active and romantic period has left any very striking memorials in the town itself or in the neighbourhood. The imagination must see more than the eye. The land itself has not changed, and the harbours have been little altered. Cattewater remains much as when Sir John Hawkins sent a cannon ball through the side of a Spanish galleon, lying there with prisoners from the Low Countries on board, who, as 'Achines' intended, got free during the ensuing tumult. The 'fair green called the Hoe' is still much the same as when

about the lovely close of a warm summer day

There came a gallant merchant ship full sail to Plymouth bay ;

Her crew had seen Castile's black fleet beyond Aurigny's isle,

At earliest twilight on the waves lie heaving many a mile

the same as on the afternoon of that 19th of July when, as the tradition runs, the men of the 'gallant merchant ship' brought the news of the approach of the Armada to the captains of the English fleet as they were playing bowls on the green near the present citadel. Still, as we look from the same point, we can picture to ourselves the mighty crescent fleet passing slowly along the far horizon, and hear the faint sound of the ordnance fired by the Spaniards or their pursuers. And the view landward may recall other memories. Under the Dartmoor hills lies Fardel, the ancestral home of Sir Walter Raleigh, where he is said to have buried much gold brought at different times from over seas. An ancient inscribed stone (now removed) marked the place of the 'hoard; and the local rhyme

ran

Between this stone and Fardell hall

Lies as much money as the devil can haul.

Buckland Abbey, the house of

Cistercian monks reconstructed by Sir Francis Drake for his own dwelling-place, lies more out of sight; but the true memorial of the great navigator is the 'leat' or stream of water which, brought under his direction from the distant Meavy river, still supplies the town of Plymouth. Floating romance and folk-lore are constantly gathered round the name of a local hero, and that of Drake is no exception. He is said to have been a powerful magician; and after he had repeated certain spells near the river, the water followed of its own accord as he galloped over the downs towards Plymouth. He 'set up a compass' on the Hoe during the year (1581-2) in which he served as mayor; and the lines record his servicesunder his portrait in the Guildhall

Who with fresh streams refreshit this towne that first

Though kist with waters yet did pine for

thirst,

Who both a pilote and a magistrate Steered in his turne the shippe of Plymouth's state.

The Mayor and Corporation annually inspect the leat; and at the weir head drink in water 'To the pious memory of Sir Francis Drake,' and in wine May the descendants of him who brought us water never want wine.' Of the old Corporation plate only one cup, known as the Union Cup,' can have been used by these Elizabethan heroes. It is of silver gilt, and was the gift, in 1585, of John White of London, haberdasher, 'to the Mayor of Plymouth and his brethren for ever, to drink crosse one to the other at their feastes and meetynges.'

The importance of Plymouth as a seaport continued during the reigns of James I. and of Charles I., though expeditions against Spain were then somewhat at a discount. The drinking of tobacco' had

neighbourhood.' In digging the foundations some enormous bones were found, which were held to have been those of the giant Corinæus. At this time the Island of St. Nicholas in the Sound, which had been fortified during the civil war, was used as a State prison; and during the visits of Charles II., within sight and hearing of the festivities with which they were accompanied, a prisoner was detained there to whom such sights and sounds must have brought strange emotions. This was John Lambert, the famous Major-General of Cromwell's army, who was tried, together with Vane, in 1661, but who, owing to his submissive behaviour,' escaped capital punishment. He was first sent to Guernsey, and removed thence in 1667 to St. Nicholas' Island, where he remained until 1683, in the very cold winter of which year he died. 'Ships,' writes James Yonge, the chronicler of the town, were starved in the mouth of the Channel, and almost all the cattel famisht. The fish left the coast almost five moneths.' In his long imprisonment Lambert amused himself by painting flowers; for he had been a great gardener, and had cultivated at Wimbledon 'the finest tulips and gilliflowers that could be got for love or money.' Myles Halhead, a member of the Society of Friends, has given in his Sufferings and Passages a curious account of an interview with Lambert at Plymouth. He found the soldiers' very quiet and moderate;' and Lambert himself bore with patience a very severe reprimand 'for having made laws, and consented to the making of laws, against the Lord's people.' The place of Lambert's interment is not known. A fellow-prisoner with him for some time was James Harington, author of the once

famous Oceana. He suffered greatly on the island from bad water and want of exercise; and at last was allowed to remove into the town of Plymouth, certain of his relations giving a bond for 5,000l. that he would not escape.

