Chapter X: Part XX (4)

In addition to the cows and sheep, and innumerable multitudes of chickens and turkeys, the farm boasted a goodly array of horses. These would have made a poor figure at Newmarket, as they were no kin to Godolphin or Eclipse--but in plough or harrow they looked respectable. There was an old mare, and her daughter, and her daughter's daughter--Grannie, and Polly, and Rose by name. There were also another mare and her foal; but our acquaintance was confined to the three generations--or rather to the two--for Grannie was old and stupid; and as the farmer sported a fine old-fashioned strong rough gig, we occasionally pressed Polly into the service, put two or three children on footstools in the front, brandished a whip that had done duty at the plough, and trotted off with the easy dignity of four miles an hour, and lionized the whole neighbourhood. Amidst bumps, and thumps, and bursts of laughter at the unwieldy turn-out, the excursion was pleasanter than if made in a chariot and four.

One day we started off to visit Ragland Castle; the distance was five or six miles, the day beautiful, the mare in splendid order, and the whip ornamented with a new lash. Disregarding the whinnyings and neighings with which the family received our steed as we passed the field where they were all assembled to see us at the gate, from Grannie down to the foal, we applied the thong vigorously, and chirruped, and whistled, and cried "Gee!" and "Hither!" and got fairly into a trot; and an easy thing it is to maintain the pace after you have once got into it--in fact, you find some difficulty in getting into a slower rate; and if by any chance we pulled up altogether to see a view, Polly, who was no judge of the picturesque, was very apt to turn round and run away home--if the word "run away" can be applied to a very determined walk, with no regard whatever to bit and rein. A struggle of this sort was very apt to occur at Llansaintfraed Lodge, meaning, we are told, in the original, the Church of St Bridget--and a pretty church it is. It is in a park of moderate size, crowning a gentle elevation; a carriage-drive leads to it, nicely gravelled, for it is the approach to Llansaintfraed House. The church, when we saw it, was all festooned over the porch and a portion of the walls, with honeysuckle in full show; roses and other flowers were planted all round, and a fine solid stone cross threw its beautiful shadow over the graves. The church is very small and very old, and owes a part of its good condition to the good fortune of having had the late Bishop of Llandaff for a parishioner. Some years ago he occupied Llansaintfraed House, and rescued the parish from the disgrace of a ruinous and neglected church. It is only to be wished that every parish had its manor occupied so well--for a district with churches so shamefully fallen into disrepair we never saw. In all the churchyards, for instance, the piety of our forefathers had raised a cross; and it surely does not argue a man to be a Puseyite, if he thinks highly of such an emblem in such a place; and in every instance, except this one of Llansaintfraed, the hand of the spoiler hath been upon it. The cross, in every instance, is broken, and only a portion of the broken pillar remaining. If the archdeacon disapproves of the cross, let it be removed altogether; but if not, let it be repaired, and not left to affront the parishioners with the daily spectacle of the rate-payers' meanness and the clergyman's neglect. So, having managed to get Polly's head round again--for she had availed herself of our pause to whisk homeward--we proceed on our way to Ragland. Welsh precisians, we perceive, call it Rhaglan--and probably attach a nobler meaning to the name than can be forced out of the Saxon Rag and Land; but as novelists and historians have agreed in calling it Ragland, we shall keep to the old spelling in spite of sennachie and bard. A short way beyond Llansaintfraed is the handsome gate and beautiful park of Clytha; the gate surmounted by a magnificent and highly ornamented Gothic arch, and the mansion-house pure Grecian--an allegory, perhaps, of the gradual civilization of mankind, or the process by which chivalrous knights are turned into Christian gentlemen. The house is modern, and even the arch without much pretension to antiquity; but the family stretching far back into the gloom of ages, and lineal ancestors of the antediluvian patriarchs. Since the Deluge, however, they have restricted themselves to this part of Monmouthshire; and judging from the number of Joneses--which is the great name in the neighbourhood--there seems no great chance of the genealogical tree being in want of branches. There is nothing so strange in a new vicinity as the different weight attached to family names. We have known districts where the word Smith itself, even without the fictitious dignity of _y_ in the middle and _e_ at the end, was pronounced with great veneration. Jones--elsewhere sacred to the comic muse--is of as potent syllable--unluckily it has only one--along the banks of the Usk, as Scott or Douglas on the Nith and Yarrow. And such is the effect of territorial or moral association, that we shall willingly withdraw an objection we made to a line in the tragedy of our late friend J---- S----, where some one, speaking of the patriot Pym--to eye and ear the most pithless and contemptible of cognomens--says,

