On entering the abbey, it was determined that we should proceed no further that day: getting rid, therefore, of my companion and landlord, who retired in a consultation about dinner, I locked myself in, and employed several hours without interruption in sketching the interesting features of the ruin. At an early hour the following morning we sallied from our inn, and, crossing the Wye, were greeted with a new effect of the abbey. Majestically towering above encircling trees, the external elevation arose in nearly its original grandeur. The walk, though clad with moss and tender lichens, appeared nowhere dismantled; yet might an eye, anxious after picturesque forms, be offended with the uniform angles and strait lines of the gable ends and parapets. We walked along the banks of the sinuous river about half a mile from the ferry, when the ruin presented itself in a very agreeable point of view. Looking full through the grand aperture of the eastern window, the rows of columns and arches, overhung with clustering ivy, wore the appearance of a delightful grove; and at the end of the perspective, the elegant tracery of the opposite window, besprinkled with verdure, was well defined; and in its distant tint had an admirable effect. These views of the mouldering abbey, combined with the wild scenery of the Wye, and the kindred gloom of a lowering atmosphere, were truly impressive and grand; yet they scarcely excited such sensations of awful sublimity as we felt on our first visit to the interior of the ruin. In our different walks between the inn and the abbey, we were regularly beset with importunities for alms: the labouring man abandoned his employment and the house-wife her family at the sight of a stranger, to obtain a few pence by debasing clamour. This system of begging we found to arise from the late distresses, particularly that of the preceding year, which, bearing on the great class of the people with an almost annihilating pressure, entitled them to the sympathy and assistance of those whom fortune had blessed with prosperity: they had strained their aching sinews to meet the exigence, yet their utmost exertions proved inadequate to the means of support. Thus situated, alms or outrage formed their alternate resources; but, happily, in the benevolence of the affluent they found an asylum. This pressure was fast withdrawing, but its effects remained; they had tasted the sweets of indolence, of support without exertion; they no longer felt the dignity of independance (for the odium of begging was withdrawn by invincible necessity); and they continued the unworthy trade without remorse. Excepting a few significant curtsies in the manufactories of Neath, this was the first instance of the sort that we met with during our tour. In other places, industry was urged to its highest exertion; here, by an increased weight of necessity, it sunk beneath the pressure.