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squire - a gentleman who, together with his family, not only owns the entire parish, but rules over it with the mild benignity of a constitutional sovereign, and truly reigns in the hearts of all his subjects. Mr. Dowdeswell, whose son now represents West Worcestershire, is in the enviable position I have hinted at, and may his descendants for many generations hang up their hats in the hall of Pull Court! The Dowdeswells are the successors of many distinguished owners. First, the Clares, Earls of Gloucester, the Despeneers, the Beauchamps, the Abbots of Tewkesbury, and other historic names. At the Conquest one of the two manors of Bushley was held of the Bishop, of his manor of Bredon, and the Pull manor belonged to the before-mentioned abbots. The latter, at the Dissolution, fell in succession to the Childe, Rouse, and Dowdeswell families. In the time of Elizabeth there were twenty-four families here, but the population is now 280, entirely rural in their pursuits. Acreage, 1,700. The living is a perpetual curacy, value £380; Rev. C. Allen, incumbent; patron and lord of the manor, Mr. Dowdeswell; church accommodation, upwards of 200, all free. And this brings us to the church, a pretty modern structure, erected and endowed in 1843, by the Rev. Dr. E. C. Dowdeswell, formerly incumbent of the parish, at an expenditure of £15,000. The edifice is in the Perpendicular style, has a nave, transepts, and a chancel, the latter having been enlarged under the direction of Mr. Scott, the celebrated architect, and other alterations effected by the present Mr. Dowdeswell at a further cost of £2,000. The principal relics of the old church to be seen in the present building are some brasses to Thomas Payne and Ursula his wife, who obtained the right of sepulture for the church. There are likewise stained glass windows and monuments to the Dowdeswells, one of which has an epitaph by the great Burke, on Mr. W. Dowdeswell; and it is said that Burke, being twitted with making this effusion so laudatory, replied that he would give any one a guinea who could prove one word of it wrong. Pull Court, built in the Elizabethan style, is enriched by