To return to our boat, we took a different and more circuitous route, for the purpose of inspecting the remains of Goodrich Priory, now converted into a farm. The chapel has experienced the same vicissitude; and those walls, which formerly re-echoed with the chanting of voices and the solemn peal, now repeat the continued strokes of the flail. In many parts of the walls the initials of names of persons who have long since paid the debt of nature, and left behind no other memorial, are carved with characteristic rudeness, showing to every passing stranger the prevalency of that universal passion—the love of fame. The Gothic windows, and the cross erected on each end of the building, show evident marks of its former purpose. The boat usually meets the passengers at another reach of the river; but it is a plan by no means to be recommended; since by missing a circuit round the castle, its different tints and variety of attitudes, occasioned by one of the boldest sweeps of the Wye, are entirely lost. A short time after we had taken our last retrospect of Goodrich Castle, the spire of Ruredean Church {311} appeared in front, just peeping from among the woody skirts of the forest of Dean; a little below Courtfield House, belonging to Mr. Vaughan, was seen in a very picturesque point of view, with the ruins of the chapel, forming the back-ground. In Courtfield House, tradition reports, the warlike King Henry the Fifth was nursed; and in the church of Welsh Bicknor, situated to the right in a noble amphitheatre enclosed with rocks, first embraced the Christian religion. A busy scene of craft loading and unloading, and coals shipping for various parts from the quay at Lidbrook, presents a picture of cheerful activity, and forms a pleasing contrast to the quiet, rich, and retired spots we had left behind us: such spots as were well adapted to form the mind of Britain’s glory—the virtuous Henry. The banks now became richly clothed with wood, from the summits of the highest rocks to the water’s edge; and a hill in front, called Rosemary Topping, from the mellow luxuriance of its sides, closed the prospect. Almost every sweep presents a new object to strike the admiration of the spectator; the transitions are sudden, but never so harsh as to disgust. Even the contrast between the embellishments of art we had just left, and the wild rocks which here exhibit nature in her most striking attitudes, gave an additional impression to each other.