reality, with regard both to its natural scenery and to the buildings that accompany it. Thus it is that the novelist's architectonic settings, and his literal descriptions of natural scenery, make identification a simple task, and lend interest to numerous old houses and cottages, just as they have immortalized a thousand scenes of their author's native land.

A few of Mr. Hardy's critics have cavilled at the insistence of the architect's point of view, just as some of his readers fail to perceive the genius that lies behind his detailed treatment of buildings; but there is little doubt that the novelist's artistic use of technical material has endowed his romances with a personal note of deep interest, and an architectural one of great value.

Although Dorset has a host of literary associations other than those furnished by the Wessex novels, and notwithstanding that William Barnes sang of its charms to deaf ears as sweetly as ever Burns piped of the North Country, it was left to Thomas Hardy to reveal Dorset to those who knew it not; although he was writing for a great many years before his novels began to draw people to the land of Gabriel Oak, Tess, and Ethelberta.

HANGMAN'S COTTAGE, DORCHESTER

As the tourist must have a centre, a starting-off place for his various excursions, the visitor to the Hardy country cannot do better than make his headquarters at Dorchester, the Durnovaria of the Romans and the "Casterbridge" of the novels.

Alighting at either of the railway stations, for the town is well served by both the Great Western and the South Western Companies, the visitor who has learned that Dorchester occupies the site of an important town of the Romans will probably receive a shock at the prevailing note of modernity that confronts him on every side. It is only when one begins to understand the planning of the streets, and has visited the town's outlying earthworks of Maumbury and Poundbury, that the mind can realize the possibility of a Roman town being buried a few feet beneath the houses that line the narrow thoroughfares. It has been said that one cannot plant a shrub in a Dorchester garden without unearthing some link with the legions of imperial Rome, an excusable exaggeration if we think of the vast number of treasures that have been discovered wherever the layer of surface soil has been penetrated; and there is every reason to believe that the foundations of Roman Dorchester lie just below the gardens, houses, and pavements of the bright and modern town.

Excavation in the scientific sense the town has happily been spared, but the accidental finds are of great value, as proving that the town's historic past recedes into that twilight of dreamland and myth which veils the infancy of our island in a golden haze of mystery. All around this capital of Dorset lies a storied land, wherein memories of the Durotriges, of the Roman legions, and of the ruthless march of the Saxon through the beautiful land of Britain jostle with modern associations of poetry, literature, and art.

Proceeding along South Street, as the narrow thoroughfare that connects the stations with the centre of the town is called, the first building to claim attention is the Grammar School, founded in the sixteenth century by a Thomas Hardy, and rebuilt in the same style in 1879. Adjoining the school is "Napper's Mite", a small seventeenth-century almshouse with a picturesque open gallery and a clock bracket, copied from the one that adorns the old George Inn at Glastonbury. The almshouse clock came from the old workhouse near by when it was pulled down. Farther along the street, but on the opposite side, is the Antelope Hotel, a Jacobean building whose beauties are concealed behind nineteenth-century walls, although some interior panelling and carving remain in situ.

Just beyond the hotel the street joins the main thoroughfare of the town, and at this intersection, where four roadways diverge towards the cardinal points of the compass, historical memories and literary associations clamour for recognition. The curious stone obelisk in the centre of the near roadway, and for many years used as the Town Pump, marks the site of the old Octagon, and was erected in 1784, which date is carved in characteristic Georgian figures on the coping stone. It also marks the site of two houses that stood close together with their upper rooms built over the street.

Facing us are the Town Hall and St. Peter's Church, the latter of which is conjectured by some authorities to stand on the site of a Roman temple. It is a stately Perpendicular building with an imposing tower and a remarkable set of gargoyles. The Transition-Norman door-arch of the south porch is a survival of an older church that once occupied the same spot. Outside the church is Roscoe Mullins's lifeless-looking bronze statue of William Barnes, the Dorset poet, who, until his death in 1886, was the near neighbour and literary friend of Thomas Hardy. The pedestal of Barnes's monument bears the following verse from his poem, Culver Dell and the Squire:—

Within the sacred edifice are several interesting monuments, including two cross-legged effigies of the "camail" period, but neither of these is in situ. In the porch of this church John White, one of the four founders of Salem and the virtual founder of Massachusetts, lies buried.

Opposite the eastern end of the church is the Corn Exchange, where the fickle Bathsheba displayed her sample bags of corn to the astonished farmers, "adopting the professional pour into the hand, holding up the grains in her narrow palm for inspection in perfect Casterbridge manner". It was in a neighbouring shop that this "Queen of the Corn Market" purchased the fatal valentine that aroused the amatory instincts of Farmer Boldwood; while it was but a short distance away that, a little later in the story, Far from the Madding Crowd, Bathsheba and her husband, Sergeant Troy, met the piteous figure of Fanny Robin on her painful journey to the Casterbridge workhouse. By way of Mellstock (Stinsford) and Durnover (Fordington), Boldwood came to Casterbridge, where, turning into Bull-Stake Square, he "halted before an archway of heavy stonework which was closed by an iron-studded pair of doors", and gave himself up for the murder of Troy. Here also came Gabriel Oak in search of the licence which was to procure for Bathsheba "the most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is possible to have".

In the Mayor of Casterbridge the town naturally figures largely, although the opening scenes of the novel are laid at Weydon Priors (Weyhill, Hants). In Casterbridge Susan Henchard and Elizabeth-Jane sought for Henchard

It is in this novel that its author gives us, in a few masterly touches, the architectural details of the town's houses, the "brick-nogging" and the "tile roofs patched with slate"; and indicates the everyday life of its inhabitants. The whole town, in fact, teems with Hardy scenes and characters, and particularly with the story of the Man of Character who was its Mayor. To Casterbridge came Stephen Smith when he commenced that study of architecture which led to his meeting the blue-eyed Elfrida. Bob Loveday, brother to the Trumpet-Major, came hither to meet his Matilda; and in the courthouse Raye sat when on the Western Circuit, after he had parted