but insisted that the gentleman should go and sit in an upstairs room which she usually let to her lodgers. I could not but obey, and there found myself on a damp day looking upon Chepstow Castle, or with the liberty to look at it if I chose; but as the rain was so strong that it was impossible to see it I preferred to read Mr. Lockhart's Valerius, which I had the good luck to carry with me. And it is very probable that the reader would have been surprised by an elaborate criticism upon that book (which is full of learning and thought, and of passion and right feeling where the author dares to unlace himself to avow it, and the hero of which may be designated as a most gentlemanlike, correct, Bond Street Christian)—I say that the reader might probably have been charmed at the very next sentence by a criticism upon Valerius, had not the real owner of the lodgings at The Bonny Thatch come in to his apartment. It is a very snug and pretty one, but it appears the landlady in her zeal to show what rooms she had quite forgot the laws which make every man's lodging his castle and introduced me to the privacy of another person.

The only reply which the occupier of the room made was to offer me a dinner, and lend a cloak to go home in. May there be many such kind acquaintances for all wayfarers in this wide rainy world! The girl of The Bonny Thatch said that the price of his room and board (I will witness that I saw a most excellent repast consisting of a beefsteak, new potatoes, the very peas that I had the honour to see shelled, and the bacon that had just issued from the very pot beforementioned) -the price of two rooms and board is a guinea weekly. A guinea a week, think of that! At six hours, from London, in the face of a beautiful landscape, in a little quiet shady hedge inn, with the Chepstow town and castle before you, with the Wye running under them, and on the Wye the best salmon that was ever eaten in the world.

A lunch at The Bonny Thatch, consisting of cheese, butter, bread and excellent hard cider, costs fourpence.

But to return to the salmon. This is without contradiction the most delightful of all the varieties of the fish that I have ever tasted. It is impossible to describe its freshness and beauty. It comes to you with all the dew upon it, as it were. It is almost a shame to put any sauce to it. It is best eaten with a little salt and a slice of bread. It leaves the inner man in an unspeakable state of rapture and ease and comfort. It remains upon the recollection quite gratefully, as some joy which one has experienced and can't forget, something for which one should be thankful always. You

sneer-but why not? My good sir, the more good things a man can enjoy in life the better for him. Some men love whist, some foxhunting, some geography, some love to read the Parliamentary Debates every evening-ought we to sneer at them? No, all these amusements are innocent in themselves (naturally used), and lucky he who can be fond of the greatest number of them. But let it be distinctly understood that a man, though he speak kindly of former days past in the company of Wye salmon, ought not to regret the same-no, though red-herrings were to be his lot.

IV.

FINE WEATHER.

THE next day (it was a Sunday) broke out in beautiful brilliancy; and we had the opportunity of seeing Chepstow Castle, and the neighbouring lions. As for Chepstow Castle, what to say of it? It stands on a height commanding the river and town, and there is an old gate of a pretty form of architecture at which we knocked for admittance. There is a crevice up above through which the portcullis chains were doubtless lowered; and two convenient holes, doubtless for pouring boiling lead, water, or other material on the heads of those persons who unduly requested an entrance.

A little prim damsel came to the wicket and said in a demure voice, The castle is not shown on Sundays'; then, hearing certain monosyllabic remarks in which we professed (though very harmlessly) to call down extreme punishment upon the eyes of the builders, owners and occupiers of the place, and hearing no doubt retreating footsteps, the damsel lifted up her voice again and said, 'The castle is not shown on Sundays, unless to those who are going away,' wherewith the wicket was undone, and we (mentally) recalled those invidious remarks which had been made about the proprietors and holders of the place.

'This,' said the damsel, looking round solemnly, is the first court-which was evident. There was a bright green lawn surrounded by gray towers and walls some twenty feet in height, here and there a walnut tree growing-other trees in the enclosure and ivy everywhere.

Then we passed through a gate, and came to a second enclosure. This is the second court,' said the damsel, and so on until we came to the fourth court, from which we turned away having seen all that

was necessary, viz.-having mounted up certain stairs and peeped into certain holes commanding a view of the river, and so on. The evening sun was gilding the whole place with wonderful brilliancy, and as one looked at the old towers gleaming in it, and the wooded banks, and the shining river, and the pale walnut-trees here and there, the scene very much resembled an evening on the Rhine. The keep tower is rather famous as the place of Harry Marten's confinement. The stout old republican lay here for twenty years leniently dealt with, until apoplexy seized him by the throat, and he lies buried in the church of Chepstow, a handsome and correct Norman structure. It has been new coated with stone, and the ancient architectural style well imitated. There is a noble Norman arch at the tower of the church, and a pretty green cloister of trees that run through the churchyard. This is strongly railed off from the vulgar. Why? For a churchyard wall is always a pleasant one, and why should not little children play at hide and seek among the tombstones? I saw some at that work in a churchyard at Bristol and regretted not to be a didactic poet, else a sonnet with appropriate moralities might have been dashed off in the note book instanter.

