Let us pluck another incident at hazard from the long roll of years. It is toward the close of 1415, and days grow chill and nights bitter. The war with France has ended with every circumstance of glory for England. Nine thousand Frenchmen lie dead at Agincourt, proving on their bodies the truth of the English arrow-flight and the prowess of the English men-at-arms. Harry V. has been received on his home-coming at Dover with the rapturous applause of an elated nation, and London has sealed that welcome. By detachments, the rank and file of the expedition slowly return home--some landing at Southampton, some at Dover, others here; each man laden with some article of loot; all wearied, hungry, and out of humour, because when they marched to our stronghold of Calais they were refused shelter and sustenance, the garrison of that town being afraid of running short of provisions. They look, doubtless, for an enthusiastic welcome on their home-coming; banners waving, hand-shaking, tumultuous cheers. What do they find? Why, this: that the edge has been taken off the fame of their exploits by those who returned first, and that the townsfolk of Sandwich are cold--cold as the November wind, and their reception as forbidding as the lowering sky. Even so did Jacob obtain the blessing of Isaac, and Esau was deprived of his birthright. No blessing, no feasting, no drinking for them, save for money down, and money they have none; so that they are fain to sell their booty as best they may, to buy bread and lodging. Callous Sandwich? Nay, but history has repeated itself quite recently on the same lines; glory is as brilliant a thing as a soap-bubble, and as evanescent. But one must be done with these mosaics from history. The town reached a great prosperity when Edward III. in 1377 removed the staple here, from Queenborough; but that was its high-water mark. The ebb did not at once begin, for still, in 1470, the annual customs revenue of the port amounted to £17,000 and ninety-five ships were registered as belonging to the place. There were then 1,500 sailors in the town. But in the time of Henry VIII. the sand, long threatening, had closed the harbour to ships of any considerable burthen, and decay set in. The port declined, but, owing to the large settlement of Hollander and Huguenot weavers in Sandwich, the place did not shrink to nothing, and perhaps it is due to them that it exists at all. [Illustration: ST. PETER'S, SANDWICH.]