"There is a sound of thunder in the name."

We have no doubt there was a very distinct peal of heaven's dread artillery in the ear of that bitter-hearted Roundhead every time he heard the magic word--Pym.

The family highest in mere antiquity in Monmouthshire, we are told, rejoices in the curious-looking name of Progers. From them are descended the noble Beauforts, and even the Joneses of Clytha. For hundreds of years, the Progerses had kept going down-hill; estate after estate had disappeared; farm after farm took to flight; till, thirty or forty years ago, the blood of the Progerses flowed in the veins of a poor gentleman with about two hundred a-year, a house in very bad repair, and family pride that seemed to flourish in proportion as every thing else decayed. Some tourist, in the course of his researches, encountered this Monmouthshire Marins sitting among the ruins of his former state. The tourist was of a genealogical turn of mind, and the Desdichado poured forth his hoarded boasts in his sympathizing ear. "Out of this house," he said, pointing mechanically to the tottering walls of his family mansion, but metaphorically alluding to the House of Progers, "came the Joneses of Clytha and Llanerth--out of this house came the noble Somersets, now Dukes of Beaufort;" and so he went on, relating all the great and powerful names that had owed their origin to his house. The tourist seems also to have had some knowledge of architecture, for his answer to the catalogue was--"Well, sir, it's my advice to you to come out of this house yourself as quickly as you can, or it will be down upon you some of these days to a certainty."

On passing Clytha, we enter into a territory which might more justly be called Somersetshire than the county the other side of the channel. The Dukes of Beaufort seem paramount wherever you go; and in every town, and even in all the villages, there is sure to be a house of entertainment with the royal portcullis on the signpost, and the name of the Beaufort Arms. The domains of the family must be larger than half a dozen foreign principalities; and, from all we heard, the conduct of the present noble Somerset is worthy of his high position--liberal, kind-hearted, magnificent. One thing very pleasant to see was the little garden-ground taken from the road, and attached to nice clean cottages, almost all the way. Little portions, about thirty feet in depth, and considerable length, formed the wealth and ornament of the wayside dwellings. They were all well filled with apple and other fruit-trees, and stocked with useful vegetables. If this is the plan of enclosing commons, we wish we were in Parliament to give Lord Worsley our aid; for a few perches, well hedged and carefully kept, are worth all the rights of pasture, whether of cows, geese, or donkeys, that ever the poor possessed. Inside of this fringe of rustic independencies, snug farm-houses rose up in all directions; but, with a perverseness which seems characteristic of the whole county, and not limited to farm-houses, or even semi-genteel villas, no sooner does a man fix on a nice situation--a rising knoll beside a river--a gentle slope--or beautiful level green--no sooner does he rear a modest, or perhaps an ornamental, mansion on the site, than his next care is to plant as thick round it as the trees will stand. Elms, poplars, oaks, and larches, in a few years block up the view; and arbutus, rododendrons, and enormous Portugal laurels, stand as an impenetrable screen before every window; so that a house, which by its architecture ought to be an ornament to the neighbourhood, and should command noble hills and rich valleys, might as well be a wigwam in an Indian forest. There seems a greater tendency to rheumatism than romance among the inhabitants; and, by the by, we observed on all the walls Welsh placards of Parr's pills. But in spite of the large letters, and the populousness of the towns and villages where they were posted up, we did not see a single individual reading the announcements. Query, can the Welsh peasantry read Welsh? or is their book-learning limited to English, and their native tongue left to its oral freedom, untrammeled with A, B, C? In addition to the usual fence of impenetrable trees and shrubs, we noticed one pretty little dwelling, newly built, a mile or two from the village of Ragland, tastefully ornamented with an immense heap of compost, which nearly barricaded the drawing-room window. The inhabitant must have been a prodigious agriculturist; and probably preferred the useful, but unromantic heap, to any other object in the view. We gave it the name of Guano Hall.

