The sky began to clear, the postillion trotted gaily on, and we left the county town, not much gratified with our experience of its smoky rooms and tough beefsteaks. We followed the windings of the Trothy, a stream of a very lively and frisky disposition, passing a seat of the Duke of Beaufort, who seems lord-paramount of the county, and at length came in view of the noble ruins of Ragland Castle. But now we were wiser than we had been at the early part of the journey, and had bought a very well written guide-book, by Mr W.H. Thomas, which, at the small outlay of one shilling, made us as learned on "the Wye, with its associated scenery and ruins," as if we had lived among them all our days. Inspired by his animated pages, we descanted with the profoundest erudition, to our astonished companion on the box, about its machicolated towers, and the finely proportioned mullions of the hall. "If you ascend the walls of the castle," we exclaimed in a paroxysm of enthusiasm, as if we were perched on the very top, "you will see that the castle occupies the centre of an undulating plain, checkered with white-washed farm-houses, fields, and noble groves of oak. The tower and village of Rhaglan lie at a short distance, picturesquely straggling and irregular. To the north, the bold and diversified forms of the Craig, the Sugar Loaf, Skyrids, and Blorenge mountains, with the outlines of the Hatterals, perfect the scene in this direction; whilst the ever-varying and amphitheatrical boundary of this natural basin, may be traced over the Blaenavons, Craig-y-garayd, (close to Usk,) the Gaer Vawr, the round Twm Barlwm, the fir-crowned top of Wentwood forest, Pen-cae-Mawr, the dreary heights of Newchurch and Devauder; the continuation of the same range past Llanishen, the white church of which is plainly visible; Trelleck, Craig-y-Dorth, and the highlands above Troy Park, where they end." We were going on in the same easy and off-hand manner to describe some other peculiarities of the landscape, when a sudden lurch of the carriage brought the book we were furtively pillaging into open view, and we were forced, with a very bad grace, to confess our obligations to Mr W.H. Thomas. A very beautiful ruin it is, certainly, and we made a vow to devote a day to exploring its remains, and judging for ourselves of the accuracy of the guide-book's description. Even if the road had no recommendation from the lovely openings it gives at every turn, it would be a pleasure to travel by it in sunshine, for the hedges along its whole extent were a complete rampart of the sweetest smelling May. Such miles of snow-white blossoms we never saw before. It looked like Titania's bleaching-ground, and as if all the fairies had hung out their white frocks to dry. And the hawthorn blossoms along the road were emulated on all the little terraces at the side of it; the apple and pear trees were in full bloom, and every little cottage rejoiced in its