"Nonsense. There's no air in Wales to be compared with Linton. I've tried them both--so have hundreds of other people--and as for beauty and scenery, and walks and drives, Linton beats the whole world." All this was very difficult to resist; but we set our minds firmly on the Three Cocks and Glasbury vale, and repelled all the temptations of the gem of the North of Devon. Every hour that took us nearer to our goal, brought out the likeness we had formed of it in our hearts with greater relief. A fine secluded farm--of which a few rooms were fitted up as a house of entertainment--a wild hill rising gradually at its back--a mountain-stream rattling and foaming in front--all round it, swelling knolls and heathy mountains. What had Linton to show in opposition to charms like these? We rejected the advice of our good-natured counsellor with great regret, more especially as a sojourn in Linton would probably have enabled us to cultivate his further acquaintance. The York was found all that he described--clean, quiet, and comfortable. When the young fry had finished their dinner, away we all set on a voyage of discovery to Clifton. Up a hill we climbed--which in many neighbourhoods would be thought a mountain--and passed paragons, and circuses, and crescents, on left and right, wondering when we were ever to emerge into the open air. At last we reached the top--a green elevation surrounded on two sides by streets and villas--crowned with a curious-looking observatory, and ornamented at one end with a strange building on the very edge of the cliff; being one of the _termini_ of the suspension bridge, which got thus far, and no further. Going across the Green, the sight is the most grand and striking we ever saw. Far down, skirting its way round cliffs of prodigious height--which, however, except when they are quarried for building purposes, are covered with the richest foliage--along their whole descent winds the Avon, at that moment in full tide, and covered in all its windings with sails of every shape and hue. The rocks on the opposite side are of a glorious rich red, and consort most beautifully with the green leaves of the plantations that soften their rugged precipices, by festooning them to the very brink. Then there are wild dells running back in the wooded parts of the hill, and walks seem to be made through them for the convenience of maids who love the moon--or more probably, and more poetically too, for the refreshment of the toiling citizens of the smoky town, who wander about among these sylvan recesses, with their wives and families, and enjoy the wondrous beauty of the landscape, without having consulted Burke or Adam Smith on the causes of their delight. As you climb upwards towards the observatory, you fancy you are attending one of Buckland's lectures--the whole language you hear is geological and philosophic. About a dozen men, with little tables before them, are dispersed over