recompense for
faded prosperity, but certain it is that Donington commands a wider
interest as the birthplace of Flinders than it ever did in any other
respect during its long, uneventful history. The parish church, a fine
Gothic building with a lofty, graceful spire, contains a monument to the
memory of the navigator, with an inscription in praise of his character
and life, and recording that he "twice circumnavigated the globe." Many
men have encircled the earth, but few have been so distinguished as
discoverers of important portions of it. Apart from this monument, the
church contains marble ovals to the memory of Matthew Flinders' father,
grandfather, and great-grandfather. They were provided from a sum of 100
pounds left by the navigator, in his will, for the purpose.

It is interesting to notice that three of the early Australian explorers
came from Lincolnshire, and were all born at places visible in clear
weather from the tower of St. Botolph's Church at Boston. While Flinders
sprang from Donington, George Bass, who co-operated with him in his first
discoveries, was born at Aswarby, near Sleaford, and Sir John Franklin,
who sailed with him in the Investigator, and was subsequently to become
an Australian Governor and to achieve a pathetic immortality in another
field of exploration, entered the world at Spilsby. Sir Joseph Banks, the
botanist of Cook's first voyage, Flinders' steadfast friend, and the
earliest potent advocate of Australian colonisation, though not actually
born in Lincolnshire, was the son of a squire who at the time of his
birth owned Revesby Abbey, which is within a short ride of each of the
places just named.

CHAPTER 2. AT SCHOOL AND AT SEA.

Young Flinders received his preparatory education at the Donington free
school. This was an institution founded and endowed in 1718 by Thomas
Cowley, who bequeathed property producing nowadays about 1200 pounds a
year for the maintenance of a school and almshouses. It was to be open to
the children of all the residents of Donington parish free of expense,
and in addition there was a fund for paying premiums on the
apprenticeship of boys.

At the age of twelve the lad was sent to the Horbling Grammar School, not
many miles from his own home. It was under the direction of the Reverend
John Shinglar. Here he remained three years. He was introduced to the
Latin and Greek classics, and received the grounding of that mathematical
knowledge which subsequ