winds the silvery thread woven by the Severn through the valley, interlacing meads, woods, upland swells, and round-topped grassy knolls. Amid pasture land sloping to the water’s edge and relieved by grazing cattle, rise the ivy-topped ruins of Buildwas Abbey; beyond is a pleasing interchange of land and water, the whole bounded by hills scarcely distinguishable from the azure sky. Mingled sounds of birds and men and running water strike strangely on the ear; and often in the calm twilight fogs move slowly on the river. How these rocks and caverns echo and reverberate during a thunder-peal, when loud and long-continued. The inhabitants tell, too, of curious acoustic effects produced along the valley; how in under tones from one side the river to a point of equal elevation on the other neighbours may whisper to each other, the atmosphere acting as a sounding-board for the voice. This is so in a rent in the rocks above the Bower-yard, known to natives as the Bower _Yord_. “Up the bower, and through the Edge, That’s the way to Buildwas bridge,” is a local ditty with no other merit than antiquity; but it has served as a lullaby to generations cradled long ere the bridge below was reared. Over-looking the Bower is Bath-wood—minus now the bath. Tych’s-nest comes next, where the kite formerly squealed, and had its eyrie; and still later—as the oldest inhabitant is ready to testify—where badgers were caught, and made sport of at Ironbridge Wake. Ironbridge abounds in pleasant walks and sunny spots; and right pleasant ’tis to view from some eminence on the opposite bank—Lady-wood or Benthall-edge, the prospect spread out before you. Clustering cottages are seen to perch themselves on ridges, or to nestle pleasantly in shady nooks half hid by rocks and knolls and trees; while bits of nature’s carpet, garden plots and orchards, add interest to the scene. On points commanding panoramic sweeps of country, of winding dales and wooded hills, have sprung up villa-looking residences and verandahed cottages that tell of competence, retirement, and those calm sweet joys that fringe the eventide of prosperous life. There are no formal streets or rigid red brick lines to offend the eye: but that pleasing irregularity an artist would desire. Looking east or west, fronting or turning their backs upon each other, many gabled, tall chimneyed, just as their owners pleased; there is a freedom and rusticity of style that gratifies the sight and harmonises well with the winding roads that meets the poet’s fancy and goes beyond the limner’s skill. To mention severally these suburban hill or tree-embosomed retreats would be sufficient by the name itself to indicate the faithful picture we have drawn. From the Severn to the summit, the hill is dotted over with villas, Gothic and fanciful, fronted by grottoed gardens, flanked by castellated walls and orchards, with ornamental hedge-rows and shady sycamores; whilst in mid-air, lower