is embellished with thirteen pinnacles, which rise above an arched canopy, the covering of a statue. One face of the cross bears this legend: "This Market Cross was erected by Henry Viscount Sidmouth, as a memorial of his grateful attachment to the Borough of Devizes, of which he has been Recorder thirty years, and of which he was six times unanimously chosen a representative in Parliament. Anno Domini 1814." Upon the other face appears a record more significant,--being indicative equally of credulity and a frugal mind, and being freighted with tragic import unmatched since the Bible narrative of Ananias and Sapphira. It reads thus: "The Mayor and Corporation of Devizes avail themselves of the stability of this building to transmit to future times the record of an awful event which occurred in this market-place in the year 1753, hoping that such a record may serve as a salutary warning against the danger of impiously invoking the Divine vengeance, or of calling on the holy name of God to conceal the devices of falsehood and fraud. "On Thursday, the 25th January 1753, Ruth Pierce, of Potterne, in this county, agreed, with three other women, to buy a sack of wheat in the market, each paying her due proportion toward the same. "One of these women, in collecting the several quotas of money, discovered a deficiency, and demanded of Ruth Pierce the sum which was wanted to make good the amount. "Ruth Pierce protested that she had paid her share, and said, 'She wished she might drop down dead if she had not.' "She rashly repeated this awful wish, when, to the consternation of the surrounding multitude, she instantly fell down and expired, having the money concealed in her hand." That is not the only grim incident in the history of the Market-place of Devizes; for in 1533 a poor tailor, named John Bent, of the neighbouring village of Urchfont was burnt at the stake, in that square, for his avowed disbelief of the doctrine of transubstantiation. An important and deeply interesting institution of Devizes is the Wilts County Museum, in Long street, devoted to the natural history and the archæology of Wiltshire. The library contains a priceless collection of Wiltshire books, and the museum is rich in geological specimens,--richer even than the excellent museum of Salisbury; for, in addition to other treasures, it includes the famous Stourhead collection, made by Sir Richard Colt Hoare,--being relics from the ancient British and Saxon barrows on the Wiltshire downs. The Stourhead collection is described by Sir Richard, in his book on "Antient Wilts." Its cinerary and culinary urns are fine and numerous. The Wilts County Museum is fortunate in its curator, B. Howard Cunnington, Esq., of Rowde--an indefatigable student, devoted to Wiltshire, and a thorough antiquarian. [Illustration: _St. John's Church--Devizes._]