and parliamentary forces, in the reign of Charles the First. Rotherham espoused the cause of the popular party, and being regarded as the nucleus of the insurgent feeling in that part of Yorkshire, the royal forces were sent to besiege the town, in the month of May, 1643. Their ammu

nition being intercepted by the enemy, the citizens were soon reduced to ask a parley, and to capitulate. Their estates, lives, and liberties, were guaranteed; but an exception was made in the case of the vicar of the parish, named Shaw, who had made himself so obnox ious to the royal party, that they searched for him with great perseverance, and placed their soldiery in his dwelling. By a succession of hair-breadth escapes, the vicar eluded the vigilance of his enemies, and at length fled to Manchester. At one time he lay hidden for three days without food, in the top loft of a house, a part which was taken possession of by the soldiers, who were overheard uttering threats against the fugitive, aud thrusting their swords and bayonets through every aperture where they supposed he might be. Sometimes they were so near him that his remaining hidden was little less than miraculous. This minister afterwards wrote a short account of the siege of Rotherham, which he prefixed to a sermon. In it he declares his mental and bodily anguish to have been at this time extreme, so that he determined, rather than suffer starvation, he would leave his hiding-place, and throw himself upon the malice of his enemies. While he was thus meditating, the soldiers having given up all hope of finding him there, suddenly left the building for the night, locking the doors after them. Thus a prospect of escape was given, and the vicar contrived to avail him self of it, by letting himself down into a vault below the house through a hole in the floor, (made by the soldiers themselves in searching for him,) and thence fleeing to the town. Finding no safety, at the vicarage, he secreted himself in another vault, where he lay upon an earthen floor, in a damp dark place, for three weeks. This noted person was one of the principal preachers of the period, holding the views of the puritans. He was chaplain to Philip, earl of Pembroke, who bestowed upon him the living of Rotherham.

After the battle of Marston Moor, a committee of gentlemen of the county was appointed to assist Lord Fairfax in the management of public affairs. To this committee Mr. Shaw was made chaplain. He also formed one of an assembly of ministers, who sat in the chapter house of the cathedral to decide upon the cases of those ministers who were charged as being ignorant or scandalous, and to eject if necessary. Lord Fairfax gave him the living of Skerringham, near York, and he appears to have been a popular preacher throughout the county for the next seventeen years of his life. On the death of his first wife, December, 1657, he wrote a little volume, now very rare, called The Saint's Tombstone. A second marriage, contracted two years afterwards, connected him with some of the principal families of the county. He preached once at Whitehall before Richard Cromwell, during his short protectorate, and, strange to say, on the return of Charles the Second, he was named one of his majesty's chaplains. Hunter justly remarks that this was "hardly decent," and indeed, however strongly his pulpit eloquence might dispose all parties to conciliate his favour, yet it soon appeared that his style of preaching was not favourable to the change the court wished to produce, and he was ordered to confine himself to his own little church at Hull. But there also the feeling ran strongly against him, so that in June, 1662, he once more became an inhabitant of Rotherham, where, with Mr. Clayton, he continued to preach in the church until the Act of Uniformity compelled them to leave it. Mr. Shaw still continued to preach in private, and was once apprehended for so doing, but escaped without punishment. This individual, so noted in the stormy scenes of the civil war, died in peace, and was buried in the church at Rotherham, April, 1672. A Latin inscription, engraven on brass, covered his tomb, but was torn off, with many others in this church, and sold to one Andrews, a clock-naker at Sheffield. Among the nume rous quaint inscriptions once existing in this church, but

which have probably shared the same fate with that of Shaw, one of those noted by Dodsworth is not devoid of beauty. It is to the memory of Alice, wife of George West, who died May 4, 1617.

Thy vertues need nor epitaph nor tombe,' Those will not let thee dye though this be dombe; Whilst loving husband, for thy true desert, Living intombes the in his pensive hart. The death of the husband is recorded to have taken place March 5, 1619.

The importance of Rotherham was for a time greatly increased by the extensive iron-works established there by the family of the Walkers; but these works do not exist on the same large scale as formerly, though still exercising an important influence on the town. The cattle-market at Rotherham is also a principal means of its support.

There is a good bridge of five pointed arches at Rotherham, and on the centre pier is a heavy building, once a chapel, but now used as a gaoi. A new church was built in a populous part of the town in the year 1826-28. It consists of a nave, chancel, and a good tower at the west end, with a pierced battlement, and crocketed pinnacles at the angles. The interior is very neatly fitted up without galleries. It will accommodate four hundred and fifteen persons in free seats, and three hundred and seventy in pews. Beneath the church is a large apartment used as a school-room.

