of my Saturday evenings most pleasantly and profitably. They were generally concluded with a glass of beer of "the worthy master's" own brewing.

When the season of the year and the state of the weather were suitable I often joined this happy fraternity in long and delightful Sunday walks to various interesting places round London. Our walks included Waltham Abbey, Waltham Cross, Eltham Palace, Hampton Court, Epping Forest, and many other interesting places of resort. When the weather was unfavourable my principal resort was Westminster Abbey, where, besides the beautifully-conducted service and the noble anthems, I could admire the glory of the architecture, and the venerable tombs, under which lay the best and bravest. I used generally to sit at a point from which I could see the grand tomb of Aylmer de Vallance with its magnificent surroundings of quaint and glorious architecture. It was solemn, and serious also, to think of the many generations who had filled the abbey, and of the numbers of the dead who lay beneath our feet.

I was so great an admirer of Norman and Gothic architecture that there was scarcely a specimen of it in London which I did not frequently visit. One of the most interesting examples I found in the Norman portion of St. Saviours Church, near London Bridge , through some of it has since been destroyed by the so-called "restoration" in 1831. The new work has been executed in the worst taste and feeling. I also greatly admired the Norman chapel of the Tower, and some Norman portions of the Church of St. Bartholomew the Less, near Smithfield.

No style of architecture that I have ever seen has so impressed me with its intrinsic gravity, and I may say solemnity, as that of the Norman. There is a serious earnestness in its grave simplicity that has a peculiar influence upon the mind; and I have little doubt that this was felt, and understood by those true architects who designed and built the noble cathedrals at Durham and elsewhere. But there, as elsewhere, some of our modern so-called "Architects" have made sad havoc with the earliest and most impressive portions of those grand and truly interesting remains, by their "Restorations", as they term it -- but which I call Defamations.