imbibe Tory principles from Dr. Sacheverel's sermons: another, the boy
carried by his schoolfellows: and a third displays him undergoing a
penance for youthful disobedience by standing up for an hour bareheaded
in the rain. The "Three Crowns Inn" is also in the market-place, where
in 1776 Boswell and Johnson stayed, and, as Boswell writes, "had a
comfortable supper and got into high spirits," when Johnson "expatiated
in praise of Lichfield and its inhabitants, who, he said, were the most
sober, decent people in England, were the genteelest in proportion to
their wealth, and spoke the purest English." David Garrick went to
school to Dr. Johnson in the suburbs of Lichfield, at Edial; Addison
lived once at Lichfield; and Selwyn was its bishop a few years ago, and
is buried in the Cathedral close; but the chief memories of the ancient
town cluster around St. Chad, Johnson, and Garrick.

LADY GODIVA OF COVENTRY.

The "three spires" which have so much to do with the fame of Lichfield
are reproduced in the less pretentious but equally famous town of
Coventry, not far away in Warwickshire, but they do not all belong to
the same church. The Coventry Cathedral was long ago swept away, but the
town still has three churches of much interest, and is rich in the old
brick-and-timbered architecture of two and three centuries ago. But the
boast of Coventry is Lady Godiva, wife of the Earl of Mercia, who died
in 1057. The townsfolk suffered under heavy taxes and services, and she
besought her lord to relieve them. After steady refusals he finally
consented, but under a condition which he was sure Lady Godiva would not
accept, which was none other than that she should ride naked from one
end of the town to the other. To his astonishment she consented, and, as
Dugdale informs us, "The noble lady upon an appointed day got on
horseback naked, with her hair loose, so that it covered all her body
but the legs, and then performing her journey, she returned with joy to
her husband, who thereupon granted the inhabitants a charter of
freedom." The inhabitants deserted the streets and barred all the
windows, so that no one could see her, but, as there are exceptions to
all rules, Tennyson writes that

"One low churl, composed of thankless earth,
The fatal byword of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole, in fear
Peeped; but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivelled into darkness in his head,
And drop: before h