the highest crag will find around its basaltic-zone (Potentilla ruspestris), a plant, we believe, not known in any locality nearer than Cologne; and around the pillar which crowns its summit Botrychium lunaria.

Near the foot of this remarkable group of lofty hills, the pretty little bridge of Llandrinio crosses the Severn; beyond it is Llandysillio, and still further on in the same direction Llanymynech. The latter name, in Welsh, signifies the village of miners; and that from very early times the hills have been ransacked for lead and other metals, appears probable, from the primitive tools and ancient relics found in old workings; the latter including coins of Antonius and other Roman Emperors. It is said that in a cave called Ogo, a bracelet of gold, some human remains, a Druid's belt, and a battle-axe have been found; and that its caverns, which extend some distance, present interesting appearances, from stalactites pendant from the roof. At Abertanad, the river Tanad falls into the Vyrnwy; and the latter, with the borrowed tribute it receives, enters the Severn, amid the rich pasture flats near Melverly. When bank full the two rivers mingle their waters without a murmur or a sigh; but, at other times, when heavy rains have fallen long the banks of the Tanad or the Vyrnwy, the latter comes down with a roar, and rudely thrusts back the "Queen of rivers" along the vale; here it collects its waters, and again returns to battle with its rival. Persons familiar with the river, between here and Shrewsbury, can tell when it rises whether the increase is from the Severn or its tributaries by the colour of the livery which it wears, the water being charged with sediment corresponding with the rocks it passes in its course.

Below, where the Severn and the Vyrnwy meet, we find much to remind us that we are still upon the Borders, and amid the great Marchers of Wales. Old fortresses and feudal strongholds are thickly sown, so much so that Fuller says: "Shropshire seems divided from Wales by a wall of continued castles." Churches are dedicated to warrior saints. War and religion then were paramount: fighting men and priests-those of stout arms and strong emotions-managed to make matters meet. Spots where men agreed to sing and pray were sacred; so that fugitives or aliens, even murderers, upon gaining the interior of the churches, obtained protection from their pursuers; as at Alberbury, where tradition alleges that a Welshman charged with murder found refuge till released by his countrymen in time of war. Men shed blood, and then founded monasteries to atone for sin. Like old Fitzwarren, who, an old chronicle states, "upon returning from relentless wars in Ireland, and thinking that he had sinned by the slaughter of much people, sought remission of his sins by founding a priory in a wood on the river Severn." Of the old castle of Fitzwarren, at Alberbury, a portion of the walls alone remain; while Wattlesbury, another Border stronghold near, has been reduced to an old square tower and some portions of its wings,

These were but a few of the fortified houses held by Lords Marchers, who, from the difficulty of reaching the Welsh in their mountain fastnesses by means of large armies, it was found good policy to incite to win and hold by their retainers, as their own, lands along the borders. The more to encourage these to conquest, they were given a voice in Parliament, with titles significant of the districts they subdued. In return for these possessions and privileges, they rendered military services to the crown-such as that of keeping their castles sufficiently fortified to withstand the Welsh, and of furnishing the King's army, in time of war, with men. There were at one time 114 of these lordships, with military governments, and customs so strange, that offenders in one would often find impunity in another, and escape the punishment due to crime. With such strongly fortified positions, and tenantries inured to war and hardship, these feudal barons of the Marches were among the most powerful of the nobility, and their names stand prominent in history.

The harsh government of these districts continued in the hands of these men long after the circumstances which were supposed to warrant it had passed away. Alberbury is the property of Sir Baldwin Leighton, whose present residence is Loton, a mansion pleasantly situated amid ancestral trees, and nearer the Severn. George IV., when Prince of Wales, professing to visit the country whence he derived his title, walked a mile from Loton Hall, into the principality; and, having plucked a branch of oak, which he placed in his hat, returned. The men of the leek, however, professed to feel flattered by this short visit, and made due demonstrations accordingly. The tree, of course, has been carefully guarded, and a brass plate affixed to record the circumstance for the benefit of posterity. This parish is noted as having been the birth-place of Old Parr, who lived to the extreme age of 152.

Lower down the river is Rowton, the Rutunium of the Romans. Grey rocky terraces appear upon the Slope, and the building itself is thrown into relief by a dark, sombre background of trees.

