WEXIO 33 



It had not altogether this appearance in 1717, for 

 the town has been stone-built since the fire of 1843 ; but 

 in some parts its aspect is unchanged. The cathedral, 

 dating from 1300, with its curiously battlemented 

 tower and its six transepts, is one of the quaintest I ever 

 saw. It focusses a pleasing scene as one sits in the 

 leafy avenues of its close, admiring the truly Swedish 

 mixture of its colours, red, white, and grey, set in foliage, 

 and backed by a deep blue sky. Not until one comes 

 to draw the building does one perceive the variety of 

 its forms and tracery. It looks so simple with its six 

 transepts all set in a row, yet it puzzles one's perspective 

 more than many more seemingly elaborate churches. 



A bridge under the railway leads to the sea, I was 

 going to write, the blue lake looks so like the sea from 

 the avenues round the church ; and a lofty bridge over 

 the railway leads to the higher gardens they are laying 

 out above the lake borders, Wexio is an attractive place, 

 and none so small either ; on closer view it has all the 

 consequential appearance of a flourishing town ; though, 

 with a population of only 4,000, it looks over-housed. 



It must have seemed a prodigiously fine place to 

 young Linnasus, now seeing a town for the first time ; 

 but the happy hunting-grounds for natural history 

 looked a long way off. Father and son repaired at once 

 to the grammar school now called the old grammar 

 school, for a handsome new one has been lately built 

 and the old school-house has been handed over to a lower 

 class of boys, who, however, look very respectable and 



VOL. i. D 



