The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1868-06-16 00:00:00

WIIIEBnRITE.

I Barron or Writroaar.—We entreat the following
from • paper in Praser's Magazine for Jane, by Patricius
Walker :—Here I 1111/1, at the railway station at
Wimborne Minster, viewing with expectation the two
beantiful towers •hich dominate the little town. A long
and crooked street, noway remarkable (yet it ti always
. peculiar pleasure to walk into a sew pleas —you thus
I take possession of it), led me to the churchyard, where
I the pollard-lindens parallel to the street, with boughs
I interwoven overhead and forming • green aroade, yielded
I glimpses, through thin foliage, of the oentral tower of
rod sandstone, broad and short, with crocheted pinnacles
at the four corners; its rich looked enchanted by •
growth of ivy rooted high up on the south leo*, ernbroi-
define with verdure the interlaced &robes of the stone-
work. There wasonos aspire, which fell 250 years ago.
The gray-coloured west tower is taller, and of prrien.
.theslar gothic. A little girl nursing • baby sod two or
three other children loitered in the light-leafy linden
creed.; the street was full of spring sunshine and empty
of people; one wondered why the stops were kept open.
It wee the middle of the day, the townsfolk at dinner,
the boys in Queen Elizabeth's grammarechool at their
hesions. I found the north dor of the Illinst-r open
and entered ; the verger wa, showing the church to
some rural acquaintances, and I followed a little way
off, evading the vexations of a formal guidance. The
oldest parts of the settee are some 800 years old. Steps
over • pillared crypt amend to the choir, and there lie
band in hand the well-carved alab.ter Eger. of a Dote
and Unchains of &menet who left this earth 450 yea.
ago. His helmet hangs above upon nail. He died
. . .

;Otos year. after Josir:Oi Are sassi;u—rned, and while the
Duke of York was liegent of France. The lid of the
tomb was raised not many yews ago, and this view
looking in saw der two eollins apparently whets and
some odds, supposed the °or& by which they had been
red. He showed, in tLe well aside the altar, the
preena, a thing not used by the present owners of this
costly uilding. They bays lately, however, got all the
Minster rep.irel and re-embellished, by means of
• nubile subnriptinn, and not merely or mainly
on archipelagic claims, but in great p.rt on religious.
Our nobles of to-rhy wear no helmets; our clergy dip
their enure in no preina ; but we still hove dukes and
huge domains, bishops and great churches. We are
living strangely in the end of a long period, among
names and things gray with the crust of antiquity, de-
lightful from nanntiquarlan point of view, and retaining.
*moo( them, an groins of that roman-e, +tinge of that
picturesqueness, infused without conscious effort into
men's doings in certain by-gone times. No wonder that
there names and things, and the thoughts connosstod
with them, should be der and venerable to so many
minds. Modern life, podia and private, in its typied
tonna, Is neither romantic) nor picturesque. Those who
love the Ideal in man's life (body and spirit) are not well
at boom in this present time; they belong more to the
past or to the future- At the other end of the cherub
an old clock-fare of large sine on the wall inside, marked
with 24 boors, showed correctly the passing hours of a
new spring day by means of • gilt sun travelling round
ibn thole. A ball rnoreepate the moon and her slaws.
The ancient craven foot below was not dry like the
perrina, but besprinkled from the baptism of two babes
that morning; and the bream water-fag, replaced ost ita
old shelf, stood ready to continue its shad in the
mysterious oasis for children yet unborn. To get
out of any building, however beautiful or interesting,
into the overt air and free world, it to me • pleasant
escape. Narrow streets hem in the Minster. I Ina
reached the market-place, an irreaular open; and
then, through byolanes, • pretty Geld-path on the
wed side of the town, where amidst broad meadows,
guarded north and south by heavily wooded
dopes, winds the tranquil Samar, with deep
whore looking into the transparent water I scar:me
::
some of the inhabitants, little pike, gelded, who know
nothing, I sitspeet, of Wishorne. or Dorset, or the
Seutb-liVestern Mulvey, but leve their own towns and
districes and lines of travelling. Two young ladies
name along the path from the lose, sat down on the
grassy margin dose to an island or promontory shaded
with tall green withers, and began to read unknown
mystesious books; it was poetry I felt sere, sad liner
than any I have yd seen in print. Yet weld I have
looked ever thdr shoulder, it would doubtless have
changed into . . . The damsels themselves
seemed, in that sonny spring meadow by the clod
river, more than sentieslestial ; yet already their
features have mingled irresoverably with the aloud,
past. I tee had my companioo book, the third series of
Barnes's Poems p die Dorset Dialect: and the little
river, winding down from the Vele of Blacksoor to
meet the waters of the Avon in Christchurch
Harbour. Sows also through the book; where-
fore every sunbeam In the real stream was brightened,
and every shadow enriched. Strolling northward, I
streak • road whieb west by • mill among trees and
hedges, on • doer brook or beanie, the Win., hurrying
on to Join the Stour; and so reterned to the tO.ll,
Ole Unto market-plies with the two old ohne* towers
rising behind it, making • petting as moo approached.
At the inn (Laing's) wens good refreskaiouts and • civil
landlady.