the remarkable circumftance of its having received the ashes of the famous reformer John Wickliff, who died Rector of Lutterworth, in 1384. He was ftruck with a paralyfis while preaching at his parish church, and as his parishioners were conveying him from thence in a chair to his Rectory-house, expired in his way thither.

THE chair yet exifts, it is made of oak,

and

and, for the gratification of the curious, a sketch of it is here annexed.

THE body of the pulpit likewife remains,

but the founding-board which had been beaten down many years ago, when the roof of the church fell in, was removed

into,

into an obfcure part of that edifice, and, although but little damaged, has been fuffered to lie unnoticed, and a new one has been injudiciously erected in its ftead. Of that fragment, I have likewise added a representation, in which I have aimed at reftoring it to the fituation, in which it stood as a powerful inftrument in aiding the fervid devotion of this primitive and venerable paftor. I cannot dismiss this fubject, interesting as it is made by the relation it bears to the lives and fufferings of those undaunted and difinterested fervants of their God, to whom pofterity is indebted for the purity of the Christian faith, without adverting to the peculiar rancour of the Romish Zealots of that day, who proverbially vindictive as they may have been thought, seem on this occafion to have been inflamed with a more than ordinary and antichristian spirit, and, to have carried their refentments beyond the

grave.

For in

1415, thirty-one years after he had lain quietly interred, they dug up his body, burnt the bones, and threw the afhes into the river, at the bridge, in the lower part of the town. This acrimonious zeal of their leader, Dr. Fox, then Bishop of Lincoln, appears to have far exceeded the orders of the pious fathers his employers, in the council of Conftance, who only envying his repofe in confecrated ground, directed no more than that his remains

"Procul ab ecclefiæ fepulturâ jactari."

On the fouth fide of the Avon, nearly oppofite to the village of Brownfover, is the town of Rugby, which stands on an easy afcent about half a mile from the river. This town is written in Domesday-book, Rocheberie, and in later times Rokeby. In the Dictionnaire Celtique, the name is said to be of Celtic origin, and derived from Ruc a river,

a river, and Bye a town, which agrees with its fituation.

DUGDALE fays, "here was a little castle at Rokeby, which stood about a furlong from the church northwards; as it is to be feen by the banks of earth, and part of the moat yet remaining." He is of opinion, that it was built in the time of King Stephen, and demolished by command of King Henry II. The fite, whereon the castle ftood, is ftrongly marked by the form and elevation of the earth and the foffe yet remaining that furround it.

THESE veftiges of antiquity terminate the enclosures adjoining the house of the Rev. Dr. Clare, by whose attention they are preserved in fuch a verdant and cultivated state, as to render them no small addition to his profpect. The tower of the church is faid to have been built with part

of