His description later on in the work, of the inside of Clavering town, is marvellously graphic. “Clavering is rather prettier at a distance than it is on a closer acquaintance. The town, so cheerful of aspect a few furlongs off, looks very blank and dreary. Except on market-days there is nobody in the streets. The clack of a pair of pattens rings through half the place, and you may hear the creaking of the rusty old ensign at the Clavering Arms without being disturbed by any other noise. There has not been a ball at the assembly rooms since the Clavering volunteers gave one to their colonel, old Sir Francis Clavering; the stables which once held a great part of that brilliant, but defunct regiment, are now cheerless and empty, except on Thursdays when the farmers put up there, and their tilted carts and gigs make a feeble show of liveliness in the place, or on petty sessions when the magistrates attend in what used to be the old cardroom. On the south side of the market rises up the church with its great gray towers, of which the sun illuminates the delicate carving, deepening the shadows of the huge buttresses, and gilding the glittering windows and flaming vanes.... The rectory is a stout broad-shouldered brick house of the reign of Anne. It communicates with the church and market by different gates, and stands at the opening of Yew Tree Lane,” etc. etc. These exquisite descriptions of old-fashioned English country town scenes are introduced as being among the most vivid in our language, and also as referring, it is supposed, to the places under consideration. [Illustration: CRAMPTON, NEAR SHREWSBURY.] [Illustration: GOLDSMITH STREET, EXETER.] CHAPTER III. EXETER--WELLS--GLASTONBURY, LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR INTERRED HERE--DORSET--SHERBORNE--WEYMOUTH. The houses at the corner of Goldsmith Street, in Exeter, are about to be pulled down, and are introduced here more for their curiosity than their beauty; a chapel is quaintly mixed up with them, and there is a sort of promenade on the top of the chemist’s shop. Exeter has declined from its ancient trade of woollen manufacture, and glovemaking and agricultural implements form the chief industry of the inhabitants. Crediton, at a few miles farther up the county, used at one time to be the seat of the Episcopate, but Exeter has enjoyed that dignity since the reign of Edward the Confessor. It has played a conspicuous part at times in English history, having at one time been besieged by William the Conqueror; and when the magistrates stole out of the city to surrender it, the citizens closed their gates against their return, and took the defence into their own hands. The fortifications were destroyed by Fairfax in 1646; but part of the castle still remains, and it has been converted into a gentleman’s residence. Of this celebrated building we read in Richard III. when his quarrel with Buckingham is beginning--