visible even from the further end of the
street, and thus you know you are coming to
something remarkable long before you arrive at
the proper point of view. The lover of art
who feels his appetite sharpened by the list of
valuable paintings drawn up by J. Wodderspoon,
as the chief treasures of the curious casket,
must content himself with a Barmecide feast, as
the pictures have all been removed. The urbane
proprietor of the shop will allow the traveller if
he pleases to ascend to the first floor, which is
now used as a reading-room, and contemplate
the sculptured ceiling, but the traveller will not
lose much if he avoids alike the trouble and the
obligation. Like many show-places, the old
house in the Butter-market is most worth seeing
on the outside.

Among the out-of-door sculptures, which in
a great measure constitute the archaeological
interest of Ipswich, and which combine the
twofold advantage of being visible for nothing
and discoverable with difficulty—for if these
things were found at once, how would the
holiday-maker fill up his day?—I take especial
delight in an old carving on the Half-Moon
public-house, at the corner of Lower
Brook-street and Foundation-street. This, I am
informed by J. Wodderspoon, represents the old
story of the fox preaching to the geese, and the
information thus given checks my pleasure with
a bitter sense of humiliation. In the first place—I
confess it with the fear of being treated with
the deepest contempt by all my unkind friends
who write F.S.A. after their names—I don't
know the old story, which, with its definite
article, pretends to be so universally familiar.
In the second place, the animal who is preaching
to the geese looks to me exceedingly like a hare,
though I recognise an animal behind him, who
has captured a goose, as an incontestable fox.
Hence, as I have no doubt that J. Wodderspoon
knows the sculpture a great deal better than
myself, I can only infer that I am suffering some
optical infirmity. My kind informant supposes
that the carving alludes satirically to the monks
who once ruled Ipswich with a tyranny almost
as sharp as that which is now exercised there
by their puritanical successors; and, charmed
with the felicity of his conjecture, he philosophises
thus: " It furnishes a curious thought to
us, who live in days when the printing-press is
the great means of praise or blame, eulogy or
satire, that the rude chisellings upon a door-post,
made by a dissatisfied boor, should survive the
pompous and stinging sarcasms of paper and ink,
though penned by the greatest masters of satire
the time furnishes." Curious thought indeed!
inspired by which I begin to fancy that the
whole civilised world is playing fox-and-geese at
the corner of Lower Brook-street, Ipswich, and
that a copy of Juvenal, Persius, Erasmus,
Dryden, Pope, is not to be purchased with its
weight in Koh-i-noors.

Apropos of curious thoughts, I cannot omit
mentioning a bit of curious etymology that I
lit upon in the course of my Ipswich wanderings.
The proprietor of a place of public
entertainment was about to regale his patrons
with a series of miscellaneous amusements, among
which an orchestra composed of performers on
wind instruments was to hold a prominent
place. That the Suffolk mind might be duly
impressed with the importance of the promised
treat, this musical combination was styled in the
posting-bills the "Anemoie Band." For the
classicality of the hard word I will not vouch,
being unable to find a precedent for the same in
my Greek Thesaurus, but it was obviously
derived, in some fashion or other, from the word
"anemos," signifying wind.

"Can you pronounce that word?" said a
reader of the posting-bill, in a defiant tone, to a
sturdy companion. For an explanation he did
not venture to ask.

"Yes," said the other, proudly, " an-e-mo-ie;
and look you here, that word is derived from
two languages; it is taken from the Latin and
the Greek. 'Annie' is Greek, and 'moie' is
Latin. These, put together, denote a band of
wind instruments."

Back to our old-world curiosities. I would
highly praise mine host of the Royal Oak
public-house in Northgate-street, the corner
post of whose dwelling is curiously covered with
figures, the principal of which are a bust, much
defaced, and a smith labouring at his craft, in
very good preservation. That this relic of
antiquity may not escape notice, mine host has
picked it out with gaudy colours, featly contrasting
the subjects with the ground, and making
of his post the gayest thing conceivable, so that
the most heedless passenger must needs stop
and stare in spite of himself. Nor let the rigid
antiquary scowl on mine host as a restorer of
that barbarous sort who spoils when he
professes to renovate. These Ipswich carvings are
of that degree of artistic value that they cannot
be spoiled, provided nothing is done to lessen
their distinctness; and this is increased in the
case of the Royal Oak post.

Highly inviting is J. Wodderspoon's description
of the parlour of the Tankard public-house
in Tacket-street, and I hasten thither to contemplate
a wondrous piece of sculpture, whereabout
antiquarians strangely differ, one maintaining
that it represents the Judgment of Paris,
another swearing that it records the Battle of
Bosworth Field! Surely here is no hair-splitting
controversy. Surely here is a broad difference,
which will allow one to form an opinion. Alas!
when I get to the Theatre Tavern, for so is
the Tankard called now, I am shown into a plain
whitewashed taproom as the site of former
glories, and am reminded that J. Wodderspoon's
Guide was published in 1842. So, to console
myself, I wander to the Neptune Tavern, situated
in St. Clement's parish, the least aristocratic
district of the town, and find a curious old
hostelry of the seventeenth century, the present
occupants of which take great delight in
conducting visitors through the antiquated rooms.
As a " lion" on a large scale I should certainly
set down the Neptune as next in rank, longo
intervallo, to the old house in the Butter-market,