were always ready to start on the call of "next turn."' While the worthy ostler was telling us his story of the past, we got our sketch-book out and made a sketch of the quaint wooden galleries around, which act on our part drew his attention to them. 'Yes,' he continued, I remember them galleries when they were crowded with travellers, servants, and luggage, very different to the deserted look they have nowadays. Who then would have imagined that people would ever travel behind an iron horse? The Lion and the Lamb was the other coaching house, but this was the chief inn and we used to get all the best custom.' Then in company of our chatty ostler we took a look round the old stables; built mainly of timber, browned and bent now, but still strong and apparently able to endure for years. How massively these men of the olden time built; timber in these parts was manifestly plentiful in the past, as is plainly shown by the generous use of it in preference to brick or stone. Our ancestors too had not in those days, it must be remembered, learnt how to build with a minimum of material, so that their structures have a look of substance and solid strength very grateful to the eye accustomed to the mean and trivial erections of these times, raised by contract, at the least cost, with little thought of lasting strength. Why, I believe that Buggins, the speculative builder, would easily contrive four stables out of the material of one of these old ones, and even then have spare material. Whether the new stables would last as long or require as little attention in the way of repairs, is quite another matter.

WAYSIDE MONUMENTS.

29

Leaving Brentwood, by the side of the way we came upon a fine granite obelisk. We pulled up to inspect this, and to discover from the inscription thereon the cause of its erection. This we copied as follows:

TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF

WILLIAM HUNTER,

A NATIVE OF BRENTWOOD,

WHO

WAS CONDEMNED AT THE EARLY AGE OF NINETEEN,
BY BISHOP BONNER, IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN MARY,
AND BURNT AT THE STAKE

NEAR THIS SPOT.

MARCH XXVI, MDLV.

I have given this inscription, because in these days when travellers by road are about as scarce as eagles in the land, these wayside monuments (of which there are many, and some of great interest scattered throughout the country) are known and seen by few.

At Mountnessing, the first village we came to after leaving Brentwood, we again made a short stop, attracted by the fine and elaborate scroll-work of wrought iron that supports the sign of the rural hostel there; the George and Dragon, to wit. This charming and interesting bit of iron-handicraft delighted us, so pleasing and full of purpose is it, yet withal so simple in design. The art of making decorative, and even a thing of beauty, a commonplace everyday piece of work such as this (merely to perform the humble office of holding a country inn sign) seems almost gone from us. In this ambitious age we seek for grandeur and ostentatious

show, we raise imposing structures if we do not build mightily, and by mere size we secure a certain pseudo-dignity, unmindful or careless of the real grace of minor things and well-studied detail. It is the sum of these unconsidered trifles, the fanciful. conceits and playfulness of their designs, that charms us so in most old work, and which is so sadly conspicuous by its absence in that which is new. Even when we do condescend to trouble ourselves as to the design of some plain contrivance, we multiply it indefinitely by machinery; having a good thing we repeat it so that at last it becomes monotonous and wearisome by the ever-recurring sameness. The numerous fine specimens of wrought iron-work that still remain to us, standing for sign-posts beside the once thriving but now almost deserted coaching inns, prove how even a simple thing can be made effective and artistic as well as useful, when the workman loves his work.

So pleased were we with the picturesque sign of the little inn at Mountnessing, that we unpacked our camera and exposed a plate upon it: which proceeding on our part, as usual, caused a small crowd of men and boys to collect around us, and who insisted on posing themselves exactly where we did not want them, in order that they might be in the picture. Why, I wonder, do people so delight to be included in a photograph which in all probability they will never see?

The camera we found of great service in quickly and correctly securing for us bits of architecture, such as quaint carvings, altar-tombs, ornamental