Perhaps a farther inference may be fairly drawn, that though the deceased had stood in this uncomfortable relation to his heirs at law, he was too just a man to set aside the course of succession which the law appointed. They who think that in the testamentary disposal of their property they have a right to do whatever it is legally in their power to do, may find themselves woefully mistaken when they come to render their account. Nothing but the weightiest moral considerations can justify any one in depriving another of that which the law of the land would otherwise in its due course have assigned him. But rights of descent cease to be held sacred in public opinion in proportion as men consider themselves exempt from all duty to their forefathers; and that is in proportion as principles become sophisticated, and society more and more corrupt. St. George's is the only church in Doncaster, a town which in the year 1800, contained 1246 houses, 5697 souls: twenty years afterwards the houses had increased to 1729, and the inhabitants to 8544. The state having made no other provision for the religious instruction of the townspeople than one church, one vicar, and one curate—if the vicar from other revenues than those of his vicarage can afford to keep one—the far greater part of the inhabitants are left to be absenters by necessity, or dissenters by choice. It was the boast of the corporation in an address to Charles II. that they had not “one factious seditious person” in their town, “being all true sons of the Church of England and loyal subjects;” and that “in the height of all the late troubles and confusion (that is during the civil wars and the commonwealth,—which might more truly have been called the common-woe) they never had any conventicle amongst them, the nurseries and seed plots of sedition and rebellion.”—There are conventicles there now of every denomination. And this has been occasioned by the great sin of omission in the Government, and the great sin of commission in that Prelate who appropriated the property of the church to his own family. Hollis Pigot was Vicar when Daniel Dove began to reside in Doncaster; and Mr. Fawkes was his Curate. CHAPTER XLIII. P. I. ANTIQUITIES OF DONCASTER. THE DEÆ MATRES. SAXON FONT. THE CASTLE. THE HELL CROSS. _Vieux monuments,— Las, peu à peu cendre vous devenez, Fable du peuple et publiques rapines! Et bien qu'au Temps pour un temps facent guerre Les bastimens, si est ce que le Temps Oeuvres et noms finablement atterre._ JOACHIM DU BELLAY. The oldest monument in Doncaster is a Roman altar, which was discovered in the year 1781, in digging a cellar six feet deep, in St. Sepulchre's gate. An antiquary of Ferrybridge congratulated the corporation “on the great honor resulting therefrom.”