Judas serves in Brazil for a Guy Faux to be carried about by the boys, and made the subject of an auto-da-fe. The Spanish sailors hang him at the yard arm. It is not long since a Spaniard lost his life at Portsmouth, during the performance of this ceremony, by jumping overboard after the figure.
The Armenians, who believe hell and limbo to be the same place, say that Judas, after having betrayed our Lord, resolved to hang himself, because he knew Christ was to go to limbo, and deliver all the souls which he found there, and therefore he thought to get there in time. But the Devil was cunninger than he, and knowing his intent, held him over limbo till the Lord had passed through, and then let him fall plum into hell. (Thevenot.)
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SIDE-SADDLE.
In a retired part of the county of Essex, at a short distance from the road, in a secluded and lovely spot, stands the picturesque residence called Horeham Hall. The mansion is in the parish of Thaxted, and is about two miles south-west of the church. It was once in the possession of the important family of the De Wauton's; it afterwards belonged to Sir John Cutts, and eventually it became the property of Sir W. Smijth, of Hill Hall, in whose family it has remained up to the present time.
Of the learned Sir Thomas Smijth, the secretary to King Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth, there is still preserved an ancient portrait on panel, which is let into a circle over the carved fire-place of one of the parlours. It is remarkable as being one of the very few portraits painted by Titian.
Another interesting relic is represented in the annexed cut. It is preserved in the Great Hall, and is the side-saddle of Queen Elizabeth; the pommel is of wrought metal, and has been gilt; the ornament upon it is in the then fashionable style of the Renaissance; the seat of velvet is now in a very ruinous condition; but it is carefully kept beneath a glass case, as a memento of the Queen's visits to this place. When princess, Elizabeth retired to Horeham as a place of refuge during the reign of her sister Mary; the loveliness of the situation and its distance from the metropolis rendered it a seclusion befitting the quietude of one anxious to remain unnoticed in troublous times. A room on the first floor in the square tower is shown as that in which Queen Elizabeth resided. She found the retirement of Horeham so agreeable, that often after she had succeeded to the throne she took a pleasure in re-visiting the place.
THE WINFARTHING OAK, IN NORFOLK.
A writer in the "Gardener's Magazine" gives the following account of this remarkable tree:—"Of its age I regret to be unable to give any correct data. It is said to have been called the 'Old Oak' at the time of William the Conqueror, but upon what authority I could never learn. Nevertheless, the thing is not impossible, if the speculations of certain writers on the age of trees be at all correct. Mr. South, in one of his letters to the Bath Society (vol. x.) calculates that an oak tree forty-seven feet in circumference cannot be less than fifteen hundred years old; and Mr. Marsham calculated the Bentley Oak, from its girting thirty-four feet, to be of the same age. Now, an inscription on a brass plate affixed to the Winfarthing Oak gives us the following as its dimensions:—'This oak, in circumference, at the extremities of the roots, is seventy feet; in the middle, forty feet, 1820.' Now, I see no reason, if the size of the rind is to be any criterion of age, why the Winfarthing should not, at least, equal the Bentley oak; and if so, it would be upwards of seven hundred years old at the Conquest; an age which might very well justify its then title of the 'Old Oak.' It is now a mere shell, a mighty ruin, bleached to a snowy white; but it is magnificent in its decay. The only mark of vitality it exhibits is on the south side, where a narrow strip of bark sends forth a few branches, which even now occasionally produce acorns. It is said to be very much altered of late; but I own I did not think so when I saw it about a month ago (May 1836); and my acquaintance with the veteran is of more than forty years' standing: an important portion of my life, but a mere span of its own."