i66 THE EXETER ROAD 



origin. We can fix the very year, six hundred and 

 eighty years ago, when it began to be, and yet, 

 although there is the cathedral to prove its age, with 

 the Poultry Cross, and very many ancient houses 

 happily still standing, it has a general air of anything 

 but medi?evalism. This curious feeling that strikes 

 every visitor is really owing to the generous and well- 

 ordered plan on whicli the city was originally laid 

 out ; broad streets being planned in geometrical pre- 

 cision, and the blocks of houses built in regular 

 squares. 



That phenomenally simple-minded person, Tom 

 Pinch, thought Salisbury ' a very desperate sort of 

 place ; an exceedingly wild and dissipated city ' — a 

 view of it which is not shared by any one else. I wish 

 I could tell you to which inn it was that he I'esorted 

 to have dinner, and to await the arrival of Martin. A 

 coaching inn, of course, for Martin came by coach 

 from London. But whether it was the ' White Hart,' 

 or the ' Three Swans ' (which, alas ! is no longer an 

 inn), or the ' King's Arms,' or the ' George,' is more 

 than I or any one else can determine. 



Salisbury is by no means desperate or dissipated, 

 even though it be market-day, and although itinerant 

 cutlery vendors may still sell seven -bladed knives, 

 with never a cut among them, to the unwary. It is 

 true that Mr. Thomas Hardy has given us, in On the 

 Western Circuit, a picture of blazing orgies at 

 Melchester Fair, with steam -trumpeting merry-go- 

 rounds, glamour and glitter, glancing young women 

 no better than they ought to be, and an amorous 

 young barrister much worse than he should have 



