Turning aside from the woods of Bisham and sweeping away yet farther into the broad valley plain, the stream of the Thames brings us to the quiet market-town of Great Marlow. A suspension bridge crosses the river, and the gardens and houses on either side afford many scenes of quiet and homelike beauty. Just below it are a weir and a mill, not without a certain picturesqueness; and from a distance the spire of the church, rising from among groups of trees, enhances the attraction of the scene. In this little Buckinghamshire town, before the railway approached its outskirts, life must have passed peacefully, not to say sleepily; and even now, as it lies off the main line, it does not strike us as a place for over-stimulation of the nervous system. The river, during a considerable part of the year, would still be almost as fit a scene for a poet's musing as it was when Shelley resided in the town, and wrote the "Revolt of Islam," spending much of his time dreamily floating in a boat upon the Thames. The most conspicuous feature in Great Marlow, as has been already said, is its church, which stands near to the river and the bridge. Unfortunately, it is one of those where "distance lends enchantment to the view." The present building was erected in the year 1835, on the site of an older one. Whatever this may have been, it could hardly have been so ugly as the present structure. The style may be called Gothic--that is to say, the architect had in his mind some of the English parish churches of the thirteenth or fourteenth century; but it is the Gothic of what we may call the pre-Victorian revival, and about as like what it supposed to imitate as the "English as she is spoke" of the ingenious Portuguese is to our mother-tongue. Efforts have been made, and we believe will continue to be made, to improve it. For instance, the church was constructed for galleries; these have been pulled down--at some inconvenience, we should think, if a fair proportion of the population goes to church; and the interior has been divided by means of the usual arches into a nave and aisle. These, as they come to an end before they reach the roof, have at present a rather forlorn aspect, and, as there is no particular merit in their design, scarcely justify their existence. It is intended, we are informed, to rebuild the whole structure piecemeal; but as the original fabric appears to be in no danger of premature decay, it is a question whether it would not have been better to accept its ugliness, and employ the very large sum which must be expended before the work can be completed for other and more directly useful purposes. The church, however, is not wholly without interest, as it contains one or two "curiosities." Of these, one is a portrait of the "Spotted Boy," the work of Coventry, in 1811. The lad was one of Richardson's "exhibits," and died at Great Marlow. He was a negro, but was mottled with white patches on body and hair--as if