The village or hamlet of Masborough is only separated from Rotherham by the river, and exceeds that town in the number of its inhabitants. A large proportion find employment in the iron-works above mentioned, in which cannon of the largest calibre and other important articles have been produced. The iron bridges of Sunderland and Yarm were cast at the foundries of Masborough.

The iron-works were commenced in 1746, by Mr. Samuel Walker. This remarkable man was left an orphan at twelve years old, without any ample means of support for himself or for several brothers and sisters. By diligent and close application, the orphan family supplied to themselves the deficiencies in their education, and Samuel for some time kept a school, and was besides employed in surveying, in making dials, &c. We cannot follow his prosperous career, but the results are evident in the celebrity of his name, and of the works established by him. Dr. Miller, in his History of Doncaster, says, "If the love of social order, the most unremitting industry, the improvement and advancement of the human genius, and a truly Christian and exemplary conduct in life and manners, are objects to be pursued; few characters can or ought to stand higher in the estimation of mankind, than that of Mr. Samuel Walker."

THIS Book, this holy Book-on every line
Mark'd with the seal of high divinity,
On every leaf bedew'd with drops of love
Divine, and with the eternal heraldry
And signature of God Almighty stamp'd
From first to last-this ray of sacred light-
This lamp, from off the everlasting throne
Mercy took down; and in the night of time
Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow;
And evermore beseeching men, with tears
And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live.
And many to her voice gave ear, and read,
Believed, obey'd; and now, as the Amen,
True, faithful witness swore, with snowy robes
And branchy palms surround the fount of life,
And drink the streams of immortality,
For ever happy, and for ever young.

POLLOK's Course of Time.

OUR creature comforts are doubly sweet when we see them flowing from the fountain of God's goodness.

CURIOUS SITUATIONS OF BIRDS' NESTS. BIRDS in general choose situations for their nests, according to the safety and concealment they appear likely to afford; but instances frequently occur in which this rule is departed from, and the pair seem to commence operations without their usual prudence and sagacity. Is it that among birds, as among men, individuals are found who procrastinate their affairs to the latest moment, and then are driven to adopt hasty and injudicious measures; or is it that certain members of the feathered tribes are possessed of greater boldness, and confidence in man, than their fellows?

Many amusing instances of the curious situations of birds' nests might easily be furnished. Of the following, the first has been recently communicated to us by a gentleman who witnessed the fact; the remainder are chiefly extracted from the communications of the Rev. Mr. Bree, and others, to Loudon's Magazine of Natura History.

No one, perhaps, would ever think of looking for a bird's nest on a railroad; yet it is a fact that a waterwagtail built a nest under the hollow of a rail on a wellfrequented coal line. The spot chosen was at a crossing within six feet of which the engine and many loaded and empty wagons passed ten or twelve times a day. No doubt, the nest was commenced on some holiday, or on the occasion of a day's suspension, for on the line in question there is no Sunday traffic. The position of the nest will be seen by the accompanying figure.

SIDE LINE

NEST

Fig. 1

MAIN LINE

BIRD'S NEST ON A RAILWAY.

Near the same place is a small signal house, in the corner of which a tomtit built its nest for several years, notwithstanding that a man had occasion to go close to it, a dozen or twenty times a day. At the top is a large bell, twelve inches or more in diameter, and though this was rung at intervals, the sound of it did not seem to give any alarm to the bird.

A bet

For three years in succession, a curious situation was chosen by a blue titmouse for building its nest. well, or batwell, (which is a close basket of wicker-work used in brewing,) was hanging upon a peg against a cottage wall in Leamington, at a height of not more than six feet from the ground. In this betwell the bird built its nest, but unfortunately the fact was not discovered until after a brewing, when the old woman who owned the implement, on cleaning out her betwell, was astonished to find in it a bird's nest full of eggs. About the same time in the following year, having occasion to brew again, she recollected the circumstance, and examined the betwell previously to using it. There, again, she found a tomtit's nest, which she unceremoniously removed, and the brewing proceeded as usual. The third year, the bird renewed the attempt, and moved, perhaps, by its perseverance, the old woman allowed the nest to remain until the birds were hatched. "It was upon this occasion," says Mr. Bree, "that I was witness of the fact, just as the eggs were on the very point of being hatched. On my going to the house to see this curiosity, the betwell, with its contents, was immediately taken down from its peg, and placed in my hand for inspection, the bird all the while sitting within it, upon its nest, which it made no attempt to quit, but merely gave signs of anger by frequently bristling up its wings and feathers, and by hissing." This bird it appears had suffered itself to be carried in its wicker habitation about the village, (as Leamington then was,) and exhibited to the visitors.

Fig. 2

object of interest in the family to ascertain when and by. what means the young birds would emerge from under the pot, and make their début. How long they might have continued in confinement, if left to themselves, it is impossible to say, as they were eventually indebted to female curiosity for their emancipation. A lady lifted up the pot, to see whether the birds were there; when the whole brood, taking advantage of so favourable an opportunity, made their escape, darting forth in all directions like rays from a centre.

