Although it had been a
Roman town, the city where afterwards St. Birinus, the Apostle of
Wessex, set up his episcopal throne from 634 to 707, the head of the See
of Wessex, it was now only a village with one long street, and could not
compare with its much larger neighbour in Dorset. Its large ancient
church, with a fine Jesse window, gave the idea of belonging to a place
once of much greater size. The "hands across the sea" between the two
Dorchesters have never been separated, but the pilgrims now come in the
opposite direction, thousands of Americans visiting Dorchester and its
antiquities; we heard afterwards that the American Dorset had been
presented with one of the tessellated pavements dug up from a Roman
villa in what we might call "Dorchester, Senior," in England, and that a
memorial had been put up in the porch of Dorchester Church inscribed as
follows:
In this Porch lies the body of the Rev. John White, M.A., of New
College, Oxford. He was born at Christmas 1575. For about forty years
he was Rector of this Parish, and also of Holy Trinity, Dorchester.
He died here July 21st, 1648. A man of great godliness, good
scholarship, and wonderful ability.
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