icularly where it flows past the wooded grounds
of Powderham Castle, the Devonshire seat of the great Courtenay family.
Truly there is much to redeem modern Exeter and make it interesting over
and above its historical atmosphere. Yet with comparatively few vestiges
of age the city has an historical past. In both a religious and a
military sense she has played a part in the annals of England, and more
than one ancient document in the Library of the Dean and Chapter bears
testimony to her honour, her valour, and her glory.

It is a city which has the impress of many ages and many minds stamped
upon it. Here each influence--military from the Roman legions,
ecclesiastical from the Saxon prelates, feudal from the Norman
lords--has sunk deeply into the land, and has affected the general plan
of the numerous buildings, as it has moulded the slowly succeeding
phases of the civic and the religious life. It is no mere dream of the
early ages, no sentimental reverie of mediaevalism. It is enough to go
through the streets, noting the remnants of the ancient walls, the
brutal strength of the surviving fragment of the castle, the sheltered
position of the tidal basin, the many churches dedicated to the honour
of Saxon saints, the proud beauty and massiveness of the Cathedral, if
one would realize, not the fancies of the artist and the poet, but the
hard facts of history that made the ancient days so great, and which
have caused our own days to be so full of their memories.

As compared with the sister counties of Cornwall and Dorset, Devonshire
is not particularly well represented in memorials of the Roman
occupation, although an immense number of Roman coins have been
unearthed at various times. Coins, however, unless found with definite
structural remains, indicate presence rather than a settled occupation,
for large quantities of the Roman coinage must have continued in
circulation long after the last of the legions of imperial Rome had
departed from British shores. The few Roman antiquities of Exeter that
have been found are important in a comparative sense, although they
contrast poorly in structural character with those of our other
Romano-British towns. It has been held that not only were the
foundations of the city walls Roman, but part of the existing remains of
Rougemont Castle have also been assigned to this period.

Mr. L. Davidson was of opinion that the old church tower of St. Mary
Major (now removed) exhibited traces