Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/165

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England" and has been so called for generations. In my copy of Drunken Barnaby's four journeys to the North of England, edition of 1778, I find the following lines:—

Thence to Wansforth-brigs . . .


On a haycock sleeping soundly,
Th' River rose and took me roundly
Down the Current: People cry'd
Sleeping down the stream I hy'd:
Where away, quoth they, from Greenland?
No; from Wansforth brigs in England.

A GREAT ARCHITECT Now we hastened along to "Stamford town," some six miles farther on, where we proposed to spend the night. Just before we reached our destination we passed to our right Burleigh park and house. Of the latter we had a good view: a splendid pile it is, stately but not too stately, dignified yet homelike, it combines picturesqueness with grandeur—a rare and difficult achievement for any architect and one for which Vanbrugh strove in vain; the more merit therefore to the famous John Thorpe who designed Burleigh House, in my humble opinion the greatest of English architects; his works speak his praises. The man who originated the Elizabethan style of architecture was no ordinary genius! Thorpe built pictures, he was never commonplace.

My readers will remember Tennyson's well-known lines about the "Lord of Burleigh" and his village spouse; unfortunately, like the charming story of Dorothy Vernon's elopement, the romance