a kind of holy brotherhood, whose duty was to purge the community of its
unruly members. Mounted, armed, and commanded by a leader, they proceeded
to arrest such notorious offenders as were deemed fit subjects of
exemplary justice; their operations were generally carried on in the night.
Squire Birch, who was personated by one of the party, established his
tribunal under a tree in the woods, and the culprit was brought before him,
tried, and generally convicted; he was then tied to a tree, lashed without
mercy, and ordered to leave the country within a given time, under pain of
a second visitation. It seldom happened that more than one or two were
thus punished; their confederates took the hint and fled, or were
admonished to quit the neighbourhood."

* * * * *


MONUMENTAL ALTERATION.


The following odd story is related respecting a monument in a chapel,
adjoining _Stene_, a fine family seat in the north:--The sculptor, in that
vile taste which seems to have originated in an unhappy design of making
every thing connected with the grave revolting to our feelings, had
ornamented this monument with "a very ghastly, grinning alabaster skull;"
and the bishop one day expressed a wish to his domestic chaplain, Dr. Grey,
that it had not been placed there. Grey, upon this, sent to Banbury for
the sculptor, and consulted with him whether it was not possible to
convert it into a soothing, instead of a painful object. After some
consideration, the artist declared that the only thing into which he could
possibly convert it was--a bunch of grapes! and accordingly, at this day,
a bunch of grapes may be seen upon the monument; for the chapel, which for