68 AGRICULTUBE. 



and that these apparitions were formidable we are assured 

 by a description of them as they appeared to Guthlach in 

 his cell " black troops of unclean spirits which crept in 

 under the door, as also at chinks and holes, and coming in 

 both out of the sky and from the earth, filled the air, as it 

 were, with dark clouds. In their looks they were cruel, 

 and of form terrible, having great heads, long necks, lean 

 faces, pale countenances, grisly beards, rough ears, wrinkled 

 foreheads, fierce eyes, foul mouths, teeth like horses', spit- 

 ting fire out of their throats, crooked jaws, broad lips, loud 

 voices, burnt hair, great cheeks, high breasts, rugged 

 thighs, bunched knees, bended legs, swollen ankles, pre- 

 posterous feet, open mouths, and hoarse cries," a parti- 

 cularity of description which might suffice for a Russian 

 passport, or for the Hue and Cry. 



We are next favoured with the authentic anecdote and 

 original rhymes about King Cnut and the sweet singing of 

 the " Monckes in Ely." Then, many columns are occu- 

 pied by the assault of William the Conqueror on the Isle 

 of Ely his futile attempts to carry the position by means 

 of a witch the prodigious feats of Hereward the Saxon 

 and the final conquest, after a seven years' siege, in conse- 

 quence of the treachery of an abbot. The narrative of the 

 Fenland insurrection in the time of the Commonwealth, 

 which was headed by the notorious Lieutenant-Colonel 

 John Lilburne, " a person," says Dugdale, " of a most 

 turbulent spirit, and who since died a quaker," though 

 abundantly garrulous, is somewhat more in the tone of 

 sober history. Cornelius Vermuden, a native of the Low 

 Countries, contracted with Charles I. to recover a large 

 extent of drowned fen, over which certain royal rights ex- 

 tended, on conditions by which all existing rights appear 

 to have been fairly compensated. Under this contract 

 Vermuden and his participants recovered 74,000 acres of 

 previously worthless fen so effectually, that the average 

 crops of wheat on it were three and a half quarters -per 

 acre, oats eight quarters, " and for six years together seven 