But where, all this while, is Ragland Castle, and when will the old mare jiggle joggle to the end of our course? All eyes were kept in constant motion to catch a glimpse of the towers and pinnacles, of which we felt sure we were now within a mile. Trees, trees, and nothing but trees, with sometimes a glimpse of blue hills far off, and wreaths of smoke from cottages or farms rising above the wilderness of leaves. At last, on a little elevation on the left hand, rising solemnly, into the silent air, we caught sight of the old ruin, with great ponderous walls, covered with ivy, and the sky seen through the open arches of its immense windows. A beautiful mass of building, with such rents and fissures in it, that you wondered whether it was ever entire; and the walls so thick and massive that you wondered again how it ever fell into decay. We hobbled into the village, keeping the castle in view the whole time, got good quarters for the mare at the first hostel we encountered, and proceeded up a country lane to spend an hour or two among the ruins. The entrance is very fine, and might give rise to grand historic emotions in people fond of the feudal and sublime; but in our instance such a train of thought would have been impossible, for just inside of the majestic portal sat an old harper thrumming away at the pathetic melody of Jenny Jones. He might as well have played Jim Crow at once, for romance was put to flight, and we speedily got as far as we could from the descendant of Talessin. The Duke of Beaufort has fitted up the ruins in a way that would have gratified the heart of Mrs Radcliffe. Winding stairs lead, in the thickness of the walls, from tower to tower, and the dim corridors and dizzying bartizans are made safe to the most timid of Cockneys by stout wooden banisters, that enable you to stand as securely on a crumbling battlement as on the top of Salisbury plain. We saw the courts and quadrangles, admired the splendid windows, and only wondered at the lowness of the ceilings of some of the principal rooms, as from floor to floor could not have been more than seven feet and a half. There were fountain courts without a fountain; and chapel-yards with no chapel; why should we speak of kitchens, conjuring up visions of roasted oxen, and butteries suggestive of hogsheads of home-brewed ale, when fire-places are now choked up, and nothing is left of the buttery but a pile of broken stones? At first, on going in, we dilated on the grand things we should do in the way of restoration if we were the lord of the castle. First, we would fit it up exactly as it was in the brave days of old: we should have new floors put in the audience-chamber; a roof on the great dining-hall; a stately dais at the upper end, and get it from the hands of Pugin--the identical castle of the days of Elizabeth. But, on closer inspection, we came to the conclusion that the natural condition of such buildings is that of interesting remains. The rooms are low, the passages are dark, the bed-rooms dog-kennels, the stairs ladders, the court-yards damp, the windows all turned the wrong way, and, in short, the sixteenth century an excellent trimmer of popes and conqueror of armadas, but a very bad architect.

In one of the court-yards was a flock of sheep nibbling at the grass that had been trodden by the great marquis, as he walked down after his noble defence, to deliver his sword to the Parliamentarian Fairfax. Has Cattermole or Charles Landseer never thought of the brave old cavalier, at the age of eighty-five, surrendering his ancestral home,--surrounded by his sorrowing garrison, and bearing himself with the true dignity of a heroic noble? Let them think of this, and send us a proof print.

