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CHAPTER VIII

OLD CITIES.

"Old Sarum was built on a dry barren waste,
A great many years ago;

'Twas a Roman town of strength and renown,
As its stately ruins show;

But, still longer ago, in plains below,

A British city stood;

And harper's cots and druid's grots,
Adorned the neighbouring wood."

OLD BALLADS.

WHOEVER Would see a picture of the city of the middle ages should visit Chester, beyond all parallel the most perfect specimen in all England. Description is not possible; it is utterly unlike any thing the reader is acquainted with; all the old patriarchal cities of the middle ages possess some points of resemblance; they have all some arch, some wall, some turret, some pavement, speaking of their ancestry. For the age, number, and value of its monuments, York transcends all the cities in England, but it does not convey so clear an idea of a Mædivial city as Chester. York is Roman in its monuments beneath, and those preserved

within its walls, are not so complete as to give the full idea to the eye. In Chester every thing is combined. We step out of the nineteenth into the fourteenth, or fifteenth century. Around it, the wall which tradition ascribes to Cymbeline, still winds unbroken; and as you pursue your walk upon it, you pass by numerous objects reminding you of the antiquity of the spot. The watch tower through which you pass; the cathedral, behind which you are compelled to travel; the rugged irregularity of the walk-now passing down a flight of steps, and now mounting a hill-then, the interior ; how can it be described-those " Rows," as they are called? Let the reader imagine all the shops in every street to be beneath an arcade, and then the first floor a series of shop fronts, too, similarly arcaded. There is no room lost here. Kohl, the German traveller, describes the city in its modern lights, so pleasantly, that we will lay his plan under contribution.

"It must not be imagined," says Kohl, "that these Rows form a very regular or uniform gallery, it varies according to the size or circumstances of each house through which it passes. Sometimes, when passing through a small house, the ceiling is so low that one finds it necessary to doff the hat, while in others one passes through a space as lofty as a saloon. In one house the Row lies lower than in the preceding, and one has in consequence to go down a step or two, and, perhaps, a house or two farther, one or two steps have to be mounted

again. In one house a handsome new-fashioned iron railing fronts the street; in another, only a mean wooden paling. In some stately houses, the supporting columns are strong and adorned with handsome antique ornaments; in others, the wooden piles appear time-worn, and one hurries past them apprehensive that the whole concern must topple down before long.

The

ground-floors over which the Rows pass are inhabited by an humble class of tradesmen, but it is at the back of the Rows themselves that the principal shops are to be found

This may give an idea of how lively and varied a scene is generally to be witnessed here. Indeed the rows are often full of people, either making their little purchases in the shops, or mounting to their boarded floors, to avoid the disagreeable pavement of the streets. Perhaps these Rows may be connected with another singularity pointed out to me at Chester. The streets do not, as in other towns, run along the surface of the ground, but have been cut into it, and that moreover into a solid rock. Rows are in reality on a level with the surface of the ground, and the carriages rolling along below them are passing through a kind of artificial ravine. The back wall of the groundfloor is everywhere formed by the solid rock, and the court-yard of the houses, their kitchens, and back buildings lie generally ten or twelve feet higher than the street."

The

Now we cannot walk through the old city without noticing how its walls, like arms, clasped in all that was necessary to the peo

ple; how its cathedral turrets mounted, like a crown, over the whole; how its castled tower stood most conveniently for observation or defence, and its houses, too, how they were constructed, (most of those in which the burgher resided) not only as a residence but a fortress. The city was erected in times when it was necessary to be always guarded, always watchful, and able, unseen, to repel the assault; and not only when the city was, as was frequently the case, in a state of siege, but when the still more frequent occasional disturbances demanded secrecy and determination.

Guizot, in his lectures on the History of the Civilization in Europe, says, "This is the construction of a citizen's house in the twelfth century, as far as we can follow it: there were generally three floors, with one room on each floor; the room on the ground floor was the common room, where the family took their meals; the first floor was very high up by way of security; this is the most remarkable characteristic of the construction. On this floor was the room which the citizen and his wife occupied. The house was almost always flanked by a tower at the angle, generally of a square form; another symptom of war, a means of defence. On the second floor was a room, the use of which is doubtful, but which probably served for the children and the rest of the family. Above, very often, was a small platform, evidently intended for a place of observation. The whole construction of the house suggests war. This was the evident character,

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the true name of the movement which produced the enfranchisement of the Commons." This description especially applies to the cities of France and Germany, but those of England also, and in most of our very old towns may be found some exceedingly remote traces of this state of the civic life. The Middle Ages of Europe beheld a more glorious and resolute struggling for freedom than had ever been beheld before; and but little time passed away without the citizen being called into active collision with some of the powers claiming authority over him. We need not remind our readers in how lively and graphic a manner this life is exhibited by Scott, in the fascinating pages of the "Fair Maid of Perth ;” “Quintin Durward;" and other of his historic fictions.

But the cities of the Middle Ages, the Saxon or Norman structures (though the Norman was more active in building castles than cities), these are not the only social edifices we have to look at in glancing through Old England. OLD SARUM is perhaps the most unique spot in England; as it rises there from the plain, it is a monument of every revolution which England has experienced. The Hill of the Sun: there stood a temple dedicated to the worship of that luminary, in days when Druidism had its groves and circular temples from shore to shore of Britain. This city, for it was most probably an old British city, has been by turns in the hands of six different nations, the Ancient Britons, the Belgæ, the Romans, the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans, and it has experienced