It is pleasant to ramble with Mr Rimmer from county to county of the old land, gathering as we go a great company from the past; and assuredly all will agree that no better starting-point can be found than Chester, the pride of archæologists, the boast of historians, the city whose renown has been touched into equal brilliance and tenderness by the genius of Sir Walter Scott. An American traveller has well described the charm of the city. 'It is full,' he says, 'of that delightful element of the crooked, the accidental, the unforeseen, which, to eyes accustomed to eternal right angles and straight lines, is the striking feature of European street scenery. The Chester streets give us a perfect feast of crookedness--of those random corners, projections, and recesses, those innumerable architectural surprises and caprices and fantasies which offer such a delicious holiday to a vision nourished upon brown stone fronts.' Shrewsbury perhaps gives at first sight a more vivid picture of a fine old English town, but it has not so many treasures hidden away under modern exteriors. It is likely, Mr Rimmer tells us, that even the oldest inhabitant of Chester is ignorant of the ancient relics which the city contains. Though the origin of the famous 'Rows' is disputed--some antiquaries holding them to belong to the Roman era of the city, and to have been simply an extension of the vestibule of Roman architecture; while others consider that they were built as a refuge for the citizens during any sudden attack of the Welsh--there is but one estimate of their quaint old-world beauty; and perhaps there is no relic of the past in all England which has more stirring memories to arouse than Chester Castle, with its Julius Cæsar's tower still standing firm against the influence of time, and its tradition of Hugh Lupus Hall.