There are many branching streams of the Thames here, and the hamlet of Sonning Eye, on the Oxfordshire side, takes its name either from this abundance of water, or from the eyots, or islands, formed by these several channels, crossed by various bridges. Sonning Bridge _par excellence_ is a severely unornamented structure of red brick, obviously built by the very least imaginative of architects, in the eighteenth century. If it were new it would be an offence, but there is now a mellowness of colour in that old red brick, embroidered richly as it is in green and gold by the lichens of nearly two centuries, that gives the old bridge a charm by no means inherent in its originator’s design. Trees, great, noble, upstanding woodland trees, lovingly enclasp Sonning village and form a background for its ancient cottages and fine old mansions, and against the dark green background of them you see on summer afternoons the blue smoke curling up lazily from rustic chimneys. In midst of this the embattled church-tower rises unobtrusively; and indeed the church is so hidden, although it is a large church, that strangers are generally directed to find it by way of the Bull Inn: a rambling old hostelry occupying two sides of a square, and covered in summer with a mantle of roses and creepers. And it must, by the way, not be forgotten that Sonning in general displays a very wealth of flowers for the delight of the stranger. I would it were possible to be enthusiastic upon the church, but thorough “restoration,” and a marvellously hideous monument to Thomas Rich, Alderman of Gloucester, 1613, and his son, Sir Thomas Rich, Bart., 1667, forbid. There are brasses on the floor of the nave, to Laurence Fyton, 1434, steward of the manor of Sonning, and to William Barber, 1549, bailiff of the same manor; with others. [Illustration: SONNING BRIDGE.] Here, too, is a monument of Canon Pearson, vicar for over forty years, and reverently spoken of—or is it the monument that is reverenced?—by the caretaker. I have sought greatly to discover something by which the Canon’s career may be illustrated in these pages, but, upon my soul, the most notable things available are precisely that he held this excellent living for that long period, and that he sometimes preached before Queen Victoria. These things do not in themselves form a title to reverence.