A retrograde movement, hastily performed in a shower of rain, brought us to Bridgend, a straggling little town, built on the opposing banks of the river Ogmore. From this place a road passes to the village of COITY and its dismantled castle. This ruin stands on a plain ground, and is prettily interspersed with various trees and underwood: its foundation is generally attributed to Paganus de Turbeville, one of Fitzhammon’s knights.—The continuance of our ride to Llantrissent boasted little interest; until, making a curve near the seven-mile stone, when the wide undulating vale of Cowbridge exhibited a most extensive tract of beautiful fertility: among the high hills circumscribing the vale, that sustaining Penline castle rose with superior importance. The whole laid out in rich pastures and meadows, continually intersected with tufted inclosures, and enlivened with embowered hamlets and detached whitened buildings, formed a _coup d’œil_ of considerable interest. The old town of LLANTRISSENT appeared within a small distance of us, long before we arrived at it: for, perched upon the summit of a high hill of remarkable steepness, it was only by a circuitous road, then of sufficiently fatiguing ascent, that it could be approached. This place, comprised nearly in one narrow irregular street, and made up of poor Gothic habitations, has so little of modern appearance engrafted on it, that it may be interesting as a specimen of ancient times, but scarcely in any other respect. The castle is nearly all destroyed; the fragment of a lofty round tower, and the vestiges of its outworks, nearly concealed by tangled shrubs, being all the remains of it. The church is a large Norman edifice, and from the cemetery a wonderful prospect is obtained of the surrounding country: although a hazy state of the atmosphere denied us the whole of its extent, enough remained to assure us that it must be considerable. Pont-y-pridd, or New Bridge, was our next destination. My companion went forward to secure accommodation at the Bridgewater Arms, a comfortable inn about half a mile beyond it, while I was engaged in sketching some subjects about Llantrissent; at which task I incautiously protracted my stay —“until the approach of night, The skies warm blushing with departing light When falling dews with spangles deck’d the glade, And the low sun had lengthen’d ev’ry shade.”