[Illustration:  (The Crypt.)]

The present Saxon church contains many relics of antiquity; as painted glass, ancient inscriptions, &c.; but the most remarkable feature of is interior is the celebrated crypt, or vault, formerly used as a depository for the venerated relics of canonized prelates.  At the east end of this subterraneous retreat, from the window through which the light faintly gleams, the scene is interesting to astonishment.  Here you perceive the massy arches ranged in perspective on huge cylindrical pillars, with variously sculptured capitals, each differing from the other, and all in the real Saxon style; to this add the groined roof, and the stairs at the west end, leading up into the church, enveloped in a luminous obscurity, from the scanty light admitted by the window at the east end.  From the account given by Venerable Bede, that the body of Cedd was interred on the right of the altar, we may suppose that the crypt was built after the erection of the church, though the time cannot be ascertained.

About fifty years ago, the remaining part of the venerable monastery, founded by Cedd, was razed, and its walls, hallowed by the dust of the holy brotherhood, furnished materials for building.  The Rev. W. Ellis, the then incumbent, whose indignation, at the circumstance, was unbounded, wrote some Latin verses on the subject; but they have been lost in the stream of time, and, like the ashes of the hand that wrote them, cannot be found.

The late Mr. Jackson, R.A., was a native of the village of Lestingham; and, with feelings of regard for the land of his childhood, he proposed to execute a painting, as an altar-piece for the church.  His Grace the archbishop of York and the Rev. F. Wrangham, were consulted on the subject, and gave it their approval; but, we believe, the meritorious artist died before he had finished the painting.

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NEW BOOKS.

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WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST.

This book is a grievous failure—­that is, if the merits of books are to be adjudged with their titles.  The writer is the author of Stories of Waterloo, from whom better things might have been expected.  He has taken for his model, Mr. Lloyd’s really excellent Field Sports of the North of Europe; but he has woefully missed his mark.  The title of the work before us is equivocal:  a reader might as reasonably expect the Sports of the Western World, as adventures in Ireland, such as make up the present volumes.  What we principally complain of is the paucity of Sports among their contents.  It is true that the title also promises Legendary Tales and Local Sketches, but here they are the substance, and the Wild Sports mere shadow.  We have too little of “the goodly rivers,” “all sorts of fish,” “the sweet islands and goodly lakes, like little inland seas,” “of