Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

CHAPTER II
WINTER. IPSWICH TO NORWICH VIÂ WOODBRIDGE, BECCLES, LOWESTOFT, AND YARMOUTH

A walk in Ipswich—Sparrowe's House—With Pickwick and the Wellers—Start at noon—The glittering car—Another passenger—Infantine pilotage—A loose clutch—Mechanic's chagrin—A stitch in time—Nuts screwed home—Need to watch mechanics—Woodbridge—Edward Fitzgerald—Wickham Market and Saxmundham—Abyssinian luncheon—Détour to Aldeburgh—Aldeburgh described—The dilatory Alde—Birthplace of George Crabbe—His views of Aldeburgh—Saxmundham to Yoxford—Peasenhall adjacent—Yoxford to Blythburgh—A motorist's church—Détour to Southwold—Southwold described—Battle of Sole Bay—Did Isaac Newton hear guns at Cambridge?—Lord Ossory's ride from Euston—Blythburgh to Beccles—First view disappointing—Better next time—Unforeseen value of Connemara cloak—Beccles to Lowestoft—Norfolk and Norwich Notes and Queries—Their value—Origin of Lowestoft harbour—"Norwich a port"—Cubitt and Telford—Sir Samuel Peto—Meaning of "Lowestoft"—Lowestoft to Yarmouth—Direct route to Norwich—Darkness and frozen haze—Straining eyes—Norwich at last—The "Royal" formerly "Angel"—An ancient hostelry—Colossal window tax—Norfolk election memories—Corn Law riot—"Coke of Norfolk" sheltered—Always a Whig house—Stroll in Norwich—Multitude of churches—The walls and "murage" tax—A learned society's day—Fraction of Norwich only seen—Wat Tyler's Rebellion—Geoffrey Lister and Sir Robert Salle—St. Peter's Permountergate—Memories of Nelson—Fascination of Norwich—Its great men and women—George Borrow—"Old Crome"—The Norwich school.

Truth to tell, Ipswich on the Gipping, which becomes the Orwell and an estuary lower down, seemed to me then an ancient city showing, except in a few picturesque houses and the gateway of Wolsey's College, few signs of antiquity. If it cannot be called happy in having had no history, for it was plundered by the Danes in 991, it has had little cause for unhappiness of that kind since the Conquest; it has produced no really famous man except Wolsey, though Gainsborough lived in it for some years; and its churches, although not quite devoid of interest, are not striking enough to delay a motorist. Note, in passing, not the least advantage of an exploring tour by motor. You need neither spend time in examining that which is barely worth the process on the ground that there is nothing else to be done, nor hurry away from that which is interesting, in order to catch a train; but, staying so long as seems pleasant and no longer, you may be transported when you please, rapidly and pleasantly, to scenes you have reason to believe to be worthy of your regard.

In these circumstances, after an admiring glance at the famous Sparrowe's House in the Butter Market, close to the hotel, I frankly betook myself to an effort to follow the Wellers, father and son, Mr. Pickwick and his followers, through an eventful day. This stable-yard round the corner to the left, where the Panhard was now being furbished up, was the same on which Mr. Weller, senior, looked when, "in a small room in the vicinity," he discussed a pot of ale and the "gammoning" of Sam, and drank to the toast, "May you soon vipe off the disgrace as you've inflicted on the family name." The office in the courtyard was doubtless that at which he got his "vaybill." Walking about these very streets Sam wormed himself into the confidence of the lachrymose Job Trotter. In this inn parlour Mr. Peter Magnus, alias Jingle, splendidly attired, made a hollow pretence of breakfasting with Mr. Pickwick; here the latter gave his simple hints on courtship and proposal, and here were seen "the joyous face of Mr. Tupman, the serene countenance of Mr. Winkle, and the intellectual lineaments of Mr. Snodgrass." In this room was enacted that memorable scene when Mr. Magnus presented Miss Witherfield to Mr. Pickwick and Miss Witherfield screamed, but neither she nor Mr. Pickwick was indelicate enough to mention the cause—his unwitting invasion of her chamber overnight. Rushing out of this room the lady, after bolting herself into her bedroom, went forth in search of Mr. Nupkins and apprised him of the forthcoming duel, which there was not really much reason to anticipate. Where exactly Miss Witherfield saw Mr. Nupkins I am unhappily not able to say, nor yet, and for the same reason, whither Grummer, with his myrmidon Dubbley and his "division," each with a short truncheon and a brass crown, conducted Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman in the old sedan-chair; but for all that it is easy to picture the whole of the never-to-be-forgotten scene, all the more memorable in that it never was enacted. In fact, it is no mean regret to me that, on that cold January morning, I was not able to find "the house with the green gate," with the "house-door guarded on either side by an American aloe in a tub." It has eluded me since also. Perhaps it is gone, like a good deal of old Ipswich; possibly some miscreant has had his gate painted white instead of green; perhaps I looked in the wrong place, in the vicinity of St. Clement's Church. It is even within the bounds of possibility that the house with the green gate never had any more real and substantial existence than Mr. Pickwick himself. All I know is that I could not find it.

