SOMERSETSHIRE AND SEDGEMOOR.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " BPBOTATOR.1 SIR,—I question the accuracy of your writer's statement when he says that Western villageis have no. traditions of the Sedgemoor carnage, My experience, the result of a recent and searching inquiry in Somerset, is, that the Battle of Sedgemoor, and the events of the Monmouth Rebellion, are far more clearly in the minds of the folk of intelligence below the average, than any other episode of Somersetahire history. At Bridgewater, Taunton, Wellington, and the vil- lages around, I can testify to the deepest interest being still taken in all that relates to the unhappy Duke. Macaulay heard from the mouths of the peasants themselves how, when. children, they played on Sedgemoor at the fight between King James and " Sing" Monmouth, and how that those playing. at Monmouth's men always raised the cry of " So ho !" I might give a great number of further instances of current traditions in the locality of the battle ; but I will ask, Sir, it you think it fair to compare the clods of Weston Zoyland in their recollection of Sedgemoor with the French playgoers in their reception of Thermidor, and from the comparison draw the conclusion that the English lack the historic imagination —I am, Sir, &c.,
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