the chancel screen is of restoration date, and therefore to this extent void of the spirit and interest which attaches to the real work, though at first sight the imitation is not discernible.

At the present time it cannot be said there is a mark of negligence in the care of the fabric; but certainly there is a poverty-stricken air about it which does not seem to accord with the importance of the building. It is said that the leads of the main roof are very imperfect and need repair. Some of the walls are overgrown too much with old and abundant ivy, to the detriment of the building itself. The walls of the tower swarm with bees, on the roof of the north porch the bush of the blackberry grows flourishingly, and in the autumn the enormous and numerous slugs which cling to the southern walls give a rank and damp look to the place. But the only inconvenience which overcomes the visitor is the determined persistence with which the caretaker keeps the doors "keyed". She will never leave the church unlocked, lest a loss of fee should befall her, and it would seem that such fees form her only remuneration for her work in and about the church. This is a plan certainly not to be followed, unless the poverty of a parish positively obliges it. The kindness of the vicar to visitors is unbounded, and no doubt he regrets any inconvenience they may be put to by the strictly-observed rule of a closed church.

St. Beuno's Church is an attractive building, not only to the tourist but to the ecclesiologist and to the architect. Its characteristics are remarkable amongst them the chief is perhaps its expression of extreme breadth of effect, which in a building of its size and style is certainly very uncommon.

Fig. 26 shows the building known as Abbot's Court, where no doubt guests were entertained, as was the case also whilst the house was used as an inn.

SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OF DOMESTIC

SPINNING.

BY T. BLASHILL, ESQ., F.Z.S.

(Read November 17th, 1897).

"Grief, thou hast lost an ever ready friend
Now that the cottage Spinning-wheel is mute,
And Care-a comforter that best could suit
Her froward mood, and softliest reprehend;
And Love-a charmer's voice that used to lend,
More efficaciously than aught that flows
From harp or lute, kind influence to compose
The throbbing pulse."--WORDSWORTH.

N the collections of antique objects that are found in our deepest excavations, and from time to time exhibited on this table, the spindle whorl seldom fails to be present. It is usually a disk of stone or pottery pierced with a hole, through which the point of the spindle is stuck, and which by its weight continues the twirling motion given by the spinster as she stands or sits, forming with her fingers the twisted thread. I am not sure that the earliest spinsters had even acquired habits of domesticity, for thread of some sort was required for many purposes by our ancestors long before they could have constructed what we should call a house. I suppose that this work, so tranquil and yet so cheerful, admitting of free conversation, must always have been appropriated by women, and the hours spent in it must have been reckoned amongst the happiest in their lives. If I may refer to passages so well known as those in the sixth and seventh books of the Odyssey, we shall see how spinning was practised in the grandeur of the palace as it was in the hovel, or before the open tent. When the white-armed daughter of Alcinous directed Ulysses to her father's