founder, Warelwast; but it is clear that much building went on here at different periods; and the kitchen, a detached building east of the refectory, dates from about 1430. The church, built according to Leland at the end of the twelfth century, has been utterly swept away, and fragments of its carved work are to be seen built into adjoining walls and hedges. In the chapter-house was buried the founder, who weary of the world, and, it is said, blind, retired here to die, and chose Plympton for his last resting-place rather than the stately Norman cathedral which he had begun at Exeter. His nephew, Robert Warelwast, also Bishop of Exeter (1155-60), was also buried at Plympton; and the church

The guest-halls and chambers attached to the priory must have been extensive and goodly, since the hospitality of the canons was constantly put to the test somewhat severely; and great personages on their way to or from the harbour of Plymouth (after that became important) were generally received and entertained by them. In 1297 Edward I. visited Devonshire, and remained at Plympton Priory from the 11th of April to the 6th of May-with the exception of two days. spent at Newton Ferrers. The Black Prince, in 1355, before the campaign which ended with the battle of Poictiers, was detained here for forty days (from the end of July to the beginning of September) by contrary winds, during which time he was nobly entertained by the prior. It was while thus delayed at Plympton that, as Duke of Cornwall, he granted to one of his followers the revenues of the ferry at "Asche," or Saltash, as a reward for many services, and in consideration of his having lost an eye in battle. In 1370-when, shattered in health and happiness, the prince had finally left Aquitainehe landed at Plymouth, where he arrived with his wife and his remaining child, Richard of Bordeaux, afterwards the ill-fated Richard II. After resting for some days at the

priory, he was conveyed to London in a litter. He lived until 1376, but never again took part in public affairs. The scene at Plympton must have contrasted strikingly with that in 1355, when the Black Prince had been received there in the full vigour of his youth, and amidst all the splendour and excitement of a great warlike expedition.

The existing parish church of St. Mary (the priory was specially dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul) stood isolated in an enclosure which adjoined the churchyard of the canons. The Perpendicular tower is a good example of a class of church-towers common in this part of Devonshire; and the whole building, lichen-tinted and much ornamented, is picturesque. In the valley below lies the true town of Plympton-Plympton Maurice (the church is dedicated to St. Maurice)—which gathered round and under the castle of the Norman earls. There are some old houses which deserve attention, and the castlemound, with its fragment of circular wall, rises well in the midst of the valley, and commands a good view of Plympton. But it is not of the powerful house of De Redvers, nor of the fortunes of their castle, that we think when pacing the quiet old street of the town. Our first visit will be to the Grammar School, close to which stood —it stands no longer-the house in which Sir Joshua Reynolds was born, on the 16th of July, 1723. His father, the Reverend Samuel Reynolds, was master of the school, and died when his son had reached the age of twenty-three. He was a man of much simplicity, and of so great absence of mind, that in his rides through the Devonshire lanes he sometimes lost hat and wig with complete unconsciousness. The house in which he lived was that belonging to the Grammar School, and was removed in 1868. It had no architectural character, but surely it was a locus sacer in the eyes of all lovers of art, and its destruction, however necessary, is to be lamented. The school itself is a quaint old building with steep roof. Under the large room is an arcade, or cloister, with a long range of granite columns, the subject of one of Reynolds' earliest attempts at a perspective drawing.

Sir Joshua was by no means without attachment to the place of his birth. He paid more than one visit to Plympton after he had become the recognised master of English portrait; and those who are well acquainted with the scenery of the place will not fail to notice the use that has been made of it in the landscape backgrounds of his pictures. The sun-lighted valley enclosed by steeper hills, the green mound of the castle, the broad lines of sunset resting above dark woods, occur so frequently that we can hardly doubt that Sir Joshua was as deeply impressed with the characteristics of this Devonshire valley as Titian with those of his native Cadore. He was once elected Mayor by the Corporation of Plympton, a dignity which entailed no very severe duties, and it does not appear that he visited the place during his year of office. But he declared that it was an honour which gave him more pleasure than any other he had received during his life, and he presented the town with his own portrait, painted by himself. To the disgrace of the "reformed" corporation, this picture was sold by them for £150, and it is now in Lord Egremont's collection at Silverton Park, near Exeter. On its reception at Plympton, a certain Mr. Alcock, the learned and eccentric vicar of a neighbouring parish, addressed the painter in the following distich :—

"Laudat Romanus Raphaelem, Græcus Apellem.

Plympton Reynolden jactat, utrique parem."

The corporation desired that these lines should be inscribed on the back of the portrait, but this Sir Joshua would not sanction. He desired, however, that the picture might be hung in a good situation; and was informed that it had been placed between two old portraits, which acted as a foil, and set it off to great advantage. It afterwards appeared that these "old portraits" had been painted by Reynolds himself, in his early days, before he went to Italy.