At noon or thereabouts—time does not worry one in a motor-car, unless one is seeking records—we boarded the Panhard, now "bright as a Birmingham button," and started off up a long and trying hill, in cold, dry, and windless weather, for a circuitous drive, its sinuosities determined by the desires of my friend. A new member was added to the party in the person of a resident at Norwich, desirous of reaching that ancient city in due course, who was supposed to know, and probably did know, every considerable turning of every high road in the two counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. He had not, however, enjoyed much experience as the pilot of an automobile, and he found, as I had in years gone by when I was new to the pastime, that eye and memory were not equal to moving together at a speed proportioned to that of the car. "Which road?" the charioteer would cry—the new passenger was riding astern—when we were from fifty to seventy yards from a fork or a turn, and hesitation would often be visible in the reply, so that it was necessary to slow down and sometimes, having invaded the wrong road, to back out again. This is not criticism, it is rather matter of observation and experience. Only recently have the minds of driving and driven men been called upon to exercise their judgment, to choose a line, as a fox-hunter might say, while they are being carried through space much more rapidly than of yore, and the pace puzzles them at first. You are past a familiar turning in a car in less time than is consumed over approaching it in a dog-cart or on horseback, and the aspect of the turning itself has something strange about it; but you grow accustomed to the new conditions with experience. In fact, motor-cars sharpen the perceptions and spur the intelligence. To venture an audacious travesty, and some even more hardy doggerel:—

 
… Urgendi didicisse fideliter artem
Exacuit mentem, nee sinit esse pigram.
 
 
He who has learned a car to drive
Sharpens his wits and looks alive.
 

Personally, I sat alongside the driver, a place of honour, if cold, and the mechanic sat at my feet. Pity is wasted on a mechanic so placed at any time, for he likes the position, and it is not so comfortless as it looks by a long way, experto crede. In any case our ex-soldier was a proud man that morning, for his car was a joy to the eye. The day before owner and mechanic were hustings-worn, the car looked battered and dissipated as well as fog-dimmed. Now the brass shone with a glow that would have satisfied the proud commander of a man-of-war, who is the most exacting person living. If that mechanic had read the Greek tragedians he would have known that Nemesis must needs come soon. Brass glittered, varnish shone, all four cylinders worked nobly, but the engine would race from time to time. It became all too clear to him who had the control of the machine, or desired to have it, that he had it not in entirety, since the clutch kept slipping. Hence came power wasted, miles per hour lost, and a definite feeling of discontent in the owner. So, after a hill or two had been climbed without satisfaction, a halt was called on the level. The mechanic did not like it a bit, and he had our sympathy. He had worked hard; he had turned out the car with a creditable appearance; it was crushing to be found out in a single fault. I knew his feelings from experience. To be blamed when you thoroughly deserve it is tolerable; to be blamed for no fault at all is to find consolation in private reflection upon the folly of him, or her, who administers reproof; to discover that one essential point has been forgotten when you have tried hard to remember everything is to be compelled to recognize that, after every willing effort, you only look a fool after all. The mechanic had our sympathy on another ground too. He vowed, of course, that the clutch could not be made tighter; he declared that, if it were, the consequences would be disastrous; for you shall note that your mechanic dearly loves "a bit o' play" in fittings, and abhors a nut screwed quite home. All these things were clear to us, but we were none the less inexorable. As, in starting on a heavy job in carpenter's work, minutes spent in putting a keen edge on to plane and chisel are hours saved in the end, so it is sheer idiocy to muddle on with a motor-car if, at the beginning of the journey, you are aware of something wrong that is capable of being set right on the road. It is, indeed, in detecting the first premonitory evidence of trouble, and in meeting difficulties more than half-way, that the genius of an inspired driver is shown. This little weakness of mechanics for a "bit o' play" is also worth remembering.

