The visitor will not have been long in Margate before his attention is drawn to men distributing bills inviting all and sundry to “Go and see the Grotto!” Among the attractions of this place, set forth on these leaflets, is “two thousand square feet of shellwork”--a kind of decoration sufficient to make the artistic shudder. The “Grotto,” which is really an excavation in the chalk, is situated in Bellevue Place along “The Dane,” a thoroughfare about half a mile from the front. It consists of a passage some 60 ft. in length, ending in a chamber about 12 ft. square. Both passage and chamber are lined with common shells set in cement and displayed in geometrical and floral devices. A great deal of nonsensical legend has accumulated about this place, which is said to be a work of immemorial antiquity. That accepted archæologist, Miss Marie Corelli, in her book “Cameos,” declares it to be “one of the World’s Wonders,” and “a curious and beautiful subterranean temple”; and believes it to be a work of the Vikings; a catacomb where they buried their dead. Unfortunately for this view, we have only to refer to Charles Knight’s book, “The Land we Live In,” published about 1850, to read that “the shellwork was done by an ingenious artisan of Margate who some years ago went to America.” The chamber was originally, in fact, the basement-room of the little house above, and the plaster ceiling of it remains. Thus do the Vikings vanish and feminine archæologists become discredited! To witness Margate in the spring preparing to awake from her winter sleep and to make ready for early visitors is alike amusing and pathetic. The long, empty vista of seaside promenade has as yet no promenaders, but a scattered army of painters and gardeners is busy upon seats, shelters, railings, and flower-beds. Everything is being swept and garnished; and so long and so thoroughly has Margate been looked after by a Town Council, that the parlour-maidenly neatness has spread even to the sands, and you may see Corporation men walking by the sad sea-waves picking up and neatly disposing of the seaweed and other jetsam which the rude and sportive winds have left in unseemly fashion on the ocean’s melancholy marge. Even those ridiculous chalk cliffs are not allowed to present any jagged, picturesque outlines. They are pretty freely cased with brick; but, it must in justice be allowed that they have not been so nearly converted into brick walls as have been the cliffs at Ramsgate. And in another matter, too, Margate has not gone to extremes. Dogs (unless things have latterly been pressed to extremity) may still bark on Margate sands. They may not do so at Hastings, on penalty of the owner being fined by the local Sir Oracles.