totally supplanted the Gothic. He is represented lying on his back, in armour, and adorned with the insignia of the garter. Beside him is the effigies of his lady, in the habit of the times. This church also contains several curious brasses, and other sepulchral memorials of considerable antiquity. HASTINGS, the capital of this rape, to which it gives name, is situated in a valley that forms a beautiful amphitheatre, sloping to the sea on the south, and bounded on the east and west by lofty hills. It principally consists of two parallel streets, High-Street, and Fish-Street, running north and south, and separated by a small stream called the Bourne, which discharges itself into the sea. The town is divided into three parishes, which, in 1801, contained 542 houses, and 2952 inhabitants. With the subsequent accession to the population it must now be more than double the amount in 1730, when it was stated by Dr. Frewen at 1636 persons: a circumstance which affords no unfair standard for estimating the increased prosperity of the place since that period. It has two weekly markets on Wednesday and Saturday; and fairs on 26th July, and 23d and 24th October. Respecting the origin of Hastings nothing is known with certainty. According to the author of the Saxon Chronicle, it derived its name from a Danish pirate, who erected a small fortress here, as he was accustomed to do wherever he landed for plunder. In the reign of Athelstan, A. D. 924, it was a town of sufficient importance to have a mint. It held the first place among the original cinque-ports; and, with its dependent members, was bound, on receiving a legal summons or notice of forty days, to provide twenty-one ships properly equipped for war, each manned with twenty-one able seamen. In consequence of this obligation Hastings, in common with the other cinque-ports, possessed, and still enjoys, certain privileges and immunities, as related in a former part of this work,* Hastings For a general account of the Cinque-ports, see Beauties, Vol. VIIL p. 1010-1016. Hastings received charters from Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, and several subsequent monarchs down to James II. but it was that of his predecessor which gave the corporation its present form. It is composed of a mayor, jurats, and freemen, is exempted from toll, and is empowered to hold courts of judicature in capital cases. Hastings has, since 43 Edward II. returned two members to Parliament, elected by the mayor, jurats, and freemen, resident, and not receiving alms, who are about forty in number. On a lofty rocky cliff westward of the town are some small remains of a very ancient Castle. At what period, or by whom it was erected, we find no account in any of those writers who have treated of our topographical antiquities. From its situation, which must have been peculiarly favourable to the ancient mode of fortification, it is more than probable that a fortress existed here long before that which the Danish rovers, under Hastings their leader, are said to have constructed. This conjecture receives some support from a passage in the Chronicles of Dover monastery, printed in Leland's Collectanea, which says, "that when Arviragus threw off the Roman yoke, it is likely he fortified those places which were most convenient for their invasion, namely, Richborough, Walmore, Dover, and Hastings." Bishop Lyttelton, however, is inclined to think that here was originally a Roman fortress built as a defence against the invasion of the pirates. He farther observes, that though William the Conqueror, as we are told, ran up a fort at Hastings just before his engagement with Harold; this could not have been his work, as it would have required more time and labour than his circumstances could then have allowed; and concludes that William might probably have repaired the old Roman castle, and have placed a garrison in it. In the history of Canterbury, written by Eadmer, it appears that in the year 1090, almost all the bishops and nobles of England were assembled by royal authority at the castle of Hastings, to pay personal homage to King William II. before his departure for Normandy. Little more concerning this castle occurs in history, than that within it was a free royal chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, in which were a dean and several secular canons or prebendaries. It is supposed to have been founded by one of the earls of Eu while proprietor of the castle. Prynne, in his History of Papal Usurpations, records various circumstances relative to a dispute between King Edward III. and the Bishop of Chichester and Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the right claimed by them of visiting this chapel; which, however, in the reign of Henry VI. was placed under the jurisdiction of the former of those prelates. Grose has very unaccountably confounded this collegiate chapel with the priory of the Holy Trinity. At the dissolution, 26 Henry VIII. the deanery was valued at twenty pounds per annum, and the seven prebends at 411. 13s. 5d.; and the whole was granted by the same king, in his 38th year, to Sir Anthony Browne. What remains of the castle approaches nearest in shape to two sides of an oblique spherical triangle, having the points rounded off. The base, or south side next to the sea, completing the triangle, is formed by a perpendicular craggy cliff about 400 feet in length, upon which are no vestiges of a wall or other fortifi- * cation. The east side is made by a plain wall measuring near 300 feet, without tower or defence of any kind. The adjoining side, which faces the north-west, is about 400 feet long; consequently the area included is about an acre and one-fifth. The walls, no where entire, are about eight feet thick. The gateway, now demolished, was on the north side near the northernmost angle. Nor far from it, to the west, are the remains of a small tower, enclosing a circular flight of stairs; and, still farther westward, a sally-port and ruins of another tower. On the east side, at the distance of about 100 feet, ran a ditch 100 feet in breadth; but both the ditch, and the interval between it and the wall, seem to have narrowed by degrees as they approached the gate, and to have terminated under it. On the north-west side was another ditch of the like breadth, commencing at the cliff 7 |