The Wye and Its Associations

e Man of Ross-The sympathetic trees-Penyard Castle-Vicissitudes of

d before? Because the contrast presented by the valley after leaving Hay with the wilder or grander features we had passed formed one of the vicissitudes of the river. This will be understood by a traveller who journeys up the stream. On reaching Ross, after emerging from the tumult, or sublimity, of the lower passage, he will gaze with delight on one of the most quietly beautiful l

e we remark an abrupt elevation, which being wholly different in character from the

he, "a prodigious earthquake happened in the east parts of Herefordshire, at a little town called Kinnaston. On the seventeenth of February, at six o'clock in the evening, the earth began to open, and a hill, with a rock under it, making at first a great hollowing noise, which was heard a great way off, lifted itself up, and began to travel, bearing along with it the trees that grew upon it, the sheepfolds and flocks of sheep abiding there at the same time. In the place from whence it was first moved it left a gaping distance forty foo

ill appear nothing which should detain their steps before the little town of Ross. Here commences the tour of the lower Wye-of that part of the river which is known to fame as the Wye. As for the town itself, it is neat and prim-looking, sitting quietly upon an eminence above the river. It is

re valuable than his name, for there is incorporated with its substance his favorite silver tankard. He attended himself at the casting, and, drinking solemnly the orthodox toast of

e was intended for the bar but soon relinquished all thoughts of that profession, and returnin

when it was time to break up. His dishes were generally plain and according to the season, but he dearly loved a goose, and was vain of his dexterity in carving it. During the operation, which he invariably took upon himself, he always repeated one of those old sayings and standing witticisms that seem to attach themselves with peculiar preference to the cooked goose. He never had roast beef on his table save and except on Christmas day; and malt liquor and good Herefordshire cider were the only beverages ever introduced. At his kitchen fire there was a large block of wood, in lieu of a bench, for poor people to sit upon; and a piece of boiled beef, and three pecks of flo

or, as the story goes, had the impiety to cut down some of these living monuments of the taste of John Kyrle, which shaded the wall of the church beside his own pew; but the roots threw out fresh shoots, and these, penetrating into the interior, grew i

his memory gre

of opinion. In King's anecdotes the planter's taste for prospects is commended; and it is said that "by a vast plantation of elms, which he disposed of in a fine manner, he has made one of the most entertaining scenes the county of Hereford affords." Gilpin, on the other hand, wh

ich Charles I. slept, on his way from Ragland Castle. A house in Church La

forty tons; and sometimes in lighter boats even to the Hay, but the shoals in summer and the floods in winter frequently interrupt the navigation. In 1795 th

of his attention, but the road is beautiful throughout, and from the summit, Penyard Chace, he will see the little town he has left, and our wandering Wye in a new phasis. The countr

ly into the picturesque, the bold, and the grand. The tranquillity of its course from the Hay-a tranquillity dearly purchased by the labours of its wild career during the upper passage-has prepared it f

a landscape. Thus also the river itself here stretches in a continuous line, there moves in a curve, between gentle slopes and fertile meadows, or is suddenly concealed in a deep abyss, under the gloom of impending woods." "The banks for the most part rise abruptly from the edge of the water, and are clothed with forests, or are broken into cliffs. In some places they approach so near that the river occupies the whole intermediate space, and nothing is seen but woods,

ys of the south, and was destroyed by the Hereford royalists in the time of Charles I. Let us relate, however, as a circumstance of still more interes

being quite as trying as that of any part of the British seas. Previously, however, to this exploit, the very same feat was performed by an itinerant stage-doctor of Mitchel Dean in the Forest. The coracles are a sort of basket made of willow twigs, covered with pitched canvass or raw hide, and resembling in form the section of a walnut-shell. Similar rude contrivances are in use among the Esquimaux and other savage tribes, and were employed by the ancient Britons for the navigation of r

d with wood to the water's edge. Soon the ruined turrets of Goodrich Castle present themselves, crowning the summit of a w