[Illustration:  Somersby church.]

A rare thing it is to find the burying-ground around a church in England quite neglected, but the one at Somersby is the exception to the rule.  The graves of the poet’s father and brother were overgrown with grass and showed evidences of long neglect.  We expressed surprise at this, and the old woman who kept the key to the church replied with some bitterness that the Tennysons “were ashamed to own Somersby since they had become great folks.”  Anyway, it seems that the poet never visited the place after the family left in 1837.  Near the church door was a box with a notice stating that the congregation was small and the people poor, and asking for contributions to be used in keeping the church in repair.  The grange, near the rectory, is occupied by the squire who owns the birthplace, it is a weatherbeaten building of brick and gray stone and perhaps the “gray old grange” referred to in “In Memoriam.”  Altogether, Somersby is one of the quietest and most charming of places.  Aside from its connection with the great poet, it would be well worthy of a visit as a bit of rural England.  Scattered about are several great English elms, which were no doubt large trees during the poet’s boyhood, a hundred years ago.

For a long distance our road from Somersby to Boston ran on the crest of a hill, from which we had a far-reaching view over the lovely Lincolnshire country.  Shortly after, we left the hills and found ourselves again in the fen country.  Many miles before we reached Boston we saw the great tower of St. Botolph’s Church, in some respects the most remarkable in England.  They give it the inartistic and inappropriate appellation of “The Stump,” due to the fact that it rises throughout its height of more than three hundred feet without much diminution in size.  So greatly does this tower dominate the old-fashioned city that one is in danger of forgetting that there is anything else in Boston, and though it is a place little frequented by Americans, there are few quainter towns in England.  Several hundred years ago it was one of the important seaports, but it lost its position because the river on which it is situated is navigable only by small vessels at high tide.

Boston is of especial interest to Americans on account of its great namesake in this country and because it was the point from which the Pilgrim Fathers made their first attempt to reach America.  Owing to pestilence and shipwreck, they were compelled to return, and later they sailed in the Mayflower on a more successful voyage from Plymouth.  We can get a pretty good idea of the reasons which led the Pilgrim Fathers to brave everything to get away from their home land.  One may still see in the old town hall of Boston the small, windowless stone cells where the Fathers were confined during the period of persecution against the Puritans.  Evidently they did not lay their sufferings against the town itself, or they would hardly have given the name to the one they founded in the New World.  Boston is full of ancient structures, among them Shodfriars Hall, one of the most elaborate half-timbered buildings in the Kingdom.  The hotels are quite in keeping with the dilapidation and unprogressiveness of the town and there is no temptation to linger longer than necessary to get an idea of the old Boston and its traditions.