The building has many attractive apartments, including a ball-room and Queen Elizabeth's chamber, but it is doubted whether the maiden queen ever visited it, though she did stay at Burghley's house in Stamford, and here made the celebrated speech to her old minister in which she said that his head and her purse could do anything. Burghley's eldest son, Thomas, was created Earl of Exeter, and his descendants are now in possession of the house. His younger son, Robert, as previously related, was made Earl of Salisbury, and his descendants hold Hatfield House. The apartments at Burghley are filled with historical portraits. The grand staircase on the southern side of the house is finer than the other, but is not so full of character. The gardens of Burghley were planned by "Capability Brown," the same who laid out Kew. He imperiously overruled King George III. in the gardening at Kew, and when he died the king is said to have exclaimed with a sigh of relief to the under-gardener, "Brown is dead; now you and I can do what we please here." Within St. Martin's Church in Stamford is the canopied tomb of the lord treasurer, constructed of alabaster, and bearing his effigy clad in armor, with the crimson robes of the Garter; it is surrounded with the tombs of his descendants. It was into Stamford that Nicholas Nickleby rode through the snowstorm, and the coach stopped at the George Inn, which was a popular hostelrie in the days of Charles II., as it still remains. North of Stamford, on the river Witham, is the interesting town of Grantham, containing the quaint grammar-school founded by Bishop Fox of Winchester in 1528 where Sir Isaac Newton was educated. It is recorded by tradition that his career here was not very brilliant as a scholar--a circumstance which may be told, if for nothing else, at least for the encouragement of some of the school-boys of a later generation. LINCOLN. [Illustration: LINCOLN CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.] [Illustration: "BITS" FROM LINCOLN.]