269 



wall was crested with a wild and weedy growth of vegetation, as 

 in Goldsmith's Deserted Village : 



Sunk are thy towers in shapeless ruin all, 



And the long grass o'er-tops the mouldering -wall. 

 The ruin in Tennyson's Snid has one or two points of resemblance 

 with the description of our poem, and is especially distinct as to 

 the weeds on the wall : 



Then rode Geraint into the castle court. 



His charger trampling many a prickly star 



Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones. 



He look'd and saw that all was ruinous. 



Here stood a shattered archway plumed with fern ; 



And here had fall'n a great part of a tower, 



"Whole, like a crag. p. 17. 



This is a universal feature which strikes the eye wherever there 

 is a ruin of old standing, and therefore it has no value for the 

 identification. But if I have rightly seized the sense of the 

 companion term, which I have called " lichen-spotted," there is a 

 local tinge about it. The exact sense of the Saxon is " ruddy- 

 mottled," and it may have fallen under the observation of some 

 here present that our oolite walls have a very pretty way of 

 mantling themselves over with a film of ruddy or orange-tinted 

 lichen.* 



In conclusion, it may be observed that if we really have a poem 

 of the seventh or eighth century, which depicts the state of Bath 

 as it then struck the eyes of a Saxon poet, it is not only a very 

 extraordinary possession, but it is absolutely singular. This veiy 

 circumstance will render it more acceptable to some minds, and on 

 that very account it will make others the slower to admit the 

 probability. But, anyhow, we should remember that singularity is 

 no evidence against the identification. Though we have not two 

 things of a particular sort, that is no reason why we may not have one. 

 Nevertheless there is a vague reluctance to accept as a fact that 

 which stands alone, and is without a parallel. We say, in such 

 cases, it is too good to be time. Being myself under the influence 



* I let this stand as I delivered it a year ago. But I am now incUned to 

 think that perhaps the " red-grained" appearance of the stones may he with 

 more propriety assigned to the action of the mineral water, seeing that it 

 imparts a rusty colour to glass and other objects, and deposits a ruddy mud. 



