ON OTTERY EAST HILL. 127 



suggests, while that they were not Saxon is still more conclu- 

 sively proved by the absence of the ambre or glass beads, the 

 brooches of gold, silver and copper, so frequently associated with 

 Saxon sepulchres. Many bronze celts have been found on this 

 Broad Down and the neighbourhood ; and vague as is the testi- 

 mony they afford (for they might not belong to the same period 

 as the above " finds "), they are all the collateral circumstances 

 which we possess in order to form a judgment on the nation 

 and age of those here interred. They belonged so the pre-his- 

 toric population of the county, and that is all we can at present 

 affirm. When the members of the British Association held a 

 pic-nic on Broad Down, and deserted their tent and the generous 

 hospitality which the county afforded them therein, to be sud- 

 denly sobered as they gazed upon these relics of a nation 

 which has long since passed away from human ken, Archaeology 

 could but stand sadly by and lay her hand on her mouth. 

 Each age is a marvel to its successors, and we shall be no ex- 

 ception in the eyes of posterity. 



" Scilicet et tempus veniet, quum finibus illis 

 Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro, 

 Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila, 

 Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, 

 Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris." 



From these sombre thoughts a sunbeam recalls us to a bright 

 point in the landscape below, as it glints on the spirelet which 

 tops the north tower of St. Mary's Church at Ottery. It is set 

 in a pleasant haze of white houses, bursting foliage, and drifting 

 smoke, suggestive of many homes, each with its own garden, 

 closing in upon the Minister. A network of gleaming lanes, 

 too, can be seen running down the hill-sides to converge on the 

 old grey church, which seems to attract to itself all the life of 

 the district. If we transport ourselves to its quiet precincts, 

 the. studiously plain architecture of this early English church, 

 with its transceptal towers, from which Bishop Quivil in the 

 latter years of the thirteenth century probably borrowed the 



