The Buildings.
Here the complaint of the Prophet taketh no place, taxing men to live in Ceeled Pallaces whilst the Temple of God lay wast, No County affording worse Houses, or better Churches. It addeth to the Wonder, that seeing in this soft County, a Diamond is as soon found as a Flint, their Churches are built of Pollished Stones, no Natives but Naturalized by importation from forreign parts.
I hope the Inhabitants of this Shire, will endevour to disprove the old Proverb, [the nearer to the Church, the further from God.] because they have substituted a better in the room thereof, viz. The further from stone, the better the Churches.
As for the Cathedral of Lincoln, whose Floor is higher then the Roof of many Churches, it is a magnificent Structure, proportionable to the Amplitude of the Diocesse. This I dare boldly say, that no Diocesse in Christendome, affordeth two such Rivers, viz. [Thames and Trent] for the Southern and Northern Bounds, and two such Universities, Cambridge and Oxford, both in the Content thereof, before * 1.1 three smaller Bishopricks were carved out of it.
Amongst the Houses of the Nobility, I take signal notice of two. One I may call a Premeditate Building, viz. Tattershall (belonging to the Right Honourable the Earl of Lincolne) advanced by degrees at several times, to the Modern Magnificence thereof. But Grimsthorp I may term an Ex tempore Structure, set up on a suddain by Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk, to entertain King Henry the Eighth, in his Progress into these parts. The Hall therein was fitted to a fair Suit of Hangings, which the Duke had by his Wife Mary the French Queen, and is now in the possession of the Right Honourable Montague Earl of Lindsey.