ninth is Warwick; the thirtieth, Stafford. After the thirtieth, the first is Derby; the second, Nottingham; the third, Yorkshire, in which is the archbishopric of York. The fourth is Northumberland, over which presides the Bishop of Durham. The fifth is that district in which the new[1] bishopric of Carlisle is established. Counties are called, in English, shires. At the present time, therefore, England can boast of having seventeen bishoprics; but it contains many more cities than such as are bishops' sees, such as Gloucester, Leicester, Oxford, and many others, which have no bishops. In the western part of the island, which is called Wales, there are three bishoprics: one at St. David's, another at Bangor, and the third at Glamorgan[2]; but these are sees without cities, by reason of the desolation of Wales, the only part of the island retained by the Britons after the Saxon conquest. In our times the Bishop of St. David's receives from the Pope the pallium, which formerly belonged to Carleon, but which it has now lost.
The cities which have been enumerated have for their sites the pleasant and fertile banks of rivers. Two of these rivers are more celebrated than the rest, the Thames and the Severn; the two arms, as it were, of Britain, by which it draws to itself the produce of other countries, and exports its own. But it is peculiar to the English that, being much addicted to foreign travel, they are remarkable for their superior style of dress and living, by which they are easily distinguished from other nations. Since, then, Britain abounds in so may things (even vineyards flourish in it, though they are not common), those who covet its wealth must bring their own in exchange for what they receive. In whose praise some one thus wrote:—
"Corn, milk, and honest, fuller shed their stores
On Britain's plains, than over all the isles
Where foaming ocean washes sea-girt shores."
And a little afterwards:—
