Thus far Simpkinson. Now Barham turns, with good effect, on the ignorant sightseers to whom ruins are just a curiosity and nothing more. "'Ah! that was Sir Sidney Smith,' said Mr. Peters; 'I've heard tell of him, and all about Mrs. Partington, and--' "'P., be quiet, and don't expose yourself!' sharply interrupted his lady. P. was silenced, and betook himself to the bottled stout. "'These lands,' continued the antiquary, 'were held in grand sergeantry by the presentation of three white owls and a pot of honey----' "'Lassy me! how nice!' said Miss Julia. Mr. Peters licked his lips. "'Pray give me leave, my dear--owls and honey, whenever the king should come a-rat-catching in this part of the country.' "'Rat-catching!' ejaculated the Squire, pausing abruptly in the mastication of a drum-stick. "'To be sure, my dear sir; don't you remember that rats once came under the forest laws--a minor species of venison? "Rats and mice, and such small deer," eh?--Shakespeare, you know. Our ancestors ate rats; and owls, you know, are capital mousers----' "'I seen a howl,' said Mr. Peters." "Bolsover Priory" is one of those few places mentioned by Ingoldsby that have not been identified with any real place in Kent. It might have been taken to mean the ruins of the Preceptory at Swingfield Minnis, some two miles from Tappington, had not Barham expressly said, in his prefatory notes to the "Witches' Frolic," that they were not the same. [Illustration: NO. 4, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, DEMOLISHED 1901.] The literary landmarks associated with Barham's residence in London are readily traced. On leaving Kent in 1821 to take up his residence in London, he, for a time, rented the upper part of the house, still standing, No. 51, Great Queen Street, Holborn. There his eldest surviving daughter, Caroline Frances Barham, afterwards Lady Bond, was born, July 22nd, 1823. In 1824, following his appointment to the rectorship of St. Mary Magdalene, the family removed to a house numbered "4" on the south side of St. Paul's churchyard, and there remained until 1839, when an exchange was made to a house in Amen Corner, Paternoster Row--the first house through the gateway--by arrangement with Sydney Smith, who was leaving it to reside in Green Street, Mayfair. He describes the garden at the back of this house as "containing three polyanthus roots, a real tree, a brown box border, a snuff-coloured jessamine, a shrub which is either a dwarf acacia or an overgrown gooseberry bush, eight broken bottles, and a tortoise-shell tom-cat asleep in the sunniest corner, with a wide and extensive prospect of the back of the 'Oxford Arms,' and a fine _hanging_ wood (the 'new drop' at Newgate) in the distance." [Illustration: AMEN CORNER, WHERE BARHAM DIED.]