SINGULAR NESTING-PLACE OF A BLUE TITMOUSE

The natural timidity of birds is greatly lessened, and in some cases almost entirely removed, during incubation. The blue titmouse has on many occasions furnished proof of this. A remarkable instance occurred a few years ago at Newland, in Gloucestershire. A pair of blue titmice built their nest in the upper part of an old pump, fixing it to the pin on which the handle worked. It happened that during the time of building and laying the eggs, the pump had been out of use; but at the time when the female was sitting, it was again set going, and it was naturally expected that the motion of the pump-handle would drive her away. mined was she in her work, that she remained sitting for the appointed period, and the young birds were safely hatched, with no other misfortune than the loss of a part of the tail of the sitting bird, which was rubbed off by the friction of the pump-handle.

6

But so deter

The greater titmouse and the tomtit have been observed to choose a similar situation; indeed, it would appear that the groove in which the pump-handle works has some particular charm for these birds. Mr. Dovaston, of Westfalton, near Shrewsbury, gave, in 1832, an account of one of the greater titmice, who annually, or nearly so, built in his pump, "where," he says, "there is a nest of eggs at this moment. It is placed just under the top of the handle, where that lever bends, and is joined to the piston by a swivel. The only entrance the bird has is close over the handle, where the slit runs a little higher to allow it to rise above its fulcrum. This pump is used every hour, and is always accompanied with much noise and agitation; and, frequently, for negligent want of oil, will on its hinges grate like thunder, yet the bird sits on, quiet and unmolested. If the handle be lifted up, and she be peeped at longer than she like, she merely puffs, blows, and snorts at the curious intruder." A great quantity of moss was used in the construction of this nest, and to prevent any of it falling into the tube or bucket, the sagacious bird placed small sticks as props; a material which she never employs under ordinary circumstances. When the young are hatched, one or more of them will sometimes crawl to the edge of the nest, and fall over into the water, and so get ejected through the spout. Under these circumstances "it greatly pleases me," says Mr. Dovaston, "to see my servants replace them gently in the nest, with kind soothings or facetious chidings; showing that natural humanity is innate in very many of the labouring classes, till effete for lack of nurture, or corrupted by evil communications."

At Springfield House, Warwickshire, a pair of redstarts once built their nest under an inverted garden-pot, accidentally left on a gravel walk, entering their habitation from above at the drain-hole. The nest attracted much attention, and was watched daily, as it became an

NESTING-PLACE OF A PAIR OF REDSTARTS.

A similar instance was given in the Preston ChroIn a garden belonging to E. nicle some years ago. Clayton, Esq., Bamberbridge, near Preston, a flower-pot was turned down over a tender plant in the early part of the spring, and shortly afterwards was removed, and placed in the same inverted position on a vacant part of the flower bed, near the verge of a gravel walk. Two small birds of the tomtit species having found their way into the pot through the opening at the bottom, made it their habitation. A carpet was laid in an inclined direc tion over the whole area, of fine fibrous moss; on which was constructed a little nest, in contact with the internal

side of the pot, and lined with a mixture of hair and

feathers. When first discovered there were six eggs in it, which were soon augmented to ten, all of which were in due time hatched, and the birds on the wing.

Mr. Bree gives an account of the nesting-place chosen by a pair of robins. In the parish church of Hamptonin in-Arden, Warwickshire, these birds, for two years succession, affixed their nest to the church Bible, as it lay upon the reading-desk. The worthy vicar would on no account have the birds disturbed; and accordingly introduced into the church another Bible from which to read the lessons. As if encouraged by this tolerance to commit further audacious acts, the birds actually plumdered the rope-ends from the belfry to assist in the construction of their nest. The old women of the village, however, did not fully share the benevolent feelings of the vicar on the occasion; on the contrary, they took it into their heads that the circumstance of the robins building on the Bible was highly ominous, and boded no good to their minister. Now it so happened that the wor thy vicar fell ill, and died in the month of June of the second year of the birds building in the church; an event which confirmed their superstitions, and "will be remembered," says Mr. Bree," and handed down to posterity, for the benefit of any future vicar, should the robins again make a similar selection."

At Knowle Hall, Warwickshire, as we learn from the same authority, a wren built its nest in the skeleton body of a heron which had been nailed up against a wall. A still more remarkable choice was that of a tomtit, which built its nest some years ago in the skull of a murderer, who had been gibbeted at Drinsey Nook, in Lincolnshire.

The following is an instance of the friendly confidence of a pair of swallows. In the summer of 1830, a pair of swallows commenced their nest upon the crank of a bellwire, in the passage of a farm-house at Crux Easton; the one end of which opened into a little garden, the other