We are advancing towards comparatively modern times. The fleet of 400 ships which brought the Prince of Orange to Torbay, after he had landed at Brixham, passed round the Start, and wintered at Plymouth. In the spring of 1689 two regiments were sent here to embark for Ireland; so that the town was crowded with soldiers and sailors, greate infection happened; and above 1,000 people were buried in three months.' The gar rison was in no good humour. Its governor was Lord Lansdowne, son of the Earl of Bath, one of the Grenvilles who had given their lives for King Charles; and although he did not oppose the new order of things, he did not greatly care to restrain the excesses of his men. Accordingly, they disturbed the rejoicings at the coronation of William and Mary. There was a fight, and one of the townsmen was killed in the fray. From such bickerings, however, they were speedily recalled by an appearance of danger from without. The great French fleet under Tourville was seen to pass before the harbour, sailing eastward. The beacons were fired, and all Devonshire was roused. Tourville burned Teignmouth; but did little more harm, although there was considerable fear lest he should attack Plymouth, and the 'town was kept in arms with good watching.' But the French were too busy elsewhere.

Before the seventeenth century had closed, Winstanley had erected the first lighthouse on the Eddy

stone, that most dangerous rock off the entrance to the Sound, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried.' This was swept away in 1703, and very soon afterwards the terrible disaster at the Scilly Islands (October 1707), in which three line-of-battle ships perished with all on board, including the Admiral, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, drew fresh attention to the necessity of affording to these stormy coasts such protection as might be practicable. The body of Sir Cloudesley Shovel was brought to Plymouth in the Salisbury, and was lodged in the citadel. It was embalmed, and was then conveyed to Westminster, where the monument raised above it is conspicuous for the 'eternal buckle' of the rough sailor's periwig. Rudyard was at the same time busy with the second lighthouse on the Eddystone, which was burnt. The present structure, seen from the Hoe as a faint line against the horizon, was not begun until 1757. It was completed in two years, during which Smeaton anxiously watched its progress, often climbing to the Hoe in the dim grey of the morning, and peering through his telescope 'till he could see a white pillar of spray shot up into the air.' Then he knew that the building, so far as it had advanced, was safe; 'and could proceed to his workshops, his mind relieved for the day.'

The lighthouse was still a novel wonder when it was 'watched from the Hoe' and was examined more closely by a visitor of whom Plymouth might well be proud. In 1762 Dr. Johnson arrived at the town in company with Sir Joshua Reynolds, and was received with much distinction by all (they were perhaps not many) who could appreciate his learning and his conversation. 'The_magnificence of the navy,' says Boswell, the shipbuilding and all its circumstances,

afforded him a grand subject of contemplation.' The Commissioner of the Dockyard (which had been established in the reign of William III.) conveyed Johnson and Sir Joshua to the Eddystone in his yacht; but the sea was so rough that they could not land. It is much to be regretted that more anecdotes of this visit, from which Johnson declared that he had derived a great 'accession of new ideas,' have not been preserved. A great struggle was at the time in progress between Plymouth and Dock (Devonport) regarding the right claimed by the latter to be supplied from Sir Francis Drake's water leat. 'I hate a Docker,' said Johnson, setting himself vehemently on the side of the older town. 'No, no, I am against the Dockers. I am a Plymouth man. Rogues, let them die of thirst; they shall not have a drop.' We must suppose that party spirit in Plymouth ran high; but we are not told whether the duty of neighbourly charity was the subject of a discourse to which the great Doctor listened in St. Andrew's Church, and which was composed for his special edification by the Vicar, Doctor Zachary Mudge, a man, says Johnson (who wrote his epitaph in return for his sermon), 'equally eminent for his virtues and abilities; at once beloved as a companion and reverenced as a pastor.' This Doctor Mudge is the subject of a ghost story told in Sir Walter Scott's Demonology. He was known to be actually dying when he made his appearance at a club in Plymouth of which he had long been a member. He did not speak; but saluting the assembled company, drank to them, and retired. They sent at once to his house, and found that he had just expired. Many years afterwards his nurse confessed that she had left the room for a short time, and, to her horror, found the

bed empty on her return. Doctor Mudge had remembered that it was the evening for the assembling of the club, and had visited it accordingly. He came back and died.

In these days of George the Third, the life of Old Plymouth may be said to end. The great changes which have so rapidly built up the new town did not indeed begin until the opening of the present century. The Breakwater, begun in 1812, but not finished until 1840, had made, long before its completion, the great basin of the Sound a comparatively safe harbour. This was, of course, greatly to the advantage of the town. But we are dealing with 'Old' Plymouth, and cannot here attempt to follow the development. which, since the early part of the century, and most conspicuously during the last thirty years, has gradually extended the town over

the surrounding heights and valleys, until Vapouring Hill' itself has become covered with buildings, and the outposts of Stonehouse and Devonport, extending their arms in like manner, have united themselves closely with Plymouth. Such have been the growth and the changes since the days when 'Sutton juxta Plym-mouthe' lay, a little fishing hamlet, under the rule of the Augustinian Prior. If 'it could not be seen from the sea' when the Grand Duke Cosmo landed at the Barbican, it now, from the Sound or from the Breakwater, makes a grand foreground to the distant landscape, watched over and guarded by the purple Dartmoor hills, and dignified by its protecting fortifications, which afford-recently constructed as many of them are the latest testimony to the wealth and national importance of modern Plymouth.

RICHARD JOHN KING.