Wimborne Minster to the north-east is too world-famed to call for any particular description here, but a word may be said about the first Free Library in the country. In past days, when there was no good Mr. Carnegie to cater for the welfare of millions, nor the finest classics to be purchased for sixpence, it was only natural, books being rare, that the local authorities should not have placed the same implicit trust in would-be readers as is shown by the British Museum Library authorities. The rusty iron chains securing the aged tomes to an iron rod above the queer old desks even after the lapse of centuries would hold their own. The literature cannot be said to be of a much lighter nature than the bulky volumes in weight. The rarest specimens are placed in glass cases, and are calculated to make the mildest bibliomaniac full of envy. Before the Reformation the Minster was rich in holy relics, conspicuous among which was a part of St Agatha's thigh. One of the most curious things still to be seen is a coffin brilliantly painted with armorial devices, placed in the niche of a wall, which according to the will of the occupant has to be touched up from year to year; and thus the memory of the worthy magistrate, Anthony Ettrick, is kept more actively alive than good King Ethelred who rests beneath the pavement by the altar. Ettrick lived at Holt Lodge near Woodlands, a few miles away in the direction of Cranborne; and when the Duke of Monmouth was captured in rustic garb in the vicinity, he was brought before the magistrate and removed from Holt to Ringwood, where at the "Angel Inn" the room in which he was kept prisoner is still pointed out. We have elsewhere described the old ash tree near Crowther's Farm beneath which the unfortunate fugitive from Sedgemoor was found. It is propped up, and has lost a limb, but is alive to-day, and surely should be protected by a railing and an inscription like other historic trees. To the north is St. Giles, the ancestral home of the Earls of Shaftesbury, the first representative of which title, Anthony Ashley Cooper, worked so skilfully on Monmouth's ambition. When the Merry Monarch visited the noble politician at St. Giles, he little thought that his favourite son would be taken a prisoner as a traitor within only a mile or so of the mansion. A memento of the royal visit is still preserved in the form of a medicine chest that the king left behind, which in those days doubtless contained some of his favourite specific "Jesuit drops."