e are long
corridors, an intricate arrangement of passages, and an up-and-down
meandering of staircases, amid which it would be no marvel to encounter
some forgotten guest who had gone astray a hundred years ago, and was
still seeking for his bed-room while the rest of his generation were in
their graves. There is no exaggerating the confusion of mind that seizes
upon a stranger in the bewildering geography of a great old-fashioned
English inn.

This hotel stands in the principal street of Lincoln, and within a very
short distance of one of the ancient city-gates, which is arched across
the public way, with a smaller arch for foot-passengers on either side;
the whole, a gray, time-gnawn, ponderous, shadowy structure, through the
dark vista of which you look into the Middle Ages. The street is narrow,
and retains many antique peculiarities; though, unquestionably, English
domestic architecture has lost its most impressive features, in the course
of the last century. In this respect, there are finer old towns than
Lincoln: Chester, for instance, and Shrewsbury,--which last is unusually
rich in those quaint and stately edifices where the gentry of the shire
used to make their winter-abodes, in a provincial metropolis. Almost
everywhere, nowadays, there is a monotony of modern brick or stuccoed
fronts, hiding houses that are older than ever, but obliterating the
picturesque antiquity of the street.

Between seven and eight o'clock (it being still broad daylight in these
long English days) we set out to pay a preliminary visit to the exterior
of the Cathedral. Passing through the Stone Bow, as the city-gate close by
is called, we ascended a street which grew steeper and narrower as we
advanced, till at last it got to be the steepest street I ever
climbed,--so steep that any carriage, if left to itself, would rattle
downward much faster than it could possibly be drawn up. Being almost the
only hill in Lincolnshire, the inhabitants seem disposed to make the most
of it. The houses on each side had no very remarkable aspect, except one
with a stone portal and carved ornaments, which is now a dwelling-place
for poverty-stricken people, but may have been an aristocratic abode in
the days of the Norman kings, to whom its style of architecture dates
back. This is called the Jewess's House, having been inhabited by a woman
of that faith who was hanged six hundred years ago.

And still the street grew steeper and steeper. Certainly,