“ It was at this stage that there arrived from Cornwall and North Devon the promise of support from men of more mark than the leaders of the village revolutionists. The barns of Crediton had done their work; the eyes of all men turned now to the walls of Exeter. The annals of Exeter are rich in records of worthy conduct. The proud motto, Semper fidelis, has been no inglorious boast. Amongst all her chronicles none is more to her credit than her behaviour throughout this siege. Around the walls thousands of men were encamped, or came and went as opportunity offered or necessity compelled. ”

“ You may remember, Sir, with what reluctance I submitted to your commands upon Monmouth’s rebellion, when no importunity could prevail with you to permit me to leave the Academy. I was “too young to be hazarded”; but give me leave to say it is glorious at any age to die for one’s country, and the sooner, the nobler the sacrifice. I am now older by three years. My uncle Bath was not so old when he was left among the slain at the battle of Newbury, nor you yourself, Sir, when you made your escape from your tutor’s to join your brother at the defence of Scilly. ”

“ Not quite in the olden time, but only just on the verge of our prosaic modern time, Plympton gave to the world England’s greatest painter—a circumstance which (though forgotten by the native, who on being asked by a tourist where Sir Joshua Reynolds was born, replied he “never heeard of sich”) should indeed make this honoured little town almost as famous as Stratford-on-Avon.
In the Doomsday Book, Plympton is designated “Terra Regis,” so also are Tavistock, Ashburton, and Tiverton, “all which places were then the King’s demesne towns,” but not boroughs. ”

“ If, then, I read Herrick’s life at Dean Prior aright, he is not the genial parson, moving light-heartedly among the people, drinking in the soft air of Devonshire and pouring it out in spontaneous song, passing from his sermon to the Maypole, blending Paganism with 148Christianity and ribaldry with religion, without sense of harm or incongruity—writing, in fact, the Hesperides on weekdays and the Noble Numbers on Sundays. Rather it was by the Cam and the Thames that he imbibed his inspiration, made love to his half-imaginary mistresses, and learnt—
How roses first grew red and lilies white. ”

“ Between the place where the fighting began and the place where it ended stood, and still stands, the ancient city which so often in the past had been a place of defence to the interests of the country, but never in all the long roll of her achievements had borne herself more bravely, more nobly, and more successfully than when she disdained to surrender at the cry of hunger the rôle of law-abiding fidelity which was the crown and glory of her mayor and municipality in the July and August of 1549. ”

“ And this place shall be called Totnes!” Why the name should be appropriate to the circumstances, we might vainly strive to guess, did not Westcote and Risdon inform us that it was intended to represent Tout à l’aise! We need not be ashamed of adopting their incredulity, and of doubting with them whether Brutus spoke such good French, or, indeed, whether French was then spoken at all.
The stone itself affords no aid. All mystery departed when it was recently lifted in the course of pavemental repairs, and found to be a boulder of no great dimensions, with a very modern-looking bone lying below. ”

“ Perhaps the greatest representative the borough ever had was Sir Christopher Wren. It was in May, 1685, that this distinguished architect was elected Member of Parliament for Plympton. How this came to pass, and which of the two great parties he represented, we are not precisely informed, but may easily conjecture, as Plympton was always a Tory borough. No doubt he occasionally thought, though he might not say, with Mercutio, “A plague on both your houses,” for men of science and artists—and he was in a high degree an artist—are seldom very ardent politicians. ”

“ William Browne probably came of a knightly family near Great Torrington; but he was born here in Tavistock in 1591—just the most stirring time for minds and morals that England has ever known. The Reformation had stimulated the conscience, as the New Learning had liberated the mind; and then our wonderful deliverance from the mighty power of Spain had produced an extraordinary national exultation. What wonder that this newly-awakened energy should find expression in Spenser and Shakspere, in Hooker and Bacon, and their innumerable, not unworthy satellites? ”

“ It is so natural to us to think of ourselves in England as a people of one language, and that a very noble language, whatever the pure, not to say pedantic, grammarian may say, that it is hard to think that in this West Country the English tongue was not universal even as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century. Devonshire and Cornwall, which from 1042 to 1877 formed a single diocese, were in some respects for many centuries like countries foreign to each other. ”

“ When William Browne was a lad, middle-aged men must have known the last Abbot of Tavistock; and old people could recall—the poorer sort with regretful sighs, the good old times, when the frequent services still sounded from the Abbey Church, and the monks distributed alms at the arched gateway, beneath the present library. Even Browne himself, a child of the Renaissance, who hated superstition and loved the Pagan mythology, could grudge the misuse of sacred buildings ”

“ The critics, then, seem to me perverse, who, in spite of Herrick’s assurances, declare that he only pretended to dislike Dean Prior. They rely, presumably, on his keen eye for country beauties. Now I venture to doubt whether Herrick, as we see him in the Hesperides, is one of the real nature-poets. He knows and loves certain aspects of nature, more particularly fruits and flowers, bright colours and sweet smells. Even amongst these he is often happiest when he can trace some likeness to human beauty. ”

“ Sunday, the fourth of August, was the darkest day of the siege. While the citizens were at Church, and, in obedience to the law, were using the new order of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, news had reached the ill-affected in the city that the King’s troops had suffered defeat. A violent mob paraded the streets, hungry and angry, shouting: “Come out, these heretics and twopenny bookmen! Where be they? By God’s wounds and blood, we will not be pinned in to serve their turns. We will go out and have in our neighbours; they be honest, good, and godly men.” ”

