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on the architectural features of buildings in a style sufficiently picturesque and simple to hold the attention of the ladies. Those who have found how unconquerable is the indifference of the public to these things will appreciate to the fullest extent the feelings of Tom Ingoldsby, while yet reserving some meed of admiration for John Britton's labours, which did much to advance the slow-growing knowledge of Gothic architecture in the first half of the century. His work may halt somewhat, his architectural knowledge be something piecemeal and uninformed with inner light; but by his labours many others were led to pursue the study of ecclesiastical art.

But the humour with which Barham surrounded "Mr. Simpkinson's" doings took no count of his accomplishments, as may be seen in the excursion to "Bolsover Priory," narrated in "The Spectre of Tappington." "Bolsover Priory," said Mr. Simpkinson, "was founded in the reign of Henry VI. about the beginning of the eleventh century. Hugh de Bolsover had accompanied that monarch to the Holy Land, in the expedition undertaken by way of penance for the murder of his young nephews in the Tower. Upon the dissolution of the monasteries, the veteran was enfeoffed in the lands and manor, to which he gave his own Bolsover, or Bee-Owls-Over (by corruption Bolsover) -a Bee in chief over Three Owls, all proper, being the armorial ensigns borne by this distinguished crusader at the siege of Acre."

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Thus far Simpkinson. Now Barham turns, with good effect, on the ignorant sightseers to whom ruins are just a curiosity and nothing more.

"Ah! that was Sir Sidney Smith,' said Mr. Peters; I've heard tell of him, and all about Mrs. Partington, and

"P., be quiet, and don't expose yourself!' sharply interrupted his lady. P. was silenced, and betook himself to the bottled stout.

"These lands,' continued the antiquary, were held in grand sergeantry by the presentation of three white owls and a pot of honey

Lassy me! how nice!' said Miss Julia. Mr. Peters licked his lips.

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Pray give me leave, my dear-owls and honey, whenever the king should come a-rat-catching in this part of the country.'

"Rat-catching!' ejaculated the Squire, pausing abruptly in the mastication of a drum-stick.

"To be sure, my dear sir; don't you remember that rats once came under the forest laws-a minor

species of venison ? "Rats and mice, and such small deer," eh ?—Shakespeare, you know. Our ancestors ate rats; and owls, you know, are capital

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"I seen a howl,' said Mr. Peters."

"Bolsover Priory" is one of those few places mentioned by Ingoldsby that have not been identified with any real place in Kent. It might have been taken to mean the ruins of the Preceptory at Swingfield Minnis, some two miles from Tappington, had not Barham expressly said, in his prefatory notes to the "Witches' Frolic," that they were not the same.

The literary landmarks associated with Barham's residence in London are readily traced. On leaving Kent in 1821 to take up his residence in London,

he, for a time, rented the upper part of the house, still standing, No. 51, Great Queen Street, Holborn. There his eldest surviving daughter, Caroline Frances Barham, afterwards Lady Bond, was born,

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NO. 4, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, DEMOLISHED 1901.

July 22nd, 1823. In 1824, following his appointment to the rectorship of St. Mary Magdalene, the family removed to a house numbered "4" on the south side of St. Paul's churchyard, and there remained until 1839, when an exchange was made to a house in Amen Corner, Paternoster Row

the first house through the gateway-by arrangement with Sydney Smith, who was leaving it to reside in Green Street, Mayfair.

He describes the garden at the back of this house as "containing three polyanthus roots, a real tree, a brown box border, a snuff-coloured jessamine, a shrub which is either a dwarf acacia or an overgrown gooseberry bush, eight broken bottles, and a tortoiseshell tom-cat asleep in the sunniest corner, with a wide and extensive prospect of the back of the 'Oxford Arms,' and a fine hanging wood (the 'new drop' at Newgate) in the distance."

But the sprightly wit, the sound common-sense, the good-natured satire, were doomed to early extinction. It was in the prime of life, and when he might well have looked forward to further consolidating and extending the fame his genius had already brought, that the blow fell which laid him low. He had already, some twenty years earlier, suffered some slight temporary trouble with a sensitive throat, and although in general a robust man, was in that respect peculiarly liable to the weather. It happened, unfortunately, that he was present as a spectator at the opening by the Queen of the new Royal Exchange, October 28th, 1844. It was a bleak day, and, sitting at an open window in Cheapside placed at his disposal by a friend, he caught a chill from whose effects he never recovered. The evil was a stubborn inflammation of the throat, which clung to him throughout the winter, and by degrees reduced the strong man to an alarmingly weak condition. In the February of 1845 he was induced to visit Bath, in the hope of recovery in that mild atmosphere, but an imprudent return to

London in the treacherous month of March, in order to attend a meeting of the Archæological

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AMEN CORNER, WHERE BARHAM DIED.

Association, aggravated the malady. Still, that strong physique struggled against illness, and he once more partly recovered, only to be again laid

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