axe abundant opportunities of doing so. Hever Castle is close by, and there we see reflected some symptoms of improvement in social habits,—there are some indications of confidence in the greater security for life and property, and an increased appreciation of those refinements which, indeed, compared with the elegances and luxuries of modern days, must he considered as extremely rude and barbarous, but which were obvious improvements upon the previous ages. The sterner features of defence, though not altogether gone, are greatly modified ; the proud keep has disappeared, and there are no dungeons to tell of cruelty and suffering. A century or two had exerted some influence upon the savage character of our countrymen. But the moat surrounding the castle, the strong gate, and the old portcullis, the loopholes in the walls and the towers which flank each angle of the front, sufficiently show that at the time when it was built, and indeed long afterwards, its inmates could not dwell there in perfect peace and safety, in reliance on the law to guard them, but that they were forced to trust very much to the strong arm and the stronghold. The moat was the chief defence of many a humbler home than this; they are to be found surrounding houses throughout the whole district, particularly the parsonages, both in Kent and Sussex; and at Horsted Keynes, a beautiful village scarcely beyond the limits of our range, and in many of its features very like Cowden, at a place called Broadhurst, in the house where Archbishop Leighton passed the later years of his life, there is a heavy shield of wood suspended over the staircase, which when let down at night and strongly barred precluded all access to the sleeping-rooms.¹ 
   Penshurst too is near at hand, showing, in the absence
   ¹ At a distance of about four miles from the station at Hayward's Heath, on the London and Brighton Railway, lies this beautiful sequestered village, and in the churchyard there rest the remains of Archbishop (continued of page 119)