jackdaws, starlings, and other birds are sold, with a few rabbits thrown
in; but the fair now is chiefly an excuse for a holiday. The church was
three hundred feet long, with the convent-buildings to the southward,
but only scant ruins remain. Beyond the ruins, at the edge of the
greensward, the river glides along under a gray stone bridge. At
Howsham, in the neighborhood, Hudson the railway king was born, and at
Foston-le-Clay Sydney Smith lived, having for his friends the Earl and
Countess of Carlisle of that day, who made their first call in a gold
coach and got stuck fast in the clay. Here the witty vicar resided,
having been presented to a living, and built himself a house, which he
described as "the ugliest in the county," but admitted by all critics to
be "one of the most comfortable," though located "twenty miles from a
lemon." Subsequently Smith left here for Somersetshire.

SCARBOROUGH AND WHITBY.

The coast of Yorkshire affords the boldest and grandest scenery on the
eastern shore of England. A great protruding backbone of chalk rocks
projects far into the North Sea at Flamborough Head, and makes one of
the most prominent landmarks on all that rugged, iron-bound coast. This
is the Ocellum Promontorium of Ptolemy, and its lighthouse is three
hundred and thirty feet above the sea, while far away over the waters
the view is superb. From Flamborough Head northward beyond Whitby the
coast-line is a succession of abrupt white cliffs and bold headlands,
presenting magnificent scenery. About twenty-three miles north of
Flamborough is the "Queen of Northern Watering-places," as Scarborough
is pleased to be called, where a bold headland three hundred feet high
juts out into the North Sea for a mile, having on each side semicircular
bays, each about a mile and a quarter wide. At the extreme point of the
lozenge-shaped promontory stands the ruined castle which named the town
Scar-burgh, with the sea washing the rocky base of its foundations on
three sides. Steep cliffs run precipitously down to the narrow beach
that fringes these bays around, and on the cliffs is the town of
Scarborough, while myriads of fishing-vessels cluster about the
breakwater-piers that have been constructed to make a harbor of refuge.
It would be difficult to find a finer situation, and art has improved it
to the utmost, especially as mineral springs add the attractions of a
spa to the sea air and bathing. The old castle, battered by war and th