three squarish flat stones, of about four or five feet over either way,
supporting a fourth, and now called by the vulgar WAYLAND SMITH, from an idle
tradition about an invisible smith replacing lost horse-shoes there.« - GOUGH'S
Edition of Camden's Britannia, vol. i. p. 221.
The popular belief still retains memory of this wild legend, which, connected as
it is with the site of a Danish sepulchre, may have arisen from some legend
concerning the northern Duergar, who resided in the rocks, and were cunning
workers in steel and iron. It was believed that Wayland Smith's fee was
sixpence, and that, unlike other workmen, he was offended if more was offered.
Of late his offices have been again called to memory; but fiction has in this,
as in other cases, taken the liberty to pillage the stores of oral tradition.
This monument must be very ancient, for it has been kindly pointed out to me
that it is referred to in an ancient Saxon charter, as a landmark. The monument
has been of late cleared out, and made considerably more conspicuous.
 
11 Orvietan, or Venice treacle, as it was sometimes called, was understood to be
a sovereign remedy against poison; and the reader must be contented, for the
time he peruses these pages, to hold the same opinion which was once universally
received by the learned as well as the vulgar.
 
12 Naunton gives us numerous and curious particulars of the jealous struggle
which took place between Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, and the rising favourite
Leicester. The former, - when on his death-bed, predicted to his followers,
that, after his death, the gipsy (so he called Leicester, from his dark
complexion) would prove too many for them.
 
13 Among the attendants and adherents of Sussex, we have ventured to introduce
the celebrated Raleigh, in the dawn of his court favour.
In Aubrey's Correspondence there are some curious particulars of Sir Walter
Raleigh. »He was a tall, handsome, bold man; but his næve was that he was
damnably proud. Old Sir Robert Harley of Brampton Brian Castle, who knew him,
would say, it was a great question who was the proudest, Sir Walter, or Sir
Thomas Overbury; but the difference that was was judged in Sir Thomas's side. In
the great parlour at Downton, at Mr. Raleigh's, is a good piece, an original of
Sir Walter, in a white satin doublet, all embroidered with rich pearls, and a
mighty rich chain of