140 A CITY OF MANY WATERS 



One effect on our language, had the capital of England 

 been fixed on the southern instead of the northern side of 

 the Thames, would have been that we should have had a 

 much more elaborate system of grammatical inflexions 

 than at present, and instead of boasting of ourselves as 

 ' fine fellows who dwell in their island,' we should have 

 said ' vine vellows that woneth in her iland.' Chaucer, as 

 a Londoner, had much to do with establishing the Midland 

 or Mercian dialect as literary English ; but even his 

 influence has not expunged all the Southern forms : thus, 

 though we say ' fox ' instead of ' vox,' the female fox is 

 still known as ' vixen,' not ' fixen.' 



Would you view Winchester aright ? go visit it in May 

 or early June. It is a fair city at all seasons, and the 

 wells of Itchen keep its valley green and fresh right 

 through the hottest summer. But it is in the early season, 

 before the uplands are parched, or the wealth of blossom 

 faded from wayside hedge and meadow, that it is fairest. 

 If you bicycle, it is well ; the roads generally are admirable, 

 though those who keep them delight in spreading an 

 excruciating coating of sharp flints over the ways across 

 the downs, such as no tyre yet devised by man can resist. 

 Almost better to hie to one of those excellent hostelries the 

 'Royal' or the 'George' (Winchester has never been without 

 its 'George' tavern for five hundred years) and hire a 

 hack ; for if the down roads are harsh, the turf beside 

 them is free and velvety. Rise early, when the birds are 

 singing in the cathedral gardens and the swifts are 

 wheeling in endless circles round the gray towers, and 

 ride out, before the dew is off, along the Alresford road, 

 between masses of lilac and laburnum tossed over the 

 wayside walls, past Headbourne Worthy, King's Worthy, 



