finest enjoyments of life. Here am I, older than you are, and I have just walked from Falmouth to the Land's End, and from the Land's End to Barnstaple, with many a goodly zigzag befides, here and there, in Cornwall; and as for a chaife, I should be ashamed to put my foot in one for fuch a mere stride. To be candid, I won't have anything to do with a chaise, and so I suppose here we must part. with Astounding!" said the great man, for he was evidently given to wonder-" and you've really done that, and are all the better for it. But no; it may do for you, but it would not do for me. I could not think of it!" "Then good-bye," said I, extending my hand: "I thought we were just going to make a pleasant county acquaintance." He stood as taken quite aback. "Well, I had fet my mind on going to Tintern you, I don't know why--but four miles yet!" "Four fiddlesticks!" I faid: "Come along, it will do you good, and we might have been half-way there now." He fhook his head; but fuddenly he faid, "And you really think it will do "Then here goes," he said; and on we marched, with a good hearty "Bravo!" on my part. It was a stout climb to the Wynd Cliff, and my worthy and robust cotton-spinner perspired freely, and wiped his ample brow industriously, and exclaimed, "This is very severe; but it may do me good." Anon we stood on that splendid height the fummit of the Wynd Cliff: and as my neophyte in peripatetics gazed down on the Wye far below, rushing with the inflowing tide between its lofty rocks, and then glanced on the scenes around, he burst forth with an emphatic "Glorious!" me good?" "I do." "You are right," I faid; "but button up your waistcoat and your coat, for the wind is cool here, and I will read you from the guide-book all the objects you can see from this spot.” "The extenfive prospect commanded from this fummit is generally extolled as one of the most beautiful in the island. The objects included are,-the new line of road from Chepstow to Tintern ; the Wye winding in its circuitous course between its rocky and wooded banks; the pretty hamlet of Lancaut, with the perpendicular cliffs of Bannagor, and the whole domain of Piercefield; a little to the left Berkeley Castle and Thornbury Church. On the right fucceffively the castle and town of Chepstow; the majestic Severn, and the confluences of the rivers Wye and Severn; the Old and New Paffages; Durdham Down, and Dundry Tower, near Bristol; the mouth of the Avon and Portishead Point: to the south-weft, the Holmes and Penarth Point, near Cardiff: and far away in the north-west the Black Mountains, forming a fublime background to the whole: thus embracing parts of nine counties, namely, Monmouth, Gloucester, Wilts, Somerset, Devon, Glamorgan, Brecon, Hereford, and Worcester. In the words of Mr. Roscoe—The grouping of the landscape is perfect: I know of no picture more beautiful.” ” My great friend rested in full enjoyment of this magnificent scene-rested, that made no small part of the charm, for he had found a feat. He would have dwelt on each point, and endeavoured by questions to identify every one of them; but I reminded him that he might take cold, and we proceeded on our way. But the great difficulty was now passed-the rest of the road was pretty level, and I endeavoured to keep up his attention by pointing out the beauties of the strangely-circling Wye to our right. I told him of the advantages people drew from walking; of the acquaintance it gave them with the people paffing the fame way, or as you fat awhile with them in their cottages. "Ay," said he, eagerly looking round, "that fitting in a cottage must be pleasant;" but there was no cottage vifible. And I went on telling him of the many poems Wordfworth wrote from materials picked up in walking, or on the top of coaches—(“I prefer the top of coaches, myself,” faid he.)—that Wordsworth at Goodrich Castle thus met with the little girl who gave him the idea of "We are Seven ;" and also walking along the Wye from Builth to Hay, he fell in with "Peter Bell." The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter, he tells us, were taken from a wild rover with whom he walked from Builth, and who told him ftrange ftories. I then drew from my pocket the small Paris edition of Wordsworth's Poems. "This book," I faid, " gave great vexation to Wordsworth; for when he had not made fifty pounds in his whole life by the sale of his English edition, this pirated one had fold one hundred and twenty thousand copies in Paris. It annoyed him, but it will please us." And I began to read his Five years have past; five summers, with the length These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a fweet inland murmur.-Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild fecluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep feclufion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repofe These plots of cottage ground, thefe orchard tufts, Or of fome hermit's cave, where by his fire The hermit fits alone. These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me Is lightened:-that ferene and blessed mood, In body, and become a living foul : While with an eye made quiet by the power If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft, O fylvan Wye! Thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a fad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again : While here I stand, not only with the sense Of prefent pleasure, but with pleafing thoughts For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I bounded o'er the mountains, by the fides Flying from fomething that he dreads, than one Unborrowed from the eye.-That time is paft, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chaften and fubdue. And I have felt And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And mountains: and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye and ear, both what they half create M |