Stayed at Malvern two days, clambering to the top of the hills which overhang the place (for town it is not), from which the views are very fine over a rich but generally flat country; the prospect is grand from its great extent. There is a curious and interesting church there, formerly of some priory, with a handsome gateway. I came through Eastnor Park in the way to Ledbury, exceedingly fine, and the castle something like Belvoir apparently, but I was not permitted to approach it. Nothing particular in the road till Ross, a very pretty town, where I first met the Wye, but, alas, in its muddiest state: this was the abode of 'The Man of Ross.' Very pretty road from Ross to Monmouth, through which latter place I walked, and passed by a very old house, which, as I afterwards heard, is said to have been the abode of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and they show his study. Troy, a plain, good-looking house, imperfectly kept up and poorly furnished, as a house is likely to be whose owners never inhabit it. It was built by the Duke of Beaufort in 1689, who came to sulk here on the expulsion of the last of the Stuarts, having a deeply-rooted sentiment of hereditary loyalty. _Multa fecerunt_ and _multa tulerunt_, certainly, for that unhappy race. Here they show a chair in which _a plot_ was contrived against Charles I.-- that is, 'in which the president of the conspirators is said to have sat.' The story was obscure, but I did not think it advisable to press the narrator for explanations. Likewise a cradle, which tradition assigns to Henry V. (Harry of Monmouth), which is evidently old enough and was splendid enough in a rude style to justify any such tradition; the only unfortunate thing is, that there is a rival cradle somewhere else with the same claim. Mr. Wyatt, the Duke's agent, received me with great civility and hospitality, having been enjoined by the Duke to make me his guest and himself my _cicerone_. Accordingly we set forth on Monday morning and went to Usk Castle, a ruin of which not much is left besides a picturesque round tower; neither the Castle nor the country is very remarkable, but we brought home a crimped salmon, for which Usk is famous (and where the crimping is said to be a secret unattainable even to the vendors of Wye and Severn salmon), which was, without exception, the most dainty fish I ever ate. From Usk we returned to Raglan Castle, a most noble and beautiful ruin; there has often been a notion of restoring it, and an estimate was made of the probable expense, which was calculated at L30,000; but the idea and the estimate are equally preposterous: it would be reconstructing a very unmanageable house and destroying the finest ruin in England, and the cost would infallibly be three times L30,000. As there had been a question of its restoration, I expected to find greater and more perfect remains, but, though some of the apartments may be made out, it is a vast wreck. The strange thing is that the