in the
country. Here one sees the England of his dreams, the England he so long
desired to see, and which now presents to his gaze, as it were in a focus,
both the monuments and the rubbish of many ages. It was once a great
military station of the Romans in Britain, who called it the City of
Legions. King AEthelfrith reduced it to ruins in the year 607, and it
remained "a waste chester" (a waste castra or fortification) for three
centuries. The Danes made its walls a stronghold against Alfred and
AEthelred, and the Lady of the Mercians, who was the daughter of Alfred and
the wife of AEthelred, recognized the importance of the place, and built it
up again. It was the last city in England to hold out against William the
Conqueror. During the Civil Wars the city adhered to the royal cause, and
was besieged and taken by the Parliamentary forces in 1645. The _Phoenix
Tower_ bears the incription: _King Charles stood on this tower September_
24, 1645, _and saw his army defeated on Rowton Moor_.

_The Rows_ are a very curious feature of the two principal streets running
at right angles to each other. Besides the ordinary walks or pavements of
these streets, there is a continuous covered gallery through the front of
the second story. Some one has said, "Great is the puzzle of the stranger
as to whether the roadway is down in the cellar, or he is upstairs on the
landing, or the house has turned outside of the window." On this "upstairs
street," as some call it, are situated all the first-class shops, the
others being in the lower story on a level with the road. Picture to
yourself a row of houses having porches in the second story but not in the
first, and you have a correct idea of the Rows of Chester. To compare them
to the Arcades of Rue de Rivoli in Paris, is a mistake, as they do not
resemble those more, than a porch over a pavement resembles one in the
second story.

The Cathedral is a grand old church. It was built in the latter part of
the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries, upon the same
site where two of its predecessors had already crumbled into decay. "_St.
John's Church_ is even more ancient than the Cathedral, having been built
in the eleventh century. I shall never forget its weather-beaten walls and
its mossy roof. In many places, the thickness of the walls is greatly
reduced by the rain and hail that have washed and beaten against it so
long. In my rambles through Chester I had the good fortun