ON OTTERY EAST HILL. 137 



Gleam'd through thy bright transparence. On my way, 

 Visions of childhood ! oft have ye beguiled 

 Lone manhood's cares." * 



In one of the above-mentioned red cliffs a little below 

 Ottery St. Mary, is a cave known as the " Pixies' Parlour." Its 

 situation is very pleasing, with the river murmuring below, trees 

 clothing the bank beside it, and streamers of ivy depending 

 around it in fine contrast with the ruddy sandstone. The 

 pixies are of course the fairies of Devon, of whom, in old days, 

 many a story was told, which have to be sought, now that rail- 

 roads and schoolmasters have become more general, in the 

 pages of Notes and Queries. Few indeed, we should imagine, 

 are the mothers at the present day who place a Prayer-book 

 under their children's pillows as a charm to keep away these 

 "good folks." On this little cave and the surrounding land- 

 scape Coleridge wrote an irregular ode in which he makes the 

 pixies, 



' With quaint music hymn the parting gleam 

 By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream ; 

 Or where his waves with loud, unquiet song 

 Dash'd o'er the rocky channel froth along ; 

 Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest, 

 The tall trees' shadow sleeps upon his breast." 



The poet's own initials, amongst a multitude of others, may 

 still be seen cut in the soft sandstone" S. T. C. 1789." 



One curious fact connected with the power that a swift, if not 

 wide, stream possesses as a barrier to stop the dissemination of 

 plant-life should be noticed before leaving the rich meadows 

 which below Ottery border the river. The Otter seems here 

 the natural line of demarcation between the bare chalk and 

 flints of the hill on which we stand, with its rich red marls 

 which have been swept into the valley below and the deep 

 black bog earth of the West Hill opposite, with it heatherclad 

 slopes. On the former, or east side of the river, primroses 

 * S. T. Coleridge, "Sonnet on the Otter." 



