— 405 — 



recross that rebellious, unquiet English channel, a terror 

 to all those unprovided with such commodities as " sea 

 legs." Nor will it be to that great Babylon of fog, bustle, 

 wealth, intellect, fashion, population and squalid poverty, 

 London ; nor is it to those marvellous and smoky hives 

 of human industry, commerce or shipping, Leeds, Man- 

 chester, Sheffield, Liverpool, that we will direct our 

 steps. Oh ! no. We shall from Euston Square Station 

 take train in the fleetest of English railways, the Flying 

 Scotchman, ocior Euro and allow the steed that never 

 tires, to waft us at the rate of a mile per minute or so, 

 over hill and dale, across lawn and hedgerow, high 

 above house-top, high above river, through long, dark 

 tunnels like Lefroy's, into the most noted cathedral-town 

 of Merrie England. Come, we shall penetrate within 

 those famous walls of York, bristling with the memories 

 of siege and battle, within those grey, lofty midieval 

 city gates (bars as they call them) from whose towers 

 more than one nobleman's, highwayman's or murder- 

 er's head, ghastly and grining, looked down on the 

 gladdened or sorrowing crowd below. If a sight of 

 famous old York has been to you as from our early 

 years, it was to me, a hope, a dream, too good scarely 

 to be a reality, come we shall ascend and ramble round 

 these circuitous walls, portcullis and bastions ; follow 

 in the wake of an old friend by many here remembered, 

 Major F. Lees, formerly an officer in our garrison, now 

 a resident of a city as picturesque as our own : York. 

 We shall next go and inspect the hoary aisles of its 

 superb old Minster, whose grim, weather-stained spires 

 catch the eye from afar. Those marble sarcopagi, dimmed 

 with the dust of centuries, those eloquent mural inscrip- 

 tions, those erect or recumbent figures of kings, of 

 warriors fierce, of patriots and statesmen, of white- 

 bearded bishops, of pious or proud abbots, that sombre, 

 subterranean crypt of the Minster, old even a thousand 

 years ago, think you they have no dark secrets to tell, 



