g rays of the setting sun, and
shining like a vast plateau of burnished gold.

After feasting our eyes on this lovely panorama and tracing out well
known places, at one moment lost in obscurity from the shadow of a
passing cloud and the next moment appearing in the full blaze of
sunshine, we retraced our steps towards the path to the Tower. We again
ascended the hill, and soon reached the sort of tableland on the top,
which seems to me to have been once an immense quarry, and no doubt
furnished stone in vast quantities for the building of the splendid city
at the foot of the eminence. The remains of these quarries are most
picturesque. At a little distance they seem to present the wrecks of
stately buildings, with rows of broken arches, and vividly recall the
idea of Roman ruins. I afterwards mentioned my impressions on seeing
them to Mr. Beckford, who replied, "They do indeed put one in mind of the
Campagna of Rome, and are vastly like the ruins of the Baths of
Caracalla." We were now on the brow of the hill, and soon felt the
influence of the genial breezes from the Bristol Channel. We quitted the
open Down, and passing under a low doorway entered a lovely shrubbery.
The walk (composed of small fossils) winds between graceful trees, and is
skirted by odoriferous flowers, which we are astonished to find growing
in such luxuriance at an elevation of nearly a thousand feet above the
vale below. In many places the trees meet, and form a green arcade over
your head, whilst patches of mignonette, giant plants of heliotrope, and
clusters of geranium perfume the air.

We next enter a beautiful kitchen garden, and are presented with a broad
and noble straight walk fully ten feet in width and nearly four hundred
feet long, between beds of flowers, and on either side beyond fruit trees
and vegetables. The garden terminates with a picturesque building,
pierced by a lofty archway, through which the walk passes. This garden
is about eighty feet wide and about twelve feet below the level of the
Down, being formed in an old quarry, besides which a lofty wall on either
side shelters it. One cannot describe one's sensations of comfort at
finding so delicious a spot in so unexpected a place. I said to the
gardener, "I understood Mr. Beckford had planted everything on the Down,
but you surely found those apple trees here. They are fifty years old."
"We found nothing here but an old quarry and a few nettles. Those apple
tree