The part the town has taken in the wars gives her renown. How often the Welsh came here and made fearful devastation! Could the sleepers, now at rest forever, speak again, they would tell of the invasions of the Saxon era, and the strange Baronial wars; of the sanguinary conflicts of the Plantagenets, and of the battles of the seventeenth century; of the long siege, when a brave defence of the place was made by the people, their town being one of the very last to submit to the Parliament. All is peaceful now, and we, on this pleasant day, were dreamily wandering along the lines dividing a great past from a greater present, and both from a yet more remarkable future. Without ability to comprehend all this, we were trying to get a little entertainment, if we dared not hope for something greater. A wide door is opened when one in meditative mood goes into a town like this, knows of the great past, sees the present, and then, in spite of himself, projects his thoughts into the future,--the near and the distant blending into one.
The sweet chimes on the bells proclaim the end of an hour; then the short pause,--how still! and now how clearly marked is the new hour. The great diapason bell of the tower solemnly pronounces its four strokes, and we wend our way to the station for Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER--BRISTOL--BATH--SALISBURY--SARUM--AMESBURY--STONEHENGE--WILTON.
At 6 P. M., after a scant two hours' ride, we take rooms at the Gloucester House, and are out on a walk in another beautiful town, the River Severn running through it,--a town more like Worcester than like Hereford, though in population (18,330) strikingly like the latter. The city is of British origin, but is very ancient. It was once a Roman station by the name of Colonia Glevum, and under the Emperor Claudius received the name of Claudia Castra. The Saxons, after they had taken it, gave it the name of Glean-ceaster; hence our modern word Gloucester. It had its part in battles, and in the seventeenth century was strongly fortified and took part with the Royalists. The place was of so much importance that Henry VIII. made it a bishop's seat, and so its great abbey church became a cathedral. The edifice is in fine repair, and is noted for its elegant cloisters,--the finest of any cathedral in the world. They are of very liberal dimensions, and adorned with fanlike tracery of extraordinary finish; and the openings into the great courtyard are filled with glass. The cathedral itself is one of rare beauty. It is 423 feet long, and 147 feet wide at the transepts; and the great central tower is 176 feet high to the base of the corner pinnacles, which tower up 49 feet higher. The cloisters are 148 feet long on each of their four sides. We shall not attempt a closer description of this than of other cathedrals, though every part is a study.