precipitately took to their heels, and so raised the siege. The Earl returned to Chester at the head of his victorious minstrels, and immediately chartered the holding of this Fair with numerous privileges and immunities, granting to the brave De Lacy, and to his heirs for ever, the licensing of and custody over the “Minstrels of Cheshire;” which prerogative was regularly exercised by his descendants, until the middle of the last century. So much for the ABBOT’S FAIR, and the bloodless “fight of the fiddlers;”—we may now “fair”-ly enough continue our course of inspection. Proceeding direct north, we come to another postern, now ruinated, the mere arch itself alone remaining. This is the _Little_ or _Higher Abbey Gate_; and from it, in days past, ran the wall of the Monastery in a direct line southward to the Great ABBEY GATE; the wall itself has now given way to a row of shops and other valuable buildings. Nearly opposite to the _Little Abbey Gate_, retiring somewhat from the street, stands a neat, modern-built house; in the courtyard of which we may see a handsome piece of statuary, purchased by a former proprietor at the close of the French War: it represents the British Lion, With tail erect and aspect terrible, trampling majestically on the Eagle of France,—typical of the overthrow of the first Napoleon. Little did the sculptor suppose, when he proudly chiselled ‘that angry mane, and tail of grim defiance,’ that the Lion and the Eagle would so soon be united in such friendly bonds, nay even fighting, side by side, the almost unaided battle of right against might, justice against oppression! If that classic group had to be sculptured anew— Such are the strange mutations of the world,— the prostrate Eagle might haply bear an additional head, emblematical of the ruthless despoiler of Finland, the Caucasus, and Poland! In a step or two we are passing the higher end of _King Street_, formerly _Barn Lane_, at the corner of which stands an ancient hostelry, yclept the “Pied Bull.” Here again we have before us the degenerate type of those strange old Rows, which so filled you with amaze in our earlier rambles. There can be no doubt that, originally, these wondrous piazzas ran continuously along the four great streets of the city, except where they verge upon the confines of the Abbey; but these isolated portions are gradually disappearing before the “march of improvement.” Doctors differ, alas! in Chester, as elsewhere, about the actual wisdom of this aforesaid “march!”