140 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



some instances a very ludicrous effect, particularly where the 

 men's heads, beards and all, are set on female bodies. We then 

 got out into the cloisters, and from them into the chapter-house, 

 in which heavy-groined arches, simple, and without the slightest 

 ornament, have a fine effect. The date is about 1190. We saw 

 here some very strongly marked faces which, in stone, represent 

 certain Norman abbots whose graves were under us. 



Without the cathedral yard, the ruins of the old abbey appear 

 frequently among the houses the old black oak timber and brick 

 work of the time of Cromwell, mingling picturesquely with the 

 water-worn carvings of the older, old masonry. This morning 

 we saw a stout, round, old Saxon arch giving protection to a fire- 

 engine, which brought to mind the improbability of the present 

 race of New Yorkers sending down to posterity such memorials 

 of itself. Well, it will send better perhaps, and more lasting 

 than stones or stocks. 



On the town-hall is a large statue, said to be of Queen Anne, 

 but so battered and chipped, that it might stand for anybody else, 

 in a long dress. The hands and nose, and all the regalia, are 

 knocked off. And how, do you suppose ? By the super-sovereign. 

 people in election demonstrations. Thank God, we may yet boast 

 that, in our thoroughly democratic elections, where the whole 

 national policy is turning, and the most important private and 

 local interests are at issue, we leave no such memorials of our 

 tune. (I beg pardon of the " bloody Sixth.") 



Going into a book-shop for a direction, we saw Emerson's 

 " Representative Men," and Irving's " Sketch Book," on the 

 counter, with newspapers and railway guides, and the proprietor 

 told us he had sold many of them. 



We passed through a crockery shop to see a Roman bath, 

 which had been discovered in excavating a cellar in the rear of 

 it. Such things are every year turning up. 



