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enhanced by cool shadows of pearly-gray cast by the undulations of the land as well as by cottage, hedge, and tree. The Wolds were very fair to look

upon that perfect September day.

The sun-bright air flooded the landscape with its light; an air so clear and pure and sweet, so balmy yet so bracing, it made us exultant and our journey a joy! Sunshine and fresh air, the fresh air of the Wolds, the Downs, the moors, and the mountains, are as inspiriting as champagne, and the finest cure in the world for pessimism! Whenever I feel inclined that way I go a-driving across country and forget all about it! So we drove on in a delightful day-dream, rejoicing that fate had led us into the Lincolnshire highlands. The unassuming beauty of the Wolds gladdened our hearts, there is a soothing simplicity about it that grander scenes fail to convey; it is in no way wonderful, it is much better-it is satisfying! It too is general, it boasts no presiding peak, no special points of scenic importance that compel you to see them with an irritating pretentiousness: it is not even romantic, it is merely benign. It breathes the atmosphere of peace and homeliness, it does not cry aloud to be admired— and surely there is a virtue in repose as well as in assertiveness? And of the two, in this restless age, repose seems to me the more excellent!

What a wonder it is that the guide-book compilers have not discovered Lincolnshire-and what a blessing! As a novelist once said to me, "I grant you Lincolnshire has its charms, but there is nothing to catch hold of in it." Well, I am glad that such is

the case-one cannot always be in the admiring or heroic mood, there is surely a virtue in scenery that simply smiles at you and lulls you to rest. Here is a charming and healthful holiday ground untrodden, and I can only selfishly say that I trust it may long remain so. The beauty of the Wolds awaits its discoverer and interpreter. Tennyson's descriptions of Lincolnshire, unlike those of Scott, are too vague to be popular. He is never individual; you cannot even trace his Locksley Hall, nor his Moated Grange. In the Life of Lord Tennyson his son writes, "The localities of my father's subject-poems are wholly imaginary." Tennyson also remarked to Professor Knight, "There are some curious creatures who go about fishing for the people and searching for the places which they fancy must have given rise to my poems. They don't understand or believe that I have any imagination of my own to create the people or places." For this reason, however much the public may admire Tennyson's poetry, his poems have failed to make it enthusiastic over Lincolnshire, or to bring the tripper into the land. The tourist desires to inspect actual places and spots, he would like to see the real Locksley Hall, the Moated Grange, and so forthand they are not to be found, for they are poets' dreams!

The first hamlet we came to was curiously called Ashby Puerorum, as we afterwards discovered, on account of its having been assigned to the maintenance of the choir boys belonging to Lincoln Cathedral. The little old church stands lonely on

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an eminence from which we enjoyed a fine prospect over open wold and sheltered dale. Fortunately, owing doubtless to the want of means, the majority of the churches in the Wolds have not been restored but merely repaired - a distinction with a vast difference. Said a passer-by, at another hamlet farther on our way, "I'm afraid you'll find our church very old-fashioned inside, we're too poor to restore it properly." For once I can exclaim, "Oh blessed poverty!"

Much good ink has been spilt on the vexed question of restoration, so many sins have been committed in its name, that the word has become hateful to antiquaries and archæologists. There is a charm quite incommunicable in words about an ancient fane whose walls are beautified by the bloom of ages, and are hallowed by the oft-repeated prayers of bygone generations of worshippers— generations who have added to its history in stone as the years rolled by. Time has given every such edifice a character of its own, just as it gives each human face its special character. It has imparted an individuality to it; past associations are gathered there, and a past atmosphere seems to be enclosed within. Whilst without, the summer suns and winter storms and frosts of unremembered years have left their mark, all of which give an ancient church a pathetic look, and a poetic charm to be felt rather than defined,—a charm that comes alone of age and old associations, and that therefore no new building, however architecturally perfect but with its history to make, can possibly possess.

Too often, alas! the restorer, when let loose upon an ancient church, restores it so perfectly that he destroys nearly all past history (as well, were it possible, might an aged man's lined and thoughtful face be "restored" to the sweet, though meaningless, simplicity of a baby's). He scrapes the walls most carefully down and makes them outwardly look like new; he possibly restores the fabric backwards to the one period he inclines to, obliterating as far as may be all the storied work of intermediate generations, just in order, forsooth, to make the building all of one style. And upon the unhappy result the grieved antiquary gazes sadly, for its general aspect is no longer ancient, it looks like new, its interest is gone. Sir James Picton has laid down the dictum that the true principle of restoration is this: "Where an unsightly excrescence has been introduced, remove it; where a stone is decayed replace it; where the walls are covered with whitewash, clean them down. If tracery be broken, match it with new of similar character; but spare the antique surface. Do not touch the evidence which time has recorded of the days gone by." In the last sentence lies the very essence of true restoration. A well-known architect once told me that he was commissioned by a great man to design him a little country house wherein he might retire and rusticate away from the trammels of State. "When you design it," said the nobleman to the architect, "be sure you write the word cottage' large upon your paper." So I would suggest to the architect-restorer that whenever he is about to restore an ancient building to write the

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sentence "Do not touch the evidence which time has recorded of the days gone by" largely in his mind. Within the church of Ashby Puerorum we observed an interesting early sixteenth-century brass to Richard Littlebury, his wife, and quiverful of ten children. Also in the pavement under the communion table a fine incised marble slab to a priest, who is shown in Eucharistic vestments.

Then our road dipped down into a Devonshirelike lane, deep in shade, with high hedgerows on either side, and branching trees overhead, through the rustling foliage of which the softened sunshine shone in a subdued golden-green, delightfully grateful and refreshing to the eye. At the foot of the dip we crossed a little "babbling brook" on a little one-arched bridge,—a brook that flows past the foot of Somersby rectory garden, about half a mile away, and is locally known as "Tennyson's brook." One cannot but believe that this is the exception to the rule, and supplied the poet with the subject of his well-known poem. In this belief the stream had a special charm for us; of itself, though pleasant enough to look upon, it is insignificant, but the magic art of a great poet has made it as famous as many a mighty river, such is the power of the pen ; a power that promises to rule the world, and dictate even to dictators! We halted here a little while and watched the tiny clear-watered stream flowing on brightly blue, sparkling and rippling in the light, and here and there, beneath the grassy banks and bramble bushes, showing a lovely translucent tawny tint, and again a tremulous yellow where it glided