"We sack, we ransack to the utmost sands Of native kingdoms, and of foreign lands: _We travel sea and soil; we pry, we prowl,_ _We progress, and we prog from pole to pole_."
Verily, old Francis must have had a prophetic peep at the effects of _free trade_, and the growing greatness of Great Britain, in the gathering of the Nations under a huge GLASS CASE in Hyde Park, in the present year 1851!
_Vineyards in England_ (Vol. ii., p. 392.).--The Lincoln "Vine Closes" may as well be added to the rest. They were given to the church here by Henry I. See the charter, entitled _Carta Hen. I. de Vinea sua Linc._, in Dugdale (Caley's) vol. vi. p. 1272. Their site is a rather steep slope, facing the south, and immediately east of the city. The southern aspect of our hill was celebrated long ago by some poet, as quoted by H. Huntingdon:
"Urbs in colle sita est, et collis vergit ad austrum".
N.B. One of the Abbey fields at Bullington, a few miles east of Lincoln, is known as the Hopyard. The plant has never been cultivated in these parts within memory, or the range of the faintest tradition, but the character of the soil is clayey, and perhaps not unsuitable. Were hopyards often attached to monasteries? The house at Bullington was of the order of Sempringham.
_Countess of Desmond_ (Vol. iii., p. 250.).--If your correspondents on this subject should be wandering to the south-east of London, they may be interested in knowing that there are two very striking portraits of this lady in Kent, one at Knowle, near Seven Oaks; the other, which is the more remarkable picture of the two, at Bedgebury, near Cranbrook, the seat of Viscount Beresford.
_St. John's Bridge Fair_ (Vol. iii., pp. 88. 287.).--I cannot agree with the conjecture that this was Peterborough Bridge Fair. On the confines of Gloucestershire and Berkshire, at the distance of about 77 miles from London, near Lechlade, and on the road to Farringdon, is a St. John's Bridge, near which was a priory or hospital. It is at this place that the Thames first becomes navigable. (Leland's _Itinerary_, vol. ii. fo. 21, 22, 23; vol. iv. fo. 48; Bowles's _Post Chaise Companion_, 1782, pl. 28; Lysons' _Berkshire_, vol. i. p. 193., and map of county prefixed; _Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica_, vol. i. p. 320.; _Parliamentary Gazetteer_, art. "Lechlade.") Whether there is or ever was a fair at this place is more than I can state; but perhaps some of your correspondents dwelling in those parts can give information on this point.