ofessor Freeman, 'stands distinguished as the one great
English city which has, in a more marked way than any other, kept its
unbroken being and its unbroken position throughout all ages. It is the
one city in which we can feel sure that human habitation and city life
have never ceased from the days of the early Caesars to our own.... The
city on the Exe, Caerwisc, or Isca Damnoniorum, has had a history which
comes nearer than that of any other city of Britain to the history of
the ancient local capitals of the kindred land of Gaul.... To this day,
both in feeling and in truth, Exeter is something more than an ordinary
county town.'

The city is very picturesquely placed, and before ruthless
'improvements' swept away the old gates and many ancient buildings, the
general effect must have been particularly delightful. 'This City is
pleasantly seated upon a Hill among Hills, saving towards the sea, where
'tis pendant in such sort as that the streets (be they never so foul)
yet with one shower of rain are again cleansed ...,' wrote Izacke, in
his _Antiquities of Exeter_. 'Very beautiful is the same in building;'
and he ends with some vagueness, 'for considerable Matters matchable to
most Cities in _England_.' The earliest history can only be guessed at
from what is known of the history of other places, and from the
inferences to be drawn from a few scanty relics; but there is evidence
that Exeter existed as a British settlement before the Romans found
their way so far West. It is not known when they took the city, nor when
they abandoned it, nor is there any date to mark the West Saxon
occupation. Professor Freeman, however, points out a very interesting
characteristic proving that the conquest cannot have taken place until
after the Saxons had ceased to be heathens. 'It is the one great city of
the Roman and the Briton which did not pass into English hands till the
strife of races had ceased to be a strife of creeds, till English
conquest had come to mean simply conquest, and no longer meant havoc and
extermination. It is the one city of the present England in which we can
see within recorded times the Briton and Englishman living side by
side.' In the days of Athelstan, 'Exeter was not purely English; it was
a city of two nations and two tongues.... This shows that ... its
British inhabitants obtained very favourable terms from the conquerors,
and that, again, is much the same as saying that it was not taken till
after th