So we were sorry for the mechanic, but the thing had got to be done whether he liked or no, and for half an hour he lay on his back under the car, straining, grunting, otherwise eloquently silent, while black and viscous oil made a little pool on the road alongside of his honest head, and while we, pacing up and down the frozen road, forbore even to remind him that, if the road had been muddy, his fate would have been worse. In cases where an angel would lose his temper under the gentlest persiflage it is only decent to leave a willing but disappointed man to himself. The half-hour ended; the job was done; overdone a little, as the mechanic well knew, yet not so much overdone but that a driver of rare skill could disappoint him by ignoring the inconvenience; and we took our seats again. The car sprang forward like a living creature, moving fast and smoothly. There was all the difference in the world between the motion as it was and the motion as it had been, and the chagrin of the mechanic yielded to time and to the proud feeling that all was right with "his car" through his handiwork.

Sooth to say, the scenery was not interesting on a frosty and somewhat misty day. The route was, to start with, viâ Woodbridge, Wickham Market, and Stratford St. Andrew to Saxmundham; that is to say, the road runs along the brow, the very much wrinkled brow, of the upland, which is high by comparison with the lowland, extending a long way in from the coast, running from Felixstowe to Aldeburgh and beyond. Of that lowland we could see nothing. Woodbridge, appearing to consist of one street, long, straggling, and narrow, was the first village of any consideration through which we passed. Its chief claim to fame is that Edward Fitzgerald wrote letters at it, remarking in one, dated 1855, that Woodbridge had not reached 1842 yet. But we shall see Woodbridge again. Next came Wickham Market, narrow, straggling, and long. It is quite commonplace. From Wickham Market we went on to Saxmundham, and there committed a grave error. "Hot dinner," it was stated, was due in three-quarters of an hour, but it could be hurried forward if we wished. We wished accordingly, and wished afterwards that we had not, for the meat, some forgotten joint half-boiled, was in a state in which, according to the traveller Bruce, the Abyssinians eat their meat from choice; and the accompanying parsnips, quite hard, may have been fit to place before sheep. As we were neither Abyssinians nor sheep, but English travellers, the error was felt the more acutely because we had ourselves only to blame. Given the same conditions another time, I should urge a detour to Aldeburgh, a detour of some six miles to be begun about two miles short of Saxmundham, for Aldeburgh is worth seeing and man can feed there.

Of Aldeburgh an observation or two may be made on the basis of a sojourn a few years since. It is certainly one of the most bracing places in this world. It has a tolerable hotel, good golf-links, and a fine view of the sea; and the ancient moot-house is picturesque. The abiding impression left by Aldeburgh is simply that it is the oddest place ever seen. The little River Alde, starting somewhere near Saxmundham, follows a more or less southerly course for a couple of miles; then an even smaller river joins it, and, flowing eastward for a mile or so, the combined streams seem to be heading for the sea, distant about six miles; but it takes them fifteen miles, even with the help of another so-called river, purposeless as themselves, to reach the sea; for first they are lost in a mecranking mere of sluggish water, which actually approaches within a hundred yards of the sea at Aldeburgh, where it is stopped by a stony bank. The mere continues, and the rivers are merged in it, parallel to high-water mark, divided from it sometimes by a hundred yards or so, sometimes by half a mile, for nine miles from the point of turning, and soon the water is dubbed River Ore in the map. By this time it is meandering, mainly under the influence of the tide most likely, behind and to the west of Orford Ness, and it is not until somewhere about the middle of Hollesley Bay that this utter absurdity of a river, this monstrous estuary for three trifling streams, finds its way into the sea.