Leaving Rowton we cross the river, attracted by the wild-looking ruins of Shrawardine. A sandy lane, between banks of gravel, leads past woodbined and whitewashed cottages, from the ferry to the village. The church, which is an ancient structure with a wooden tower, contains some brass and marble memorials, and a curious old font. Its proximity to the castle seems to have been anything but an advantage, as it appears, from an old parish register, to have suffered severely during the different sieges of the former. The tottering remains of the old castle, which occupy a field opposite to the church, fitly represent the times when the country was wasted by Border wars. Reared to check the encroachments of the Welsh upon the fertile lands of the interior, many grants in aid of its repairs were made during successive reigns; and ten tenancies were held, in the early

of wealthy burghers are to be seen in the direction of Mardol, and along High-street to the bottom of Wyle Cop. They project across and shade the flags in front; sideways they nod and lean, till they sometimes touch, forming dark arcades, locally known as shuts. Many of these singularly beautiful, but now neglected structures, are to be found in out-of-the-way places, where they appear to shun observation. One faded mansion of the kind, with cloistered arches, ornamental upright brackets, and projecting stories, has been converted into shambles; and the beautiful ceilings, ornamented mouldings, panellings, fireplaces, and carvings of others have been torn down, and their outer shells made to serve as storehouses for bark or timber. In wandering through the dark passages of one we came upon a brush-maker, who seemed as surprised at seeing any human being but himself amid its wilderness of rooms as Robinson Crusoe did in discovering other footsteps but his own on his solitary island.

Equally metamorphosed are the old guilds, or halls of the trades, where feasting, and no little tyranny, was practised by corporations of shearers, mercers, and others. Excepting the latter-the members of which took the oath of allegiance before the mayor the other daythese corporate bodies no longer exist; but the old panellings, the quaint carvings, the portraits of the patrons and presidents, and the tables, may still be seen; and the modern pageant of Shrewsbury Show serves to recal the nature of the festivals these bodies kept up in former times.

With the founders of Shrewsbury's most valued institutions-a list including royal personages as well as private citizens-we find education and religion cared for. In some instances the funds of one were diverted to meet the wants of the other, as in the case of the Grammar School, founded by King Edward, and endowed by him out of the dissolved colleges of St. Mary's and St. Chad's. This valuable institution, enriched from time to time by subsequent endowments, has been fortunate in its masters, and eminently successful in sending out clever men, who have not unfrequently attained great eminence.

The Severn having completed its silvery crescent round the tower, falls back into a reverse and graceful curve in the direction of Uffington, a little village, pleasantly situated, three miles from Shrewsbury. Behind it rises the wooded steep of Haughmond, crowned by a castellated turret on the side next the river. Down these steep rocks-so tradition tellsEarl Douglas leaped his horse and fell, after the battle of Shrewsbury. A dark thicket of firs upon its brow is still called the Queen's Bower, from a legend that Queen Eleanor watched the progress of the battle in which the fortunes of her husband were involved. Sundorn, the seat of the Corbets, with its lawn and lakes and ornamental grounds, occupies an opening in the dark mantling chace to the west. On the same

side against the same dark background are the ruins of Haughmond, an abbey founded by Henry I., who gave its monks the pannage of the neighbouring woods, and rights of Weir and fishing in the Tern. They had, as we have seen, mills to grind and cooks to dress their food, and incomes from churches as far off as Coventry and Norwich; indulgences, too, were granted by Pope Boniface to penitents who should visit the monastery. Its chapter-house is a beautiful one of its kind. Archæologists visiting these ruins are pained to find how much they have been tampered with by modern builders, in taking portions down and "turning others to account.'

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Leaving Uffington, with Haughmond hill behind us, and passing Preston Boats, we find Longmore Hall on the left, the mansion of the Burtons, one of whom, an ancestor of the present Squire lies buried in the garden. He was refused interment in the family vault of St. Chads because he had been so wicked as to die of joy upon the occasion of Queen Elizabeth coming to the throne.

The village of Atcham, with its bridge, church, and well-known inn, are now before us. These, with Attingham hall-the seat of Lord Berwick, where the Tern comes down to join the Severn, are objects familiar to old travellers along the Holyhead road. On passing the bridge, the river winds caressingly around a grassy knoll, on which stands the quaint and quiet village church, whose form is reflected by its placid waters. The green tresses shed of the luxurious ivy, serve to conceal facts which show the real age of the structure, tolerable indications of which, however, are to be found in the fact that stones forming sections of a Roman arch, and a portion of a sculptured Roman column, form a part of its walls. These, no doubt, were part of the spoil of the ancient city of Uriconium lower down. Among the relics the old building contains is the reading-desk, carved, it is said, by Albert Durer; the panels of which represent passages in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Atcham is celebrated as being the residence of an able Salopian author, who lived soon after the Norman Conquest, and who faithfully recorded the transactions of his time. The Rev. H. Burton, who takes great pride in this venerable fabric, has done much to improve and restore it. The river, after winding considerably, below Atcham, passes the site of the ancient city of Uriconium. The first thing which strikes you upon alighting on this rich bit of table-land, bounded by the graceful winding of the Severn on one side, and by the farfamed Wrekin, that once lent its name to the great city, on the other-is the situation. Verily the old Romans, or whoever selected it, must have had some taste for the beautiful, some liking for pure air-for air filtered by trees and purified by hills. Like Caersws, it is the centre of an amphitheatre of hills, a position in harmony with the genius and daring of the people. Beyond the river, on whose waters the Britons

