The present owner of Salisbury Plain has recently enclosed Stonehenge with a wire fence and charges an admission fee of a shilling. The public resents this in the case of a unique and world-renowned monument, which for ages has stood in the open, freely accessible to all, and there was not a little satisfaction at finding that, as a sort of road ran along within a few feet of it, and as the closing or moving of this thoroughfare could not be permitted by the county authorities, the fence in question had to run so close to the famous cromlech, after all, that the proposed exclusion of the public without payment of a fee has amounted to very little. Visitors can come so near, and can get so good a view of all that is to be seen that but few pay the fee and go inside the enclosure.
Other Things of Interest about Salisbury.
We return to Salisbury by a different road, which takes us for miles through the meadows of one of those "sweet and fishful rivers," which add so much to the quiet charm of the scenery, placid and clear, flowing softly not only between grassy banks but over grassy beds, the grass growing luxuriantly from the bottom, and being cut from the stream by the hay harvesters, as though it were on the open meadow.
On reaching the town, I went to the Market Square to see the bronze statue of a man for whom I had always felt respect and admiration since studying his work on Political Economy when I was a student in college, Mr. Fawcett, a talented native of this place, who, though he had the misfortune to lose his sight early in life, by the accidental discharge of a gun in the hands of his own father, nevertheless became a student, a professor, an author, a man of affairs, a member of Parliament, and Postmaster-General of Great Britain—a fine example of the triumph of character and will over grievous limitations.
It added to the interest of our visit to Salisbury, and especially of our walk through the lovely grounds of the Bishop's Palace, to see this dignitary of the Church of England in his clerical garb, with apron, knee breeches, and all, except that he was bareheaded, romping delightedly on the lawn with a little girl, probably his granddaughter, and to recollect that the Bishop of Salisbury, after bringing the wealth of his undoubted scholarship to his recent book, The Ministry of Grace, had declared, like Dean Stanley, Bishop Lightfoot and Dean Milman, that "throughout the early church, even at Rome, and Alexandria, down to the third century, the government of the church was Presbyterian," thus going even farther than Stanley, who says that "nothing like modern Episcopacy existed before the beginning of the second century."
It interested us also to recall that Addison, Fielding, and Bishop Burnet had resided here. So, considering these things, and those above mentioned, we all left Salisbury reluctantly, declaring with one accord that it was an exceedingly interesting place, and wondering whether even Winchester could equal it.
CHAPTER IV.
Winchester Worthies: Alfred the Great, Izaak Walton, and Thomas Ken.