nds of great value, 'from both Houses of Parliament, as a
testimonial to his great services at Naseby.' The jewel was tied with 'a
blue ribbon and put about his neck.' Fairfax was staying in the old
Chanter's House, now the property of Lord Coleridge, and the ceremony
took place in a long panelled room, with deep-set window, then called
the Great Parlour. Here also Fairfax held a deeply important conference
with the 'Lord Generall Cromwell,' when he came to decide the plan of
campaign in the West.

Ottery St Mary is able to pride itself on being the birthplace of the
poet Coleridge, whose family had long been connected with the county.
The poet's father was Vicar, and Master of the Grammar School. Great as
was his genius, Coleridge was not in every respect worthy of his
birthplace, for in one of his letters he actually announces that he
prefers Somerset to Devon!--evidence which clearly proves the
correctness of the popular belief that poets have no judgment. But his
real affection for the Otter is shown in his sonnet to the river on
whose banks he lived in early years. Another poem, the 'Songs of the
Pixies,' was inspired by the Pixies' Parlour, a tiny cave with roots of
old trees for a ceiling, that stands halfway up a low cliff overhanging
the river, just beyond the town. In this poem are the lines:

'When fades the morn to shadowy-pale,
And scuds the cloud before the gale,
Ere the Morn, all gem-bedight,
Hath streak'd the East with rosy light,
We sip the furze-flower's fragrant dews,
Clad in robes of rainbow hues....
Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam
By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream;
Or where his wave with loud, unquiet song
Dashed o'er the rocky channel froths along;
Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest,
The tall tree's shadow sleeps upon his breast.'

Ottery has other associations with literature, and it is interesting to
remember that Thackeray lived near here in his youth, and that Ottery is
the 'Clavering' of _Pendennis_, which was written while he was staying
at Escot Vicarage close by.

A winter traveller in passing through the lanes near here recalls some
beliefs of a past generation: 'The faint chimes of St Mary's in distant
Ottery are playing their Christmas greeting over many a mile of
moorland. We are passing the old "cob" walls and grey-headed barns of a
substantial farmstead. The cocks will crow here all the night before