is man with his vanity and folly, that humiliates the reverent pilgrim in such holy places as this, by his insistent contrast of his own conventional littleness with all that is celestial in the grandest architectural results of the inspiration of genius." The pointed remark, "no ecclesiastical prattle to call you back to earth," is noteworthy.
A QUAINT LOCAL CUSTOM At Swineshead we learnt that the curfew is still tolled at eight o'clock every evening for five minutes, and after a short interval this is followed by another bell which tells the date of the month. A quaint local custom, and may it long continue! As we were leaving the church our attention was called to the date 1593, deeply cut on one of the beams of the timber roof, presumably marking the date of its construction, or more probably its restoration.
On leaving Swineshead for Boston we were told to "take the first to the left and then drive straight on, you cannot possibly miss your way. You'll see the stump right before you,"—"the stump" being the local and undignified term by which the lofty tower of Boston's famous church is known. A tower that rises 272 feet boldly up into the air, and is crowned at the top with an open octagonal lantern of stone—a landmark and a sea-mark over leagues of flat Fenland and tumbling waters. This tall tower rising thus stately out of the wide plain has a fine effect, seen from far away it seems to be of a wonderful height, and, as an ancient writer says, "it meets the travellers thereunto twenty miles off, so that their eyes are there many hours before their
