-to wit, the first two lines of general advice, addressed to all
who may ever be in a position to profit by it,--

"Let alle men se, stedfast you be,
Justice do ye, or else like you fle;"

and an additional verse to the unfortunate son who succeeded him in
office:--

"You that sittyst now in place,
See hange before thy face
Thyn own Fader's skyn,
For falsehood; this ded he wyn."

Another equally original specimen of the judgment of Solomon is thus
explained:--

"The trewe and counterfeit to trye,
She had rather lose her Ryght--
Saying, the Soulders ware redy
To clyve, with all their myght."

These, as I said, have disappeared; but we were unwilling in our sketch
to lose sight altogether of such very interesting reliques of our
ancestor's skill, in conveying moral lessons by the light of their
window-panes, as were to be found here a century or two ago. Those good
old folks did not seem to be wanting in a certain kind of wit; here, as
in many other parts of the city, we have traces of their love of a fair
rebus--without a slight knowledge of which propensity, we might look long
ere we could understand the hieroglyphical appearance of a barrel set on
end, with N. E. C. written above--history, however, elucidates the
mystery, by explaining it as the rebus of one THOS. NECTON, who aided by
his wealth the filling in of one of the little gothic windows with
stained glass. The curiously carved old desk in the centre was once the
reading-desk in fair St. Barbara's chapel down below,--could it speak, we
wonder whether it would glory in its _elevation_. But now we really can
resist no longer a good hearty laugh at those comical little
unmakeoutable animals, seated so demurely all round the room, on the tops
of the high-backed benches, with their queer little faces struggling to
keep down a grin. Whatever were they put there for? Was it to chronicle
up in their little wooden pates the doings and undoings, the sayings and
unsayings, that they have been looking at, and listening to, so patiently
and wonderingly, for these four centuries past? What would we give to
hear them tell the tale of all they have seen and heard go on, since
first the royal charter granted to our citizens the long-sought privilege
of a real _bona fide_ mayor! how, at first this dignitary used to sit in
solemn majesty upon his throne of state, surrounded by his aristocracy of
chosen peers, deliberating gr