three months taken, in that castle, by the Turks, under Dragut the pirate: "In this manner the siege continued three months, with many a hot and desperate skirmish, during which time nothing more troubled the defendants than thirst in that hot and dry climate, and intemperate time of the year; for in the Castle, there was but one great cistern, which, though it yielded some good store of water, yet was it not enough to suffice so great a multitude, but was by measure still sparingly given out to the soldiers, so far as it would serve; no man having more allowed him than would suffice to keep him alive; the quantity whereof some augmented by distilling the sea-water, and mingling it with their allowance, and so well eased their thirst until such time as having spent all their wood, they wanted that poor help also."-KNOLLES's Hist. Turks, p. 531. fol. edit. Lond. 1687.

ROBERT EDWARD Hunter, M. D.

YOU

Mr. URBAN, Mid. Temple, Oct. 3. OUR Readers in general, I am persuaded, will be gratified by the ample and satisfactory Memoir, in p. 274, of that truly-eminent Prelate Bp Watson; and as the Rectory of Knaploft, which he held for many years, is somewhat remarkable, as containing a ruined Church, and a dilapidated Manor-house, I trust you will think the accompanying View will be no unsuitable companion to the Memoir. It is copied from a valuable Work already become very scarce; and I shall add, from the same source, a brief account both of the Church and Manor-house; premising that the Rectory is by no means a Sinecure, as the Parish comprises within its boundaries two considerable villages, Mowsley and Shearsby, in each of which there is a regu Jar Chapel for Divine service.

Of Knaptoft Church,, originally a spacious building, it may now be almost literally said,

Etiam periêre ruinæ.

"The inhabitants of Knaptoft," says the Historian of Leicestershire, "bought a new bell in 1625; which was afterwards transferred to Shearsby Chapel. The Church was standing in 1650; but was probably dilapidated during the ra vages of the Civil War. In 1792, there remained only the North corner of the steeple, as shewn in the Plate, and some part of the foundations. This curious

GENT. MAG. October, 1816.

fragment is situated on an eminence, about a mile South of its hamlet of

Shearsby, and about half a mile distant to the West of the turnpike-road leading from Welford to Leicester, somewhat more than ten miles, distant from the latter. On my last visit to the place, in 1805, I found that the materials of this venerable fabrick were rapidly diminishing, some part of them being annually carried away to mend the roads with; so that not more than half of the height of the tower as delineated in the Plare is standing; the chief part of the arched door-way there given being blocked up by the falling of the ruins, heaps of which are v sible, though partly swerded over, on the site of the old church. What remains of the tower appears to have been built with a good kind of facing stone; the inner part of the wall chiefly consisting of pebbles and rough stones, intermixed with a kind of mortar, composed of a small part of lime and a very coarse sand or fine gravel: this composition, or cement, appears of a very durable nature, as I saw a piece or two of about a yard square, which had fallen from the ruins in a mass exceedingly compact and firm. At the East end, the site of the chancel, an alder-tree (under which the marriage solemnities have occasionally been performed) was growing till the winter of 1804, when it was blown down; and there is still a yew-tree to the South, within the limits of the old church-yard."

"The Rector receives no more from Knaptoft than a modus of 107. and the church yard, which lets for 31. The tax for modus and churchyard, 17. 8s. Clear, from 1370 acres, 117. 12s. yearly. By the mallness of the' modus, it seems not improbable that the inclosure and omission of duty at Knaptoft Church happened about the year 1653, when the doctrines of, and revenues for, the Established Church were deemed unnecessary. There is no Register kept at Knaptoft; the requisite parochial entries being regularly made at Knaptoft.

"Mr. Burton says, There lyeth a monument of one John Turpin; whereon are graven the arms of Turpin, Gules, on a bend Argent three lions' heads erased Sable; and this inscription:

Hie jacet Johannes Turpin, filius Nicholai Turpin de Whitchester, in com. Northumbrie, qui obrt 1493. Et Elizabetha uxor ejus, fila Thomæ Kinnesman, arm. heres Painell, heres Roberti Gobion, militis, temp. Hen. VII.'

Among the ruins of the Church there still remain a few modern memo❤ rials of the dead."

