discovery of machinery. The mediæval
legend, indeed, ran that, like the "Doctor
Mirabilis," Groteste constructed a metal
head that would answer questions. Richard
de Bardney, indeed, boldly asserts that the
fragments of Grosteste's talking bronze
head, of which Gower sings, are still hidden
somewhere in the vaults of Lincoln.

There is also a legend of St. Hugh, bishop
in part of the same reign. At the death
of this holy man the unseen world trembled
with such sympathy that

A' the bells o' merrie Lincoln
  Without men's hands were rung;
And a' the books o' merrie Lincoln
   Were read without men's tongue;
And ne'er was such a burial
   Sin' Adam's days begun.

There is a legend at Canterbury not unlike
this, for the bells there rang they say of
their own accord when Becket fell before
the altar, and Mr. Walcott observes that
at Cœur de Lion's coronation the bells at
Westminster, as the monks report, rang by
angel hands at Compline. This same St.
Hugh has a chantry chapel all to himself
in the south-west corner of the east aisle of
the choir transept at Lincoln. In 1280 he
was translated to the presbytery, where
John the Baptist's altar stood, and where
the angel choir strike for ever their golden
harps. The king, the queen, the archbishop,
seven prelates, and six abbots, led
the procession at this translation.

But the crow's readers must not confound
this honoured man with the other hero
of Lincoln cathedral legends, namely, Sir
Hugh, that little harmless boy, who, it
was firmly believed, some wicked Jews
trepanned as he was playing, and crucified in
secret in ridicule of the great mystery of
our Christian faith. There is no basis for
the legend; but in the times of persecution
the Jews were suspected of endless iniquities,
and anything was believed against the
poor sufferers of the "wandering foot and
weary eye." True, or not true, however,
Sir Hugh gave rise to one of Chaucer's
most beautiful tales, and to that old Percy
ballad:

The bonny boys of merrie England
   Were playing at the ba',
And wi' them stood the sweet Sir Hugh,
   The sweetest of them a'.

Perhaps the most wonderful relic at
Lincoln of past lime is that conundrum in
stone, the Centenarian Beam, an instance of
the almost supernatural ingenuity and daring
originality of the old Gothic architects,
only equalled by the triangular bridge at
Crowland. The beam is formed of twenty-three
blocks of stone adjoining the two
towers. The stones (of unequal size), are
eleven inches in depth. The beam is
twenty-nine and a quarter feet long, twenty-one
inches broad. This strange vibrating bow
of elastic stone, cemented solely by lateral
pressure, was designed to exactly and for
ever gauge the settlement of the towers.
It seems the work of a magician. Surely
good Bishop Grosteste's bronze head must
have disclosed it to the wise and pious
builder.

The lives of the Bishops of Lincoln form
a History of England in themselves. The
crow takes them in rude sequence. Remigius,
the first Norman prelate, was the priest
who urged William the Conqueror to record
his gratitude for the crowning victory of
Hastings by erecting Battle Abbey. He
built a hospital for lepers at Lincoln, and
is said to have fed daily for three months
in every year one thousand poor persons.
Robert Blovet, the second Norman bishop,
fell dead at Woodstock as he was riding
with Henry the First. The successor of
Blovet, a chief justice of England, roused
Stephen's jealousy by building three castles,
and pleased the monks by rearing four
monasteries. St. Hugh, who came four
prelacies afterwards, was borne to his grave
by King John of England and King William
of Scotland, who happened to be both
at Lincoln when the sainted body arrived.
Ascetic Hugh might have been, but he
certainly was fanatic, for he dug up the
body of poor Fair Rosamond, and cast it
out of Godstow nunnery, to which she had
been a benefactress. Presently appeared
Grosteste, who is said to have written
two hundred works (many still in manuscript,
no enterprising publisher as yet
looming in the distance). His hatred of
interloping Italian priests led to his
excommunication by the Pope. Grosteste's
apparition, according to the learned Bale,
appeared to Pope Innocent at Naples, but
why, or with what result, has not reached
us. There is a ghost story, too, about
Bishop Burwash (Edward the Second), for
plundering oxen and stealing poor men's
land; his repentant ghost used subsequently
to haunt Tinghurst Common, not mitred,
but in the outward semblance of a green
clad verderer, till the Lincoln canons made
restitution, and laid the perturbed and
restless spirit. But we have forgotten Robert
de Chisney, that prodigal young Norman
(died 1167), who in compensation for
having impaired the revenues of the diocese
built nearly all the palace at Lincoln,