further and further into the leafy recesses of the river. Such banks are nowhere else to be seen-high perpendicular cliffs, broken off in all manner of fantastic shapes; sometimes a great rock standing up bare, smooth, and majestic, like a vast tower of some gigantic cathedral; sometimes a solitary column, higher and more massive than any of an architect's designing, with its capital ornamented with self-sown shrubs, and its base washed by the rippling water. Each of these called forth an anecdote from our guide, philosopher, and friendone was the scene of the great fight between Characterus and the Romans. The Romans licked 'em; for them Welsh was never no great shakes. I could lick any three ancient Britons I ever saw myself-and they knows it. And, as to Characterus, he could be no great general, or he never would have fought on that side of the water. He should have come across to the other side, and he would have licked them Romans to a certainty."

We thought it was a pity Mr Williams, who, in spite of his contempt for the ancient Britons, was as true a Welshman as ever ate his leek, had not been of the council of war of Caractacus-for it was the scene of his great struggle we were passing. The ground still bears the name of Slaughter Field, and was a fit altar on which to offer the last victims to national freedom. The scenery all round it is of the noblest character-rock and wood, and the mountain chain that they hoped had shut out the invader. The river bends round it, and enables you to keep for a long time in view the plain where the battle was fought, and the rude remains of what is considered to have been the Roman encampment. After an hour or two delightfully spent in gliding under enormous cliffs, and winding among woods of all hues and sizes, hanging over the precipice, and waving their branches almost down to the water's edge, we arrived at our point of destination, a high rock called Simon's Yatt, which our agreeable companion described as the finest thing in the world. On bringing to at the landingplace, we found we had nearly a mile to walk up a steep road, newly escarp. ed on the side of the hill; and setting

ourselves manfully to the effort, we began our march-Williams insisted on being the useful member of the party. He offered, in the plenitude of his strength, to carry the shawls, to carry a couple of children, to carry ourselves; he thought nothing of weights; he was used to hard labour; he rather liked some difficult thing to do; and finally, nearly broke down under the burden of one of the provision baskets; stopping every now and then to rest, and evidently overtasked. The day was very hot-the soil was a red ironstone-there was no shelter from the pervading sunand the ascent was on an inclination of at least one foot in six; at last, however, urged on by a desire to enjoy the prospect-and the lunch-and also with a malicious intention, shared by the whole party, to walk our companion to death, we surmounted all difficulties, wound round a rocky eminence at the top, and suddenly found ourselves on a beautifully wooded platform, six or seven hundred feet above the river, and in the enjoyment of the most surprising view we ever saw. The river Wye takes a sharp turn round the foot of this enormous projection, not only winding round the extremity, but actually flowing down on one side exactly as it flowed up on the other, leaving Simon's Yatt as a sort of wedge inserted in its course, and presents the extraordinary effect of the same river at the same moment running both north and south. The summit of Simon's Yatt is not above fifty feet wide, and the descent on one side is perpendicular, showing the river directly under your feet, and on the other is nearly precipitous, leaving only room, between its base and the river, for a most picturesque assemblage of cottages called the New-Weir village. Directly in front is the rich level champaign, containing the town of Ross at a considerable distance, Goodrich Priory, and many other residences, from the feudal Castle to the undated Grange. On the horizon-line you recognise Ledbury, the Malvern hills, and the whole outline of the Black mountains. On the right, where the river careers along in its backward course, you see the interminable foliage of the forest of Dean, and the rich valleys of Glo'stershire.

