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chemist, has discovered a new species of utility, besides its nutritive powers, in the potatoe; and his discovery has been proved in England by stucco-plasterers. From the starch of potatoes, quite fresh, and washed but once, a fine size, by mixture with chalk, has been made, and in a variety of instances successfully used, particularly for ceilings. This species of size has no smell; while animal size, putrifying so readily, uniformly exhales a most disagree able and unwholesome odour; the size of potatoes, being very little subject to putrefaction, appears from experience to prove more durable in tenacity and whiteness, and, for white-washing should always be preferred to animal size, the decomposition of which always exhibits proof of infectious effluvia.

According to a very curious calculation, it has been ascertained, that an acre of land planted with potatoes will produce sufficient food for 16,875 healthy men for one meal; while an acre of wheat will not feed more than 2,745. The expence of cultivating the potatoes is estimated at 121. 1s. and that of the wheat at 111. 15s.

In the year 1806, there were grown on moss-land, at Castle Head, never before cultivated, carrots, which in one square yard (tried in several parts of the field) weighed 471b. Half an acre produced, on the average, 9 tons, 4 cwt. 2 qrs. 16lb. carrots, which, at 4s. per cwt. would amount to 361. 18s. 6d. The quantity of potatoes growing on four statute acres of the same field was 690 bushels. The rows were four feet asunder.

AGRICULTURE.-A great improvement has recently been made in the cultivation of the marsh and

moss lands within the townships of Overton, Middleton, Heaton, aud Heysham, near Lancaster, from the discovery of a bed of sea sand of an unknown depth, lying about three feet below the surface of the earth. The farmers dig pits in the form of marl-pits, and after taking off the soil and a stratum of blue clay, about two feet and a half in thickness, they arrive at the sand, which being spread upon the surface of the earth, mixes with and loosens the soil, before too stiff for agricultural purposes, and couverts it into the best arable land in the neighbourhood, being capable of bearing four or five successive crops of grain without manure.

M. Leroi, who has made many successful experiments in agriculture, advises persons by no means to procure grain for sowing from a soil north of their own land, but from a country south of it; because he says it is a general rule, that the product of seed improves in going from south to north, and that it decreases in virtue in going from north to south."

The Fly in Turnips.-Sir J. W. Jervis, of Ireland, has tried successfully to prevent this wide-spreading mischief, by sowing flour of sulphur with the seed. This, it is found, destroys the ova of the insect, by which the damage is occasioned.

To keep Cows from Corn.-Take a quart of train oil, as much turpentime, and bruised gunpowder; boil them together, and when hot, dip pieces of rags in the mixture, and fix them on sticks in the field. About four are sufficient for an acre of

corn.

Receipt for the management of Sheep, by Mr. Fair, late overseer at Pencaitland.-Immediately after the

sheep

sheep are shorn, soak the roots of the wool that remains all over with butter and brimstone; three or four days afterwards wash them with salt and water; the wool next season will not only be much finer and softer, but the quantity will be in greater abundance.

frequently grows spontaneously in the hedges HF many parts of this country; as whole fields of wheat late-been blighted by only one of those plants, their effects beginning first in a semi-circle from the plant, and spreading regularly over the whole field As many persons to 4 Caution to Farmers.--An in- whom I have mentioned this circumgenious surveyor has given the fol- stance have been very incredulous,-I lowing intimation, which appears to can assure them that I have ofteri merit the serious attention of every been an eye-witness of the fact; and one engaged in agriculture: "I beg for their further information of it, leave to recommend every farmer refer them to almost every respectto be guarded against that well-able farmer in the counties of Suffolk known shrub the Barberry, which and Berks.”

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874

ANTIQUITIES.

A History of Somerset-House, from the Commencement of its Erection, in 1549. By Samuel Pegge, Esq. F.S. A.

[From "Curialia." Part IV.]

dispersed in the works of writers of different complexious and parties, that no dispassionate account has been given of it; nor has any been compressed into an uninterrupted narrative. In this attempt I foresee

MR. PEGGE introduces his that I shall be obliged to combat

subject with the following letter to the President of the Antiquarian Society:

"Dear Sir,

"After the interest you have taken in Old London, including Westminster, I hope I may be excused in addressing to you an account of a building now no more; but which embraces a larger portion of history than ever fell to the lot of a private edifice, when taken with all its concomitant circumstances I mean Somerset-House; which, having been founded in the middle of the sixteenth century, and, begun to be demolished at the latter end of the eighteenth, is now become within the pale of antiquity. That alone, however, is not what places it within my cognizance; for in a very few years after its foundation it became the property of the crown, and has ever since carried with it such royal appendages as may, with no impropriety, bring it under the general title of this work. All that has been hitherto said of it is so very much

some received opinions; but such must always be the case where historians have implicitly copied each other; for, when traditions have passed muster for three centuries, their verity is seldom afterwards brought to the test."

Having given a history of the life of the great duke of Somerset, who was beheaded January 22, 1552-3, "on a charge which amounted to no more than a doubtful act of felony, and which the king's ministers would not allow him to pardon," Mr. Pegge well observes -

"This fatal conclusion of the duke's life, immaterial as it may ap pear to us at this distance of time, had an excellent and invaluable effect on our criminal laws, from which every unfortunate culprit, at this day, receives a very essential benefit. The evidence against the duke consisted merely of written depositions, unsupported by oral testimony, and was withal so weak, that a law was made, in consequence of it, which enacted that witnesses, in all cases,

should

should hereafter be brought face to face with the prisoner, and examined in his presence."