paddled their wicker boats, are seen the keenbacked Lawley, the pointed Caradoc, the roundtopped Longmynds, the craggy Stiperstones; and, higher up the valley, the stately Brieddens, the hills of Llangollen, and others meet the eye. And, if we except some forest-lands where red deer bounded and the wild boar stood at bay, the state of the surface is not far different from the time when the sound of Roman trumpets and the shout of imperial legions broke the echo of the hills. From very childhood one has wondered at those hardy sons of Romulus, who dared the deep and came so far from home, ransacking our mines, and leaving roads, cities, and forms of government as indications of their presence. And here is the quiet sunlight let in once more upon their streets, their habitations, their gods, their goods, their personal ornaments, and the skeletons of the men themselves. You walk their streets, cross their thresholds, and stand where Roman slaves ushered in their masters' visitors to parties of festivity, or council deliberating upon more serious matters. After a lapse of fifteen hundred years, during which the surface has many times changed masters, you tread their mosaic pavements, the ornamented passages of their mansions, handle their domestic utensils, admire their well-turned arches, and see the very paint and plaster upon the walls of their apartments. The" old wall" that stood mute for centuries, like some old world relic, has grown eloquent: a veritable sphynx by the roadside, suggesting enigmas to the passers by, it has found its interpreter in the revelations the pick and spade have made within reach of its own shadow. From the very time when its fellow-walls first fell down with a crash, the city has furnished plunder for the country round. The old monks, who found it easier to take down its stones than to quarry new ones, built their churches with its spoil; whilst the old fragment to which we alluded, itself served as a perpetual advertisement of treasures buried around it. That a suspicion of the wealth which lay beneath its dark soil led persons who knew little or nothing of its history to poach upon its preserves, is evidenced by the fact that it was only upon the ground that they had found nothing, that a party of treasure seekers, detected digging by night, escaped the terrors of the Wroxeter manorial court in the thirteenth century. During the latter end of the past, and the first half of the present centuries much treasure has been removed; for, notwithstanding the jealous care taken by the lords of the soil to secure objects dug up, or turned up by the plough, there is scarcely a cottager for miles round but has done a small but profitable trade in coins or other articles of value. We have been told, by farmers in villages near, of Roman skulls having been used by their men as lanterns, for which they said they were suited by reason of their large size. To become the Cicerone of the reader over the old town whose streets so long since have ceased to echo to the tread of its inhabitants, let us mark its ancient circuit as

indicated by the broad mound and hollow, left by its walls and fosse-forming an irregular oval. We enter from that well-known Roman road, Old Watling-street, by one running at right angles, parallel with the Old Wall, and paved with small smooth stones, like many of our modern towns. North of this we come upon a beautiful tesselated pavement, highly ornamental, having an elegant border. Light and dark coloured stones of small size and oblong form, three inches long and one or one-and-a-half square at the surface, were employed to work out the design; but in the decorative border alluded to another of a red colour was added. A similar pavement was found at a short distance, indicating the existence of rooms of some pretension. A passage 14 feet broad, paved with bricks three inches long by one in width, set in what is called herring-bone fashion, leads from hence to a large rectangular enclosure, 226 feet in length by three in width. South of the Old Wall, where doorways have been found, worn by feet, we come upon the domestic apartments of the establishment, to which belonged the rooms on the other side, where are several apartments with hypocausts, for the purpose of warming the buildings, and from which the heat was conducted by flue-tiles to other apartments. These are in an excellent state of preservation, with pillars supporting the floors of the rooms, and portions of the flooring itself still standing. Upon a flooring of bricks are raised pillars of small square quarries, at a distance of two or three feet apart. On the tops of these are others projecting till they meet, and having holes to admit the heat. On these again is concrete-liquid mortar, and broken tiles-to form the flooring. One hypocaust had a room, with a semicircular recess over it, 37 feet by 25, communicating with another similarly provided. The hypocaust under the latter was approached by a stone staircase from without, and at the bottom of the latter, on a little platform, where the sweepings of the establishment had accumulated, was found a mine of old pottery, glass, coins, hair-pins, bones of edible animals of the time-wild boar tusks, red deer horns, &c., &c. Three of the rooms on this, the south side of the old wall, appear to have had vaulted roofs, and one is supposed to have been used as a store-room, judging from some burnt wheat found there. The human skeletons met with in different portions of the ruins are supposed to afford evidence of the massacre of the inhabitants. Five of these appear to have been pursued and slaughtered in an open court south of the old wall, and three others to have perished in one of the hypocausts, where they had fled for safety. One of the latter was evidently an old man, with whom the ruling passion was strong in death; for near him were a heap of Roman coins, 132 in number, and among them small nails and bits of decomposed wood, as though they had been contained in a box of that material. These coins were all, excepting one