CHAPTER III 

 A CITY OF BIRDS 



THERE is only one mediaeval town in England, and 

 it is, of course, in the West. It is mediaeval not for 

 historical nor archaeological reasons, but because it is a 

 town in the country, gently lowered down, all ready- 

 made, into a cup of the wooded hills and there left. It 

 is an island of stone washed by the green seas, thrusting 

 out capes and promontories so little a distance from 

 home that five minutes' walking from the market-place 

 to any point of the compass takes one right out to 

 sea. The town is true to itself, the country to itself, and 

 the neighbourliness of both is nowhere broken by the 

 mongrel suburb, which, being neither town nor country, 

 is false to both. There is no other town in England 

 (with the possible exception of Bath) where this clear- 

 cut distinction, this DiJreresque feeling can be properly 

 savoured. The town, apart from its cathedral, the great 

 stone jewel in its casket, is like an old religious poem — 

 matter-of-fact and mystical, precise and romantic. It 

 is a " thing that you may touch and see," yet not of 

 this world. 



In it and all about it live the birds, as they will live 

 about a farm-house in far greater numbers and variety 

 than in the open country, waiting for the truce that never 

 comes. In no other part of England, whether pasture, 

 salting, heath or woodland, have I seen the birds so 

 abundant, confident and varied, as in the streets, the 

 cathedral precincts and the pastoral borders of this 

 changeling town. 



I have lived in the little town both in spring and in 

 autumn, and can no more choose between them than 

 between Comus and Samson Agonistes. For autumn, like 



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