commodations. And indeed this is the only room we have for visitors, except the kitchen; which is quite full already."

"We are somewhat fatigued," said the elder of her two guests," and are not so anxious about the accommodation, provided the place be quiet: have not you a room above stairs, now, where we may be free from the smoking and drinking of your friends close by this window ?”

"Why as for their smoking and talking, good Sir," answered the Landlady, "it's bad enow to you, I dare say, and we shall have, I trow, rather a noisy time of it this evening:-for the weekly club will be held to-night, and it's expected to be a full meeting of the members, to settle their quarterly accounts;-but it's mortal unfortunate we should be thus straitened to lodge your honours."

The modern "Elinor Rumming" now looked earnestly at the gentlemen, and seeing nothing in their persons or manners displeasing, stated, though with some hesitation, that to be sure there was another apartment in her house; over which, through the absence of one who usually occupied it, she had a discretionary control. She then related to them, that for several years past, the Inn had been frequented by an elderly person who roamed about the country visiting ancient build

b

ings and churches; and whose chief occupation appeared to be that of copying old monumentalinscriptions, and forming a general collection of whatever appeared to be antique and interesting. He was also in the habit of bringing home such of these rarities as he could honestly carry away, and of leaving them under her care;-till the old rubbish, as she termed it, had so accumulated, that it's removal would now be attended with considerable inconvenience to him. She had therefore appropriated the room above-mentioned to his sole use; and, being a quiet inoffensive man, paying readily for all he wanted, he was evidently considered, notwithstanding his eccentricities, to be no unacceptable inmate. She stated him to be a prodigy of learning, and therefore concluded he had once been a schoolmaster; whilst his predilection for churches and burial-grounds was, in her womanish reason, to be attributed only to the loss of some beloved object in early life, which had given to his pursuits their melancholy character. She concluded by observing that, as her present visitors had the appearance of being clergyshe ran no great risk in yielding up to them for the evening the use of "the Old Gentleman's Room;" professing herself satisfied that her confidence would not be abused, by the subtraction

men,

or disturbance of any of the curiosities it contained; and she accordingly offered this improvement of their accommodation.

Her guests having thankfully accepted of it, the Landlady conducted them through her spacious kitchen; and, opening a small door directly communicating with a steep ladder-like staircase, she ascended to a long passage, terminating in the ANTIQUARY'S APARTMENT; into which having ushered her visitants, and silently enjoyed for a moment their expressions of surprise, she withdrew,

Upon examining the chamber, they found it to be a room of some twelve or fourteen feet square, having a low ceiling, and being indifferently constructed for receiving the light, by means of a very small latticed window; of which, however, nearly all the original panes had been exchanged for odd pieces of stained glass of numerous shapes and colours. In one place appeared a portion of some ancient armorial-bearing, and in another a jagged fragment of an old painted Cathedral-window, with the disjointed relique of a Saintly effigy, or scroll with a godly Latin text in black-letter:some parts of these overlaid the others, or, in unskilful arrangement, were connected with heavy leaden frames, through which the rays of the sun

struggled in vain to penetrate. A round oaken table, which perchance had in by-gone times often groaned under the wooden trenchers of servingmen, and witnessed many a mighty operation of spoon, knife, and tankard, stood now oppressed with a tolerably heavy weight of another description of things; which the tooth of Time, although he is notoriously known as the insatiate Edax Rerum, had in vain attempted to consume. A small portion of the board was, however, cleared, and near it was placed a high-backed carved chair, which, in it's days of youth and cleanliness, might have been honoured by our Maiden Queen's noon-day siestas; or, as would rather be conjectured from it's present smoked and tarnished splendours, had once been fumigated by the fragrant vapours of Sir Walter Raleigh's Virginian narcotic. Here, then, as it appeared, the usual occupant of the room was wont to revel in his antiquarian treasures; and seated by his motley-coloured window, enjoyed it's "dim religious light," in poring over and decyphering many a fragment of the ancient lore of England.

A copy of that very rare and famous translation of the entire Scriptures, undauntedly set forth by Miles Coverdale at Zurich in 1530, which had escaped the prohibitions of Chancellor More and

the fires of Cheapside or Smithfield, wherein the spirits of the Reformers who translated it, had, "in fiery chariots," ascended to Heaven,-here lay enshrined in oaken boards, thickly studded with brass; designed as it were, like the wellnailed portal of some rich old mansion, to secure from profane hands the treasures which it contained. The religious feelings of the Collegians were, however, still farther gratified, by observing, as they turned over the leaves and read the pencilled remarks in the margins, that it's owner appeared to understand and appreciate it's value, more truly than the fashionable bibliomaniacs of later times are wont to do:--and that he loved and revered the doctrines which it taught, even beyond the extreme rarity of the edition itself. A small recess in the wainscot contained a few other choice black-letter tomes, of high value in the present day, pre-eminent wherein were the excellent old Perambulation of Kent, by the learned William Lambard, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Editio Princeps, by Caxton, and the Chronicles of Holinshed, edition of 1587, having all the cancelled passages; together with sundry fragments of books of devotion, old broadsides, ballads, and parchment deeds with large round seals attached to them; but these were secured by an outer