A very handsome house, about a mile down the river, attracted our attention. "It's a reg'lar good billet," said Mr Williams, breaking off from some other piece of information with which he was regaling the idle wind, for by this time we had acquired a power of not hearing a word he said; "and it's a great shame, the gent as owns it never lives in it. He is a very great man in foreign parts; and the Pope is his uncle. So, in course, he always lives in France to be near his great relations." No cross-examination could shake his statement of this genealogical curiosity; so we looked with increased interest on the mansion of the Pope's nephew, whose principal merit by the by, in Mr Williams's eyes, was, that he had once furnished him with a coracle. After gratifying our eyes for a long time with the surprising prospect, we found a nice shady spot in a plantation at a little distance; spread shawls and cloaks upon the grass, and were soon engaged in the mysteries of cold meat, hardboiled eggs, an excellent salad, and Guinness's porter-not to mention a beautiful gooseberry tart. and sparkling ginger-beer. Some feasts have been more splendid, and some perhaps more seasoned with eloquence and wisdom-but, as the Vicar of Wakefield says of the united party of the Primroses and the Flamboroughs,

If there was not much wit among the company, there was a great deal of laughter, and that did just as well." So we laughed a good hour among the shady walks at Simon's Yatt managed for five whole minutes to stop our companion's conversation, by filling his mouth with beef and porter, distributed the fragments among a hungry and admiring population of young coal-heavers who looked on-like a group starting out of Murillo's pictures—and with empty baskets and joyous hearts, set off on our homeward way. We glided at our own sweet will down the river, exchanged the bark for our plethoric gig, and in due course of time, after twelve starts at the twelve milestones, arrived in safety at our home.

By this time there were no symptoms left of deficient health and strength-the invalid would have done for an honorary member of the

club of fat people recorded in the Spectator; and we looked with disdain on the level territory on the banks of the Usk, and longed for hills to climb, and walls to get over, and rocks to overcome, like knights-errant in search of adventures. No walk was too great for us. We thought of challenging Captain Barclay to a match against time, or of travelling through England as the Pedestrian Wonders. Walker, the twopenny postman, would have had no chance against us. So, merely by way of practice, we started off one day, with straw-hats and short summer frocks, and every other accompaniment of a professed pedestrian's turn-out, and away we went on a pilgrimage to the churchyard of Llanvair Kilgiden. Through rich fields of grass we sauntered-over stiles we leapt-through hedges we dashed-and occasionally became prosaic enough to walk on for half a mile or so in a country lane, but generally we preferred trespassing through a corn-field, and losing our way in searching for a short cut across a plantation; and at last, after many hairbreadth 'scapes

after being terrified by the bellowing of a bull, which turned out to be a sentimental cow giving vent to her agitated feelings in what somebody calls a "gentle voice and low"-after nearly losing half the party by the faithlessness of a plank that crossed a ditch that swarmed with an innumerable multitude of tadpolesafter surpassing these, and many other perils, we at last got into the quiet road that leads from Penty Goitre bridge down to the church of Llanvair-a large, solemn-looking churchyard, ornamented with a goodly array of splendid yew-trees, and boasting, at some former period, a majestic stone cross, now of course defaced, and the very square it stood upon moss-grown and in ruins. The church itself is a plain quiet structure, but the sylvan beauty and peaceful seclusion of the situation cannot be surpassed. We measured the great yews, and several of them were twenty-four or twenty-five feet in circumference at four feet from the ground. There were some graves enclosed in railings, and surrounded by evergreens and rose-trees; and the sentiment of the

place was not destroyed by a few nibbling sheep that cropped the short grass on the graves where the rude forefathers of the hamlet slept. Can the sepulchral muses have found their way to so remote a district as this? Have afflictions sore" and "vain physicians" obtained a sculptor among the headstones of this out-of-the-way place? We made a survey of the inscriptions, as a very sure guide to the state of education among the peasantry, and are compelled to confess that the schoolmaster had decidedly gone abroad. Even monuments of some pretension to grandeur, with full-cheeked cherubs on the sides, and solid stones on the top, offered no better specimens of spelling and composition than this:

"Laden with age my years they flewThe Lord is holy, just, and trew." And on the slab, over a child of three years old, the following pithy

observation :

"If life and care could death pervent, My days would not so soon been spent."

an

The sculptor, in many instances, (being tired probably of chiselling the same words over and over,) had attempted an improvement by altering the arrangement of the lines, ingenious device on his part, and a pleasing puzzle to the spectator :"A tender husband and a father dear, a faithful friend lies buried hear, he was true and just in all his ways, he do deserve this worthey praise."