A year or two ago the good folks of Aldeburgh celebrated their native poet, George Crabbe, though why they chose the date, seeing that Crabbe was born in 1754 and died in 1832, it is not quite easy to see. The celebration, indeed, was, like the use made of Pickwick by the hotel at Ipswich, an example of the truth that a community or an individual having a mind for advertisement will not be stopped by petty considerations of pride. George Crabbe was born at Aldeburgh, through no fault of his own. He left it in 1768, to be apprenticed to a surgeon at Bury St. Edmunds. He came back to it to practise as a surgeon, and failed miserably as a medical man, because his mind was on the making of verses all the time. Then he tried his fortune in London and beat despairingly on the doors of fame until Burke introduced him to Dodsley, who brought out The Library with some success in 1781. At about the same time Dr. Johnson expressed a high opinion of his verse. Next he was ordained and took up his residence as curate at Aldeburgh, but he left it soon to become domestic chaplain to the Duke of Rutland; and he does not seem to have had much, if anything, to do with his native place during his subsequent career as prosperous poet and comfortable clergyman. He was a distinctly sound poet, with a queer vein of humour, although his admirer, Edward Fitzgerald, whom we meet to-day, valued him perhaps too highly, and Byron, probably for his own purposes, overpraised him in the words:—

 
Nature's sternest painter, but her best.
 

Crabbe hated Aldeburgh, or Aldeburgh scenery at any rate; or, if he did not hate them, he took the stern view of them.

 
Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,
Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor;
From thence a length of burning sand appears,
Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears;
Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,
Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye.
 

Thus does he describe the vicinity and thus the so-called river and its marge:—

 
Here samphire banks and saltworth bind the flood,
And stakes and seaweed withering in the mud;
And higher up a ridge of all things base,
Which some strong tide has rolled upon the place.
 

No, assuredly Crabbe had no liking for Aldeburgh, and to be perfectly candid, I agree with him that, save for golfers, it is a dreary and eye-afflicting place. In this view I confess to have believed myself to be singular and, for expressing it, have incurred scorn more than once. So Crabbe is quoted in confirmation, yet with the hope that those who visit Aldeburgh may agree with the general view and not with that of a minority of two, one of them something better than a minor poet. Be it added, in justice to Aldeburgh, that you can look for amber among the pebbles on the beach. So you can anywhere and find as much as I did.

From Saxmundham we laid a course due north for Yoxford—Peasenhall of murderous fame lies some three miles to the west—and passed by way of Darsham to Blythburgh. Here, in a village named in Domesday, is a really striking fifteenth-century church, in good Perpendicular and with splendid clerestory, plainly visible from the road; and we are not far from Southwold, now known of many as a summer resort, whereas in days not long past it was visited by few persons save those who knew of the existence of St. Edmund's Church with its really majestic tower and rare rood-loft. Here, by the way, is buried Agnes Strickland, the historian. The very slight inward curve of the coastline here is dignified with the name of a bay, and as Sole Bay, which is simply Southwold Bay spoken short, it has a considerable place in history. On 28 May, 1672, "the combined fleets lay at Sole Bay in a very negligent posture." They were the fleets of England, under the command of the Duke of York, with Lord Sandwich under him, and of France; and here De Ruyter, the greatest sea-captain of his age, took his royal adversary quite by surprise. This was due not so much to the dashing merit of De Ruyter as to the crass carelessness of the Duke, for "Sandwich, being an experienced officer, had given the Duke warning of the danger; but received, they said, such an answer as intimated that there was more of caution than of courage in his apprehensions." What hasty words, I wonder, of the rude and haughty admiral were represented by this sonorous periphrasis? De Ruyter came, with ninety-one ships of war and forty-four fireships, sailing "in quest of the English," and Sandwich, after giving the warning in vain, saved the day by a display of gallantry to be ranked as extraordinary even in the annals of the English navy. Sailing out to meet the Dutchman, he engaged him at once and gave time to the Duke and the French admiral. "He killed Van Ghent, a Dutch admiral, and beat off his ship; he sunk another ship, which ventured to lay him aboard; he sunk three fireships, which endeavoured to grapple with him; and, though his vessel was torn to pieces with shot, and of a thousand men she contained near six hundred were laid dead upon the deck, he continued still to thunder with all his artillery in the midst of the enemy. But another fireship, more fortunate than the preceding, having laid hold of his vessel, her destruction was now inevitable. Warned by Sir Edward Haddock, his captain, he refused to make his escape, and bravely embraced death as a shelter from that ignominy which a rash expression of the Duke's, he thought, had thrown upon him." Admiral and flag-captain, in fact, perished when the fire reached the magazine, and this time at any rate the "price of Admiralty" was paid in full.