“ What memories of the past crowd into the mind as we stand upon the far-famed Plymouth Hoe, and gaze seaward towards the open Channel! Looking out over Plymouth Sound, crowded with shipping from all parts of the world, one is apt to lose one’s twentieth-century identity, and to wander in thought over long-past and well-nigh forgotten days. ”

“ There are few memorials of county history even in Devonshire at once as authentic, as interesting and as important, as that of which the title of this chapter recalls a single incident. And not only is it authentic and interesting, but the story comes to us at first hand. It is written by one who was an eye-witness of most of the scenes which he describes, who bore an honoured name, and held an honourable office in the City of Exeter in the days of Henry VIII., Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. He was uncle of a man yet more celebrated and gifted than himself—the famous Richard Hooker. ”

“ As is well known, the Reformation was not the popular event in England that it was in Scotland, and the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer in lieu of the Mass was the torch which, in 1549, set the western shires—Cornwall, and Somerset, and Devon—in a blaze. The opposition, started at Sampford Courtenay by a pair of simple villagers, soon came to include leaders of the stamp of Sir Thomas Pomeroy and Sir Humphry Arundel, who barricaded Crediton, the rendezvous of their party. ”

“ In the time of Baldwin de Rivers, second Earl of Devon and Lord of Plympton, the castle was the scene of events which strikingly illustrate the then unsettled state of the country, and the insubordination of even the most privileged class. Baldwin de Rivers was considered one of the richest and bravest men of the age; but having with some other nobles rebelled against King Stephen, on account, it is said, of the king refusing to confer certain honours on them, he fortified himself in his castle at Exeter, where he was besieged by the monarch ”

“ For its present condition Honiton is indebted to that dreadful fire which reduced three parts of it to ashes. The houses now wear a pleasing aspect, and the principal street extending from East to West, is paved in a remarkable manner, forming a canal, and well shouldered up on each side with pebbles and green turf, which holds a stream of clear water with a square dipping place opposite each door, a mark of cleanliness and convenience I never saw before.
The American war had an evil effect upon the lace trade; still worse was the French Revolution, and also the change of the fashion in dress ”

“ Surely, if worldly prosperity could be earned by a blameless life and a just discharge 62of every duty, Henry Hugh, thirteenth Earl of Devon, Rector of Powderham, and Prebendary of Exeter, would have enjoyed wealth beyond the desires of man; surely, if the highest place and the greatest honours could be gained by courage and devotion, they would have adorned his noble son, Henry Reginald, Lord Courtenay, who bore the suffering and faced the inevitable end of a dread disease with an heroic courage which more than equalled the deeds of his chivalrous ancestors. ”

“ Topsham, formerly the port of Exeter, is a truly startling instance of decline, since as late as the reign of William III. London alone exceeded it in the amount of its trade with Newfoundland. On the other hand, Bideford never possessed all the importance that Kingsley attributes to it, though relatively of much greater consequence in ancient days than at present. It is a curious fact that Ilfracombe, that popular watering-place, sent six ships to the siege of Calais, as compared with Liverpool’s one, Dartmouth contributing thirty-one, and Plymouth twenty-six. ”

“ Robert dying childless, the crown descended to his brother, Baldwin, the infant son of Yolande, born during his father’s captivity. The impossibility of an empire in the throes of dissolution being governed by a child of seven years, compelled the barons of the realm to invite John of Brienne, the old King of Jerusalem, to bring his wisdom and experience to their aid; but the seeds of disintegration had too long been sown. Notwithstanding a two-fold victory against the invader, on the death of the veteran in 1237, the Latin supremacy in the East well nigh vanished. ”

“ At Berry Pomeroy, some few miles distant from the scene of the Prince’s landing, was then living Sir Edward Seymour the younger, sometime Speaker of the House of Commons, son of the Seymour who was Roope’s predecessor in the Governorship of Dartmouth Castle, and one of the most influential men of his time, whose birth, says Macaulay, put him on a level with the noblest subjects in Europe, and who, in political influence and in Parliamentary abilities was beyond comparison the foremost among the Tory gentlemen of England. ”

“ Sir,—You having no prospect of obtaining a commission for me can no way alter or cool my desire at this important juncture to venture my life in some manner or other for my King and my country. I cannot bear living under the reproach of lying obscure and idle in a country retirement when every man, who has the least sense of honour, should be preparing for the field. ”

“ Stripped of the dress in which it was decked out by Geoffrey, improving on his predecessors; deprived of its false lustre of classicism; cleared from the religious associations of a later day—this myth of Brutus the Trojan loses its personality, but becomes the traditionary record of the earliest invasion of this land by an historic people, who, in their assumed superiority, dubbed the less cultivated possessors of the soil whose rights they invaded “giants,” and extirpated them as speedily as they knew how. ”

“ Bretons, Welsh, and Cornish are not only kindred in blood and tongue, but, up to the time when the continuity of their later national or tribal life was rudely shattered, had a common history and tradition, which became the general heritage. If the story of Brutus has any relation to the early career of the British folk, we should expect to discover traces of the legend wherever the Britons found their way. ”

“ And men looked south to the harbour mouth,
The lighthouse tower was down. Other scenes rise up before us as the centuries roll on. We see the good citizens of Plymouth crowd on to the Hoe to witness the departure of Captain Cook on his various voyages of exploration in the South Seas; we note the pregnant comings and goings attending the great war with France, stately vessels sailing from the Sound in all their warlike glory, anon coming back crippled and wounded, with half their men killed or maimed. ”