IT is a long, long way from the entrance through the South Gates, on the London road, into the midst of the town, where, by the Ouse side, along the wharves of the harbour, and in the maze of narrow streets between the Tuesday and the Saturday market-places, old Lynn chiefly lies. In the Tuesday market-place, Losinga's great church of St. Margaret stands; that church whose twin towers are prominent in all views of the town. Many of the old merchants and tradesmen lie there, but many more in the vast church of St. Nicholas, less well known to the casual visitor. On the floor of that noble nave, looked down upon by the beautiful aisle and clerestory windows, and by the winged angels that support the open timber roof, you may read the epitaphs of many an oversea trader and merchant prince, as well as those of humbler standing. Crusos are there, and among others a certain Simon Duport "Marchand, Né en l'Isle de Ré en France," whose epitaph is presented bi-lingually, in French and English, for the benefit of those not learned in both. That of "Mr. Thomas Hollingworth, an Eminent Bookseller," is worth quoting. He, it appears, was "a Man of the Strictest Integrity In His Dealings and much esteemed by Gentlemen of Taste For the neatness and Elegance of his Binding." The merchants of Lynn are an extinct race, and most of their old mansions are gone. Yet in the old days, when Lynn supplied seven counties with coals, timber, and wine from the North of England, from the Baltic, and from many a port in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain, to be a Lynn merchant was no mean or inconsiderable thing. They lived, these princely traders, in mansions of the most noble architectural character, furnished with the best that money could buy and hung with tapestry and stamped leather from the most artistic looms and workshops of France and Spain. It never occurred to them that trade was a thing despicable and to be disowned. Instead of disconnecting themselves from their business, they lived with it; their residences and their warehouses in one range of buildings. [Illustration: THE TOWN AND HARBOUR OF LYNN, FROM WEST LYNN.] A typical mansion of this old period is Clifton's House. The Cliftons and their old business are alike gone, and many of the beautiful fittings of their mansion have been torn out and sold, but the house itself stands, a grand memorial of their importance and of the patronage they and their kind extended to art. It faces Queen Street, at the corner of King's Staith Lane, and its courts and warehouses extend back to those quays where Clifton's ships, richly laden, once came to port from many a foreign clime. How anxiously those vessels were awaited may perhaps be judged from the tall red-brick tower rising in many storeys from the first courtyard, and commanding panoramic views down the river, out to the Wash, and away to the open sea at Lynn Deeps; so that from the roof-top the coming of Clifton's argosies might early be made known.