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Here, too, were the fierce men from the Mendips, the wild hunters from Porlock Quay and Minehead, the poachers of Exmoor, the shaggy marshmen of Axbridge, the mountain men from the Quantocks, the serge and wool-workers of Devonshire, the graziers of Bampton, the red-coats from the Militia, the stout burghers of Taunton, and then, as the very bone and sinew of all, the brave smockfrocked peasants of the plains, who had turned up their jackets to the elbow, and exposed their brown and corded arms, as was their wont when good work had to be done.

After them in order came the sailor regiment, the North Somerset men, the first Taunton regiment of burghers, the Mendip and Bagworthy miners, the lace and wool-workers of Honiton, Wellington, and Ottery St. Mary; the woodmen, the graziers, the marsh-men, and the men from the Quantock district. Behind were the guns and the baggage, with our own brigade and four colours of horse as a rearguard.

The paladins are no Don Quixotes, the princesses no Dulcineas, the battles are real battles; but the language is that of Florentine wool-workers, housewives, cheese-sellers, and ragamuffins, crammed with the slang of the market-place, its heavy jokes and perpetual sententious aphorism.

"In the same year an assemblage of architects and engineers was gathered in Florence, by the Superintendents of the works of Santa Maria del Fiore, and by the Syndics of the Guild of wool-workers, to consult on the means by which the cupola might be raised.

The side-walks were crowded with the commoner folk old white-bearded wool-workers, stern-faced matrons, country lasses with their shawls over their heads, and swarms of children, who cried out with their treble voices for King Monmouth and the Protestant succession.