A Run To The Lakes.

deed , as we have said , they are not unfrequently dangerous . As we go jolting along this mountain pass we have time to observe the " drystone docks" or fences of the fields and enclosures . These are all constructed with the peculiar clay slate of the

district ; and one curious feature they possess is the sloping , flat-arched appearance of the coping , arising from the necessity of laying the stones on the angle of their natural cleavage , thus producing a very pretty naturalistic effect . The gateposts are curious things . All the landed

rieprop tors in the south of England know to their cost . the difficulty and expense of providing * substantial and durable gate-posts , particularly if the boys in the village are fond of swinging on the gates , after the model of Gainsborough's celebrated picture . But in the Lake district there is no difficulty . The

purpose is served by a heavy monolith of clayslate , for the most pa , rt undressed , varying from 2 in . to 4 in . thick , and the breadth of the section of the wall with the hinges sometimes batted in ¦ and sometimes fastened through Avith a bolt and nut . Many elegant and some commonplace villas

adorn the base of the mountains and the margin -of the Lakes , of which we pass in succession Windermere , Rydal Water ( Avhere Wordsworth is buried ) , Grassniere , and Thirlmere or Leathes Water . Some of the churches are rather pretentious modern buildings , particularly that of St . Mary Ambleside , which was completed and

consecrated by the Bishop of Chester in 1854 . It stands near the centre of the valley , a little to the west of the town , and is built of the dark green stone of the neighbourhood . But the spire is of freestone , and the niullions of the windows , the copings of the buttresses , and the doorways are

also faced Avith the same material . The steeple is unusually large in proportion to the rest ofthe building , and has to our taste rather a clumsy effect . The interior is said to be handsome and commodious , consisting of a large central aisle and two smaller ones , and the north-east

¦ corner contains a memorial windoAV of Wordsworth . Some of the older churches are very poor structures , particularly that at Wytheburn , hard by the Lake of Thirlmere , Avhich is said to be one of the smallest churches in England ; but it really possesses so very little of an ecclesiastical character

, that one may easily mistake it for a cottage of the better class , or , at the very most , a school-house . It always occurs to us , regarding these little chapels scattered here and there in a mountain district , and amidst a sparse population , to wish that their founders had been

somewhat more liberal in the buildings as well as in the endowments . It should be remembered that as to inherent powers of support , they are not to be compared Avith the loAvly chapelle of the medieval hermit , where prayers and benedictions were constantly required for travellers as well as natives . In Cumberland , we suspect ,

A Run To The Lakes.

fche architectural student Avill find the very reluciio ad absurdsum of English ecclesiastical architecture ; but we need not dwell on the subject at present . As for the secular buildings , the farmhouses and cottages we passed , they present externally no remarkable feature . They are either

built of the dark clay slate or green-stone of the district ; sometimes with dressings of freestone in the higher types . Sometimes Ave observe the building's are rough cast ; sometimes the joints are neatly pointed ; but more frequently the rough uneven edges of the uutractable buildings are left

£ b face the weather without any finishing . A very common form of chimney-pot , Ave may mention ,, consists in the odd-looking combination of four slates with mitred ends—quite an episcopal chimney-pot ! There are very few thatched cottages in the districta circmnstance which is doubtless

, due to the abundance of the different sorts of slate . At Dunmail Eaise , on this road—remarkable as the grave of the last of the Cumbrian kings—just before we reach Thirlmere , we cross the boundary line between Westmoreland and Cumberland . A

few miles farther on , after crossing the Naddle valley , the matchles glories of Derwentwater and Bassentbwaite Lake burst into view ; and here we reach the picturesque market-town of Keswick , at once the centre and the metropolis of the Lake district , and , as we believe the poet' Gray

pronounced it , " the Elysium of the North . " Here we shall take a rest , or rather give our * readers a rest for a day or two . —Builder .

Masonic Notes And Queries.

MASONIC NOTES AND QUERIES .

OOMM 03 S" ORIGIN" 03 ? FBEEiTASOjX'S AJTD GIPSIES . Dr . Priestly , in his remarks on Diipuis' Origin of all Reliijions , classes the Freemasons and gipsies together . He affirms that " they have formed themselves into a body , though of a very heterogeneous kind , bufc are not are able to give any rational account

of their origin . " The philosopher has certainly placed us in bad company by classing us with these vagrants , but his influence is nevertheless true . The purposes for which our institution was first organised , are now as unknown as the date of its origin . Whether it was designed for architectural

purposes , for the improvement of the arts and sciences , or for the preservation of revealed religion , by significant symbols and impressive rites , in an idolatrous and barbarous age , cannot UOAV be ascertained . Perhaps all these objects gave rise or perfection to the institution .

"When the Hindoos claim for their Shastraa an antiquity of more than 2 , 000 , 000 of years ; when the Chaldeans boast of observations of the stars for more than 470 , 000 years , and Manetho Sebennyta , the : high priest of Heliopolis , claims for the Egyptians a national existence of near 54 , 000 years , who would hesitate to pronounce them all fabulous ? Let Freemasons , then , give up the vain boastings which ignorance has foisted into the Order , and relinquish ;