After this perilous feat, the hardy royalist returned to his house at Sidney; but finding it, on closer inspection, to be quite untenable, he had it demolished, and then, joining the king’s forces, took part in the battle of Naseby, which gave a finishing blow to the king’s affairs. [Illustration: A] walk from the <g>Abbey</g> to the village of Tinterne Parva, will never fail to interest the stranger; in this short distance, many new features and new combinations of scenery crowd upon the view, and carry the mind back to remote times, when the cloister bell was the only sound that broke in upon the stillness of the scene. Sweeping round the outer ring of the crescent, within which the river flows in a deep smooth channel, the road is overhung by masses of rock, shaded by trees, and skirted by cottages, which, from the situations they occupy, rather than any taste or merit in their construction, present a picturesque appearance. As we advance, the scene is continually changing: the old abbey walls, beautiful from whatever point they are contemplated, assume a comparatively new aspect from the western approach, particularly about sunset, when the whole building appears as if bathed in a flood of yellow light. To enjoy the scenery of the place under such circumstances, is worth a long day’s pilgrimage. The river, which here doubles upon itself, so as to take the form of a horse shoe, is of a depth navigable for small craft; and though here and there fretted by rocks, the surface, as we passed, was smooth and limpid; through which, as in a mirror, the picturesque scenery on its banks appeared in distinct and beautiful reflexion. Near to the Cross, the ancient market-place of the village, the stranger is shown a ruined edifice, partly covered with ivy, and bearing the evidence of having suffered less from time than violence. This is supposed to have been the villa, or extra-cloister residence of the abbots of Tinterne, to which at certain seasons they could retire from the exercise of their public functions, and enjoy the privileges of social life--the society and conversation of friends and strangers, without the forms and austerities of the cloister. Of this building, nothing but a few shapeless walls is left; but from the size and structure of the windows, square-headed and divided by transoms, it seems probable that the house is not earlier than the reign of Elizabeth. Mr. Thomas thinks, that from its Tudor-Gothic style, it was probably built by the abbot and some of the brotherhood, as a retreat about the period when the original foundation was dissolved. During the war which devastated the frontier in 1645-6, it was taken and ransacked by the soldiers of the Commonwealth. Since that period it has often changed its owners; and at one time, we are told, though on rather uncertain ground, it was the residence of the family of Fielding the novelist--