A fair was going on in the town, and the streets were filled with the peasantry. Everywhere pedlars were setting forth the merits of their wares, and among them was a fellow bawling—“Here’s the last dying speech and confession, &c.”—as he exhibited the doleful print of a gallows and its dangling victim. Such incidents are not rarely met in the narratives of a certain class of novelists, and I have certainly read, somewhere, of just such a market-day as I encountered at Ross. I walked slowly down the hill into the valley of the Wye, turning constantly to observe the fine situation of the town, till the coach overtook me. The country here is rich but simply pretty, and as yet it revealed none of the glories for which the Wye is celebrated. Goodrich Court, a modern mansion, is a fine object, however, and the remains of Goodrich Castle are an imposing feature in the scene; and all the more so for its association with the cavaliers, from whom it was finally taken by Cromwell, and reduced to ruins. As you enter Monmouthshire, a glorious view begins to open, and from about this point the scenery of the river increases in wildness and grandeur. I was, at first, at a loss to know why Wordsworth should have called the Wye sylvan, for such was far from being its character, in Herefordshire; but now the entire appropriateness of the epithet was disclosed, and yet I am well aware that I lost many of the finest features of the stream by not descending it in a boat. With Monmouth itself, I was somewhat disappointed, its Church having suffered many things of many churchwardens, and the remains of the priory, where Henry the Fifth was born, having become incorporated with the modern walls of a boarding-school. I left Monmouth with gratitude to Fluellyn for his idea of its wondrous resemblance to Macedon, which I should not have imagined, had he not helped the world to it. The glories of the scenery round St. Briavel’s and near the tiny little Church at Llandogo, should have had the further benefit of his minute and luminous descriptive powers, as I can liken it to nothing else in the world but itself, for its combination of simply rural features, with those which are highly picturesque. An American is struck with the charm imparted to such scenery, by a pretty church or a neat and secluded hamlet, quite as much as he is impressed by the scenery itself; and I was often led to think what the valley of the Mohawk might be, had it the advantage of that still retirement, and of those Arcadian groves, which impart a peculiar effect to the sterner beauties of the Wye. At Tintern Parva we were shown the ancestral habitation of Fielding, and passed a new church which was well worthy of note. But the neighbourhood of Tintern Abbey eclipsed every other thought, and I strained my sight for the earliest possible glimpse of the delightful vision. A storm which had been threatening, broke upon us, unfortunately, at the critical point, and I first beheld that