WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 281 



upwards of thirty-eight years with such signal success, making 

 his presence and his power known from the Phoenician mines of 

 the Cassiterides to the rugged cliffs of Prawle Head, he was for 

 some time baffled in his wish to visit the parish of St. Cuthbert, 

 by the rector, who, to every proposal on the part of his lordship 

 to come and administer the rite of Confirmation to its inhabitants, 

 ever answered that, the road being so steep and impassable, he 

 doubted the possibility of his being able to reach St. Cuthbert on 

 wheels, but that he (the rector) would bring his candidates to meet 

 his lordship in some adjoining and more accessible parish. Now 

 the rector, a man of fair means, had yet conceived a reasonable 

 dread of the expense attendant on entertaining the bishop and 

 his retinue even for one night ; and hence, in reality, the plea of 

 bad roads, by which he hoped to scare the prelate from taxing 

 his hospitality. In every country house, however, for miles 

 around, wherever the bishop dined, there he invariably met the 

 rector of St. Cuthbert ; and at length, on hearing the old plea 

 again repeated, he could restrain himself no longer. " Well, 

 Mr. K ," said he, in his measured, caustic, yet most courteous 

 style, "if the access to St. Cuthbert be so difficult, the egress 

 from it appears to be easy enough, for I have had the pleasure 

 of meeting you every night at dinner for the last week." It 

 need scarcely be added that after such a rebuke a Confirmation 

 was held at St. Cuthbert the first time the bishop visited that 

 neighbourhood again. 



It is said of Julius Caesar that he felt greater pride in making 

 a good road than in gaining a battle ; and we know for a certainty 

 that, wherever his conquering legions marched, his roads paved 

 the way for future civilisation, and left a mark behind them 

 ineffaceable to this day. Yet he, the " Victor hostium et sui," 

 was content to describe one of his grandest achievements in that 

 line by the following curt but most comprehensive inscription : 

 " Hanc viam, inviam, rotabilem fecit. J. C." 



