NATURE NOTES. 
150 
had its stones deftly carved and fashioned into the delicately 
shaped foliage, fretwork, and finial that we admire in the fine old 
cathedral at Exeter. All about us, too, lie sites associated with 
those great sailors who fought nobly — as so many Devonshire 
men did — in Britain’s Salamis, the defeat of the Spanish 
Armada. 
Two or three out of many of the near poetic spots may well 
be recalled. Near the head of the neighbouring river dwelt 
Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, when Raisley Calvert had, 
b}^ his legacy of ^900, enabled them to cultivate their famous 
“plain living and high thinking;” here they were visited by 
Coleridge, and here the gifted trio would “ walk the lovely 
meadows above the combes,” and cultivate poetic intercourse, 
and enjoy from the hill-tops the glorious view over the whole of 
the great west bay. 
Just over the hills on the west is a sweet Devonshire river- 
valley, where were born two very famous men. One was Samuel 
Taylor Coleridge — logician, metaphysician, bard — whom Words- 
w’orth called 
“ The rapt one of the godlike forehead, the heaven-eyed creature,” 
and of whom Swinburne says : “ Of his best verses, I venture 
to affirm that the world has nothing like them, nor ever can 
have ; they are of the highest kind, jewels of the diamond’s 
price, flowers of the rose’s rank, but unlike any rose or diamond 
known.” This small town has been immortalised by Thackeray 
in Pendcnnis as “ Clavering St. Mary,” a slight variation only 
from its current name — and Thackeray’s bits of description well 
set forth some of the charms of the scenery of “ Fairoaks and 
the little river Brawl,” among which he spent some of his early 
days. 
Not far down the valley of the same “ little river Brawl,*’ 
there still stands, in good preservation, the farmhouse where 
was born one of the foremost amongst the worthies who adorned 
the spacious age of Queen Elizabeth — Sir Walter Raleigh. 
With scenes and spots like these, it is surely pleasant to be 
able to associate a land so rich in all varieties of bird-life ; and 
especially of that headland which stands prominent in its midst. 
The flora of the region would well repay a study ; but the 
bird-life, together with a few of the local spots made memorable 
by famous men, may well stand alone ; and the exact position 
of the headland may be veiled, though, to those who know it, 
as transparently veiled as Thackeray’s “ Clavering St. Mary,” 
under the name of Chalcombe Head. 
Richmond. W. J. C. Miller. 