To the memory of Margaret, wife of John Hall, appeared some lines of a superior kind, with which we never met elsewhere:

"You see around me richer neighbours

lie

As deep and still in this cold ground as I;

From ease and plenty they were called away

Could I in lingering sickness wish to stay?

When faith supports the body worn with pain,

To live is nothing but to die is gain."

But as if to show that the muse had made a very flying visit to the hamlet,

and had left the mason, on the next occasion, to his own unassisted genius, the epitaph on two other members of the same family runs thus:

"When in the world we did remain, Our latter days was grief and pain, But God above he thought it best To take we to a place of rest." What can it be that induces people, who were probably as unpoetical as Audrey in their lives, to wish the ornament of verse upon their tombstones? The effect must be almost ludicrous upon those who were acquainted with the living individual, to hear "the long resounding march and energy divine" of heroics and Alexandrines proceeding from him, now he is dead. Philosophy put by the epitaph-writer in the mouths of a chaw-bacon-moral reflections on the loveliness of virtue in the mouth of a poor-law overseer-and noble incitethe mouth of the bully or drunkard of ments to follow a good example in the parish, must be far from useful to the surviving generation. We therefore highly approve of the remarks of a sententious gentleman in this churchyard, who seems to lay no great claim to extraordinary merit himself, but favours his co-parishioners with very useful advice:"Farewell, vain world, I've seen enough of thee,

And now am careless what thou say'st of me,

Thy smiles I court not, nor thy frowns I fear;

My cares are past; my head lies quiet here

What faults thou see'st in me take care to shun—

Look well at home; enough there's to be done."

By the time we had transferred these and other inscriptions to our note-book, the party were refreshed and ready for the homeward walk. We got over the same stiles and underwent the same dangers as before, and happily completed our voyage of discovery to the beautiful churchyard of Llanvair.

Day after day saw us all busy in ferreting out fine views or old manor

houses the little Skirrid or old Llangattock. Sometimes we crossed the river and wandered through the deli

cious lanes of Llanover, or passed through Llanellen on our way to the Blorenge. As our courage and strength expanded, we tried bolder flightsspent a day among the smoke and thunder of the Nantiglo ironworks— with processions of thousands of men hurrying off amidst music, and shouts of the most tremendous loudness, to a dinner at their club. Great, hardfeatured, savage-looking fellows they were, though in their holiday attire, and accompanied by one or two of the Bailey family-the real iron kings of the neighbourhood; and a sight of their grim features and brawny arms gave us a more vivid respect for the courage of Sir Thomas Philips, who drove them back from the sack and massacre of Newport; and also a clearer idea of the almost justifiable hardihood of the worshipful Mister Frost, in thinking that with ten or twelve thousand souls, made of fire, and children of the mine, he could upset Old England, and be himself the legitimate successor of King Coal.

Another day we spent among the ruins of Llantony Abbey, one of the finest remains of ecclesiastical architecture in the kingdom. The person who owns the ground and the ruins, is a poet, a philosopher, a scholar, so at least he wishes to be thought; but from the condition of the abbey, (a small pot-house protruding its vulgar sign from one of the noble entrances,

and a skittle-ground being established in the main aisle-desolation, neglect, and dirtiness all around,) we formed no very high estimate of the taste or feeling of Mr Walter Savage Landor. If he had no higher object than merely to keep up the beauty of the building, you might expect that he would have guarded it from the degradation of beer, tobacco, and British spirits. A man of a poetical mind would have taken care to prevent such miserable associations as are supplied by a tap and skittleground; a person of loftier and purer sentiments would have shown more reverence for the genius loci, and would have remembered that the walls were once vocal with Christian prayers, and that what in other instances would be only negligence, is profanation here. But probably the innkeeper pays his rent regularly, and we hope will be made the interlocutor in an imaginary conversation with the last abbot of Llantony.

