religions. It finds a place in all
the creeds; it belongs to Brahminism, to Buddhism, to Mahommedanism; it
is identical with the Ritual of the Dead of Egyptian mythology, in which
the souls of men are weighed before Osiris, and pray for mercy as they
are weighed. As at Chaldon, in another part of the painting the
condemned souls are being taken away. A demon carries them off, tied up
in a bundle, to the fires of hell. Doubtless the Guildford
congregations, listening Sunday after Sunday to the exposition of such
potent texts, came to have little taste for theology that was not served
up hot and strong.

Guildford has had other teachers besides theologians. The school, a
grey, venerable building, which fronts on the High Street above Trinity
Church, is the oldest in the county. It was founded in 1509, by one
Robert Beckingham, a rich London grocer, who owned property in
Guildford. But his benefactions did not permit any great latitude in
building, and it was not until Edward VI had given the school a charter
and a grant, and other great Guildford men had provided funds for
building and endowment, that the school, nearly at the end of the
sixteenth century, found itself in full working order. Since then it has
educated some famous scholars. Guildford's greatest man, George Abbot,
Archbishop of Canterbury; his brother, Robert Abbot, Bishop of
Salisbury; another brother, Sir Maurice Abbot, Lord Mayor of London;
John Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich; Henry Cotton, Bishop of Norwich, and
his brother, William Cotton, Bishop of Exeter; Arthur Onslow, Speaker of
the House of Commons; Richard Valpy, author of the Greek grammar; and
Sir George Grey, the Colonial statesman, Governor in 1846 of New Zealand
and in 1855 of the Cape, are among its distinguished pupils. Of late
years, perhaps, Charterhouse has drained away some of the supply of
future Abbots and Onslows. But the school still flourishes, and the
memory of its "great" headmaster, Dr. Merriman, is kept green by
middle-aged Guildfordians.

Guildford's inns have been famous for centuries. Guildford is the only
town in Surrey which Camden mentions in his _Britannia_, as having good
inns; John Aubrey remarks that they are "the best perhaps in England;
the Red Lion particularly can make fifty beds, the White Hart is not so
big, but has more noble rooms." John Taylor, the Water Poet, in his
_Catalogue of Taverns in Ten Shires near London_, made in 1636, goes out
of his way to menti