We came out of the castle after the demure maid had shown it to us, descending by a pleasant grassy steep which leads to the gate, and thence to the places where the moat once was, but of which the only part that now has water in it is a sort of wash or pond on which some of the houses of the main street abut. And here we had an opportunity to see further instances of the propriety of the place for whereas certain little children were standing on the brink of this wash, amusing themselves on the calm summer evening (and what better amusement is there ?) in flinging stones into the wash and watching with delight the flops of the stones, and the wonderful rings which, disappearing, they make in the water-behold along the wall which skirts the pond, and from a garden belonging to a prim white house with green blinds in the street hard by, there rushed a gentleman in dandyfied clothes, with his hat very much on one side, who began making a furious attack (in words) from his place on the wall, clenching his fist at the poor little rogues, mouthing at them, and using all sorts of fierce gesticulations. The boldest of the startled crew came forward, flung one more stone into the water, and then all of them strolled away: when, seeing himself master of the territory, the gentleman gave a scowl at us and, putting his hands in his pockets, strutted back over his wall.

I instantly knew who the fellow must be, and offered to bet the gentlemen present that he was the attorney of the place, or if they chose proposed that we should go down and fling stones ourselves into the pond for half an hour, and if the young gentleman again presented himself, take an opportunity of picking a quarrel with him and mayhap sending him into the wash after the stones. What business had he to disturb little children in their play, that bullying, swaggering attorney? Why had they not as good a right to fling stones into the pond as he had to walk in his garden? It is but a public horse-pond to which the fellow has no claim (except in the way before stated), and I should like to know what more harmless moral sport there is than to fling stones into a pond? I should have won my bet too: for we went round into the street and inquired of a woman standing near it whose was the handsome house? She said it was Mr. Somebody's, the solicitor, and very much beloved and respected that solicitor is no doubt.

There is an old wall which rises at the back of the tower, and gives it a strong resemblance to some Rhenish fortified placeand skirting the wall among gardens and orchards rise many picturesque old gable-ended houses-among them those of our Inn, the George, which may be parenthetically recommended as one of the cleanest, neatest, cheerfullest, fresh-salmon-givingest Inns to be found anywhere.

In the streets and over the little shabby shops of the place, the names of Jenkins and Jones, of Price and Watkins, show you into what country you are coming-there is a suburb along the river with little quays and little old faded store-houses, and a dry dock, and a few small craft on the river, and here you see a few sailors lounging about with the fair companions of their leisure hours, and a few tradesmen smoking pipes at little inns, an hostler in a white jacket, who has come out to give the dawg a bathe, some street boys swinging about on the bars of the dock, furthermore, a boat in the course of building, of which the natives are very proud. High upon the Gloucester shore side of the river are picturesque rocks and foliage, and green fields, among which, on the calm Sunday evening, the young men and maidens of Chepstow may be seen to stroll.

Such wonderful objects did we remark on our walk-likewise we had the opportunity of listening as amateurs to a sermon from one of the score of little meeting-houses which are scattered through the place. The preacher was roaring in the old sickening tabernacle

twang, roaring bad grammar in a bad West-country accent, and speaking of the designs of Providence as if he were Heaven's private secretary. It was better to be at the side of the pond seeing the children flinging stones into the water.

V.

TINTERN ABBEY.

THE excursion from Chepstow to Tintern is of the exact length and comfort to suit a Londoner's taste. A fly, at a moderate remuneration, will waft you,' as a celebrated author says of a ship, from the old town to the old abbey, and restore you to your inn in four hours, of which not one minute has been tedious-the distance is about six miles, and the road lies on a huge bank that overlooks the river Wye, not so high, however, but that there is a huge wall of rocks above, nobly clad with foliage of a thousand different greens. The river itself on which you look down flows through a peaceful flat of rich green pasture, on which diminutive cows are beheld grazing, and over which the sunshine and the shadow of the clouds chase each other as if in play. This tableland is walled round, too, by hills on the farther side; some of which slope partly down towards it, being covered from head to foot with noble verdure, while elsewhere long purple ridges of rocks rise up abruptly, their sides adorned here and there with creepers or scarred with huge fissures down which water has made its way. Above the rocks

and their dark crests of trees extend in a long flashing line the Channel and the Severn, and in the extreme distance, the soft purple-gray hills of Gloucestershire stretch far away. There is almost every kind of natural beauty to be found along this little tract of country. The rocks as tall, the fields as green, the woods as rich, the river as meandering, as heart can desire; and if we were hinting humbly to find a fault, it would be that the rocks do not look severe enough for rocks, they look like good-natured old guardians of the valley, rather than grim tyrants of it, as if they could not help smiling at the incomparable beauty and peacefulness of the scene round about. As for the foliage, there must have been at least a thousand different greens in that glorious palette, which Nature set for painting the scene, and the eye gazing on the wonderful difference and harmony of them is delighted and charmed, not

VOL. XXXI.-NO. 181, N.S.

2