Might he not then just enter his monastery; take leave of his friends; and recommend himself to their prayers? All was to no purpose. He was dragged out of his litter, and laid upon a hurdle, to which a horse being yoked, he was drawn along the ground to the Torr, and there, to make the triumph complete, was hung up, in his monk's habit, and in fight of his monastery. It was a triumph, however, that was attended with the tears and lamentations of the whole country, which had long confidered this pious man, as a friend, benefactor, and father.

How far this fhocking story, in all its circumstances of strange precipitancy, and wanton cruelty, may be depended on, confidering the hands through which it is conveyed, may be matter of doubt: thus much, however, is certain, that if the picture here given of the royal favage of those days be not an exact portrait, it bears evidently a striking resemblance.

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SECT. XIII.

HAVING given a laft look at the picturefque ruins of Glastonbury, we left them with regret. That pure ftyle of Gothic, in which this grand houfe was composed, it is 'probable, gave the key-tone in architecture to all the churches in this neighbourhood; for it is certain a better taste prevails among them, as far as we observed, than in any other part of England through which we had travelled.

From Glaftonbury we took the road to Bridgewater, and paffed through a very fine

country.

About three miles beyond Piper's Inn, we mounted a grand natural terrace, called the heights of Pontic.

On the right we had the whole range of Mendip hills, which, though inconfiderable in themselves, made fome figure in this view, with pleasant favannahs stretching among them. Beyond the hills appeared the fea, and the ifland of Steep-holms. The nearer grounds, between this distance and the eye, were filled

with ample woods, which ranged, not in patches here and there difperfed, but in one extended furface of tufted foliage; for we saw little more from the heights on which we ftood, than the varied tops of the woods beneath us. The whole country, I believe, is a scene of cultivation; and the woods little more, in fact, than hedge-rows. But one row fucceeding another, the intermediate spaces are concealed, together with all the regularity of that mode of planting; and the whole appears, in the distance, as one vaft bed of foliage.

On the left we had the fame kind of country; only the hills on this fide of Pontic are much fuperior to those of Mendip on the other. Among the favannahs on this fide, fhoot the extensive plains of Sedgmore, which stretch far and wide before the eye. Here the unfortunate Monmouth tried his caufe with his uncle James; and all the country was afterwards the scene of those acts of brutality, which Kirk and Jefferies committed, and which are ftill remembered with horror and deteftation.

This vast distance, which we furveyed from the heights of Pontic, not only filled the eye with its grandeur as a whole, but was every where interfperfed with amusing objects, which adorned

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adorned its feveral divifions.

In one part

Lord Chatham's obelifk pointed out the domains of Pynfent. In another part we were told, the rich scenes before us were the woods of Sir Charles Tint. The tall fpire which arofe on the right belonged to the great church at Bridgewater; and the several little spots of water, glittering under the fun-beams, were reaches of the river Parret,

Inlaying, as with molton-glafs, the vale,
That spread beyond the fight.-

At the distance at which we ftood, we could not well unite all these bright spots of the river into a winding courfe; but the imagination easily traced the union.

The distances, indeed, from the heights of Pontic, are both grand and picturesque; picturesque, when thus reduced into parts; though in their immenfity greatly too extenfive for painting. The whole fcene was a tranflation of a paffage in Virgil, bringing before our eyes,

-Mare velivolum, terrafque jacentes,

Littoraque, et latos populos.

We have the fame view elsewhere:

From the mountain's ridge,

O'er tufted tops of intervening woods,
Regions on regions blended in the clouds.

I cannot forbear contrafting this grand view with a few bold ftrokes of distance, which Mofes gives us, when he tells us, "he went up "from the plains of Moab to the top of Pif

gah; from whence the Lord fhewed him all "the land of Gilead unto Dan, and all Naph"tali, and the land of Ephraim and Manaffeh, " and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost "fea; and on the fouth the plain of the valley of Jericho unto Zoar."

On Mr. Hoare's terrace we had feen the fpot where Alfred the Great mustered his fcattered troops to oppose the Danes. The country near Bridgewater affords a scene, where, on another occafion, he appeared in a different character.

Where the Thone and the Parret join their waters, they form between them a piece of ground, containing about two acres, which is called the Isle of Athelney. In Saxon times it was not only furrounded by water, but with woods and marshes to a great extent, and was in every part of very difficult accefs. Here the gallant Alfred retired in his diftreffes, when he fled before the Danes, after the battle of Wilton. At first he confidered it only as a place of refuge, and sustained himself by shoot