scinas above the rood and in the S.
aisle, (2) a _memento mori_ in the Lady Chapel (said to be a Leversedge
of Vallis), (3) brass (1506) on tower wall. The rood-screen, the
statues at the W., the medallions above the arcade, and the _Calvary
Steps_ outside the building are all modern. In the churchyard, beneath
the E. window, is the tomb of Bishop Ken, who, after his "uncanonical
deposition," lived in retirement at Longleat, and, dying in 1711, was
buried at his own request "just at sunrising in the nearest parish
church within his own diocese."

GLASTONBURY, a small market-town of some 4000 people in the centre of
the county, 6 m. S. from Wells. It has a station on the S. & D. line
from Evercreech to Bridgwater. The site of Glastonbury is almost as
conspicuous in a Somerset landscape as its name is in Somerset history.
Its huge conical tor, crowned by a tower, rises like a gigantic
sugar-loaf from the surrounding plain, and is visible to half the
county. The neighbourhood is a happy hunting-ground for the antiquary,
and one of the "regulation" sights for the casual tourist. No one can
be said to have "done" Somerset who has not seen Glastonbury. Its
associations are romantic as well as historical. Though the modern town
is commonplace enough, poetry and piety, fact and fiction, have
conspired to make it famous. Here was the cradle of British
Christianity. In this "deep meadowed island, fair with orchard
lawns"--the fabled _Avalon_--blossomed the flower of British chivalry
in the persons of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. It was
when a Glastonbury monk that Dunstan made his vigorous onslaught on the
powers of darkness. And it was this "parcel of ground," already
consecrated by the bones of St Patrick, King Edgar, and St David, which
became the favourite burying-place of mediaeval saints and heroes. The
legend which accounted for its early pre-eminence is even in these
sceptical days worth retelling, for from its popularity the future
importance of the abbey sprang. Joseph of Arimathaea was despatched by
St Philip along with eleven companions "to carry the tidings of the
blessed Gospel" to the shores of remote Britain. Providential winds
wafted them across the waters of the Severn Sea, and at length the
wayworn travellers landed at Glastonbury, then an island. As their
leader, like Jacob, leant in worship on the top of his staff on
Wearyall Hill, the rod took root and became a thorn tree, which
blossomed ever