the
principal families. It was not published until 1845, but is well
worthy of being preserved, not only for its antiquarian interest, as
being the earliest account of Devonshire, its agriculture and its
industries, but also for the pleasure of its quaint turns of phrase,
the ponderous classic authorities which he marshals to support a simple
fact--and there are indeed some strange wild-fowl among his
authorities--and above all for a gentle and unobtrusive humour which
seasons all the narrative. Westcote gives a list of the fish afforded
by the Devon seas (a very imperfect list by modern computation), and
adds:

"It might be much more enlarged, but your server shall stand no longer
at the dresser, lest the first dish be stale ere the last come to the
table. Yet, notwithstanding, I will here confess that had you supped
with Aulus Gellius, the Roman Emperor, you might say my bill came much
too short; yea! by 1800; for as Suetonius, in lib. 9, and Josephus,
lib. 5, alledge, he was served at one meal with 2,000; (if you please
to believe there are so many species of fish;) but he had indeed a
large country to make his provision in, the whole then known
world. . . . But for the other supper of 7,000 divers kinds of fowls,
I will not undertake to name them here, nor in Africa, and Asia, with
all the assistance that Gesnerus can afford me."

This is a style without hurry, indeed, in a peaceable rambling world,
and one can imagine Westcote, with his pointed beard and his tall hat
of the fashion of James I., taking a little walk in the afternoon sun
after having spent the morning with his quill-pen and his calf-bound,
close-printed classics--Suetonius, and Gesnerus, and Diodorus Siculus.
His book is interspersed with little rhymes, couplets or longer verses,
in the style of the "Arabian Nights" stories, and which George Meredith
in the "Shaving of Shagpat" has used with such quaint effect; on every
subject and for every statement Westcote has an authority and an
aphorism, whether it is of "Day labourers in Tin-works, and Hirelings
in Husbandry," of fishermen or merchantmen, of trade or
agriculture--"for, as Horace speaketh," says he,

"Who much do crave, of much have need;
But well is he whom God indeed,
Though with a sparing hand, doth feed."

Or again, speaking of "the commodities this country yields":

"England hath store of bridges, hills, and wool,
Of churches, wells, and women beautiful."

He is no