Me lyketh ever, the lengerè the bet, By Wyngester, that Joly citè. The ton is god and wel y-set, The folk is comely on to see; The aier is god both inne and oute, The citè stent under an hille; The riverès renneth all aboute, The ton is ruelèd upon skille. _Benedicamus Domino, Alleluia, Alleluia._ Fifteenth-century verses, DE WALDEN MSS. The magic of the city--whence comes it? Every people, every age has felt it, this mysterious sense of personality, this deep, alluring spell which age after age, nation after nation, has woven round the city of its dreams. Rome, Naples, Damascus, Mecca, Seville, each of these has been and still is a name to conjure with, while the long pent-up fervour of national feeling with which the Hebrew of old time invested the thought of Salem, the City of Peace, has from its very intensity and sincerity established it in the eyes of all Christendom as the permanent type of that New Jerusalem, the Heavenly City, the centre of all divine influence and of every divine appeal. And here in England, dull, matter-of-fact, money-grubbing England, have we not too, under our leaden skies, cities also not unworthy of a claim on our regard--cities which possess the same picturesque and appealing elements which have, in people of warmer and more emotional type, evoked such feelings of romantic devotion, of national pride, and the rich glow of enthusiastic attachment? True, such feelings express themselves here in less exuberant and conscious manner, but they exist, and have existed all through our history, and the old fifteenth-century singer quoted above, whose quaintly expressive verses sum up so happily even for us of modern time the attractions of the delightful old mediaeval city which is our common theme, was doubtless one who felt this to the full. ‘Wyngester, that Joly citè,’ that is his keynote--a note at once sincere but restrained. He is no pilgrim, rapt in enthusiastic devotion, singing of urbs caelestis, urbs beata, as he approaches the city of his passionate desire; but a plain, sober-minded citizen, who sees in the town which shelters him a ‘Joly citè’ of attractive aspect and pleasantly seated, surrounded by the mingled delights of hill and stream; and, moreover, one ‘ruelèd upon skille,’ as becomes the mother of municipalities.