Leader of the sheep was the most beautiful ram that ever was seen since Aries was made a star. All our common-place muttons at home sank into insignificance at once. The children patted it, and fed it, and kissed it,--and to all their endearments it answered in the most bewitching manner. It followed them like a dog, and rubbed its head against them, and it was soon very evident that the greatest beauty of Ragland Castle, in certain eyes, was thickly cased in wool. The ancient gardener told us it had once taken such a fancy to one of the visitors, that it had followed her up a hundred and sixty steps to the very top of the signal tower,--and the old lady was so pleased with it, she wished to take it home with her, though she lived two or three hundred miles off. And certainly if ever a pet of such a size was allowable, it must have been the gentle creature before us. But all things are deceitful--gentle-looking rams among the number,--for on the discontinuance of our gifts, he waxed all of a sudden very wroth, and favoured the youngest of the party with a butt, that made her not know whether she was on her head or her heels--which is an extraordinary specimen of ignorance, for she was exactly half-way between both. So, converting our admiration of the golden fleece into a kick, we raised the astonished victim of his anger, and after a delightful stroll got into our gig again, and in due time arrived at our comfortable home.

We have heard of people being a month at Cairo, and never going to see the Pyramids,--a circumstance which does not give a very lofty idea of their activity. We determined to show those stay-at-homes a good example, and not remain a week in Monmouthshire without visiting the Wye. Again the old gig was put in requisition; but on this occasion we succeeded in borrowing a horse of a neighbouring farmer, that trotted merrily up and down hill at a reasonable pace; and away we started on one of the few warm days of this hyperborean summer, on our way to the town of Monmouth. Great is the enjoyment of passing through a beautiful country on a fine clear day in June. There was no dust--the sun was not too hot--the hedges were in full leaf, and no drawback to our felicity except a preternatural dread of stone heaps by the roadside, on the part of our steed, which: kept us on the alert to try and pull in the proper direction the moment he shied to the side. All other objects in nature or art it passed with the equanimity of a sage; tilted waggons with the wind flapping their canvass coverings with a sound and motion that would justify a little tremor in the heart of Bucephalus--stagecoaches, loaded with men and luggage, rushing down-hill at fifteen miles an hour, and apparently determined to force their way over our very heads. Against all these it showed the most unflinching courage; but if it came to a heap of stones, large or small, broken or entire, it lost its presence of mind in a moment, and would have jumped for safety into the ditch at the other side of the road, if not restrained by a pull at the rein, and a good cut of the whip scientifically applied. Even the milestone was an object of great alarm; and as there were twelve of them on the way, and the cowardly creature never by any chance missed seeing them, however deep they were sunk in hedges, or buried in grassy banks, we never required to distinguish the figures on the stones, but calculated the progress we made by the number of starts and struggles. After a dozen of these debates, which created great amusement among the juveniles of the party, we arrived at the clean delightful town of Monmouth--and here let us make amends for the disparaging mention of this place in our former narrative of House-Hunting in Wales. The weather on that occasion was very bad, and the inn we lunched at a very poor and uncomfortable one. When a person's principal acquaintance with a town consists in his experience of its wet streets and tough beef steaks, it is no wonder that his impressions are not of the most agreeable kind. On the present occasion we drove to the Beaufort Arms, and, in imitation of the Marquis of Exeter, "we pulled at the bell with a lordly air." The hostler and his curates rushed zealously from the further end of the yard, and received us with astonishing command of face--not a grin was visible, even the waiters stood with decorous solemnity, while child after child was lifted down, and all out of one gig. They rather looked on with the pleased expression we have seen on the countenances of a rural audience when Mr Ingilby, or other juggler, produced, out of some unaccountably prolific hat, a stewing-pan, a salt cellar, a couple of eggs, a brood of chickens, and finally the maternal hen. We ordered a cold dinner to be put into baskets, with a moderate accompaniment of bottles and glasses--enquired if a boat was to be had to take us up the Wye--were recommended to a certain barge-master of the name of Williams; and, in a very short space of time, were safely stowed in a beautiful clipper, thirty feet long, with only nine inches draught of water, with a gorgeous morning over our heads, luxurious cushions on the seats, a tug, in the shape of a most strong, active fellow, pulling us by the towing-path, and, seated at the helm, the most civil, the most polite, the most communicative, and the most talkative man that it ever was our fortune to meet. He united in his own person a vast multiplicity of trades and offices. He was innkeeper, boat-builder, boat-owner, pilot, turner, Bristol-trader, wood-merchant, coracle-maker, fisherman, historian, and, above all, a warrior of the most tremendous courage. In all of these capacities he had no rival; and as it was his own boat, his native town, his own river, and we were merely his passengers, he had it all his own way. He stood up in the excitement of his discourse, and talked without a moment's intermission--sometimes to us--sometimes to a little boy he had brought on board to look after the baskets--sometimes to the man on the towing-path--and sometimes to himself; but at all times there fell thick and fast about our ears the words of Thomas Williams; and of all his words, Thomas Williams was the hero. As people get used to the noise of a waterfall, at last we stood the perpetual sound without any inconvenience, and carried on quiet conversation, or sank into silent admiration, as we floated past the bold cliffs, or soft-wooded shores, of the sylvan Wye.

