And so one comes to Kelmscott, which owes its name to some Saxon thane, just as Buscot derives from some dim ancient Burward. But of that Kenelm whose “cot” this was, history says no more than it does of Burward. If we adventure into the _hinterland_ at the back of Bampton—whose full name is Bampton-in-the-Bush—we shall find two other “cots,” or “cotts,” Alvescott, and Kencot—and there is Cote (which is merely “cot” spelled in another way, and unappropriated to any personal name) further down-stream behind Shifford. At Kelmscott the river Leach comes really to its “lade,” or outflow; its “let,” or outlet: a similar word being used at Oaklade (“uisk-lade,” or water outlet), where the Swillbrook joins the Thames, and at Cricklade, where the Churn falls in. In the words of the presiding genius of the place, the late William Morris, Socialist, poet, decorative-artist, demagogue, literary man, and master-printer, this is “a reach of the river where on the side of the towing-path is a highish bank with a thick whispering bed of reeds before it, and on the other side a higher bank, clothed with willows that dip into the stream, and crowned by ancient elm-trees.” Very true. It is also a beautiful and sequestered spot; and although now, since the death of William Morris in 1896, become a much-talked-of new literary shrine, few are those who trouble its ancient peace. The village lies near the banks of the Thames, with a rough, unkempt piece of common opposite the old Elizabethan, stone, gabled manor-house that was for some years the home of Morris and of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Nothing but the upper windows of the old house can be glimpsed from the road, for a very high wall effectually guards its seclusion. [Illustration: KELMSCOTT MANOR.] Morris loved the place with an intense love, and brought back to the house much of its old ways, with much else of his own, in artistic “Morris tapestries” and other hangings, such as were designed by him and Burne-Jones, made at Merton by Wimbledon, and sold at the establishment of Morris & Co. in Oxford Street. We do not commonly look upon Socialists as anything but discontented artisans and weekly wage-earners in general; but Morris performed his share of street-corner spouting with such, and yet dreamed golden dreams of the World Beautiful, and did much to make it so. But, at the same time, his lovely wares in wall-papers, in hangings and carpets, in furniture and stained-glass, were of the most expensive kind that none of those “have nots” could by any means possess. The famous Morris books, too, produced at the Kelmscott Press, Hammersmith, were of those prices that only plutocrats could afford, and were produced strictly after the individualistic and anti-Socialistic theory of “limited edition.”