SILSOE AND LEIGHTON BUZZARD 129 



member hearing this gentleman speaking in praise of James 

 Silk Buckingham as one of the most remarkable men and 

 prolific writers of the day. Some six years later, I think, I 

 heard a lecture in London by J. S. Buckingham on some of 

 his travels, and the impression made upon me then was, and 

 still is, that he was the best lecturer I ever heard, the most 

 fluent and interesting speaker. 



Our work here was mainly copying maps or making sur- 

 veys connected with the estate, and for this purpose we had 

 the use of a small empty house nearly opposite the inn, where 

 a large drawing-table and a few chairs and stools were all the 

 furniture we required. Here we used sometimes to sit of a 

 summer's evening with one or two friends for privacy and 

 quiet conversation, Mr. Clephan, the architect, and his clerk 

 being our most frequent companions. My brother supplied 

 them with gin-and-water and pipes, and I sat by reading a 

 book or listening to their discourse. Sometimes they would 

 tell each other stories of odd incidents they had met with, or 

 discuss problems in philosophy, science, or politics. When 

 jovially inclined, the architect's clerk would sing songs, many 

 of which were of such an outrageously gross character that 

 my brother would beg him to be more cautious so as not to 

 injure the morals of youth. At one time, when Mr. Clephan 

 was away, there was a fire at a farm quite near us which 

 burnt some stacks and outbuildings, and caused considerable 

 excitement in the village. We only heard of it early in the 

 morning, when the local fire-engine had at length succeeded 

 in putting it out. My brother wrote an account of this to 

 Mr. Clephan, with humorous descriptions of the sayings and 

 doings of the chief village characters, and, in reference to 

 what we saw when it was nearly all over, he said, " It could 

 best be described in a well-known line from the Latin gram- 

 mar, ' Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen 

 ademptum,' which might be freely rendered, ' a horrid shape- 

 less mass whose glim the engines dowse." He used to show 

 me any letters he thought might interest me, and this " free 

 translation " took my schoolboy fancy so that it has stuck in 

 my memory. 



