discovered in some of the stone-work of one of the windows portions of an ancient Roman inscription, proving that the monkish builders paid scant regard to the despised pagan altars and inscribed tablets that in early days were so plentiful at Cirencester, but used them as they would stone from a quarry; for Cirencester, or Corinium, was an important Roman military station. Fortunately many interesting relics of the time are now carefully preserved from further "base uses" in the Cirencester museum. In turn, to even matters, the monks' "graven images" and other "superstitious" work was ruthlessly destroyed by the stern Puritans. So the pagan was avenged! For want of a better occupation that evening I amused myself by looking over some old local newspapers I discovered in the smoke-room, for in these papers you often come upon odd and interesting bits of information, possibly contributed by some resident antiquary; there I came upon the particulars of a curious bill that I thought worth noting, and this is the paragraph that caught my eye: "Below is an abstract from _The Annual Register_, 1771, page 140. 'Cirencester, August 31st. The following is a true copy of a painter's bill of this place, delivered to the church-wardens of an adjacent parish: Mr. Charles Ferebee (churchwarden of Siddington) to Joseph Cook, Dr. To mending the Commandments, altering the Belieff, and making a new Lord's Prayer, or £1 : 1s.'" So curious is this that it really seems like an invention, only that it is given on the authority of _The Annual Register_, and vouched for as true; otherwise I should not have ventured to requote it, and the very names of the churchwarden, the painter, and the church are put down. Invention surely could not improve on that old bill--and invention is no laggard! At another inn I discovered some second-hand book catalogues left presumably by some former guest, and spent quite an interesting and profitable hour going over these. The various literature you chance upon when travelling oftentimes proves entertaining reading; the following extracts I made from four of these catalogues will, I think, prove my contention. In the first case an "Autograph Album" is offered for sale at the modest price of £25, but then it contains "A collection of over 100 signatures, including those of Lord Tennyson" and other world-famous authors, "and an Autograph Poem by Lord Tennyson addressed to Lady Tennyson," a sample verse of which is quoted, and thus it runs: "Here on this Terrace fifty years ago, When I was in your June, you in your May, Two words 'My Rose' set all your face a-glow; And now that I am white and you are grey, That blush of fifty years ago, my dear, Lives in the past, but close to me to-day, As this red rose upon the terrace here Glows in the blue of fifty miles away."