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the "Codex Exoniensis"— a volume of the Saxon period which is 

 the one remaining volume of Bishop Leofric's library that still lies 

 in his cathedral. In that volume there is a poem which describes 

 a city in ruins — splendid ruins — with a pool of water of natural 

 heat in the centre, and which appears to me to indicate no place 

 in this country except Bath, and in that opinion I have received 

 the confirmation of very many important authorities. So far for 

 literature. I am only touching on the literature as indicating 

 ■what means we have to expect that the neighbourhood of Bath 

 should be one that might probably preserve objects of the Saxon 

 period. We have a considerable number of documents relating 

 to Bath, documents of various dates during the Saxon period, 

 and these documents tell of two things — the transfer of land 

 and the manumission of slaves. In these documents we have 

 mention of Widcombe, Lyncombe, Northstoke, Priston, Farm- 

 borough, Corston, Weston, Hampton and Freshford. In short, 

 an American or New Zealander, or any visitor who had studied 

 our early literature, might very well come and ask what there 

 was to be seen in the neighbourhood of Bath ; what visible and 

 tangible objects remained in existence in the neighbourhood of 

 Bath. Let me first mention one or two things that have been 

 here, but have been removed. There are lying in Cambridge in 

 the Parker library, that famous library which Archbishop 

 Matthew Parker bequeathed to his college, Benet College, now 

 called Corpus Christi, two important books that were formerly 

 the property of the Abbey of Bath ; one is a volume of 

 Gospels, in the fly leaves of which were written the manu- 

 missions of slaves ; and there is also a volume entirely de- 

 voted to documents relating to landed property, mostly of 

 the property of the Monastery of Bath, but also partly of the 

 Monastery of Abingdon, which I can only account for by sup- 

 posing that this book was transcribed after the Conquest. I 

 think that after the Conquest, when religious houses were 

 very anxious to multiply the proofs of their property, they 

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