May 28th.--We left Peterborough this afternoon, and, however reluctant to
leave the cathedral, we were glad to get away from the hotel; for, though
outwardly pretentious, it is a wretched and uncomfortable place, with
scanty table, poor attendance, and enormous charges. The first stage of
our journey to-day was to Grantham, through a country the greater part of
which was as level as the Lincolnshire landscapes have been, throughout
our experience of them. We saw several old villages, gathered round
their several churches; and one of these little communities, "Little
Byforth," had a very primitive appearance,--a group of twenty or thirty
dwellings of stone and thatch, without a house among them that could be
so modern as a hundred years. It is a little wearisome to think of
people living from century to century in the same spot, going in and out
of the same doors, cultivating the same fields, meeting the same faces,
and marrying one another over and over again; and going to the same
church, and lying down in the same churchyard,--to appear again, and go
through the same monotonous round in the next generation.
At Grantham, our route branches off from the main line; and there was a
delay of about an hour, during which we walked up into the town, to take
a nearer view of a tall gray steeple which we saw from the railway
station. The streets that led from the station were poor and
commonplace; and, indeed, a railway seems to have the effect of making
its own vicinity mean. We noticed nothing remarkable until we got to the
marketplace, in the centre of which there is a cross, doubtless of great
antiquity, though it is in too good condition not to have been recently
repaired. It consists of an upright pillar, with a pedestal of half a
dozen stone steps, which are worn hollow by the many feet that have
scraped their hobnailed shoes upon them. Among these feet, it is highly
probable, may have been those of Sir Isaac Newton, who was a scholar of
the free school of this town; and when J----- scampered up the steps, we
told him so. Visible from the market-place also stands the Angel Inn,
which seems to be a wonderfully old inn, being adorned with gargoyles and
other antique sculpture, with projecting windows, and an arched entrance,
and presenting altogether a frontispiece of so much venerable state that
I feel curious to know its history. Had I been aware that the chief
hotel of Grantham were such a time-honored establishment, I should have
arranged to pass the night there, especially as there were interesting
objects enough in the town to occupy us pleasantly. The church--the
steeple of which is seen over the market-place, but is removed from it by
a street or two--is very fine; the tower and spire being adorned with
arches, canopies, and niches,--twelve of the latter for the twelve
Apostles, all of whom have now vanished,--and with fragments of other
Gothic ornaments. The jackdaws have taken up their abodes in the
crevices and crannies of the upper half of the steeple.