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thickly spread as in Leland's time. According to Collinson, the whole area of the hill-top, containing about twenty acres, was enriched with noble relics' of the Empire, such as pavements, and hypocausts, and immense quantities of coins, chiefly of Antoninus and Faustina.' We find that in his time opinions were much divided about the Arthurian legends which have since made such a vigorous growth. Some talked of the king's palace and kitchen and well; and the imaginative Stukeley had a story of a road across the fields, bearing very rank corn,' which was known as King Arthur's Hunting-causeway.' Here we see the warrior king turning into a shadowy creature like the wild huntsman of the German tales. Folks do say that at full 'moon King Arthur and his knights ride round the hill, and 'their horses are shod with silver, and a silver shoe has been found in the track where they ride.' Leland's original story seems somewhat tame after these modern improvements; he could only say that, within the memory of men then living, a silver horseshoe had been found in the camp. 'The people can tell nothing there, but that they have heard say that Arthur much resorted to Camalat.' It is nowadays a mere commonplace to say that the hero follows the chase with his knights, and thunders along the causeway after his hounds. A labourer, not long ago, told Mr. Bennett that the old bridle-path leading towards Glastonbury was King Arthur's Lane, and that sometimes on rough winter nights he heard the king and his pack of hounds go by. The rustics have other legends of a more interesting kind. They are convinced that the hill is hollow and teeming with fairy gold, though the latter belief may be only a reminiscence of the fine coins of Antoninus. The idea that the interior caverns were inhabited as a palace of Pixies reminds us strongly of the Irish belief that the divine tribe of Gods' took refuge under the green barrows when St. Patrick's voice was heard. Mr. Bennett told a story about a broken quern which he had found near a hut site on the hill. A labourer said, 'Now, Sir, I see what 'I could never make out afore; what it was the fairies 'wanted with carrying corn up here out of Foreside.' Why,' said Mr. Bennett, do the fairies bring corn up ' here?' 'Yes, Sir, we all know that; but I never could make out for why; but now I see, for here is their grindstone.' Mr. Poole says something of these fairies in his Customs

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and Superstitions of Somerset,' and in particular tells one story which was had from a person of known honour, who

had it from the man himself.' We ought to premise that the rustics in these parts were at one time much given to superstition. Some excuse, perhaps, may be found in the trials for witchcraft which led to the judicial murder of Jane Brooks at Chard in the year 1658, and of Elizabeth Style at Wincanton a few years afterwards. We have heard of the finding of witches' ladders, of a hag at Bridgwater who took the form of a white rabbit, and of a whistling ghost at Minehead that brought in storms from Some of the Pixy stories come from the villages on the Blackdown Hills. Those who have travelled to Blagdon, as Mr. Poole's legend goes, have frequently seen the fairies there, appearing like men and women, of a stature generally near the smaller size of men; their habits used to be of red, blue, and green, according to the old country garb, with high-crowned hats.' A farmer at Combe St. Nicholas was said to have met on the hillside a great company of people, like the folk assembled at a fair. There were all sorts of commodities, as at our ordinary fairs, 'pewterers, shoemakers, pedlars, with all kind of trinkets, fruit stalls and drinking booths.' But when he walked into this goblin market,' they all became invisible, 'only he seemed to be crowded, and thrust, as when one passes through a throng of people.' There were some,' added the person of honour, who assured me they had many times seen this fair-keeping in the summer, as they came 'from Taunton market.'

At Glastonbury we return to the region of history, though we shall have to look aside now and again to watch the growth of some strange superstition. The story of the Abbey Church, and the present state of its ruins, demand our chief attention, and on these points we find ourselves almost overburdened with authority. Professor Willis and Mr. James Parker collected almost all that could be learned about the fabric. The history of the foundation was told by Mr. Freeman, with an enthusiasm and wealth of learning not to be approached by any other writer of his day. The details of the endowment and the fluctuations in the corporate estate have been filled in by Bishop Hobhouse and the Rev. T. S. Holmes in their work for the Somerset Record Society.

The existing ruins show the general plan of the church, the chapel, and the galilee. In the days of the Britons there had been a little chapel of wood and wattle-work, which the natives regarded as a place of special sanctity.

It was connected from very early times with the legend of St. Joseph of Arimathea, and was probably a place of resort for pilgrims from Wales and Ireland. This primæval church lived on, the historian tells us, through English, Danish, and Norman conquests. It was enriched by King Ine of Wessex, and he was also the founder of another church, raised in stone, and rebuilt later in a statelier guise by Dunstan himself.' The stone building was afterwards replaced by a Norman church during the abbacy of Henry of Blois, who also added very largely to the domestic buildings of the monastery. On May 25, 1184, a fire consumed the churches and almost all the other buildings, except one small room, a chapel, and the bell-tower of Henry of Blois. The king came at once to the rescue, and in the course of about two years the new chapel of St. Mary was rebuilt on the western site. Then the wooden church of the Briton,' to borrow Mr. Freeman's words, gave way to the loveliest building that Glastonbury has to show, the gem of late Romanesque on a small scale, the western church, the western Lady Chapel, corruptly known since the fifteenth century as the Chapel of St. Joseph.' Among the illustrations of Mr. Barrett's work we find a sketch of the ruined interior, revealing a marvellous wealth of decoration, and another view from the outside which takes in one of the square corner-turrets and shows its junction with the Early English porch or galilee. The relics of the Great Church, representing the vanished work of Ine and Dunstan, are scanty at the best, and seem likely to suffer further decay. Mr. Barrett pleads hard for the removal of the bushes and ivy by which the walls are being gradually destroyed. The greater part of the south wall is standing, with two towerpiers, and the transept chapel, usually called 'St. Mary's.' The whole church, however, is the merest ruin; gone is 'the nave with its twenty columns, gone the central tower ' with its reversed side-arches, save that the wreck of the ' choir arch stands up, a marvel in size.'

