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"DUTCH SUNDAY"

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On Saturday the streets were sprinkled with parties of Dutchmen, easily distinguished by their round caps, short jackets, and most capacious breeches On the ensuing Sunday, called 'Dutch Sunday,' all the country round, as far as Norwich, flocked to see the show. The Dutch did honour to their visitors by decorating their schuyts with flags in the gayest manner they were able. The whole length of the quay was crowded by people of all ranks, in their best apparel. It was a view equally striking and singular, and not to be

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matched in any part of the kingdom." "Dutch Sunday is now an obsolete festival, and the Dutchmen no longer "wet their nets" at Yarmouth; but they still come here and to Lowestoft in considerable numbers at Christmas for pickled herring, and then look very like their forerunners of a century and a half ago. They are still distinguished by their "round caps, short jackets, and most capacious breeches."

Yarmouth owes its parish church to Herbert de Lozinga, the first Norman bishop of Norwich, a man concerning whom

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HERBERT DE LOZINGA

CHAP.

the old chroniclers tell us very little. He has been claimed by some as an East Anglian ; but it seems more probable that he was a native of Normandy. He was educated at the monastery of Fécamp, and came over to England at the invitation of William Rufus, who had several bishoprics and abbacies to distribute among his favourites. Fortunately for East Anglia, Lozinga was an ambitious man and not too scrupulous how he gained his ends. Not content with the dignity of Abbot of Ramsey, he aspired to the bishopric of Thetford; and finding Ralph Flambard disposed to sell the appointment to the see, the purchase money was soon forthcoming. As Bale says, "First he was here in England, by fryndeshyp made Abbot of Ramseye, and afterwards made byshop of Thetforde; for the which he is named in the chronicles of his day the 'kyndeling match of simony,' and that noateth him no small doar in that feate." As a matter of fact, he bought the bishopric for £1900 and the abbacy of Winchester for £1000. Simony, however, was a serious ecclesiastical offence, and the new bishop had not long settled in his palace before his conscience pricked him. He determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome and crave absolution from the head of his church. On arriving at Rome he resigned his bishopric; but was at once reinstated, and he then obtained permission to remove his see from Thetford to Norwich. As a penance for his simony, he was ordered to build certain churches and monasteries in his diocese; and so it came about that Norwich was beautified by its grand cathedral, Lynn by its fine priory church of St. Margaret, and Yarmouth was given a building which has since become the largest parish church in England. William of Malmesbury called Lozinga Vir Pecuniosus; Defoe thought he might have called him Vir Pecuniosissimus, "considering the times he lived in, and the works of charity and munificence which he has left as witness of his immense riches." He certainly, in spite of his name, which means flatterer," was a warm-tempered man, for when

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LOZINGA'S CURSE

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The Wind Mill.

the only deer in his park at Homersfield was strangled and stolen he thus cursed the offenders: "May the flesh of all those who devoured my stag rot as the flesh of Herod rotted!

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ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH

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May they have their portion with Judas the traitor, with Ananias and Sapphira, with Dathan and Abiram! Let them have the anathema maranatha, unless they come to a better mind and make me some reparation! Amen."

Of Lozinga's church of St. Nicholas all that now remains is a part of the tower; but there is plenty of his work in Norwich Cathedral. So, with the prospect of seeing the great Norman masterwork to-morrow, I am not greatly disappointed when I find the interior of Yarmouth church rather uninteresting. It contains few tombs and monuments; but this is not surprising,

seeing that the seventeenth century churchwardens knew no better than to demolish a spendid altar-tomb so that they might build a doorway. About a century earlier the corporation had ordered all the sepulchral brasses to be sent to London and cast into "weights for the use of the town!" There are some curious old books kept in the church; but Lozinga's works "On the Length of the Ages" and "On the End of the World," and his "Book of Monastic Constitutions" are not among them : they are lost irretrievably.

It is difficult to get a good view of St. Nicholas Church

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ASTLEY COOPER

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owing to the old houses which abut closely on its main entrance; and after attempting it from various points I return to the market place. Looking back at the tapering spire, I am reminded of a boyish prank of young Astley Cooper, an account of which I have read somewhere. The father of the lad who was to become a distinguished physician was an incumbent of St. Nicholas, and his son seems to have given him a good deal of trouble. One day, when the wind was in the north-east, he got possession of two of his mother's pillows and carried them up the church spire. There he ripped them open and dispersed their contents in the air. The descent of the feathers all over the market place caused great astonishment, and gave rise to curious conjectures, one of which was that a great storm in the north had blown immense quantities of wild-fowl feathers from the island of St. Paul! On another occasion the ingenious youngster concealed himself close to the altar and during a wedding ceremony repeated after his father the words of the marriage service. That was the only time the Rev. Mr. Cooper observed an echo in the church.

The quaint old fishermen's almshouses in the market place, and the Tolhouse, which is probably the oldest municipal building in England, are interesting relics of a Yarmouth which did not owe its prosperity to the summer tripper. In some of the narrow “rows," too, you may see styles or architecture such as are sought in vain in Regent Road and on the Marine Drive. Of monastic remains the town possesses few, and these are of little interest and scanty proportions. Here and there are traces of the fortifications which Henry III. granted the inhabitants permission to erect and maintain "so long as they behaved themselves”—one of the old towers stands near the north-east corner of the churchyard, others are in Blackfriars Street and by the waterside. So the stranger within Yarmouth's gates is not entirely dependent on beach concerts, nigger minstrels, and revolving towers for