WELLS CATHEDRAL.
Hence we proceeded to Wells. Here we waited, as usual, upon the cathedral, which received our compliments with but small return of civility. There was little to be seen without, except old monuments of old abbots removed from Glastonbury, so inferior in workmanship and design to the abbey once containing them, that I was rather displeased than gratified by the sight. They have also a famous clock, brought from the abbey at Its general demolition. This exhibits a set of horses with riders, who curvet a dance round a bell by the pulling a string, with an agility comic enough, and fitted to serve for a puppet-show; which, in all probability, was its design, in order to recreate the poor monks at their hours of play.
There is also a figure of St. Dunstan, who regularly strikes the quarters of every hour by clock-work, and who holds in his hand a pair of tongs—the same I suppose as those with which he was wont to pull the devil by the nose, in their nocturnal interviews.
The old castle of Wells is now the palace for the bishop. It is moated still, and looks dreary, Secluded, and in the bad old style.
At night, upon a deeply deliberate investigation in the medical way, it was suddenly resolved that we should proceed to Bath instead of Bristol, and that I should try there first the stream of King Bladud. So now, at this moment, here we are.