tween the cliff and the sea, called the denes. I can
well remember being taken to view the works of the harbour before the
water was let in, and not a little astonished at what then was to me a
new world of engineering science and skill. In the High Street there was
a little old-fashioned and by no means flourishing Independent Chapel,
where at one time the preacher was the Rev. Mr. Maurice, the father of
the Mr. Maurice to whom many owe a great awakening of spiritual life, and
whose memory they still regard as that of a beloved and honoured teacher.
Mr. Maurice was a Unitarian, I believe, and, when he retired, handed over
the chapel to my father with the remark that it was no use his preaching
there any longer. The preacher in my time was the Rev. George Steffe
Crisp, a kindly, timid, tearful man, always in difficulties with his
people, and who often resorted to Wrentham for advice. Latterly he
retired from the ministry, and kept a shop and school. In this capacity
one day my old friend John Childs, of Bungay, the far-famed printer--of
whom I shall have much to say anon--called on him, when the following
dialogue took place: 'Good-morning, Mr. Crisp.' 'Good-morning, Mr.
Childs.' 'Well, how are you getting on?' 'Oh, very well; but there is
one thing that troubles me much.' 'What is that?' 'That I am getting
deaf, and can't hear my minister.' 'Oh,' was the cynical reply, 'you
ought to be thankful for your privileges.'

Lowestoft is reported to have been a fishing station as early as the time
of the Romans; but the ancient town is supposed to have been long
engulfed by the resistless sea, for there was to be seen till the 25th of
Henry VIII. the remains of an old house upon an inundated spot--left dry
at low water about four furlongs east of the present beach. The town has
been the birthplace of many distinguished men--of Sir Thomas Allen, for
instance, who was steadily attached to the Royal cause, and who after the
Restoration rose high in command, and won many a victory over the Dutch
and the Algerines; of Sir Andrew Leake, who fell in the attack on
Gibraltar; of Rear-Admiral Richard Utbar, also a renowned fighter when
England and Holland were at war. To the same town also belong Admiral
Sir John Ashby, who died in 1693, and his nephew Vice-Admiral James
Mighells. Nor must we fail to do justice to Thomas Nash, a facetious
writer of considerable reputation in the latter part of the sixteenth
century. The mo