" "That, Father! will I gladly do: 'T is scarcely afternoon, The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon!"

"How reverend ..." An adaptation of Congreve's description of York Minster in "The Mourning Bride" (Mary Lamb's "first play"), Act I., Scene 1: How reverend is the face of this tall pile ... Looking tranquillity!

[Footnote 20: Minster-walk, 1st edit.

A number of poets were asked for verses, the best to be inscribed on a monument in York Minster.

With rocky foot stern-set like iron in the land, With leafy rustling crest the morning sows with pearls, Huge as a minster, half in heaven men saw thee stand, Thy rugged girth the waists of fifty Eastern girls.

By that time the King and Queen were gone to the minster to hear their service.

And then the King and all estates went home unto Camelot, and so went to evensong to the great minster, and so after upon that to supper, and every knight sat in his own place as they were toforehand.

And when they all were armed save their shields and their helms, then they came to their fellowship, which were all ready in the same wise, for to go to the minster to hear their service.

At the south transept where was "the Minster durra that openeth to the Trinite Churchyarde," the descent must have been considerable.

I have always heard that the most infelicitous quotation on record was made by the fourth Lord Fitzwilliam at a county meeting held at York to raise a fund for the repair of the Minster after the fire which so nearly destroyed it in 1829.

This morning an alarm is spread through the city'The Minster on fire.'

After some demur, the parson at Minster declared himself willing to do the pious deed.

Master Busy had on that second morning brought home the news from Acol, that Squire Boatfield had caused a rough deal coffin to be made by the village carpenter at the expense of the county, and that mayhap the stranger would be laid therein this very afternoon and conveyed down to Minster, where he would be accorded Christian burial.

"The hour is getting late, squire," he said hesitatingly, "we carriers be ready.... 'Tis an hour or more down to Minster ... walking with a heavy burden I mean....

Together the two young people were using gentle persuasion to get the old woman to the back room, whence she could not see the dreary scene now or presently, the slow winding of the dismal little procession down the road which leads to Minster, and whence she could not hear that weird flapping of the wet sheet against the side of the coffin, an echo to the slow and muffled tolling of the church bell some little distance away.

It were useless now to attempt to reach Minster before nightfall: nor presumably would the old Quakeress thus have parted from the dead body of her lad.

Those who had been prepared to carry the coffin to Minster were the last to hang back.

Very decidedly it must be Texel; devil fly up with him and scratch him among the gargoyles of the minster!

And as we ate our Christmas dinner that day, as we gathered round the table to eat the fat and drink the sweet, the solemn voice of Old Peter, the great minster bell, was heard tolling for the departed soul.

Cradle of Henry V Coronation Chair, Westminster Abbey Chair in York Minster Two Chairs of the XV.

[Illustration: Chair in the Vestry of York Minster.

The above drawing of a chair in York Minster, and the two more throne-like seats on the full-page illustration, will serve to shew the best kind of ornamental Ecclesiastical furniture of the fourteenth century.

On the way we saw a part of York Minster, and had a splendid, view of Durham Cathedral, standing high in the unreachablethat is, as far as I was concerned.

"Minster has a religious meaning, hasn't it?" said I. "Yes, madam," said he; "it relates to cathedrals and that sort of thing.

And truly it was as he said, for we found the mark of the little Highlandman's shillela on the fox's head, while he himself was sitting a straddle on him, like "the devil looking over Lincoln Minster," and the dogs lying panting round about.