The English claimed a victory and embalmed it in a ballad, although the truth was that the Duke's fleet was too much shattered for pursuit and the French fleet, under secret orders, perhaps, from Louis XIV, did next to nothing; the Dutch, probably, claimed one also, although the battle ended the hopes with which De Ruyter's expedition started. All that matters nothing now. The moment that heartens a man is that at which he stands on this low-lying shore, as spectators stood all the long day in May, 1672, and remembers the gallant fight and the glorious death of Sandwich. "Sir Isaac Newton is also said to have heard it [the firing] at Cambridge." So writes the accomplished author of Murray's Guide in 1875, and there is nothing incredible in the suggestion. The distance is but seventy miles, roughly; the cannon of old time with their black powder made a terrible sound; acoustics are full of mystery, and the noise of the big guns at Portsmouth is often heard in the heart of the Berkshire Downs. From Euston to the centre of Sole Bay is about half the distance over which sound is said to have reached Newton, and it is on record that Lord Ossory, then a guest of the Duke of Grafton, heard the guns and rode half-way across East Anglia to witness the battle. Surely it was a majestic and awe-inspiring spectacle for those on the shore, and surely it is worth while to reconstruct it now in imagination.

From Blythburgh we went along a road of poor surface, and of no scenic attraction in winter save that the trees were fine, to Beccles, one of the three principal towns of Suffolk, possessed, I was content to believe, of a grand church, and boasting a view over the marshes of the Waveney, once navigable. But we saw little of Beccles, the name of which reminded Edward Fitzgerald of "hooks and eyes"; we were indeed quite glad to leave it after penetrating a quarter suggestive of a new and prosperous Midland town, for election fever was running high, and car and its occupants were cheered or hooted by eager crowds; cheered most, perhaps, for the crowds were mostly "Red," and the Connemara cloak seemed to express a sympathy which, in truth, was not felt. We had all had enough electioneering and to spare and were glad to turn our faces for Lowestoft. As will be seen later, Beccles made a far more pleasant impression on a subsequent visit. At Lowestoft too—it is a short and easy run—election fever was running high, and the political excitement of a seething mob does not make for an individual appreciation of the picturesque. But old Lowestoft is picturesque, hanging, as it were, over the sea, and South Lowestoft has a peculiar origin worth knowing.

Among the pleasant enterprises incident to the writing of this book has been the making of notes from Norfolk and Norwich Notes and Queries, reprinted from the Norfolk Chronicle, to which I have added in my note-book O si sic omnes! Would indeed that all county papers laid themselves out, as this one does, to collect notes from those interested in the antiquities of their county. Here as to Lowestoft are found two notes, one entertaining and suggestive, the other distinctly taking. It appears that in 1558 one Thomas North published a fantastic explanation of the origin of herring curing, in which Lowestoft has always rivalled Yarmouth. Without giving it in detail, it may be stated that in essential spirit, if on a different topic, it exactly anticipates Charles Lamb's divine theory of roast pig; but Thomas North has none of that grace of expression which compels quotation when one encounters Lamb, and one only regrets that Lamb did not think of describing the origin of herring curing as well as of roast pork.