The object we had in coming into Wales was now entirely gained; and after ten weeks most happy wanderings over hill and dale, and constantly breathing the clear fresh air of Monmouthshire, we packed up bag and baggage, and returned to our home with a stock of health laid in for winter use, which will keep us constantly in mind of the benefits we derived from change of scene.

VOL. LVIII. NO. CCCLX.

21

This garden-which, during the winter months, is the lounge of the English idler at Naples, and then looks as flowerless and dingy as Kensington in an east wind--assumes a very different appearance in spring. On the 7th of May, we, who had passed the winter at Rome, were at once struck with the brilliancy of unusual blossoms, and the number of distinguished vegetable foreigners who lifted their heads out of parterres, of the very existence of which in winter one is scarcely conscious. The formal line of clipt Ilex that looks towards the sea, had changed its dusky hue for a warmer tint; statues that had been doing sentinel all the winter without relief, now seem to bend delighted over fragrant flower-beds, and enjoy the spring. Two high shrubs in flower (Metresiglias) hoist from opposite beds, the one its white, the other its red banner. Two of the Muses, the Speciosa and Paravisogna, or breadtree plant, were raising their light spiry trunks out of a corbeille taller than a life-guardsman. They want no hothouse in Naples :-would you shade your face from the sun, an elsewhere exotic, the Brazilian Camarotta at your feet, furnishes you with a screen. The white flocks of the Acacia verticillata are peeping out from the ranks of those small triangular leaves, which are so singularly attached, without stalks, by one of these angles to the stem. Amidst

these pleasant perfumes camphor would be unwelcome, but there is the laurel that yields it. Fennel has here become a tree, in which, like the mustard of the Gospels, the fowls of the air may lodge; we are dwarfs beside it! Three kinds of the soft, slimy, Mallow of the Marsh are here so much WOODY and so tall, that we must pick their flowers on tiptoe. The flattened disk of the sky-blue Nana arborea contrasts with the Betula sanguinea, glowing deeply in the flower-bed of many lighter-coloured petals; the sweet-scented African laurel grows against the long-leafed Babylonian willow, which susurrates droopingly over your head, as if it were "by the waters of Babylon." The fountains, with their hydrophilous tribes, add to the charm; and many a beautiful Launaria aquatica had already buoyed himself up on his large cordate leaves on the surface of the tazza, and was filling his vegetable skin with water. All these beauties and peculiarities, a mere scantling of the whole of the Villa Reale, escape the lounger, and the nursery maids, and children, and those of either sex who have appointments to keep, or to look out for; and the soldiers, and the police, and the Neapolitan nobility and gentry, and the pickpockets, and others :-to the nurseryman and botanist, things not to be forgotten; and at present the weather is not too hot to interfere with their enjoyment.

At Castel Nuovo, a penal settlement of Naples, we held conversation with a man sentenced to the galleys, and wearing, accordingly, a yellow jacket; but yellow is not here, as at Leghorn, the deepest dye. Here, it is red cloth and manacles that go together. We asked him his crime. "Un piccolo omicidio." "A small homicide, provoked by a dispute for a single ducat! I quarrelled with a man now in paradise. I killed him at one stab, but the devil possessed me

to give him another colpo di coltello after he had fallen; and as the judges asked me why I did this, and I could not perfectly satisfy them, they concluded I was a sanguinary fellow, and gave me eighteen years galleys—but, as you see, I have no chains; nor ever had-mai! mai!" and he extended his hands in somewhat of the attitude of Raphael's Paul before Festus, to suit the action to the word. "No! he was of a very different order of criminals, to a boatful of