<g>Environs.</g>--It would be difficult to name a locality that, within so small a compass, contains so many richly-varied landscapes, as the Vale of Tinterne. In whatever direction we move, the eye is arrested by new features, new combinations of the graceful and picturesque. A saunter along the river, where it forms a crescent between the abbey and the village, will gratify every lover of the picturesque, and bring before him the beauty and freshness of nature, in striking contrast with the sublime but faded monuments of art. The best hour for enjoying this scene is about sunset; and, on returning, the tourist may ascend the Chapel Hill, and thence, in a more extended panorama, look down upon what would have furnished a rich subject for the pencil of Claude. The river, with its fantastic windings, here clamorous among shallows--there gliding away with the rapid but inaudible march of time--masses of brown rock overhanging the pass, gleaming in confused blocks through the trees that clamber up their [Illustration: _The Vale of Tintern._ From the Devil’s Pulpit.] steep sides, or crown their pinnacles with masses of verdure; while here and there a cottage, with its whitewashed walls, gives new life and interest to the scene. How oft the pilgrim, lingering here, Beneath that yew’s sepulchral shade, Hath dropt the penitential tear, And, sighing to himself, hath said-- There’s solace here for all my woe, <g>St. Mary’s</g> altar gleams below; And blessèd be the hand divine, That leads the pilgrim to her <g>shrine</g>. But the point from which the Abbey of Tinterne is seen to most advantage, is that chosen by Mr. Bartlett in the illustration opposite. The way to the ‘<g>Devil’s Pulpit</g>,’ as it is called, runs along the left bank of the Wye, and, in its winding course, presents many little glimpses of the vale and river, that, like small cabinet-pictures, serve as a gradual introduction to the splendid panorama of nature--the features of which are here so faithfully illustrated by the pencil, as to render description superfluous. The river, rolling far below-- Here swift as time, there still and slow; O’ershadowed here with arching bowers, There sweetly fringed with summer flowers; The Vale--where, through its orchard trees, The curling vapour meets the breeze, And, vast and venerably grand, The <g>Abbey’s</g> mouldering arches stand,-- All these a wondrous scene impart, To charm the eye and melt the heart; The scroll of ages to unfold, And paint the wondrous men of old.