filth that might shake the nerves of any more vulnerable bodies than “paving commissioners” or “boards of health;” its arched recesses, once so carefully defined, its elevated walks, so studiously preserved for recreation as well as for defence, all now rendered an indefinite disfigured mass, with accretions of modern growth, that bear the stamp upon every feature of their parentage, poverty and decay.  He may visit barns and cottages with remnants of windows and doorways, that make it

easy to believe they once had been the shrine of a St. Mary Magdalen; may trace out for himself, among hovels and cellars, and reeking court-yards, grey patches of festering ruin, last lingering evidences of the age of conventual grandeur; here, in the priory yard of a parish, that might be said to shelter the offscum of poverty’s heavings up, he shall find a little ecclesiastical remnant of monastic architecture, converted into a modern meeting-house; the nursery walls that cradled the genius of a Bale, the carmelite monk, and great chronicler of his age, now echoing the doctrines of the “Reformed Religion,” as taught by the Anabaptist preacher.  In another district, but still skirting on the river-side, where those old monks ever loved to pitch their dwelling-places, down in a dreary little nook, shut out from noisy thoroughfares, and bearing about it all the hushed stillness that beseems the place, he may seek the ghostly companionship of the old “friar of orders grey” in the lanes and walks that once bounded the flourishing territory of the rich “mendicant” followers of holy St. Francis, or “friars minors,” as they were wont to call themselves.  Not far distant, the whereabouts of the old Austin Friars may invite attention; and the locale of the “Carrow Nunnery,” or ladies’ seminary of the mediæval times, claim a passing enquiry, and note of admiration for the beauty of its site.

Sacred spots, consecrated by the holy waters of loving humanity and gentle charity, in ages gone by, as the refuge of the diseased leper and homeless poor, shall be pointed to as the mustard-seed from whence have sprung those glorious monuments of our land, the hospitals for the sick of these later generations.

Nor would he rest content without a glimpse of the Museum and its relics of the dead, its hieroglyphical urns and querns, spurs, fibulæ, and celts, its pyxes and beads, its lamps and coins, that lead imagination back to pay domiciliary visits to the wooden huts, earthen fortifications, and sepulchral hearths of our Icenic, Roman, or Saxon forefathers, while gaping Egyptian mummies stand by, peering from their wizened-up eye-balls at the industrious student of the “gallery of antiquities,” looking wonder at the preference displayed for them, over the more brilliant attractions offered to the lover of natural history, and ornithology in particular, among the collections below.

Nor shall the antiquarian be alone in his enjoyment.  The botanist shall delight to enrich his herbarium from the same hedgerows, fir-woods, cornfields and rivulets, that have yielded flowers, mosses, hepatica, and algæ to the researches of a Smith, a Hooker, and a Lindley, the children of science nurtured on its soil.  The lover of music shall find

fresh beauties in the harmonies of its organs, quires, and choruses, from the halo of associations cast around them by the memories of a Crotch, the remembrance of the Gresham professorship, filled from the musical ranks of the city, and may be, in time to come from a new lustre added by another name, that has begun to be sounded forth by the trumpet of fame in the musical world.

The scholar and literary man shall acknowledge the interest claimed by the nursery in which has been reared a Bale, a Clarke, a Parker, a Taylor, a Gurney, an Opie, and a Borrow, and we may add, a Barwell and a Geldart, whose fruit and flowers, scattered on the way-side of the roads of learning, have made many a rough path smooth to young and tender feet.

The philanthropist shall dwell upon the early lessons of Christian love and humanity breathed into the heart of a Fry from its prison-houses, and the silent teachings of the quiet meeting-house, where the brethren and sisters, in simple garb of sober gray, are wont to assemble, and where yet may still be seen the adopted sister Opie, resting in the autumn of her days in the calm seclusion of the body of Friends, after a life spent in scattering abroad in the world, germs of simple truth, pure morality, and heart-religion, the fruits of the genius which has been her gift from God.  He shall visit Earlham

Hall, the birthplace of that great “sister of charity,” Elizabeth Fry, and her brother, the philanthropist, Joseph John Gurney, and beneath its avenues of chestnut, by the quiet waters of its little lake, and the banks of bright anemones, that lay spread like a rich carpet, in the early spring time, along its garden borders, inhale sweet odours, and drink in refreshing draughts of pure unsullied poetry, fresh from the fount of nature, and fragrant with the love that breathes through all her teachings, the first child of the Great Parent of good.

Hence he may trace his way back through the village hamlet, that gave a home in his last years to the weary-hearted Hall, yielding a refuge and a grave to the head bowed beneath the weight of a sorrow-burthened mitre; and with hearts yet vibrating to the mournful cadences of woe, that swept from his harp strings, forth upon the world from its saddened solitudes, they may pass on to the garden of the Bishop’s Palace, and the monuments yet lingering there; ivy-clad ruins, meet emblems of harsh realities, over which the hand of time has thrown the sheltering mantle of forgiveness.  And among the many chords touched by the hand of memory here, where the shades of harsh bigotry and persecuting zeal vanish in the gentle and softened light of Christian charity, breathed forth by the spirits of later days, whose heart does not respond

to the refined poetry of the Charlotte Elizabeth, who has given such sweet paintings of this familiar scene of her girlhood’s years?  Who can forget the song of the Swedish Nightingale, as it thrilled through the evening air upon the listening ears of the ravished, though untutored multitude? happy associations of the enjoyments of working world life, and lay minstrels of God’s creation, to be blended with the grander, but scarce more solemn, memories of the great heads among the labourers in the harvest field of souls.  Nor shall the poet forget to take a glimpse of the quiet home, not far distant hence, of Sayer, the poet, philanthropist, philosopher, and antiquarian, whose memory is still green in the hearts of many of the great and good still living, and the remembrance of whose friendship is esteemed by them among their choicest treasures.

The historian has a yet wider field for labour, and a busier work to do, to connect into one chain the links that lie scattered far and wide, among deserted thoroughfares, decaying mansion houses, desecrated churches, and monastic ruins; to gather up the broken fragments of political records, enshrined in many a mouldering parchment, crumbling stone, or withered tree; and to weave into a whole the threads of tradition and legendary lore, unravelled from the mystic fables of antiquity.  It is his, to trace the identities of King Gurgunt and the Danish Lothbroc;

to establish the founder of the castle, and commemorate the achievements of its feudal lords;