Castle and monastery have been destroyed in Coventry, and, after all, nobles and monks had very little to do with the making of the city, which, in 1381, was the fifth, and about seventy years later the fourth, among the cities of the kingdom. A fortunate junction of high roads, and the enterprise of the inhabitants, accounts for the great riches and large population during those seventy years. _And mark that the most noteworthy buildings were raised within this period_: the churches of S. Michael, and the Holy Trinity, and S. Mary's Hall. S. John's church is a little earlier in date. During this period the people of Coventry were possessed with a magnificent frenzy, such as shames our modern efforts, for building and making their city beautiful. That is to say, within a little over two generations the inhabitants of a town of what we should call nowadays contemptible smallness, for it contained at first a population of only about 7000, and later certainly no more than 10,000 souls, raised two parish churches of unusual size, and a fine town hall. One of these churches is indeed the largest in the kingdom, and possesses a spire almost unrivalled in height and beauty. They also kept their fortifications in good repair during this period, and raised--to speak of inconsiderable trifles--a market cross, which has unfortunately perished, besides lending to all the buildings their bounty was making or had made, all the riches of suitable adornment that the carpenter's, carver's, painter's, glazier's, weaver's and goldsmith's art could devise. Much has perished in the destruction of the cathedral, the friars' and other chapels, the cross, a parish church, a guild-hall, and many unremembered buildings; but enough remains to show that we owe a great debt to those dear, dead folk who knew so many things we have forgotten and loved so many things we have ceased to care for, and above all, knew what to do with stone and glass and metal, and loved their handiwork, for it was good. Women have always been to the fore in Coventry; the names rise of S. Osburg, Godiva, Isabella, Margaret of Anjou, of the virgin sisters Botoner, who built the spire, and of Joan Ward, the first Coventry Lollard martyr. Women of the city, too, helped to keep out Charles I. Here Sarah Kemble (Mrs Siddons) was married and Miss Ellen Terry born. It is fitting that the chief literary interest of Coventry should centre in a woman's name. George Eliot went to school at a house in the south-west end of Warwick Row, 1832-5. Coventry is said to be the original of Middlemarch, and S. Mary's Hall is described in the trial scene in _Adam Bede_.