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his devotions in his own country he sought the pleasant banks of 

 the Avon, where he built unto himself a hermitage, an early and 

 striking instance of the acutcness of that race who always know when 

 they are well off, and are said when once they have set their faces 

 towards England never to return to their native home again. From 

 this Maildulphus the place took the name of Maildulphesburg 

 (bery), and finally Malmesbury, and from this small beginning 

 sprang the great monastery which, under successive mitred Abbots, 

 Aldhehn (who was the first Abbot, a. d. 670) and others, rose to 

 such imi-ortance that it became a " goodly Abbey," whose buildings 

 finally covered forty-five acres of ground. Besides the worthy 

 Stumpe, this town gave birth to William of Malmesbury, the 

 historian, who was precentor and librarian of the Abbey about the 

 middle of the 12th century; Oliver of Malmesbury, the artificer 

 who made unto himself wings wherewith to fly, and came to sudden 

 grief from the pinnacle of the Abbey ; and Thomas Hobbes, the 

 philosopher. Having sufficiently sm-veyed the ruins of the Abbey, 

 and made themselves acquainted with the Wiltshire cheese and ale, 

 the members walked to Charlton Park (two miles), and through the 

 courtesy of the Earl of Suffolk were permitted to view the pictures. 

 The house cannot be seen from the road owing to an intervening 

 screen of woodland ; this being passed through and the park entered, 

 a grey irregular and by no means unpleasing pile of buildings, of 

 17_18th cent, date, is seen across a broad expanse of meadow 

 land, backed by a bank of fine trees. The pictures in the long 

 gallery by Mytens, Vandyke, Lely and others, consist of historical 

 portraits chiefly, and from them may be singled out as especially 

 worthy of notice the three half-length portraits of the children of 

 Charles I. by Vandyke, a curious old portrait of Queen Elizabeth, 

 and one of Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham. Charles II.'s 

 beauties, by Lely, adorn the walls of the staircase, amongst them 

 MoU Davis, who, report says, was not unknown in the Chailton 

 dairy. The pictures by the old masters are in the drawing-room ; 

 amongst numerous works of high art two alone may be singled out 

 as gems, the weU known pictm-e by Leonardo da Vinci, called " La 

 Vierge aux rochers," and a most exquisite little painting by 

 AnnUjale Caracci of oui- Lord when a chUd, watching hia father 