"In

"In the old Hall-house, which had a circular tower, or bastion, of brick and stone, embattled, and was probably built by John Turpin in the reign of King Henry VII. and enlarged, or at least embellished, by Sir William Turpin, in the reign of either Elizabeth or James; I had the satisfaction, in July

1792, of observing some vestiges of its antient consequence. The whole mansion was then in a perishing state; and on a re-visit, in August 1805, the only

remnant was a very small part of the embattled bastion, about two or three yards high, at the corner of the North view; and no other vestige of the old mansion remains, except the single window of the principal room. But the View which accompanies this description will be a memorial of it when perhaps its site will scarcely be known. The present Tenant, who for several years inhabited the lower part of the house, shewn in the View, has very lately built a comfortable modern dwelling on the site of the old mansion-house."

Gog and Magog,
Ezekiel xxxviii. xxxix.

HE Retreat of the French Armies

ful consequences attending it, is not only one of the most extraordinary occurrences of the late destructive warfare, but it is an event which only once before had its parallel in the annals of the world. Never, I am persuaded, was an Army of such real power and strength before collected together, and only one ever was so completely destroyed. It was composed of soldiers from every Nation professing Christianity, except England and Sweden; and it was most amply furnished with every necessary that could be required to give success to it. But, contrary to all the appearances in its favour, this vast Armament failed in its object, After having marched more than two hundred miles into the Country invaded by it, fought several battles with success, and having even taken the chief city (an event which had never before disappointed their Imperial Commander as to the getting every other Nation into his power), it found itself obliged to return, and by the way which, from the earliest times, bas been considered the most disgraceful to Conquerors, the very way by which they had advanced;

and from this they were not permitted to wander either to the right hand or the left; for in the whole course of this retreat, they were so continually engaged with their enemies, the armies and inhabitants of the Nation which they had most unjustly iuvaded, that a very small part of them escaped with their lives. Now several circumstances in the account of

this expedition agree so particularly with what Ezekiel prophesied two thousand five hundred years ago, of certain enemies of the Church of God under the name of "Gog the Land of Magog," and which prophecy the Apostle St. John shews in the Book of the Revelation not to have come to pass in his time, but to be still future, and not likely to be fulfilled till near the end of the world, as it is one of the last visions of that wonderful Book; that it becomes a question deserving the most earnest attention of every good Christian to learn, whether this very extraordinary event may not be the accomplishment of this most antient prophecy.

And I have already made some preparation for this inquiry by having attempted to make, it appear, that the thousand years of Satan's con, finement in the Bottomless Pit have come to their end; for St. John expressly tells us, that Satan should "not go out to deceive the Nations and gather them to battle" under Gog and Magog, until these thousand years are expired. And if this objection is satisfactorily removed, I know of no other in opposition to what I have to offer on the subject of this Prophecy.

In considering the question as to "the Beast, the Antichrist, and the Man of Sin," all apparently descriptions of the same Character under different views, there seemed reason to conclude, that no particular Person, but some Country or Nation, was intended. And this conjecture is much strengthened by finding the same Personage under another name here, called "Gog, the Land of Magog," where no doubt can arise as to a Nation being meant. Gog, in this prophecy, is represented as a "chief Prince of Mesech and Tubal," who are mentioned, in the book of Genesis, as two sons of Japhet, by whose posterity Europe was peopled. The great agent then in these troubles

must

must be expected to be a European Power, and one of the principal of them, "a Chief Prince." And this description accords exactly with France, which has long been one of the most powerful of them, and a general Disturber of the World.

That Russia is the other Country intended in this Prophecy, there seems no room to doubt, since no other Country answers so well to the account here given of it. It is called the Land of unwalled Villages. "Thou shalt say, I will go up to the Land of unwalled Villages, I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates." Now no Country appears to have so few great Towns in it as Russia; and that' it abounds in Villages must be inferred from two accounts which I have met with respecting it. Buonaparte was advised by some of his officers to "revenge himself of the Russians by burning the twenty thousand Villages which lay about the City of Moscow;" and in his speech to the Legislative Body, on his return to Paris, he tells them that "a swarm of Tartars in a few weeks burned four thousand of their finest Villages, under pretext of retarding his march."

