all its inequalities, great as we make them, Mount Caucasus, the Andes, Teneriffe, and all the loftiest mountains of the globe, would be compressed like the view before us; and the whole would appear perfectly smooth. To us, a bowling-green is a level plain; but a minute insect finds it full of inequalities."

On different parts of this eminence are a number of Cairns, particularly on the Kenn side, formed for the most part with flinty stones. In one of these tumuli, of an oblong shape, some laborers, who had taken a considerable quantity of flints from the middle of it, to repair the roads, in the year 1773, discovered an urn of baked clay, which they broke with their shovels, supposing it "to be a crock of money." The urn was about four feet below the surface, and had been let into the solid earth beneath, to the depth of half a foot: its mouth was covered with an irregular flat stone. Within it was a greasy kind of ashes, that smelt like soot, having small fragments of bones intermixed. About a month after this discovery, a further search was made into the cairn, and a second and third urn were found. "The second urn was at the distance of fourteen feet from the spot where the first lay; and the third urn twelve feet distant from the second. These also contained a black and greasy kind of ashes, and in each of them about a handful of splintered bones. The interior diameter of the second urn, as it stood in the ground, was full nineteen inches, its depth below the surface being nearly the same: its height appeared to be about eighteen inches; but this could not be exactly ascertained, as its neck, above the surface of the ground, was so rotten, that it mouldered into dust on the removal of the stones which surrounded and covered it. The third urn also fell to pieces on emptying it of the ashes."* At a small distance northward from the cairn wherein these discoveries were made, is another, of a circular shape, sixty feet in diameter. This appears to have some connection with the former, a line of flint stones running under the turf between them. Several other cairns on Haldon have been opened at different times, and sepulchral vestigia found in most of them. One,

F4

Polwhele's Devon, Vol. I. p. 155.

One, known by the name of the Great Stone-Heap, above 200 feet in circumference, and about fifteen high, was cut through in the year 1780. Within it, at eight feet from the margin, was found a dry wall about two feet high, supported from without by very large stones, in the form of piers or buttresses. Near the centre were many large. flint stones, placed over another in a convex manner; and in the middle a larger stone, nearly globular, two feet diameter, covering a cell on the ground, two feet square, formed by stones of considerable size set upright on their edge. In this kistvaen was an urn of unbaked clay, thirteen inches high, ten inches in diameter at the mouth, and five at the bottom: the urn was inverted, and covered the ashes and bones of a youth.* On the higher ground of Haldon, between Exeter and Chudleigh, is a course where races are held annually.

This was

EXMINSTER, called, by Leland, a praty townlet, is a village pleasantly situated on the west side of the river Exe. formerly a seat of the Courtenays, Earls of Devon, who had a very extensive manor-house here, wherein William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born. The only apparent vestige of this mansion is a semi-circular arch over a doorway to a courtlege, or garden,

POWDERHAM CASTLE,

The principal seat of the Courtenay family, is most delightfully situated on the banks of the Exe, within two or three miles of its confluence with the British Channel. Most of its warlike characteristics, its high turrets and embattled towers, have been removed to make way for the more domestic and ornamental appendages of modern times; so that at present it scarcely conveys any idea of its ancient fortified state. 66 Powderham," says Leland, "late Sir William Courtencis castelle, standeth on the haven shore, a litle above Kenton. Some saye that it was builded by Isabella de Fortibus,† a widdowe of an E. of Devonshire. It is stronge, and hath

*Exeter Society's Essays, p. 123.

+ Isabella de Fortibus, a famous and potent dowager, who died in the reign of Edward the First, was the last descendant of the great family of Rivers,

hath a barbican, or bulwark, to beate the haven." On this passage, Mr. Polwhele observes, "the assertion, that Powderham Castle was built by Isabella de Fortibus, is doubtless erroneous; for neither Isabella, nor any of the Earls of Devon of the family of Rivers, were possest of Powderham. Powderham Castle was probably built either before the Conquest, to prevent the Danes (who landed at Teignmouth in 970) from coming up the river to Exeter; or else by William de Ou, a noble Norman, who came into England with the Conqueror, and to whom the King gave Powderham." This William de Ou conspiring with Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, and some other lords, to deprive William Rufus of his crown, was detected, and, agreeably to the barbarous custom of the age, tried by a duel at a council at Salisbury, when being vanquished, he was deprived of sight, and otherwise punished. "After William de Ou, Powderham had owners of its own name; and in the time of Edward the First, John de Powderham held it, together with Whitstone, of the Honor of Hereford. Powderham, on the death of John Powderham, came by escheat, or otherwise, to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, who gave it with his daughter Margaret in marriage to Hugh, Earl of Devon, who bestowed it on his son Sir Peter Courtenay about the beginning of the fourteenth century."

The noble family of Courtenay derives its origin and name from Atho, a French knight, who built the castle of Courtenay* about the middle of the tenth century. Afterwards the Courtenays became divided into "the three principal branches of Edessa, of France, and of England; of which the last only has survived the revolutions of eight hundred years." The Counts of Edessa, of the name of Courtenay, expired with the fall of Jerusalem. The Courtenays of France became allied with the Capets, who swayed the sceptre in that country, but, after various changes of fortune, terminated in a female in the former part of the last century. The Courtenays of England derive their honors from Reginald, who came into this country in the reign of Henry the Second: of the latter

In the district of Gatinois, about 56 miles south of Paris.