ated pages, we descanted with the profoundest erudition, to our
astonished companion on the box, about its machicolated towers, and the
finely proportioned mullions of the hall. "If you ascend the walls of
the castle," we exclaimed in a paroxysm of enthusiasm, as if we were
perched on the very top, "you will see that the castle occupies the
centre of an undulating plain, checkered with white-washed farm-houses,
fields, and noble groves of oak. The tower and village of Rhaglan lie at
a short distance, picturesquely straggling and irregular. To the north,
the bold and diversified forms of the Craig, the Sugar Loaf, Skyrids,
and Blorenge mountains, with the outlines of the Hatterals, perfect the
scene in this direction; whilst the ever-varying and amphitheatrical
boundary of this natural basin, may be traced over the Blaenavons,
Craig-y-garayd, (close to Usk,) the Gaer Vawr, the round Twm Barlwm, the
fir-crowned top of Wentwood forest, Pen-cae-Mawr, the dreary heights of
Newchurch and Devauder; the continuation of the same range past
Llanishen, the white church of which is plainly visible; Trelleck,
Craig-y-Dorth, and the highlands above Troy Park, where they end." We
were going on in the same easy and off-hand manner to describe some
other peculiarities of the landscape, when a sudden lurch of the
carriage brought the book we were furtively pillaging into open view,
and we were forced, with a very bad grace, to confess our obligations to
Mr W.H. Thomas. A very beautiful ruin it is, certainly, and we made a
vow to devote a day to exploring its remains, and judging for ourselves
of the accuracy of the guide-book's description. Even if the road had no
recommendation from the lovely openings it gives at every turn, it would
be a pleasure to travel by it in sunshine, for the hedges along its
whole extent were a complete rampart of the sweetest smelling May. Such
miles of snow-white blossoms we never saw before. It looked like
Titania's bleaching-ground, and as if all the fairies had hung out their
white frocks to dry. And the hawthorn blossoms along the road were
emulated on all the little terraces at the side of it; the apple and
pear trees were in full bloom, and every little cottage rejoiced in its
orchard--so that, with the help of hedges and fruit trees, the whole
earth was in a glow of beauty and perfume--and we prophecy this will be
a famous year for cider and perry. Abergavenny has a very bad approach
from Monmouth, and