now lost, and no person can give any account of it. It needs not brass to
outlive honesty; a mere breath will often destroy her. There are, however,
several substantial charities belonging to Lavenham, the disposal of which
has fallen into better hands.

In the churchyard is a very old gravestone, which formerly had a Saxon
inscription. Kirby, in his account of the monasteries of Suffolk, says
that here, on the tomb of one John Wiles, a bachelor, who died in 1694, is
this odd jingling epitaph:--

_Quod fuit esse quod est, quod non fuit esse quod esse_
_Esse quod est non esse, quod est non erit esse._

But as the point and oddity may not be directly evident to all, perhaps
some of our readers will furnish us with a pithy translation for our next.

_F.R._ of Lavenham, to whom we are indebted for the drawing of
Lavenham Church, informs us that this fine building will shortly undergo a
thorough repair.

* * * * *

FIRE TOWERS AND BELFRIES.

(_To the Editor of the Mirror._)

In No. 333 of the MIRROR, there is an article on the ancient _round
towers_ in Scotland and Ireland, in which it is stated that the said
towers "have puzzled all antiquarians," that they are now generally called
_fire towers_ and that "_they certainly were not belfries_."

I have often thought that antiquarians, and particularly our modern Irish
antiquarians, have affected to be puzzled about what, to the rest of
mankind, must appear to be evident enough; and this for the purpose of
making a parade of their learning, and of astonishing the common reader by
the ingenuity of their speculations.

I think I shall be able to show, that a motive of this kind must have
operated in the case of these _round towers_, otherwise "all the
antiquarians" could not have been so sadly puzzled about what to the rest
of the world appears a very plain matter.

The fact is, that when St. Patrick planted the Christian faith in Ireland,
in the middle of the fifth century, (he died A.D. 492,) the practice of
hanging bells in church steeples had not begun; and we know from history,
that they were first used to summon the people to worship in A.D. 551, by
a bishop of Campania; the churches, therefore, that were erected by St.
Patrick, (and he built many,) were originally without belfries; and when
the use of bells became common, it was judged more expedient to erect _a
belfry detached from the church_, than by sticking it up ag