With the sunset fading above the hills, just as Sir Joshua many a time saw and noted it, whilst the light is here and there reflected in the broad, still water, we pass onward by the side of the estuary, crossing the Plym by the last true river-bridge nearly at the point where the ancient "ridgeway "-a primitive road,

first perhaps British and then Romancrossed it in former days. This bridge is a little higher up than the junction of the river with the tidal estuary, a long, winding, lake-like expanse known as the Laira. The name has been variously explained, but "leary" in the Doric of this part of Devonshire means 66 empty," and the stretches of mud left bare by the tide may account for the application here (if indeed the words are cognate). There is a "Leiru-vogr," a "bay of mud," in Iceland, not far from Reykjavik, and it is pleasant to imagine some kind of verbal connection between the distant places, although there were no Norse or Danish settlements on this western coast. It is said that Devonshire is indebted for a northern importation of a different nature to a Norwegian vessel which, toward the end of the last century, lay for some time at the head of the Laira. Before the arrival of this ship the only rat known in the county was the smaller or black species. The great brown rat, which has driven the black almost entirely from the field, was thus brought from Norway, and its appearance is recorded in sundry documents of the time as a calamity full of bad omen. It was not only Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone who thought that "what with the new turnips, and the rats, and the Hanoverians," there was but little left of the true Old England.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

There can be no doubt that the tide at one time flowed higher up than at present, or that the ships of the priory, with their ladings from Bordeaux or Morlaix, were able to discharge them close under the monastic walls; but the harbour of Sutton (South Town, the eastern portion of what is now Plymouth) was more convenient; and as intercourse with Guienne and Aquitaine became more frequent, the Priory of Plympton must have foreseen the advantages which would be possessed by a good port in this part of the Channel, and have recognised the value of the Sutton fisheries. Accordingly they bestowed

great attention on these fisheries, and "Sutton juxta Plym-mouthe," as the hamlet was called, gradually widened its boundaries until it no longer needed the protection of the Augustinians. The old harbour remains as "Sutton Pool." For the rest, "Sutton" has long been merged in the far-extending Plymouth. Plymouth has joined herself to Stonehouse and Devonport, and the whole of the land between the Laira, the estuary of the Plym, and Hamoaze, the estuary of the Tamar, is now covered with houses. In 1871 the population of this district was 132,080. So important a station with all its Government establishments, dockyards, victualling offices, military barracks, and hospitals, called for special protection; and in 1860 a Royal Commission recommended the erection of a chain of forts which should enclose the three towns, Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport, from Tregantle on the west to Staddon on the east. defend the dockyards from a land attack coming landing on the coast at any point toward the west. to Plympton, are protections from a land attack on the east. The forts of Laira and of Efford are seen on the hill to the right as we pass onward to Plymouth; and as we look backward to the site of the priory we have the beginning and the latest development before us at once; for the forts represent the last recognition of Plymouth as one of the great arsenals of the country

Certain of these forts are constructed to from the side of Falmouth, or from a Others, which extend from Saltash Bridge

"Where those great navies lie

From floating cannons' thundering throates that all the world defye."

The woods of Saltram, the seat of the Earl of Morley, extend along the southern bank of the estuary, and add not a little to its beauty. The house is not seen. It contains an important collection of pictures, formed for the most part by Sir Joshua Reynolds for the first Lord Boringdon, and including no less than sixteen portraits by himself. There is in the library a portrait of Reynolds, by Angelica Kauffman, which in Mr. Cotton's judgment “has all the look of a real matter-of-fact likeness, very different from the fine pictorial heads he painted of himself." Thus Sir Joshua accompanies us on our journey, and we shall meet him again at Catdown, its extreme point. Meanwhile the Laira widens and deepens; sea-birds wheel and sparkle across it; a line of bluer water unfolds itself in the distance beyond the light iron bridge of five arches which crosses it just above the haven of Catwater; Catwater itself is crowded with merchant ships; and Mount Batten projects itself on one side, forming, with the Citadel point on the other, the entrance to the harbour. We may climb the height of Catdown, and admire the life and movement of the varied picture.

دو

How far 66 Catdown "Catwater and are connected with the name of the "Cad," which, as we have seen, has been given to the Plym in its earlier course, is not certain. It is probable, however, that this harbour, which must always have been greatly sheltered, was frequented rather than the more open Hamoaze by the earliest traders who found their way from the opposite coasts; and that one of the first emporia for the tin of the Devonshire moorlands was fixed on its southern shore. On the hill above Oreston, a fishing village immediately opposite Catdown, is Stamford Hill, one of the new protective forts. In preparing the foundations for this fort an ancient cemetery was disturbed, containing relics of the highest interest. The bodies had been buried and not burnt, and they seem to have