HIS BROTHER, AGED 24 YEARS,

  WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE SAID
  BRIG WHICH FOUNDER’D IN THE STORM
  ON THE 29TH DAY OF OCTOBER 1823
    WITHIN SIGHT OF THIS CHURCH.

  Readers be at all times ready, for you
  Know not what a day may bring forth.

Teignmouth was a strange-looking town, and the best description of it was by the poet Winthrop Mackworth Praed, who described it as seen in his time from the top of the Ness Rock: 

  A little town was there,
  O’er which the morning’s earliest beam
  Was wandering fresh and fair. 
  No architect of classic school
  Had pondered there with line and rule—­
  The buildings in strange order lay,
  As if the streets had lost their way;
  Fantastic, puzzling, narrow, muddy,
  Excess of toil from lack of study. 
  Where Fashion’s very latest fangles
  Had no conception of right angles.

Possibly the irregular way in which the old portion of the town had been built was due to the inroads of the French, who had invaded and partially destroyed the town on two occasions; for in those days the English coast between Portland and Plymouth was practically undefended.  By way perhaps of reprisal Teignmouth contributed seven ships and 120 mariners to Edward III’s expedition to Calais in 1347.

[Illustration:  “THE PARSON AND CLERK ROCK,” DAWLISH.]

That unfortunate young poet John Keats visited Teignmouth in 1818.  He had begun to write his poem “Endymion” in the Isle of Wight the year before, and came here to revise and finish it.  The house where he resided, with its old-fashioned door and its three quaint bow windows rising one above another, was pointed out to us, as well as a shop at that time kept by the “three pretty milliners” in whom poor Keats was so greatly interested.  Endymion was a beautiful youth whom Selene, the moon, wrapped in perpetual sleep that she might kiss him without his knowledge.  Keats, who was in bad health when he came to Teignmouth, was reported to have said he could already feel the flowers growing over him, and although he afterwards went to Rome, the warmer climate failed to resuscitate him, and he died there in 1820, when only twenty-five years old.

We had expected to have to walk thirty miles that day, via Newton Abbot, before reaching Torquay; but were agreeably surprised to find we could reduce the mileage to twenty-three and a half by crossing a bridge at Teignmouth.  The bridge was quite a formidable affair, consisting of no less than thirty-four arches, and measured 1,671 feet from shore to shore.  It was, moreover, built of beams of wood, and as it had been in existence since the year 1827, some of the timber seemed rather worn.  The open rails at the sides and the water below, and our solemn thoughts about Keats, tended to give us the impression that we were not altogether safe, and we were glad when we reached the other side, and landed safely at St.