For the first mile or two from Monmouth, the hermit of the woods is nothing to boast of. The banks are low; the water sluggish; and the scenery common-place. The beauties begin at a bend of the river, where Mr Blakemore has built a large and comfortable-looking house. On a high, conical hill above the mansion, there stands a lofty gazebo of open iron-work, commanding a view of we don't remember how many counties; but before our _cicerone_ had got half-way into an account of each of them, with their capital towns, the names of the present mayors, and the noble families he had supplied with cricket-bats, we had passed far away among the noble scenery of the oak district; and our friend launched into a description of oak plantations in general--the value of oaks per acre--the sum paid to Lord George for his estate, which was bought by government fourteen years ago, the last time the duke was in power--

"What duke?"

An unlucky question, for it led into a disquisition o all dukes, ancient and modern, and an encomium on the late Duke of Beaufort, as the best soldier that England had ever produced. "He was a true soldier's friend, and flogged every soul that came on parade-ground with a dirty shirt. I don't think there was ever seen such a militia regiment--there was a sight more flogging in it than the reg'lars--so it was quite a comfort to some fellers that didn't like it, to go into the line. I was in it myself; but I liked the duke, though he would have flogged me as soon as look at me. And such dinners he gave us when our time was over--it was dreadful--six of our corporals died of drinking in one month. He was certainly the greatest officer ever _I_ see. I was threatened myself with a thing they call _delirium tremens_, for he dined us in tents for a fortnight at a time. It's a pity the French never landed; we would have licked them like sacks. I hates a Frenchman, and hope to have a fling at 'em yet."

In the mean time we had glided 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 friend--one 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 landing-place, we found we had nearly a mile to walk up a steep road, newly escarped 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 over-tasked. The day was very hot--the soil was a red ironstone--there was no shelter from the pervading sun--and 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 William'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, hard-boiled 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 tadpoles--after 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 that this:--

"Laden with age my years they flew--
The 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 p_er_vent,
My days would not so soon been spent."

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,--an 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 incitements to follow a good example in the mouth of the bully or drunkard of 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 delicious lanes of Llanover, or passed through Llanellen on our way to the Blorenge. As our courage and strength expanded, we tried bolder flights--spent 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, hard-featured, 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 skittle-ground;--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.

NEAPOLITAN SKETCHES.

GARDEN OF THE VILLA REALE.

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 bread-tree 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 nurserymaids, 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.

SERVI DI PENA.

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 _birboni_ in red jackets, all _bad cases_ of homicide and _robbery!_"

"What do you call _bad_ cases?"

"Why, I call it a bad case to kill a man for NOTHING."

"Well, but _theft_ to any amount is not so bad as taking away _life_."

