The delectable style of building above described is also thus commented upon in that poetical curiosity, the “Lyfe of St. Werburgh,” by Henry Bradshaw, another monk of Chester Abbey, who flourished in sackcloth and ashes sometime previous to 1500:— The founder of Chester, as saith Polychronicon, Was Leon Gauer, a mighty strong giant; Which builded caves and dungeons many a one, No goodly buildings, ne proper, ne pleasant. But King Leil, a Briton sure and valiant, Was founder of Chester by pleasant building, And of Caerleil also named by the King. Among the ancient Britons, the city was known from time immemorial as Caerlleon Vawr, and Caerlleon ar Dyfyrdwy, and was certainly with them a city of great importance, long before the advent of the Roman invaders to these shores. Equally certain is it that our primitive forefathers, unable to stem the onward current of the victorious Romans, fled in disorder from the city of Caerlleon (Chester), to the mountain fastnesses of Wales, and there concentrating themselves, defied for many a long and eventful century alike the wiles and encroachments of their enemies. Chester, resigned to the tender mercies of the conquerors, rapidly lost its first estate;—rising again, however, under the shade of the imperial eagles, like a phœnix from its ashes, to be the chosen camp and colony of the Twentieth Legion of Cæsar. Stirring times were these for old Chester; the rude huts of the Britons, the temples and altars of the ancient Druids, the mud walls and other defences of her former possessors, all vanished like a dream, while in their place arose the proud Prætorium, the pagan temples, the stately columns, the peerless masonry, the noble statues, the massive Walls, and all the other elements of civilisation which usually followed in the wake of proud old Rome! Perhaps of the many Roman settlements in Britain, none have retained to our own time so many enduring proofs of their energetic rule as Chester. Surrounded by Walls, which for almost their entire length rest upon Roman foundations,—nay, which still exhibit to the naked eye of truth and time the evident impress of their mechanical genius,—we fancy, while we look thereon, that we see the sturdy warriors pacing to and fro, keeping watch against the enemy; while, within the city, the soldiers and inhabitants are plying the pickaxe, trowel, and spade,—here piling stone upon stone in the erection of a forum, and there planning and building the tesselated floors, the baths, and the sudatories of domestic life. Eighteen hundred years have rolled away since Julius Agricola and his Legion held sway over the city, and yet ever since then, notwithstanding that _they_ have long lain in the dust, scarce a year has passed without the encroachments of the builder, or the researches of the antiquary, bringing to light some long hidden, but valuable relic of this extraordinary people. Time and space alike forbid us to give anything