Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/369

 *

rustic fane. Better far, considering the associations it has acquired, to have preserved the church as Tennyson knew it. Besides these signs of "new wine in old bottles," architecturally speaking, we noticed an intruding harmonium; but this does not matter so much as it is movable, and the eye knowing this can conveniently ignore it, no harm has been permanently done, it is not structural. The instrument is inscribed—

To the glory of God and in memory of

September 1895.

One cannot but feel that nothing new or mean should have been allowed to find a place here; all the old church needed was to be repaired, that might have been, possibly was, a painful necessity. To do more was to do harm. In his In Memoriam Tennyson refers to "the cold baptismal font" (where, according to the Somersby register, the poet was christened on 8th August 1809); this happily remains unchanged—a simple font of shaped stone that well accords with the time-hallowed structure within and the weather-worn walls without. That this has not been improved away is a fact to be thankful for; we might have had some "superior carved art" marble production in its place put there "To the glory of God, and in memory of," etc., the usual excuse for such innovations.

In the graveyard of Somersby, close to the porch stands a genuine medieval churchyard cross in