THE O. P? RIOTS.

cessant din that I was glad to get out.

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One fellow, a Bow Street runner, was in the pit. Being recognised, he was turned out. Soon after he appeared again in the pit, and seemed determined to maintain his position. But a dozen or score fellows flew on him like so many tigers. They were all down together-Good heavens, such a scene! I fully expected three or four would have been killed. Nearly all have 'O. P.' in front of their hats. Many had silver letters, which looked very pretty. The various devices the pit have to keep the noise alive are wonderful. When the curtain rises they turn their backs to the stage, making the most dreadful noises. Then two or three pronounce 'O. P.,' stamping their feet violently down during the pronunciation of the letters. This was instantly caught by the whole house. You can have no idea of the effect. Then they cram themselves as close to the sides of the pit as possible, and make a road up the middle. The active fellows then race it up and down, treading of course on the seats. Even leapfrog was attempted. The play was 'Romeo and Juliet,' with 'The Poor Soldier.' All was pantomime. I declare solemnly I did not hear one word of the performance, and although a very large band of music was playing in the farce, and between play and farce, it was only at intervals you could discover it, and then only for a single moment. When any of the Kembles appear on the stage, the scene is at its climax, for then, as my paper formerly observed, it is enough to tear Hell's Concave. The audience look anywhere but on the stage, and if the players speak at all, it is a proof of their folly, for they cannot hear themselves.

Nov. 16.-I understand that in the row at Covent Garden last night, one of the 'O. P.'s' was knocked down and kicked when down by one of the fighting Jews, and that he is now dying in consequence.

CHAPTER XXVII.

NATALE SOLUM.

FROM an early date Gainsborough was a position of strategic importance. It was the highest point of the river, accessible to small sea-going vessels at all states of the tide, and at high tides to larger vessels. In my time the Smiths built ships of seven or eight hundred tons burden there. Next to the Thames, the Trent was formerly the best station for a fleet on the east coast. It could there be easily defended, and could always drop down with the ebb in a few hours, and, with a favourable wind, be at sea in a long day. Gainsborough was, and indeed still is, the most inland point in the east of England that can be reached by vessels of three hundred tons burden.

On the other hand, it was the lowest point of the river that could be reckoned on for a safe crossing under ordinary conditions. Just above the old town the Trent contracts to a width of 110 yards. The approaches are on dry ground, only submerged by the most extraordinary floods. Below Gainsborough there were several ancient ferries-in particular, one still bearing the name of Ferry Kinnard, being no doubt the spot where Edward the Confessor passed with an army-upon rafts it must be supposed. That ferry, however, could only be reached over wide marshy tracks on both sides of the river, and, conse

quently, after a period of dry weather. The Romans had a bridge of some sort two or three miles above Gainsborough, and there are even traces of an old work. But, as I have stated above, the Roman port was Lincoln, communicating with the Trent by a canal at Torksey, where the junction was fortified to prevent surprise by piratical fleets.

Gainsborough first appears in history as built from the ruins of Torksey. Alfred was married here, in the old palace then occupying the site of the still existing 'Old Hall.' It was here that Sweyn, some generations after, effected his first landing on English soil, and soon made his first settlement. His son Canute was born here, and was much more of a Gainsborough man than I can claim to be, for here he passed his youth, and here, upon the death of his father, he was proclaimed King of England by the captains of his navy. It is an old and probable tradition of the place that here he rebuked his courtiers by commanding the onward-rushing 'eagre' to stand still.

It is frequently said that Gainsborough is a corruption of Danesborough; but the Anglo-Saxon spelling was 'Genes burh,' and Alfred's wife was daughter of the Ealdorman of the Gainas, who can hardly be supposed identical with Danes. Gainsborough, I must add, was the most northern town outside the Trent,' while Derby and Nottingham were the most southern towns of the north of England. In the Civil War the ordinances of Parliament would take effect a week earlier at Gainsborough than at the two other towns.

The later history of the town is written in its domestic and its ecclesiastical architecture. The body of the church, by Gibbs, is a noble piece of building, however incongruous, and notwithstanding Mr. Britton's fierce denunciations. There was a story about the church bells and about the organ, both of which I believed to be without rivals out of London. The crimson velvet and gold fringe adorning the pulpit and reading-desk, I used to be told, were from the spoil taken after the battle of Dettingen. Gainsborough must have been an important place when Henry VIII. held his court here in the Old Hall on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of August, 1541, on his way to receive the submissions and peace-offerings of the Yorkshire malcontents. Though his progress was slow, and he diverged right and left to hawk or to hunt or to enjoy hospitalities, he left Doncaster altogether out of his route. The Old Hall appears in the charges against Katherine Howard, and that may possibly be the foundation of the ghost story one used to hear. It was occupied by gentry till the middle of last century, for the fourth Earl of Abington, so I read, was born there.

A substantial mansion near the bridge was said to have been built out of a great rising in wheat. About the time I came into the world there was born in that house one who became an M.P., and a rather noisy Protectionist. Much to my amusement, he used to be quoted as an immense authority by several of the newspapers. I cannot recall ever to have seen the future champion of vested rights and sliding scales, for I was not old enough to accompany my brother

THE HUNDRED OF BASSETLAW.

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John to a juvenile party given at his father's house in honour of the son and heir.

Lower down the river, that is, higher up the town, were two enormous bow-windows. They came of a successful operation in timber. Whale-oil and tallow were, I think, the most speculative articles, but hemp and flax also had great and sudden rises in our time.

Half-way 'down town,' a house projected itself over a small colonnade, assuming that importance which pillars always have to the rude as well as the classic mind. The encroachment must have been in the days when there were no umbrellas, no pavements, no parapets—nothing, indeed, to save passengers from either eaves-droppings or sludge. No piece of architecture, ancient or modern, holds its ground in my memory more than the House,' as it used to be called.

Pillared

Across the river lay a region which I always regarded with a romantic interest. Man, rather than nature, had made it what it was, for there was not much to be seen in it from Gainsborough, and one could travel many a mile through it without discovering what one might call a landscape. But it had comfortable towns and villages, and thriving homesteads; immense fields of wheat, or turnips, as might be; mansions great and small, tall church towers, and, above all, the Dukeries. This was to us the first stage into England, and the world. Its wealth, its quietness, its gentility, and its nobility, presented a striking contrast to the north of Lincolnshire, which I think we used to regard as what is called

VOL. I.

M