"Oh! as to that, the police are _quite right!_ A decent and a devout man does not commit homicides every day: but he that steals at all, steals always!" So that our culprit reasoned, like _Paley_, on the _tendency_ of crimes. It was his _Chapter of the Silver Spoon_, with a new exposition from the mouth of a Galeote! And they pluck men at Cambridge for _not_ getting up their Paley! Our philosophical criminal seemed satisfied with his lot.

"We are not so badly off after all: we walk out with an obliging
escort, who let us do pretty much as we like; and all our work is
confined to sweeping the courts in front of the king's palace. We
are free of the castle, and allowed to conduct strangers over it,
as in your case. Oh! for the fellows at _St Stefano_, it is quite
another matter; as a part of their punishment, they are
_compelled to be idle!_"

Our rascal was allowed a new coat once every eighteen months, with two pair of drawers and as many shirts, and a penny a-day for pocket-money! These _piccoli omicidii_ at home do not get off so cheap, but stabbing is endemic at Naples. When a queen of Naples brings the Neapolitans a new prince--great joy of course!--all the penal settlements _except_ St Stefano receive _three_ years' mitigation of their sentence; but the crimes that consign to that island are _senza grazia_--the rays of royal bounty do not reach those dark and solitary cells. The St Stefano convicts form a body of three hundred doomed men, incorrigible housebreakers or systematic assassins. The food of all classes of criminals is the same, whatever the offence, and consists of twenty-four ounces of bread, with half-a-pint measure of beans and some oil--a basin of cabbage soup, without meat, for dinner, and meat once in fourteen days: there are eight thousand out-of-doors convicts, many of whom being under sentence for a less space _than two years_, work in their own clothes--which is, of course, a considerable saving to government. Although all the galley-slave establishments are full, no place swarms like Naples with so many meritorious candidates for the _red_ and _yellow_ liveries of the state.

ST CARLO, &c.

St Carlo is, as the guide-books tell us, "a very fine theatre." What we particularly like, is the absence of all _side-lights round its boxes_. Two hundred burners, arranged in three rows round a small chandelier, give just light enough to set off the fine chastened white and gold, and the one quiet fresco which embellishes the ceiling. A pit of vast size, divided into comfortable sittings, six tiers of boxes, and an orchestra of great space, suited to the extraordinary size of the house, secure a far less adulterated playhouse atmosphere than we are used to; and so exempt from the ordinary inconveniences, that we were able to sit out the _Semiramide_, even with Ronzi di Begnis, now old and out of keeping, for the heroine. Surely _she never_ should have been Semiramis, even in her palmy day! Actors and actresses _will_ not know that words written for them, scenery and dresses adapted for them, and attitudes invented for them, can never _make_ them the personages mentioned in the playbill. On returning home, we stood at our balcony gazing on the lovely face of a true Naples night--a night beyond description!--the whole vault of heaven lighted by one light: a full moon, like a subdued sunshine over earth and water. A world of light, that shone on a world of darkness, tinging the air, gilding the mountain-tops, and making the sea run like melted phosphorus. And what a silence abroad! not the perilous cessation of sound which so often only anticipates the storm; nor the sultry stillness of an exhausting noon; but a mighty and godlike display, as it were, of the first full moon after creation shining on an entranced world!

POZZUOLI.

