manifest, once formed a notable tombstone, for it is finely incised with a figure and inscription, in great part now covered over by the font! This fine slab, originally oblong in shape, has at some time been deliberately broken in half in order to make it into a square, and further than this, the four corners of the square thus constructed have their ends chiselled away so as to form an octagonal base, more for the saving of space and convenience than ornament, we imagined. This plundering the dead in such a barefaced fashion, even when done for religious purposes, is not a pleasant thing to contemplate.

In one of the windows of the church is preserved a fragment of ancient stained glass that possibly possesses a history, as it represents the armorial bearings of Crowland Abbey, namely, three knives. and three scourges, and may have come from there. Amongst the tombs we noticed a mural monument in the chancel to Andrew Gendney, Esquire, who is represented in armour, with his wife and children. This monument, bearing date of 1591, still shows traces of its original colouring though over three centuries old.

Near the church stands a fine elm tree with a long low projecting branch close to the ground. This branch, we were told, was long enough to seat all the inhabitants of the parish, which shows how extraordinarily long the branch is, or how few the inhabitants of this remote hamlet are-we understood the latter was the case.

We next drove to "the old manorial hall" of Harrington, our road being bordered by fine old

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branching oaks and leafy elms, the shade of which was very grateful; for though September, the sun shone down in a manner worthy of the dog-days. Reaching our destination, and armed with our introduction, we at once made our way to the rectory. Here we readily obtained the keys both of the church and the Hall, and were provided, moreover, with a servant to act as guide.

Externally Harrington Hall is a bright, sunnylooking, red-brick building, mostly of the Jacobean period, but much modernised, even to the extent of sash-windows. Over the entrance is a stone slab let into the brick-work, and carved with a coat-ofarms. By the side of this is a sun-dial, with the date 1681 engraved thereon. On either side of the doorway are mounting-blocks with steps, very convenient for horse-riders, so much so that I often wonder why they have so generally disappeared.

The old house was tenantless and empty, and wore a sadly forsaken look. In one respect it was the very reverse of Somersby Grange, for while as cheerful in outward appearance as the latter was sombre, within the deserted hall was gloomy and ghost-like, with dismal, if large, bed-chambers leading one into the other in an uncomfortable sort of way, and huge cupboards like little windowless rooms, and rambling passages-a house that had manifestly been altered from time to time with much confusion to its geography. "A sense of mystery hung over all, and suggested to us that the place must be haunted. But here again, though the very house for a ghost to disport himself in, or to be the

home of a weird legend, it was unblest with either as far as we could make out. A promise of romance there was to the eye, but no fulfilment !

One old chamber, called "the oak room," interested us greatly on account of its exceedingly curious carvings. This chamber was panelled from floor to ceiling. For about three-quarters of the height upwards the panelling was adorned with "linen-pattern" work; above this, round the top of the room, forming a sort of frieze, ran a series of most grotesque carvings, the continuity of the frieze being only broken just above the fireplace, which space was given over to the heraldic pride of various coats-of-arms. Each panel that went to form the frieze had some separate, quaint, or grotesque subject carved thereon; some of the designs, indeed, were so outrageous as to suggest the work of a craftsman fresh from Bedlam! There is a quaintness that overruns its bounds and becomes mere eccentricity.

The grotesque creations of the old monks, though highly improbable and undesirable beings, still looked as though they might have actually lived, and struggled, and breathed. The grotesque creations of the carver of the panels in this room failed in this respect. One could hardly, in the most romantically poetic mood, have given the latter credit for ever existing in this or any other planet where things might be ordered differently; they are all, or nearly all, distinctly impossible. On one of these panels is shown a creature with the head and neck of a swan, the body of a fish (from which body proceed scaled wings of the prehistoric reptile kind),

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and a spreading feathered tail, somewhat like a peacock's; the creature had one human foot and one claw!—a very nightmare in carving, and a bad nightmare to boot! Another nondescript animal, leaning to a dragon, was provided with two heads, one in the usual place, and one in the tail with a big eye, each head regarding the other wonderingly. Another creature looked for all the world like a gigantic mouse with a long curling tail, but his head was that of a man. Space will not allow me to enumerate all these strange carvings in detail. It was the very room, after a late and heavy supper such as they had in the olden times, to make a fêted guest dream bad dreams.

The gardens at Harrington Hall, though modest in extent, make delightful wandering, with their ample walks and old-fashioned flower-beds, formal and colourful, the colours being enhanced by a background of ivy-covered wall and deep-green yew hedge. But what charmed us most here was a raised terrace with a very wide walk on the top. From this we could look down on the gardens on one hand and over the park-like meadows on the other, the terrace doing duty as a boundary wall as well as a raised promenade—an excellent idea. Why, I wonder, do we not plan such terraces nowadays? they form such delightful promenades and are so picturesque besides, with a picturesqueness that recalls many an old-world love story and historical episode. What would the gardens of Haddon Hall be without the famous terrace, so beloved by artists, and so often painted and photographed? With the

coming of the landscape gardener, alas! the restful past-time garden of our ancestors went out of fashion, and with it the old garden architecture also. Formerly the artificialness of the garden was acknowledged. The garden is still an artificial production -Nature more or less tamed-but instead of glorying in the fact we try to disguise it. The architect's work now stops at the house, so we find no longer in our gardens the quaint sun-dial, the stone terrace, the built summer-house-a real house, though tiny, and structurally decorative-the recessed and roomy seat-ways that Marcus Stone so delights to paint, the fountains, and the like; yet what pleasant and picturesque features they all are! Now we have the uncomfortable rustic seat and ugly rustic summerhouse of wood, generally deal, and varnished, because they look more rural! Still there are some people who think the old way best!

The small church at Harrington is apparently a modern building, containing, however, in strange contrast to its new-looking walls, a series of ancient and very interesting tombs. I say the church is apparently modern, for I have seen ancient churches so thoroughly restored as to seem only just finished. But the restorer, or rebuilder, here deserves a word. of praise for the careful manner in which the monuments of armoured warriors and others, ages ago dust and ashes, have been cared for. These monuments are to the Harrington and Coppledike families, and range from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, supplying a good example of almost every style of sepulchral memorial to the dead, beginning