"
As the city itself stands in a vale on the bank, and at the
conjunction of two small rivers, so the country rising every way,
but just as the course of the water keeps the valley open, you must
necessarily, as you go out of the gates, go uphill every wry; but
when once ascended, you come to the most charming plains and most
pleasant country of that kind in England; which continues with very
small intersections of rivers and valleys for above fifty miles, as
shall appear in the sequel of this journey.
At the west gate of this city was anciently a castle, known to be
so by the ruins more than by any extraordinary notice taken of it
in history. What they say of it, that the Saxon kings kept their
court here, is doubtful, and must be meant of the West Saxons only.
And as to the tale of King Arthur's Round Table, which they pretend
was kept here for him and his two dozen of knights (which table
hangs up still, as a piece of antiquity to the tune of twelve
hundred years, and has, as they pretend, the names of the said
knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man can read), all
this story I see so little ground to give the least credit to that
I look upon it, and it shall please you, to be no better than a
fib.
Where this castle stood, or whatever else it was (for some say
there was no castle there), the late King Charles II.
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