The second Lowestoft note deserves a paragraph to itself, for it is full of moral lessons, and a curious illustration of the way in which the overweening ambition of one community and the churlishness of a second has ended in loss to the first and in the profit of a third community to the prejudice of the second. In the records of St. Peter's Church, at Norwich (St. Peter's, Permountergate, if memory serves accurately, which is St. Peter's, Parmentersgate, or Tailors' Street), is an entry of 27 March, 1814: "Ringing the Bells for Norwich a Port. 10/6." Early in the last century, it appears, Norwich was a very important centre of the wool trade. Now Norwich thrives on mustard and boots, but let that pass; at the time in question wool was the staple trade, and it was exported by way of Yarmouth. In 1812 or thereabouts, like Manchester later, Norwich determined, if possible, to have direct communication with the sea. Enterprising men consulted William Cubitt, afterwards Sir William Cubitt, and a very distinguished engineer in matters relating to canals and docks. They probably consulted him mainly because he was a Norfolk man, for he was not yet thirty years old, and his fame, which was to be considerable, was yet to come. They sought the advice also of that consummate Scottish engineer, Thomas Telford, then well advanced in middle age and almost at the pinnacle of his fame. Alternative routes for the proposed canal were suggested, one by way of Yarmouth, the other by way of Lowestoft. Yarmouth, its safe trade threatened, opposed from the beginning, and eventually the Lowestoft route was adopted; the mouth of Lowestoft Harbour was cleared from the sands that blocked it, a cut was made connecting it with the Waveney through Oulton Broad, another cut from Haddiscoe to Reedham, and in 1814 the bells rang gaily to celebrate "Norwich a port." For Norwich it was a short-lived triumph, since the scheme did not pay its way, and in 1844 it was practically, possibly indeed formally, bankrupt. At any rate, the Lowestoft part of the works was bought outright by Sir Samuel Peto, who in that year—but whether before he acquired the harbour or not I cannot say—bought Somerleyton hard by, some time the seat of the Fitz-Osberts and the Jernigans, from Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne. Sic vos, non vobis. The Norwich folk lost their money, or some of it; Sir Samuel Peto took Lowestoft in hand, "developed" it, as the saying goes, so that South Lowestoft became a flourishing seaside place; and finally Lowestoft as a port became a serious rival to Yarmouth. As a seaside place Lowestoft is pleasing to some tastes now, even as it was in the days when Edward Fitzgerald would betake himself thither from Woodbridge to spend his days in sailing and in writing letters which are a treasure to posterity; and his evenings in reading Shakespeare or Don Quixote with his close friends, Cowell and Aldis Wright, who often lodged at Lowestoft for a short time in summer. It would have been good to have their opinion upon the derivation of Lowestoft, appearing in Domesday as Lothu-wis-toft, which is said to be "the enclosure by the water of Loth," who in his turn is said to have been a Norse invader; but nothing is to be discovered of Loth, or Loo, save that Lake Lothing, now the inner harbour, is named after him, as was the hundred of Lothingland or Ludingaland; and Edward Fitzgerald is really much more interesting than a nebulous Norse pirate.

Election fever and its ravings, a short glance at picturesque features, and the inestimable blessings of tea and warmth are the principal memories left by this particular visit to Lowestoft. Thence we ran along the easy coast road in the darkness to Great Yarmouth, which, on this occasion, left no vivid impression on the memory. No such language, however, can be employed with regard to the remainder of that evening's drive. Doubts had arisen whether it would be wiser to make for Norwich by the more circuitous route which fetches a compass round Caister Castle, or by the "new road" running in a direct line for Acle first, across a salt marsh, and from Acle fairly straight for Norwich. The new road was much the shorter and, being across a salt marsh, a dead-level, but our local pilot was doubtful as to the state of its surface. However, it was decided to make inquiry at the toll-gate, a mile or so out of Yarmouth, and to abide by the answer, which was satisfactory. So was the road, so far as its surface went. It ran first for five miles straight as an arrow; the straightness was apparent at the time, but the five miles seemed like twenty. A fine mist was frozen over the watery land, nothing was visible on one side except, at stated intervals, a towering telegraph pole, and on both sides, at shorter intervals, were puny and poor trees which may have been poplars or willows. It became my duty, seated beside the man at the wheel, to peer into the darkness, trying to distinguish any possible obstacle or turn, to make out the character of any light that might be seen, and to watch for the bend, which, after another straight run of some three miles, would take us to Acle. As a rule I could just see the outline of one telegraph post as we passed its predecessor; there was, in all probability, a deep dyke on either side, and it was an ideal night for running into a country vehicle travelling without a tail light; but happily we encountered none. Indeed, although motorists complain much, late years have seen a great improvement in this respect. Of lights on approaching vehicles we saw one or two, appearing at first to be distant and stationary as a planet on a clear night, and then to be close to us in an instant. It was, in short, a trying experience to the nerves and to the eyes, and we resolved to avoid night journeys as much as might be in the future. The resolution was renewed when we looked at our strained and bloodshot eyes the next morning, and broken perforce the next evening; but night travelling by motor-car in winter is not to be recommended unless the moon is strong. It is a process to be resolved upon when circumstances suit, not to be planned in advance.

