apel. Close by was the Octagon Chapel, where the Unitarians
worshipped, equally impressive in its respectability. But what struck me
most was the new and fashionable Baptist chapel of St. Mary's, where the
venerable and learned Kinghorn preached--a great Hebrew scholar and the
champion of strict communion--against Robert Hall, and other degenerate
Baptists, who were ready to admit to the Lord's Table any Christians,
whether properly baptized--that is, by immersion when adults--or merely
sprinkled as infants. Up to this day I confound the worthy man with John
the Baptist, probably because he looked so lank and long and lean. He
was a man of singularly precise habits, so much so that I heard of an old
lady who always regulated her cooking by his daily walk, putting the
dumplings into the pot to boil when he went, and taking them out when he
returned. I could write much about him, but _cui bono_? who cares about
a dead Baptist lion? Not even the Baptists themselves. On going into
their library in Castle Street the other day, to look at Kinghorn's life,
I found no one had taken the trouble to cut the pages. In the front
gallery of St. Mary's, Mr. Brewer, the Norwich schoolmaster, had sittings
for the boys of his school, including his own sons, who, at King's
College and elsewhere, have done much to illustrate our national history
and literature. If I remember aright, one of the congregation was a
jolly-looking old gentleman who, as Uncle Jerry, laid the foundation of a
mustard manufactory, which has placed one of the present M.P.'s for
Norwich at the head of a business of unrivalled extent. When Mr.
Kinghorn died, his place was taken by Mr. Brock, better known as Dr.
Brock, of Bloomsbury Chapel, London. Under Mr. Brock's preaching the
reputation of St. Mary's Chapel was increased rather than diminished. As
a young man himself at that time, he was peculiarly attractive to the
young, and the singing was very different from the rustic psalmody of my
native village, in spite of the fact that we had a bass-viol at all
times, and on highly-favoured occasions such an array of flutes and
clarionets as really astonished the natives and delighted me.

But to return to the Old Meeting. Calamy writes of one of the Norwich
ministers, of the name of Cromwell, that 'he enjoyed but one peaceable
day after his settlement, being on the second forced out of his
meeting-house, the licenses being called in, and then for nine years
t