mainland. The pebbles grow gradually smaller
as you move westward. At Portland they are
as big as respectable potatoes. West of Bridport
they are small peas ; you think it is a sand-bank
till you put your hand down and feel. So regular
is this decrease, that they say smugglers,
running ashore on blind nights, tell their
whereabouts by picking up a handful of gravel.

The road to Lyme is very hilly. Even we,
who live in the hilliest part of Somersetshire,
groaned at the ups and downs; but what drivers
these people are: how glad we were to be afoot,
despite the fatigue. After our Zomerzet fashion
of locking the wheel at every gentle slope, to
see these Dorset men swing along down the
hills without either drag or skidpan, was a
"caution." Is it that the men are bolder or
the horses better trained? About the Peak, in
Derbyshire, they do the same thing; but in the
Saxon's Paradise, the pleasant country, the
"Somer-sœt," we always make as much fuss
about a hill as a London 'bus does in going
down by St. Sepulchre's church. Lyme has a
history of its own. It was great in Edward the
Third's reign, when the Cobb, the artificial
harbour, was first built; and the Feast of Cobb
Ale was founded. The " ale," in the good old
times, was the equivalent of a public dinner
now-a-days—generally for some good object;
and this " Cobb ale" flourished till the Puritans
"put it down," along with stage plays and other
unseemly sports. Lyme fitted out two good
ships for the Armada. It was defended by Blake
against Prince Maurice. The defence of Lyme
and that of Taunton are enough to immortalise
our great republican admiral, even without his
deeds of prowess by sea. As is too often the case,
the besieged sullied their cause by sad cruelty in
the day of triumph. After the royalists had gone
off, they sallied out to pillage, and finding a poor
old Irishwoman of the enemy, drove her through
the streets to the sea-side, knocked her on the
head, slashed and hewed her body with their
swords, and, having robbed her, cast her carcase
into the sea, where it lay till consumed. The
admiral's secretary says explicitly that the
women of the town slew and pulled her in pieces.
Whitelock writes much to the same effect.
Some tell of a hogshead stuck with nails having
been prepared, into which the old woman was
put, and so rolled into the sea. Such is civil
war. Another sad episode in the history of
Lyme is the attempt of the Duke of Monmouth
—the coward who skulked away from Sedgmoor
while the poor Somersetshire rustics, whom he
had deluded, charged and charged again, with
scythes and billhooks, Kirke's "lambs" and
Feversham's dragoons. Daniel Defoe was among
Monmouth's men. The brothers Hewling, of
Lyme, were among the most pitied victims of
the "Bloody Assize."

But, amidst all the interest attaching to the
quiet little " fashionable" watering place, not
tiie least is that which centres round the name
of Mary Anning. Her history shows what
humble people may do, if they have just purpose
and courage enough, towards promoting the
cause of science. The inscription under her
memorial window commemorates "her usefulness
in furthering the science of geology" (it was
not a science when she began to discover, and so
helped to make it one), " and also her benevolence
of heart and integrity of life." The carpenter's
daughter has won a name for herself, and has
deserved to win it.

WILI AND WILINIK.

WHEN M.Théophile Gautier's charming ballet
Giselle was in full vogue, we were all very
familiar with certain Sclavonic spirits called " Wilis,"
and were taught to believe that they were the
ghosts of young ladies crossed in love, who had
found in the tomb not an anodyne, but a stimulus
to the ill humour natural under the
circumstances, and displayed their hatred of the world
in general by tearing to pieces every mortal man
who came within their reach.

All this was very well in its day, but of late
years we have become acquainted with sundry
Servian legends, which make us suspect that in
the days when we saw Carlotta Grisi, a village
maiden in the first act, a " Wili" in the second
act of the ballet, we were tolerably dark on the
subject of Sclavonic superstition. It is possible
that some peculiarly cross-grained damsels may
be changed after death into peculiarly
mischievous ghosts; but even if this is the case
(which we gravely doubt), we are perfectly
certain that, as a general rule, the Wili does
not require pre-existence in a human form. We
have the authority of Jacob Grimm for the
assertion that she is to the Servians what the
"Woman of the Wood" is to the Germans.
She is so far like the Wili of the ballet, that
she dwells in rocky places, particularly affecting
the vicinity of water, wears a white
fluttering garment, always has her hair in
picturesque disorder, and is invariably handsome.
On the other hand, she is so far more amiable
than her theatrical descendants, that she never
does harm to any one without provocation,
though it should be observed that if she is
offended she can become malignant to the
highest degree, sometimes piercing her victim's
heart and getting rid of him at once, sometimes
inflicting on his hands and feet incurable wounds,
which cause him to die a lingering death. Indeed
if all tales be true, she has been heard to
sing:

   A child am I of earth,
   The mountain gave me birth;
   My swaddling-clothes were the leaves so green,
   And mother's milk the dew has been;
   My cradle was rocked by the kindly breeze,
   As it play'd among the forest trees.

Very kind-hearted Wilis have been known to
heal the wounds they have inflicted, and the
result of the operation is a singular being
called a " Wilinik." The Wilinik is an ordinary
mortal, who, having been wounded and healed
by a Wili, receives from  her a root, the
possession of which guards him against all deceit,