uent."

But here all the houses are picturesque, great and small alike. And
there are here and there pieces of work which testify to the piety and
faith of very early days: fragments of inscriptions chiselled out more
than fifteen hundred years ago--such as the four stones at Chedworth,
discovered some thirty years ago, together with many other interesting
relics of the Roman occupation, by a gamekeeper in search of a ferret.
On these stones were found the Greek letters [GREEK: Ch] and [GREEK: r],
forming the sacred monogram "C.H.R." Fifteen hundred years had not
obliterated this simple evidence of ancient faith, nor had the
devastation of the ages impaired the beauty of design, nor marred the
harmony of colouring of those delicate pavements and tesserae with which
these wonderful people loved to adorn their habitations. Since this
strange discovery the diligent research of one man has rescued from
oblivion, and the liberality of another now protects from further
injury, one of the best specimens of a Roman country house to be found
in England. Far away from the haunts of men, in the depths of the
Chedworth woods, where no sound save the ripple of the Coln and the song
of birds is heard, rude buildings and a museum have been erected; here
these ancient relics are sheltered from wind and storm for the sake of
those who lived and laboured in the remote past, and for the benefit and
instruction of him, be he casual passer-by or pilgrim from afar, who
cares to inspect them.

The ancient Roman town of Cirencester, too, affords many historical
remains of the same era. But it is to the part which English hands and
hearts have played towards beautifying the Cotswold district that I
would fain direct attention; to the stately Abbey Church of Cirencester
and its glorious south porch, with its rich fan-tracery groining within
and its pierced battlements and pinnacles without; to the arched gateway
of twelfth century work, the sole remnant of that once famous
monastery--the mitred Abbey of St. Mary--founded by the piety of the
first Henry, and overthrown by the barbarity of the last king of that
name, who ordained "that all the edifices within the site and precincts
of the monastery should be pulled down and carried away";--it is to the
glorious windows of Fairford Church--the most beautiful specimens
remaining to us of glass of the early part of the sixteenth century--and
to many an ancient church and mediaeval manor house still