Then we resumed our drive along the old Roman road, and this brought us to ancient Cirencester, where at "The King's Head," a flourishing inn before railways were invented, we found comfortable quarters for the night. Thrice before on my driving tours have I found myself by chance at Cirencester, for all the roads around centre on that town, like the spokes to the hub of a wheel, and take you there unawares; but I had not come to it by the Roman road before. I thought I had seen all Cirencester had to show, but I discovered a fresh interest on this visit in the shape of the Royal Agricultural College about a mile away, and the Principal most kindly showed me all over the building and took me a stroll through the grounds besides. This college, as many know, was established by Royal Charter in 1845, "to train land-owners, estate agents, surveyors, intending colonists, etc., in agriculture, forestry, and allied subjects." It is beautifully situated on high ground and admirably fulfils its purpose. I have often wondered why some of the number of men of limited income, of no occupation, and trained to no profession, instead of idling life unprofitably away without an object, do not study at the Royal Agricultural College, where all things are well ordered, and go in for farming; and what a pleasant and healthy life it is, in close touch with Nature: a man can be a farmer, a sportsman, and a gentleman. Better this, surely, than to lead an aimless, lazy existence?
At Cirencester, going into a shop to replenish my tobacco supply, I got a-chatting with the owner, who appeared to have a soul superior to tobacco, for, to my surprise, I discovered him to be an enthusiastic and well-informed antiquary. Who would have thought it? He told me that round about Cirencester there were no fewer than fifteen churches with fine Norman doorways; he kindly gave a list of these, only to be lost! He also showed me a photograph of each one, so that I was able to judge what beautiful and well-preserved specimens of Norman masonry they were; in such instances photography asserts its usefulness. The only church of the number the name of which I can remember is Quennington, and this because I bought a picture-postcard of it, showing a most beautiful and richly sculptured doorway; judging from the photograph, nowhere have I seen so fine a one. The postcard has printed on it the following particulars: "The Norman doorways" (it appears there are two) "of Quennington church are noted for the beauty of their workmanship, and for the curious carved tympani they contain. The south door has elaborate carving, with beak heads around the top of the tympanum, which latter represents the mythical Coronation of the Virgin." Then he told me of a very old church not far away (he pointed out the position of it on the map, and on consulting my map again I feel fairly certain it is Daglingworth) where is a Saxon sun-dial, and where he had discovered in some of the stone-work of one of the windows portions of an ancient Roman inscription, proving that the monkish builders paid scant regard to the despised pagan altars and inscribed tablets that in early days were so plentiful at Cirencester, but used them as they would stone from a quarry; for Cirencester, or Corinium, was an important Roman military station. Fortunately many interesting relics of the time are now carefully preserved from further "base uses" in the Cirencester museum. In turn, to even matters, the monks' "graven images" and other "superstitious" work was ruthlessly destroyed by the stern Puritans. So the pagan was avenged!
For want of a better occupation that evening I amused myself by looking over some old local newspapers I discovered in the smoke-room, for in these papers you often come upon odd and interesting bits of information, possibly contributed by some resident antiquary; there I came upon the particulars of a curious bill that I thought worth noting, and this is the paragraph that caught my eye: "Below is an abstract from The Annual Register, 1771, page 140. 'Cirencester, August 31st. The following is a true copy of a painter's bill of this place, delivered to the church-wardens of an adjacent parish: Mr. Charles Ferebee (churchwarden of Siddington) to Joseph Cook, Dr. To mending the Commandments, altering the Belieff, and making a new Lord's Prayer, or £1 : 1s.'" So curious is this that it really seems like an invention, only that it is given on the authority of The Annual Register, and vouched for as true; otherwise I should not have ventured to requote it, and the very names of the churchwarden, the painter, and the church are put down. Invention surely could not improve on that old bill—and invention is no laggard!
At another inn I discovered some second-hand book catalogues left presumably by some former guest, and spent quite an interesting and profitable hour going over these. The various literature you chance upon when travelling oftentimes proves entertaining reading; the following extracts I made from four of these catalogues will, I think, prove my contention. In the first case an "Autograph Album" is offered for sale at the modest price of £25, but then it contains "A collection of over 100 signatures, including those of Lord Tennyson" and other world-famous authors, "and an Autograph Poem by Lord Tennyson addressed to Lady Tennyson," a sample verse of which is quoted, and thus it runs:
"Here on this Terrace fifty years ago,
When I was in your June, you in your May,
Two words 'My Rose' set all your face a-glow;
And now that I am white and you are grey,
That blush of fifty years ago, my dear,
Lives in the past, but close to me to-day,
As this red rose upon the terrace here
Glows in the blue of fifty miles away."
Then, curiously enough, in another second-hand book catalogue a volume of poems, privately printed, is offered, containing likewise "an unpublished sonnet by Tennyson, beginning
Me my own Fate to lasting sorrow doometh,"
but this is the only line of the sonnet given. Then another catalogue offered a book by John Wesley, dated 1770, and entitled A Preservative against Unsettled Notions in Religion, in which Wesley, in an open letter to Robert Barclay, says: "Friend, you have an honest heart, but a weak head. Once your zeal was against ungodliness, now it is against all forms of prayer—against saying 'you' to a single person, uncovering your head, or having too many buttons on your coat. O what a fall is there! What poor trifles are these that well-nigh engross your thoughts."