By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath. 269 
air-holes at the bottom. The whole was then well soaked with tar 
and paraffin, and the weather having been very hot and dry for most 
of the preceding month, the construction was about as inflamable a 
one as could well be imagined. To prevent the chance of an accident 
from the match of any mischievous boy, it was determined that the 
pyre should be watched during the whole of the previous night. 
For this volunteers were found without difficulty, but I was told by 
some of those who took the first watch that the reliefs were not 
quite so punctual in their arrival in the early hours of the morning 
as might have been desired! All, however, passed off well, and by 
9 o’clock, p.m., nearly the whole population of the village were afoot 
and wending their way up to the hill-top. A considerable con- 
tingent alse came out from Calne and Calstone, and some energetic 
_ people arrived from as faras Chippenham. These last brought with 
them a mounted telescope, which before the last rays of twilight 
_ had disappeared they directed towards the Worcestershire beacon, as 
- from here a flight of rockets was to accompany the lighting of the 
_ signal fire on that eminence. At what was intended to be exactly 
10 o’clock by Greenwich time, but what I myself believe to have 
_ been about two minutes before that hour, the signal was seen, and 
a light was immediately put to the bottom of our bonfire. A pretty 
_ strong breeze was blowing from the south-east, and owing to the 
skilful construction of the pyre it was ablaze from bottom to top 
within four and a half minutes from the time of the flame having 
been applied to it. What with the extreme dryness of the materials, 
-and the quantity of tar and paraffin with which they had been 
soaked, the fire burned with immense fury, and the effect, as one 
looked upon the masses of people grouped around, was such as 
would have been worthy of the pencil of a Rembrandt. Our fire, 
as I was subsequently informed by a neighbour who was driving 
home that evening from Devizes, was the brightest of all which he 
‘saw on his way. Next to it came that on Roundway Down, and 
here was also a very conspicuous one somewhere in the line between 
‘us and Bath. Including all the fires close to the hither side of the 
horizon which could be seen as mere spots of flame, and those just 
beyond it which only showed as a redness diffused over a small 
