136 A CITY OF MANY WATERS 



there passed away in Dr. Hawkins's house at Winchester 

 the gentle spirit of one who has done far more than many 

 writers of loftier pretensions to throw a charm over the 

 scenes he knew and loved so well. Izaak Walton, Royalist 

 in sympathy, had yet managed to wend a peaceful course 

 through the manifold troubles he had witnessed, and 

 dying, as he wrote in his will, ' in the neintyeth year of 

 my age, and in perfect memory, for which praised be 

 God,' was laid to rest in the cathedral, where his grave is 

 not the least revered among the company of kings and 

 spiritual rulers housed in that ancient fane. 



With Charles ii. and Izaak Walton let me bring this, 

 rambling survey of the story of Winchester to a close. It 

 were impossible within reasonable limits to do more than 

 touch here and there a salient point in it, to call over 

 more than a handful of the great names which crowd the 

 record, to mention more than a few of the buildings which 

 have resisted time and fire and— most destructive of all — 

 improvement. In this last respect Winchester may not 

 have suffered more in proportion than other ancient towns, 

 but then she had infinitely more to lose than most others. 

 Of her two castles and ninety-two churches, her bishop's 

 palace, her walls and gates, how comparatively little is left 

 to us ! The municipality has been as conspicuously active 

 of late times as they were negligent in the years when 

 their streets afforded a favourite playground for pestilence ; 

 when 'dyvers Stretes and Lanes of the sayd cyty, by 

 castynge of donge, duste, and other filthy thjmges, are 

 very filthy and noyfuU to all such as shall passe by the 

 same.' The black death in the fourteenth century and 

 the plague in 1666 raged with appalling malignity, as is 

 testified to this day by sundry green mounds over the 



i.i 



