e Yarmouth of to-day resembles
that of Camden's time. Then the north wind played the tyrant and plagued
the coast, and it does so still.

CHAPTER VII.
THE NORFOLK CAPITAL.

Brigg's Lane--The carrier's cart--Reform demonstration--The old
dragon--Chairing M.P.'s--Hornbutton Jack--Norwich artists and
literati--Quakers and Nonconformists.

Many, many years ago, when wandering in the North of Germany, I came to
an hotel in the Fremden Buch, of which (Englishmen at that time were far
more patriotic and less cosmopolitan than in these degenerate days) an
enthusiastic Englishman had written--and possibly the writing had been
suggested by the hard fare and dirty ways of the place:

'England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.'

Underneath, a still more enthusiastic Englishman had written: 'Faults?
What faults? I know of none, except that Brigg's Lane, Norwich, wants
widening.' For the benefit of the reader who may be a stranger to the
locality, let me inform him that Brigg's Lane leads out of the fine
Market Place, for which the good old city of Norwich is celebrated all
the world over, and that on a recent visit to Norwich I found that the
one fault which could be laid at the door of England had been
removed--that Brigg's Lane had been widened--that, in fact, it had ceased
to be a lane, and had been elevated into the dignity of a street.

My first acquaintance with Norwich, when I was a lad of tender years and
of limited experience, was by Brigg's Lane. I had reached it by means of
a carrier's cart--the only mode of conveyance between Southwold,
Wrentham, Beccles and Norwich--a carrier's cart with a hood drawn by
three noble horses, and able to accommodate almost any number of
travellers and any amount of luggage. As the driver was well known to
everyone, there was also a good deal of conversation of a more or less
friendly character. The cart took one day to reach Norwich--which was,
and it may be is, the commercial emporium of all that district--and
another day to return. The beauty of such a conveyance, as compared with
the railway travelling of to-day, was that there was no occasion to be in
a flurry if you wanted to travel by it. Goldsmith--for such was the
proprietor and driver's name--when he came to a place was in no hurry to
leave it. All the tradesmen in the village had hampers or boxes to
return, and it took some time to collect them; or messages and notes to
send, and it took some ti