The building of the Great Church began shortly after the fire, but the work was soon suspended. It was designed on so vast a scale that no continuous progress was possible, and it cannot indeed be said to have been complete in itself until its dedication in the year 1303. The galilee by which the two fabrics were externally united may have been finished about seventy years earlier. It contained four bays, the east end being filled up with great flights of steps. The primary object was to make a porch for the

church; but certain alterations were at one time made in the chapel which caused the porch to appear like a choir, and enabled it on occasion to be used as such. Mr. Barrett, however, has the stronger authorities on his side in pronouncing that it was meant for a church-porch.

At some time in the fifteenth century, when the devotion to St. Joseph was at its height, the monks found great difficulty in providing tombs for all who desired to rest near his holy shrine. They adopted one very daring expedient, which might have laid their fabric in ruins. A crypt was 'scooped out' beneath the floor of the chapel and as far as the steps beyond, the walls being faced with stones hewn in the Norman manner.' It has been suggested that this was done to give a false air of antiquity to the work, but it is quite as probable that the material was obtained from an ancient building then in course of demolition. It may be worth observing that there is a well under the chapel, described in the notice which accompanies Mr. Barrett's sketch as being surmounted by an elaborate Norman arch.' It is said that this may have been an external spring, existing when the chapel was built, and brought within the walls in the course of some later addition. The history of Glastonbury has been so minutely told that it seems unlikely that the well would have been left undescribed by the older chroniclers. We desire to express no opinion on the point, but we may say that Mr. J. Parker, when he described the place, was very sceptical as to the suggested explanation.

The state of the Great Church early in the last century may be learned from Gale and Stukeley. The transepts, the walls of the choir, and the side-aisles with eight windows apiece, were all in existence, though they were already suffering from the ravages of a Presbyterian tenant.' At the time of Stukeley's visit the work of destruction was in full blast. Every week a pillar or buttress, a window'jamb or an angle of hewn stone, is sold to the best bidder. Whilst I was there they were excoriating St. Joseph's 'Chapel for that purpose, and the squared stones were laid 'up by lots in the Abbot's Kitchen; the rest goes to paving 'yards and stalls for cattle, or to the highway.' We learn from the guide-book that about a hundred years ago the ground about the church was converted to pasturage, and that cartloads of capitals, corbels, and pinnacles were 'carried away to make a new road to Wells.'

The Abbot's Kitchen is a square building with a vaulted

roof and double lantern in stone. In each corner was an arched fireplace with a chimney carried through the roof, like those of the Oxford Laboratory, for which certain features were borrowed from the Glastonbury design. Mr. Barrett found the fragments of a screen, which seems to have been used for dividing the room into equal compartments. The oven was extremely small, from which it may be inferred that the abbot had a separate bakehouse; and we learn, in fact, from the records of the Flemish weavers, that their guild was permitted to use an empty brewery and bakehouse which had formerly belonged to the monastery. There is a similar kitchen at Durham, still remaining in good preservation; and another may be seen at Fontévrault, where it was long shown to visitors as an ancient chapterhouse. The later example at Stanton Harcourt is without chimneys, the smoke escaping through a pierced structure above, fitted with 'luffer-boards' that could be opened and shut like Venetian blinds.

Among other detached buildings we should mention the tithe-barn, said to be the best piece of work, for a barn,' that ever was seen. The building is cruciform, it has decorated panels, and figures of the Evangelists at the four corners. Mr. Barrett thought it not so interesting as the celebrated barn at Barton Farm, near Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire. This, we are told, is a huge building of the fourteenth century, with two arched entrances like transepts. It is the peculiar decoration of the gables that makes the Glastonbury building so attractive. At Pilton there is another of about the same date, described by Mr. Bennett as a very fine specimen of the very fine barns 'belonging to Glastonbury.' The gables are in this case ornamented with medallions containing the symbols of the Evangelists. Mr. Barrett has also described the Bishop's Barn at Wells, which is now no longer in use. He considers that it was built in the earlier half of the fifteenth century, and notes that it is chiefly remarkable for its length and the extraordinary number of buttresses.

In the High Street stands a curious old house known as the Tribunal,' with two scutcheons over the door that may be of the time of Henry VII. It is said to have been built by Richard Bere, the last abbot but one, as a court-house for disputes among the tenants; and the popular fancy has invented a series of subterranean dungeons and cells. A chapel once dedicated to St. James is said to have been converted into cottages, and we must refer in this connexion