Of Dartmoor and its Borderland 85 there are some that were evidently primarily erected for that purpose. Of these we are able to approximate the date, since it is likely that they would be set up at an early period in the history of the religious houses. Tavistock Abbey was founded in 961, and Plympton Priory before the middle of the thirteenth century; Buckfast, enlarged in 1137, was founded before the Conquest, while the date of Buckland, as we have seen, was 1278. It therefore appears certain that most of the crosses on these monks' paths date back to the twelfth century, while some may be even older than that. And now as we make our way towards the ancient town which for so long has been our goal, thoughts of other days will perhaps crowd into our mind. We shall think of the time when the rich abbey, commenced by Ordgar and finished by his son Ordulph, flourished there; of the Saxon School, and of the printing press, and the monk Dan Thomas Rychard, who in 1525 *'emprented in the exempt Monas- tery of Tavestok in Denshyre *' a translation of Boetius De Consolations Philosophia. We shall think too of Francis Drake, that brave sea-dog " of Devon, who first drew breath beside fair Tavy's stream; of Browne, the author of Britannia's Pastorals and of the well-known lines on Lydford Law^ and the recollection of the fare he obtained on his visit to that place — the "tythen pig" between "nine good stomachs," and the " glass of drink " (" claret when it was in France ") — will bring a smile to our faces; and as some of the beautiful descriptions of sylvan scenery in the Pastorals recur to us, and the story of the loves of the Walla and the Tavy is brought to our mind, we shall see in imagination the " all joysome grove," the bowers, and the " shading trees " of which he sings, and hear the feathered melodists of the woods mingling their carols with the loud murmuring of the ^voiceful stream." '* So numberless the songsters are that sing In the sweet groves of the too careless spring, That I no sooner could the hearing lose Of one of them, but straight another rose, And perching deftly on a quaking spray, Nigh tir*d herself to make her hearer stay."* ^Britannia's Pastorals. Book ii., Song 3.
