pleasure in being assured that "Cæsar never cried that cry to Brutus; Cromwell never said 'Take away that bauble'; Wellington denied that he uttered, 'Up, Guards, and at them!' and the story of Cambronne declaring that 'The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders,' is now known to have been invented by Rougemont two days after the battle. . . . As for the Abbé Edgeworth's farewell to Louis XVI. on the guillotine, the cry of the crew of the sinking Vengeur, and the pretty story of young Barra in the war of La Vendée—these are all myths"—and more's the pity!
It was with great reluctance that we bade good-*bye to the quaint and ancient "Bell" at Stilton, and in spite of the unreliability of traditions generally, we could not help wondering whether there were any truth in the oft-repeated story that Dick Turpin had half the landlords between London and York "under articles" to him, and if the then landlord of this special inn were one of them.
MILES FROM ANYWHERE On the front of a lonely little hostel at Upware, in the wide Fenland of Cambridgeshire, is inscribed "Five Miles from Anywhere. No Hurry," and it struck us that these words might equally well be painted on the front, or beneath the sign, of the "Bell" at Stilton. There is a sense of remoteness about the decayed, medieval hostelry that suits well the legend: for Stilton is miles from anywhere, and it seems generations removed from the present prosaic age of progress, rush, and bustle. It is a spot in which the past appears the reality, and the present a dream!
