The archæologist may indulge his love of interpreting the chiselled finger-writing of centuries gone by, upon many a richly decorated page of sculpture, and, hand in hand with the historian and divine, may trace out the pathway of art and religion, through the multiform records of genius, devotional enthusiasm, taste, and beneficence, chronicled in writings of stone, by its ecclesiastical remains; he may gratify himself to his heart’s content with “vis-à-vis” encounters with grim old faces, grinning from ponderous old doorways, or watching as sentinels over dark and obscure passages, leading to depths impenetrable to outward vision, and find elaborately carved spandrils and canopies, gracing the entrances of abodes where poverty and labour have long since found shelter in the cast-off habitations of ancient wealth and aristocracy. He may venture to explore cavernous cellars with groined roofings and piers that register their age; may make his way through moth-corrupted storehouses of dust and lumber; to revel in the grandeur of some old “hall,” boasting itself a relic of the domestic architecture of the days of the last Henry, and there lose himself in admiration of old mullioned windows, tie-beams, and antique staircases; may ferret out old cabinets and quaint old buffets hard by, that once, perchance, found lodging in the “Stranger’s Hall,” as it is wont, though erringly, to be designated; he may wander thence through bye lanes and streets, stretching forth their upper stories as if to meet their opposite neighbours half way with the embrace of friendship; over the plain, memorable as the scene of slaughter in famous Kett’s rebellion, to the “World’s End;” and see amid the tottering ruins of half demolished pauper tenements, the richly carved king-posts and beams of the banquet chamber of the famous knight, Sir Thomas Erpingham, whose martial fame and religious “heresy” have found a more lasting monument than the perishable frame-work of his mansion-house, in the magnificent gateway known by his name, and raised in commemoration of his sin of Lollardism. He may accompany the philanthropist in his visit to the “Old Man’s Hospital,” and mourn over the misappropriation of the nave and chancel of fine old St. Helen’s, where lies buried Kirkpatrick, a patriarch of the tribe of antiquaries; he may visit the grammar school that has sent forth scholars, divines, warriors, and lawyers; a Keye, a Clarke, an Earle, {5} a Nelson, and a Rajah Brooke, to spread its fame in the wide world. He may see in it a record of the days when grammar was forbidden to be taught elsewhere; he may peep through the oriels that look in upon the charnel-house of the ancient dead beneath; may feast his eyes upon the beauties of the Erpingham, and strange composite details of the Ethelbert gateways; explore the mysteries of the Donjon, or Cow Tower; and following the windings of the river past the low archway of the picturesque little