An _amphitheatre_ is one of those few ruins that leave no problem to solve. Here we have a grey antiquity without any mutilation of form, and merely spoliated of its benches. The patron saint of Naples was, they say, imprisoned here. A little chapel ascertains the spot, but he does no miracles on this _arena_. When we come to _temples_, we are always at a great loss for proprietors. The very large one here is called of Jupiter Serapis. The remaining columns of this temple, whatever it was, exhibit a very remarkable appearance. Three pillars, forty-two feet in height, up to about twelve feet above their pedestals, have the surface of the marble as smooth as any in the Forum; then comes a portion of nine or ten feet, of which the marble has been bored, drilled in all directions, by that persevering bivalve the _Lithodomus;_ the perforations are so considerable, and go so deep, as to prove "the long-continued abode" of these animals within the stone, and by consequence, as Mr Lyell observes, "a long-continued immersion of the columns in the sea at some period recent, comparatively, with that of its erection." Indeed, there is abundant evidence adduced in the fourth volume of his _Geology_ to show, that all this ground was at a no very distant period _under the sea_, like Monte Nuovo in its neighbourhood, and was thrust out of the water to its present level. When the ground on which this temple stood, collapsed, the _bottom part of its columns_ was protected by "the rubbish of decayed buildings and strata of turf;" the _middle_ or perforated part was left exposed to the action of the sea bivalves above alluded to; and the _upper part_, which was never under the water, remained smooth and free from perforation. But these columns not only prove by internal evidence the general fact of the ground on which they stand having been submerged--they also furnish an exact _measure_ of the degree to which it sunk; viz. twenty feet--_i.e._ the height where these perforations terminate at present. You can only cross the floor of this building on stepping-stones; and as you do so, you see shoals of small sea-fish darting about in the shallow water which occupies its area, into which the sea has been _admitted_ on purpose, to prevent the accumulation of the stagnant water that had infected this particular spot with intense malaria.

BAIÆ.

We took a hot bath under the _soi-disant_ villa of Lucullus. Steam, sulphur, and hot water, may be had cheap any where along this coast. An awful place it was to enter naked, and be kept in the dark, stifling, as we were, for some seconds which seemed minutes, till our guide returned with a _milord's_ dressing-gown, which he assured us had been hung up as a votive offering for cured rheumatism. Being candidates ourselves for a similar benefit, we desired to be rubbed down like _milord_, till _aluminous_ perspiration stood thick upon us, the alum being deposited from the walls and atmosphere of the place. We were soon obliged to beg for quarter. The _milord_, whose dressing-gown we were possessed of, was so bad as to be obliged to be rubbed sitting; but so powerful is the remedy, that after fifteen such sittings, he walked round the lake (two miles), and went home in his carriage "_guerito!_" "Such baths!" that had cured _he_ knew not how many persons:--

"Men who'd spent _all_ upon physician's fees,
Who'd _never_ slept, nor had a _moment's_ ease,
Were now as _roaches sound_, and all as _brisk as bees!_"--CRABBE.

What with its hot water, sulphur, vapour, and alum, we too should have fancied Naples might have been comparatively exempt from rheumatisms and skin diseases, in both of which it abounds.

LUCRINE AND AVERNUS LAKES.

From the sea and its inlet called the Lucrine _Lake_, we pass along a pleasant green lane, about a mile long, which issues on _Avernus_, whose waters we find both limpid and clear; but are instructed that two months later will change them to a dark-red colour, and that the neighbourhood will then become very malarious and unsafe. A piece of semicircular wall on one side of the lake, indicates the whereabouts of a temple of Proserpine, or Apollo, or any god or goddess you please. We were so absurd as to pay a scudo to be taken through a vile tunnel, accompanied by two torch-bearers, and two other dirty wretches, who often carry us pick-a-back through one black hole into another, splashing us through dark pools, putting us down here and there as they pleased, picking us up again, grinning like demons, and by dint of shaking their torches above, and disturbing the water below, raising foul smells enough to intoxicate fifty Sybils. At length, half suffocated by those classical delights, we cry Enough! enough! and beg to be put into our saddles again. The _Stufa di Nerone_, a little further on the high-road, is another volcanic _calidarium_ in full activity, where you may boil eggs or scald yourself in a dark cavern. There you may deposit your mattrass and yourself in any one of a store of _berths_ wrought into that most unpicturesque tufa, of which the exterior face constitutes the whole of the sea view of _Baiæ._ If ever there were decorations in these caverns, they are gone; but there probably never were. Diana, Mercury, Venus, and Apollo all claim brick tenements, called temples, in this little bay, all close together on the seaside, and none having any claim at present either on the artist or the poet.