neighbourhood, that she received the messenger who communicated the discovery of her guilt. The announcement of the fatal intelligence which Sir Thomas Gorges conveyed, suddenly extinguished the fond expectations which had been so long cherished. She instantly directed her horse’s head homewards; but was not permitted to return thither. She was conveyed to Fotheringay--the last sad scene of her eventful history. [Illustration: From a sketch by A. E. Everitt. Day & Son, Lithʳˢ. to The Queen. THE OAK HOUSE, WEST BROMWICH, STAFFORDSHIRE.] THE OAK HOUSE, WEST BROMWICH, STAFFORDSHIRE. West Bromwich--a village distant a few miles from busy Birmingham--supplies a curious and interesting example of the half-timbered houses, of which many still remain in the Midland Counties of England. It is commonly known as “The Oak House,” is situated on the borders of the great Staffordshire coal-bed, and is now surrounded by collieries,--creating a dense and murky atmosphere, which almost hides the ancient mansion from sight. Yet the site was well chosen; for at the period of its erection it commanded extensive views of a picturesque and fertile country, now absolutely covered with iron-works and other results of the traffic peculiar to the district. Far as the eye can reach, it encounters only the smoke and steam which indicate busy labour; the few trees that endure to grace the landscape are stunted and sickly, and even the fields seem never to have borne a coating of natural green. Nevertheless, although the eye may turn away unrefreshed from a scene which exhibits Nature expelled by Commerce, the mind will be cheered to know that in these unsightly mountain-heaps, “dug from the bowels of the harmless earth,” originates the true supremacy of England. The coal-fields of Staffordshire and Warwickshire render available the gigantic discoveries which have made the present century already famous. Without their aid, science and manufacture could have achieved comparatively little; it is by such auxiliaries only we can set at work the forge and the foundry, where “Incessant, day and night, each crater roars, Like the volcano on Sicilian shores: Their fiery wombs each molten mass combine; Thence, lava-like, the boiling torrents shine; Down the trenched sand the liquid metal holds, Shoots showers of stars, and fills the hollow moulds.” The “Poet of Science” seems to have had in view the locality to which we refer; at least, to no part of England are his lines more strictly applicable.