The town was formerly--and so long as fortifications were indispensable--a place of great strength. But of the massive walls and gates, by which it was attached to the Castle as a citadel, the remains present no features of paramount interest, except, perhaps, to the plodding antiquary, whose eyes penetrate far below the surface, and trace bastions and circumvallations where ordinary men see nothing but the weeds that cover them. <g>The Church</g> is a capacious edifice--not remarkable for its architecture, but with a lofty spire which, like most others on the coast, serves as an imposing landmark. Churches, dedicated to St. Nicholas, were generally planted on some commanding eminence overlooking the sea; so that a glimpse of the sacred landmark might inspire the bewildered mariner with fresh courage to renew the struggle, or new light to direct his course, when overtaken by storms or darkness. The interior of the Church is enriched with an elaborately-carved ceiling, and various sepulchral antiquities--some of which are curious and interesting. But that to which the stranger will probably turn with a partial eye, is the tomb of the worthy Mayor already named, containing the effigies of John and <g>Thomas White</g> in the quaint costume of their time, which it was the great merit of “old mortality” sculptors to imitate, in strict subserviency to the tailor and embroiderer. Here also--as in several other churches elsewhere--is the effigy of a human figure in the last stage of emaciation; supposed to be that of a Bishop of St. David’s, when bishops were known to fast as well as to pray. Perhaps of him who, in the great dearth--mentioned in a former page of this work--is said to have died of famine--a very improbable conjecture; for these exhibitions of frail mortality were only intended as monitors to the living, and to remind the thoughtless and idle spectators that to “this they must expect to come at last.” On a flat tombstone in the floor is an inscription which suggests revolting ideas of the barbarous practices that once disgraced the “inhospitable” shores of our own land. The words are, “Walter Vaughan, iv. Jan. 1637;” the name, as it is conjectured, of the once notorious “wrecker of Dunraven:” a miscreant who, by hanging out false lights in tempestuous weather, allured unhappy merchantmen, and other vessels, to the rocks; and when the sea had broken over them, and the crews were struggling in the arms of despair, descended with his fellow-ruffians to the double exercise of murder and plunder. Having amassed capital in this manner, he is supposed to have selected this coast as an “elegant retirement,” where he could enjoy the pleasures of society, without betraying the secret of his trade, and take his place at last among those worthies who have enriched the hallowed pile with their dust. We would gladly indulge the hope that this story, though repeated as a fact, is to be regarded only in the