“Now I gain the mountain’s brow-- What a landscape lies below! No clouds, no vapours intervene; But the gay, the open scene, Does the face of Nature show In all the hues of heaven’s bow; And, swelling to embrace the light, Spreads around beneath the sight. Old castles on the cliffs arise, Proudly towering in the skies; Rushing from the woods, the spires Seem from hence ascending fires. Half his beams Apollo sheds On the yellow mountain heads, Gilds the fleeces of the flocks, And glitters on the broken rocks.” “And see the rivers, how they run Through woods and meads, in shade and sun! Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view?” * * * * * AUTHORITIES quoted or referred to in the preceding article on Raglan Castle and its vicinity:--Dugdale--Camden--Collins’ Peerage--Speed--Hollinshed--Williams’ Monmouth--Grafton--Robert of Gloucester--Illustrations of British History--Peck’s Curiosa--Stow--Winwood--Manners and Customs of England--Pictorial History--Memoirs of the Court of James I.--Osborne’s Memoirs--Evelyn’s Diary--Strutt--Somers’ Tracts--Howel’s Letters--Barber’s Tour--Bayly’s Apophthegms of the Marquess of Worcester--Churchyard--Wood’s Rivers of Wales--Thomas’ Raglan--Carne--Archæological Journal--Clarendon’s History--Certamen Religiosum--Ellis’s Original Letters--Memoirs of Swift--Carlyle--Parliamentary Papers--Mercurius Civicus--Edwards--The Family History--History of the Civil War--Chronicles--Rushworth’s Papers--Lodge’s Illustrations--County History and Local Descriptions--Sir R. Colt Hoare--Coxe--Notes of a Personal Visit to Raglan--Communications from Correspondents, etc.--_See_ APPENDIX. LLANTHONY ABBEY, <g>Monmouthshire</g>. “‘Mongst Hatteril’s lofty hills, that with the clouds are crowned, The valley <g>Ewias</g> lies immured so steep and round, As they believe that see the mountains rise so high, Might think the straggling herds were grazing in the sky; Which in it such a shape of solitude doth bear, As Nature at the first appointed it for <g>prayer</g>; Where in an aged cell, with moss and ivy grown, In which not to this day the sun hath ever shone; That reverend British <g>Saint</g>, in zealous ages past, In contemplation lived, and did so truly fast, As he did only drink what crystal <g>Hodney</g> yields, And fed upon the <g>leeks</g> he gathered in the fields. In memory of whom, in the revolving year, The <g>Welshmen</g> on his <g>day</g> that sacred <g>herb</g> do wear!”--_Drayton._