he Society of Antiquaries, July 2nd, 1789,
called attention to the curious popular tale preserved in the
village of Hadstock, Essex, that the door of the church had been
covered with the skin of a Danish pirate, who had plundered the
church. At Worcester, likewise, it was asserted that the north
doors of the cathedral had been covered with the skin of a person
who had sacrilegiously robbed the high altar. The date of these
doors appears to be the latter part of the fourteenth century, the
north porch having been built about 1385. Dart, in his "History of
the Abbey Church of St. Peter's, Westminster," 1723 (vol. i., book
ii., p. 64), relates a like tradition then preserved in reference to
a door, one of three which closed off a chamber from the south
transept--namely, a certain building once known as the Chapel of
Henry VIII., and used as a "Revestry." This chamber, he states, "is
inclosed with three doors, the inner cancellated, the middle, which
is very thick, lined with skins like parchment, and driven full of
nails. These skins, they by tradition tell us, were some skins of
the Danes, tann'd and given here as a memorial of our delivery from
them." Portions of this supposed human skin were examined under the
microscope by the late Mr. John Quekett of the Hunterian Museum, who
ascertained, beyond question, that in each of the cases the skin was
human. From a communication by the late Mr. Albert Way, F.S.A., to
the late Lord Braybrooke.]

and also had much mirth at a tomb, on which was "Come sweet Jesu," and
I read "Come sweet Mall," &c., at which Captain Pett and I had good
laughter. So to the Salutacion tavern, where Mr. Alcock and many of the
town came and entertained us with wine and oysters and other things,
and hither come Sir John Minnes to us, who is come to-day to see "the
Henery," in which he intends to ride as Vice-Admiral in the narrow seas
all this summer. Here much mirth, but I was a little troubled to stay
too long, because of going to Hempson's, which afterwards we did, and
found it in all things a most pretty house, and rarely furnished, only
it had a most ill access on all sides to it, which is a greatest fault
that I think can be in a house. Here we had, for my sake, two fiddles,
the one a base viall, on which he that played, played well some lyra
lessons, but both together made the wors