Worcester he
yielded to sundry entreaties to touch sufferers, but in doing so said,
"God give you better health and more sense!" These were about the last
"touchings" known in England. Upon James II.'s visit he attended mass at
the Catholic chapel, and was waited upon to the door by the mayor and
corporation officers, but they declined to enter a Roman Catholic place
of worship. A minute in the corporation proceedings explains that they
passed the time until the service was over in smoking and drinking at
the Green Dragon Inn, loyally charging the bill to the city. Worcester
in ancient times was famous for its cloth, but other places have since
eclipsed it. It is now noted mainly for gloves, fine porcelain, and
Worcester Sauce.

[Illustration: CLOSE IN WORCESTER.]

THE MALVERN HILLS.

The broad valley of the Severn is bounded on its western side by the
boldly-rising Malvern range of hills, which are elevated so steeply and
so suddenly above the plain that they produce an impression of size and
height much greater than they really possess, and are more imposing than
many summits that far surpass them in magnitude. There is reason,
therefore, in Mrs. Browning's poetic expression:

"Malvern Hills, for mountains counted
Not unduly, form a row."

The Malvern range is a ridge running nearly north and south, with a
series of smooth, steep summits, the breadth of the range being barely
half a mile. Their slopes are of turf and furze, often as steep as the
pitched roof of a house, with crags projecting here and there. The
chief summits are the North Hill, rising eleven hundred and fifty-one
feet above the Severn, the Worcestershire Beacon, fourteen hundred and
forty-four feet, and the Herefordshire Beacon, thirteen hundred and
seventy feet. Their highest parts are covered with verdure, and nearly
seventeen hundred different varieties of plants have been found on the
range. These hills stand as one of Nature's bulwarks, an outwork of the
mountain-region of Wales, dividing an upland from a lowland district,
each furnishing totally different characteristics. They were the
boundary between the Romans and the Britons, and their summits present
some remarkable remains of ancient fortifications. The Worcestershire
Beacon rises directly above the town of Great Malvern, and south of it a
fissure called the Wyche sinks down to about nine hundred feet
elevation, enabling a road to be carried across the ridge. Some distance
so