In Unfamiliar England

manageress assured us, many people had engaged rooms a full year in advance. We were late applicants, to be sure. However, we had the advantage of a previous

ecked work-horses, splendid fellows, and it is doubtful if any American town of twice the size of Cambridge could make anything like such a showing, all points of equine excellence considered. One sees very few poor-looking horses in England, anyway-outside of London. But what ha

inn fronts directly on the street-a long, rambling building, with many gables, stone-mullioned windows and huge, square, clustered chimneys. It is built of sandstone, weatherworn to a soft, yellowish brown, and once rich in mouldings and carvings which are now barely discernible. Now only about half of the hou

first is an imposing Jacobean structure with many gables and deep-set stone-mullioned windows. The Talbot is quite as fine in exterior, and though we could not remain as guests, the landlord apparently took pleasure in showing us about, manifesting a genuine pride in his establishment, which was further evidenced by its well-kept appearance. Even the court was flower-bordered and there was a flourishing greenhouse. Inside the

ADS NEAR

st and is equally sure to be well posted on the history and traditions of the locality. Such a shop we found at Oundle, and the pictures of Deane House and Church and Kirby Hall soon engaged our

r side. But nowhere else did we see an altar-tomb so chaste and artistic as that erected to the late earl, who died in 1868. It is wrought in purest alabaster, and beside the figure of the earl, represented as a tall, handsome man in full military dress, is the effigy of his widow, not interred with her husband as yet, but living at the age of eighty-four. Evidently the lady desires that future ages shall remember her at her best, for the effigy represents a transcendently beautiful young woman of ab

. The architecture of the court is graceful in the extreme-fluted and carved marble pilasters running the full height between the windows, which have a distinctly classic touch on the entrance side. On the three remaining sides there are great clustered windows, no less than twenty in one of the groups, separated by slender stone mullions. Most of the glass has disappeared or clings to the casements in shattered fragments, though in a small, still-inhabited corner the windows are entire. We wander at will through the once splendid apartments, now in pitiable decay and ruin. In the banqueting hall-a vast apartment with high open-beamed roof and minstrel gallery-a washerwoman is heating her water-pots, and piles of wool are stored in the Hall of State. But from the far greater number of the rooms the roof has wholly or partially disappeared and the rooks scold each other in the chimneys or caw hungrily among the sagging rafters. The room once used for the library is less ruinous and its two immense circular bay windows overlook a beautiful stretch of country. But, altogether, the house is more of a ruin than we anticipated at first glance. Restoration would b

g sky-but there are no accommodations for travelers at Kirby Hall. No place near at hand appealed to us. Coventry and its comfortable King's Head

BY

tratford. Americans always seek the Red Horse at the latter place because of its associations with Irving; but there is little more than the room our gentle traveler occupied, the chair he sat in and the "scepter" wherewith he was wont to stir up a cheerful fire in his grate, to induce one to return. But in Coventry, at the ancient though much re-modeled King's Head, one strikes the happy medium of English ho

who make a pilgrimage to Sulgrave or to Brington, ten miles farther, though the memories and traditions of these places are so closely connected with the ancestors of the Father of His Country. True, his st

CHURCH AN

ington, is buried in this church. Fro

records chronicling the marriage of Robert Washington in 1565 and the birth of his son George in 1608, antedating his famous namesake in America by more than a century. It would even now be hard to follow on the map this maze of byroads which we threaded, winding between the hawthorne hedges or gliding beneath the over-arching branches of ancient elms; passing snug farmhouses and cottages brilliant with rose vines and creepers and fairly embowered in old-fashioned flowers; and leading through villages the very embodiment of quiet and repose. And Sulgrave, the cradle of the Washingtons

beams yield but slowly to time's ravages. The most imposing feature is the solid black-oak staircase with its curiously twisted banisters. The interior has been altered from the original plan-just how much it is difficult to ascertain. Nothing, however, impresses the American visitor so much as the Washington coat-of-arms, executed in plaster on one of the gables by the ancient owner. This had suffered much from the weather, but has lately been protected by a glass covering. The outer walls were originally covered with plaster, but this has fallen away in many places, showing the rough stone underneath; and elsewhere masses of ivy half hide the small, square-paned windows. Very faithful in detail and sentiment is Mr. Sherrin's picture, painted at my request-the artist gaining his inspiration by a week under the old roof while employed in his task. The picture shows the old house much as we saw it, standing against a rich sunset sky, its harsh outlines softened by a little distan

BRASS, SULG

g at bargain prices, and Washington purchased it for three hundred pounds. A tradition that these alienated church lands would bring evil fortune to the owner does not seem to have deterred him, though when his grandson, another Laurence Washington, was forced by adverse circumstances to sell the estate, the old superstition might seem to have been verified. This grandson, wit

the Spencers, one of the wealthiest and most ancient families of the English nobility, and the church is an imposing one, kept in perfect repair. The chief Washington memorials are the brasses-the inscription and coat-of-arms-over the grave of Laurence Washington of Sulgrave and Brington, and these have been sunk deep in the stone slab and are guarded by lock and key. In the chapel are some of the most elaborate memorials

he village tenantry. There is a world of pathos in the inscription cut in the stone tablet above the doorway, "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord," which may refer to the

t that greets the eye from Great Brington churchyard. The church occupies slightly rising ground, from which in almost every direction one may behold stretches of some of the most charming rural country in England; and the church itself, with the old village cross beneath the monster elm tree, is not the least picturesque feature of the landscape. The village which fronts it, clean, cozy and comfortable-looking, its gray walls dashed with ivy and relieved by the rich color of rose vines and old-time flowers, is as lovely and peaceful a hamlet as one will find, even in England. Not less pleasing is the surrounding country-"pastoral" describes it-with its long reaches of meadowland, broken by hedgerows and lordl

CH, TOWN CROSS AND