An inquiry here follows, as to the buildings that were demolished, to make room for the intended edifice. "Those which occupied the space on which Somerset House originally stood, were, principally, 1. an inn of chancery, promiscuously called Strand Inn and Chester's Inn*; 2. the episcopal house of the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, then also known by the name of the Bishop of Chester's inn; 3. the episcopal house of the bishop of Landafft; 4. the episcopal house of the bishop of Worcester; 5. the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, and its cemetry; 6. the Strand bridge."

Mr. Pegge gives a particular account of these places respectively; and then proceeds

"What is now a street, called The Strand, was at that time no more than a highway, leading from London westward to the village of Charing, where stood queen Eleanor's cross, and a few houses; from whence, in a right line, you was led on, through open fields, to St. James's house, lately an hospital, but then a royal house. This high-way, being the property of the crown, as such was easily modified to accommodate the king's uncle, and consequently there was little difficulty or hardship upon the subject in the change it underwent by levelling;

and on the whole, perhaps, the road was rendered better by the change. By Stowe's account there was not any current of water under this bridge; "for," says he, in the autograph remaining in the British Museum, "Then had ye, in the high street, a fair bridge, called Strandbridge, and under it a lane, which went down to the Strand, so called from being a bauque of the river of Thames." But here Stowe speaks of it as if it were in his own time, and not with reference to the reign of king Edward VI. or to any prior period. Mr. Maitland, on the other hand, tells us, that there was a rivulet under the bridge; "for," says he, "a little to the cast of the present Catherine Street, and in the High Street, was a handsome bridge, denominated, from its situation, Strand Bridge, through which ran a small water-course from the fields, which, gliding along a lane below, had its influx to the Thames near SomersetStairs."-In this account I should incline to believe Mr. Maitland; because lanes do not often become rivers, though the beds of rivers, by a diversion of their courses, may come lanes."

be

Our author now enters upon the regular history of Somerset House, as follows:

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"Maitland confounds Cheser Inn and Strand Inn; "which, from its neighbourhood to the bishop of Chester's house and the Strand, was indifferently denominated Chester's, or Strand Inn," p. 739.

"Almost contiguous to this inn, on the west, was the city mansion of the bishop of Landaff." Maitland, History of London, edit. 1759, p. 739.

"The new church is in the patronage of the bishop of Worcester, the west end being opposite to the place where the old church stood.

"Bibl. Hail, No. 538."

|| Ubi supra.

Somerset's attainder, yet had king Edward given it to his sister the princess Elizabeth; and it was during this reign. her independent, residence when she came to visit the court Thus, on the queen's accession, Strype says, that "the lady Elizabeth came out of the country to be ready to congratulate her sister, and now her sovereign; riding throught London, along Fleet-street, and so to the duke of Somerset's Place, which now belonged to her." In the pro gresses made by Elizabeth while prin cess, I find it styled "Her Place called Somerset Place, beyond Strand Bridget."

Queen Elizabeth, on her way to Westminster, at her accession to the crown, resided nearly three weeks at Somerset House,

Queen Elizabeth having two palaces more compinochious for her establishment as a sovereign (Whiteball and St. James's), Somerset House still remained a secondary mansion for occasional purposes, and a moment ary residence for the queen herself. It operated very well for the reception of the great personages of a certain rank and description; and the queen was not wanting in accommodating some of her own subjects, who were nearly allied to the royal family, with the use of it.”

"In the second year of this reign we find, that when the duke of Holstein, nephew to Frederick II. king of Denmark, came hither to treat of a marriage between the queen and

* "See the Progresses.” Memorials II. p. 14."

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his uncle, he was lodged in Somerset Places. Again, in the year 1572, Francis duke of Montmorency, marshal of France, visited England with the similar purpose of negociating a marriage between the queen and the duke of Alençon, the youngest brother of Charles the IXth, king of France. The marshal continued here nearly a month, where he was entertained at the queen's expence, had an escort of thirty of the queen's yeomen of the guard to attend him, and was lodged in Somerset Place¶, The count palatine of the Rhine, an ally of the queen, came over hither upon political business, and was honourably received. His stay was from the 22d of January to the 14th of February; when, excepting a few days on his arrival, in which he was entertained by Sir Thomas Gresham, in Bishopsgate-street, he was lodged in Somerset House**. Again: the queen herself is found here for a inment in person, in the year 1588, when she went in state to St. Paul's church, to return tùanks for the de feat of the Spanish Armada. If the procession did not begin from heace, it at least terminated here; for y authority says, that the queen "returned in the same order by torchlight to Somerset House††.”

In Norden's MS. copy of his "Speculum Britanice," is the following passage, omitted in the copy of that valuable work printed in 1599: qbled, une an “Somerset Howse, scytuate in the Strond,

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"The term beyond has reference to Hatfield; for the house was a little westward of the bridge, as appears by a Plan of London, about 1558, in the Progresses," "Strype's Annals, vol. I. p. 195.”

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"Sully's Memoirs."

"Progresses, from the Lambeth MSS."

Ibid. from Stowe's Chronicle."

"Ibid. in the Preface, p. xxiii.”

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