“Or poetic,” I continued, “Warton was poet-laureate, and his brother was head-master here. But there is no doubt that the site on which this Cathedral stands was of prehistoric sanctity. Hard by at the southern gate of the Close we find in the road two Druidical monoliths. Was not this a place where the long-haired, skin-clad Britons came to lay their offerings? Did not some mighty chieftain repose here beneath a rude dolmen? Below the crypt there is a well which reminds us of the holy wells--such as that of Madron in Cornwall--changed by the early Church from pagan to Christian veneration. “A wave of the wand of the great magician, Time, brings us to Roman days. On the south and west are red-roofed villas, with spreading courts. Close to us, on the east, stand the old temple of Concord, and the new one to Apollo--low buildings, but large, and girdled by pillars, with acanthus-leaved capitals, such as those we see to-day lying on the grass at Silchester. Here pass the stately processions of white-robed “flamens,” who here placed their principal British college. But side by side with these time-honoured and worn-out institutions grew up the Christian Church. King Lucius on his conversion gave to it the possessions of these old priests, extending 2,000 paces on every side of the city. He built a little house, with an oratory, dormitory, and refectory, and placed in it monks of the order of St. Mark the Evangelist. But his greatest work here was the construction of the Church of St. Amphibalus, two hundred and nine paces long, eighty wide and ninety high.[62]” “Paces?” interrupted Mr. Hertford, “what a stupendous structure! and very ‘airy’ I should think. Are you sure that it was not built for the marines?” “Large as it was,” I continued, “Lucius’s voice would have filled it. We are told that when he became Bishop of Coire, in Switzerland, he chose a rock for his pulpit--his finger-marks remain there to prove it--and held forth so vehemently that he was heard twelve miles off--about as far as thunder would be audible.” “You have evidently been among some of those jesting monks,” he said. “Oh, no; what I have narrated about Winchester is from no goliard, but from Rudborne, a Benedictine of the place; a ‘sad’ fellow truly, but in the older and better sense.” [Sidenote: The Saxons.] After a great destruction of monks and buildings during the Diocletian persecution, the brethren rebuilt and re-entered their church--of which Constans, son of Constantine, and afterwards Emperor, was then high-priest--and had peace for two hundred and ten years. Then came, in 500, the terrible Cerdic, against whom King Arthur fought so valiantly. He defeated the natives in a great battle where is now the New Forest, and entered the city. The monks were slaughtered, and an image of Dagon set up in the Christian church. We can scarcely picture the barbaric scenes when this prince of the Saxons was crowned, and buried, in this heathen temple.