The Prophecy opens with an expression of God's displeasure against Gog: "Thus saith the Lord God, I am against thee, O Gog." Then follows the threatening, which we have seen so remarkably executed in the Russian war: "I will turn thee back, and put a hook in thy jaws." And the former words are again repeated afterwards, as if to fix them more deeply in the reader's mind, "I will turn thee back." And what a turning back have the present generations of mankind been witnesses of! When the French army had arrived at Moscow, it seemed to have accomplished all that its great Leader desired of it. As soon as he came in sight of that City, he exclaimed to his followers, "Behold the end of the campaign; the gold and the plenty of Moscow are yours." But he soon found himself miserably mistaken. After a residence in that City a few weeks, the decree of Heaven against him began to operate. He had now reached the utmost limit permitted to his tyrauny. Moscow, by the unexampled heroism of its inhabitants, had been rendered

useless to him. The plenty, and the gold, had for the most part vanished. He was therefore compelled to "turn back," to retrace his steps, and that through a country already rendered desolate by his approach. And never did any Army suffer such miseries. Their retreat was a continued battle for more than 200 miles in length, and occupied a space of time of full two months' duration. Murat was defeated by the Russians at Meydin, the first battle on their return from Moscow, Oct. 18th; and Buonaparte did not pass through Wilna, leaving his army, still pursued, and suffering dreadfully, before December 17.

"I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand." What bows and arrows were to the armies which existed in the Prophet's time, their artillery and cavalry were to the armies of France, their great strength and dependance. And the loss of the latter in both these particulars was beyond all example. Twelve hundred pieces of cannon, we are told, fell into the hands of the Russians, and not one single gun was carried by the fugitives across the barrierstream. Out of 100,000 horses, scarcely one survived. And to this must be added, the loss of 27,000 ammunition-waggons.

"Thou shalt fall upon the open field, for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God." And this was a natural consequence, from the nature of the Country which was the scene of this dreadful warfare. There were no fortified towns which the flying invaders could seize upon to aid them in their retreat. The whole was transacted in "the open field." It was, as I have before had occasion to observe," a continued battle."

"I will give thee to the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field, to be devoured." The flight of these wretched people was so hasty, and constant, that the burying of their dead was never thought of. Wherever each body fell, there it lay for many months, an addition to the great feast of the feathered fowl, and the beasts of the field, to which God commanded his Prophet, so many ages before, to invite them. "Assemble yourselves and come, gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice, that I do sacrifice for you.

Ye

hilow, already, which must imply that others still remained even then not disposed of.

Commentators in general have supposed, that this Expedition would be directed against the Jews, which could therefore only take place after their Restoration to their own Land, because, in their dispersed state, they can not be exposed to any danger but what must befall the Country in which they sojourn, and nothing can happen to them, considered as still a people, of this kind, in their present state. And Ezekiel seems to speak of this Restoration as an event that would follow, and be in part occasioned by, this destruction of Gog and his Multitude; for, after he has ended his Prophecy concerning Gog, he represents the Almighty as declaring, "Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole House of Israel." And in this Daniel agrees with him, who prophesies," At that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince, which standeth for the Children of thy People, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a Nation," (alluding, we may believe, to this destruction of Gog, and probably to all the troubles which preceded it,)" and at that time thy people shall be delivered." And with both these Writers St. John agrees in his Book of the Revelations, in which the Vision of the New Jerusalem, coming down from God, immediately follows the Vision of the loosing of Satan out of his prison, and his gathering Gog and Magog to battle.

In the discomfiture of this immense host, I feel no doubt that we have seen the Battle of Armageddon, for I find one interpretation of that word to be Excidium Exercitus, the cutting off, or destruction of an Army. In like manner it answers the description of that terrible Vintage in which "blood was to come out of the winepress even to the horses' bridles by the space of 1600 furlongs." For though I cannot prove that this eugagement lasted for the exact space of 200 miles, "I am certain it was about that space, and more rather than less. And here we may see a Lake of Fire and Brimstone prepared for the Beast and False Prophet: for this battle, compared with any battle that had gone before it, will be found

Great apprehensions have been lately excited in different Countries, that the End of the World is near at hand; but there can be no real ground for such fears. The most important of all the Prophecies remains yet to be fulfilled, and no time is set for the duration of whatever may prove to be the accomplishment of it. This is what St. John has foretold of the new Heavens and the new Earth, with the account of which his Book of the Revelation concludes. It is impossi ble to say what this new state of things will be, but it is described in a manner which can leave no doubt of its being the highest possible Improvement of Christ's Religion in the World. We may believe it will be the Time "when the Kingdoms of this World shall become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever." But this is a change that can not take place in a short space of time; and when it is come, no limit is set to the time it shall continue. There is much reason then to expect that the World is not near its End; but that it will ye remain for many years, even till it has answered all the purposes for which God was pleased to create it. "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels, which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." T. R.