From Acle to Norwich was ten miles more or less of up-and-down travelling, the hills not serious enough to try a good motor high, and it was an unfeigned relief to reach the shelter and food of the Royal Hotel. Here, practically, ends the account of the second day of this excursion, for the Royal Hotel is comfortable, not expensive as English hotels go, and new; but mere comfort is fortunately commonplace, its novelty is rather more of an outrage than usual in this case, and the novelty of the hotel's name is an offence not to be pardoned. Here, where the modern "Royal" stands, in the very centre of the city, stood the famous "Angel" from the fifteenth century at least to the middle of the nineteenth. Local antiquaries, many and eager, rejoice in tracing the history of this celebrated hostelry, finding frequent allusions to it in the records of the Master of the Revels, for here mountebanks performed, and theatrical performances were given, and strange monsters were shown. It had the glory of paying £115 tax for thirty windows in the eighteenth century—this makes one understand the blocked windows in old houses more sympathetically than a bare mention of window tax does—and it was the great Whig House in the days when Norfolk elections were, as Mr. Walter Rye tells us, half of the history of Norfolk, the other half being concerned with trade. It is true that Mr. Walter Rye, speaking of the election of 1675, says that Sir Nevill Cattyn's party "used the 'Royal,' (then the 'King's Head,') and the other side, using a stratagem—singularly enough repeated at the same house last election, two or three years ago—ordered a great dinner there on the pretence that they might 'friendly meet and dine' with the other party, and ultimately secured the whole house as their election quarters; Cattyn, who was brought into town by four thousand horsemen, having to put up with the 'White Swan' 'at the back side of the butchers' shambles'" (A History of Norfolk, by Walter Rye. Elliot Stock, 1885). I prefer to pin my faith to Norfolk and Norwich Notes and Queries, not only because its elaborate article on the topic is evidently based on careful research, but also because its statements are not contradicted in subsequent issues, and these bear eloquent testimony to the fact that the local antiquaries of East Anglia have at least one trait in common with the antiquaries of the wider world—they contradict with freedom and dispute with endless pertinacity. Here there is no contradiction (and Mr. Rye's accuracy is by no means equal to his industry or to his love of antiquity), so it may be taken as reasonably certain that the "Royal" is on the site of the "Angel," and that the "Angel" first appeared by that name in 1578, when it was leased to one Peterson; but the property has been traced back to Mistress Katharine Dysse in the rolls of the Mayoralty Court of Norwich, and she lived early in the fifteenth century. Here, in October, 1677, Joseph Argent had "fourteen days allowed to him to make show of such tricks as are mentioned in his patent at the 'Angel.'" In 1683 "Robert Austine at ye Angel hath leave given him for a week from ys Daie to make show of the storie of Edward the 4th and Iane Shore, and noe longer." In several later years Peter Dolman clearly made a great success with Punchinello or Puntionella—both forms are used. There are a score of similar entries, also of displays at the "Angel," of freaks and monstrosities, waxworks and the like. Hither fled Mr. Thomas Coke, of Holkham, father of the agriculture of Norfolk, during a Corn Law riot of 1815, escaping through the back of the house with the then Earl of Albemarle; in the "Angel" in 1794 the Duke of York stayed when on his way to Yarmouth to meet the exiled family of the Prince of Orange, and here the Duke of Wellington changed horses on his way to Gunton in 1820, receiving a hearty welcome from the citizens. From the "Angel" the Whigs sallied forth during the election of 1832, and enjoyed a glorious fight in quite the old style with the Tories in the market-place. An inn-name of such antiquity and so many associations should not have been changed. Apparently, however, the house has not changed its political colour, for it is a curious coincidence that, on the evening of 24 January, Lord Kimberley was a guest at the "Royal," and next day his son, Lord Wodehouse, won the Mid-Norfolk election. Now the Wodehouses have been Whigs ever since Whigs were, and it need not be doubted that Sir Philip Wodehouse, M.P. for Castle Rising, who died in 1623, was of much the same political temper as those of the name who came after him.