the three-mile walk of Piercefield Terrace is far less gratifying than the same distance would prove through the wild greenwood, or over the breezy hills. Maugre all this, we owe much to the taste which has adorned this place, and to the liberality which has thrown it open to the public for their gratification.

The attractions of Piercefield arise from the peculiar features of nature, forming almost every element in pictorial composition, which are assembled on this spot, or which belong to its neighbourhood. The park itself is comparatively small, not extending over more than three hundred acres, in the centre of which is the mansion; but the varieties on its surface, and the manner in which it gently undulates on one side, and on the other descends precipitately into a deep vale,

the thick majestic woods, which encompass some portions of it, and the graceful masses that adorn others,—the single trees that fling their arms on all sides in supreme beauty,the gentle slopes, the rising hills, the stern bald crags, the rolling river giving the sweet voice of its waters to the umbrage around, the mingling of colours under the first tints of Autumn, the sublime, the terrific, and the beautiful, singularly, and as it were, accidentally combined, give to Piercefield a charm, which makes it the Hafod or the Elan of Monmouthshire. The hand of taste has been here too, not in its crudities and patchwork, but in its enchanting disclosures of the natural beauties and sublime originals of the place, in its graceful combinations and in its captivating allurements of shades and openings, and winning promises of fresh delights to the onward visiter. The kindly feeling of the proprietor is obvious in the provision he has made of walks and ascents for the most comprehensive views, of resting places for the foot of the traveller, of grottoes scooped from the rocks, and of flower-embroidered alcoves, where the wood's minstrelsy may be most enjoyed, and in the labour he has employed to afford engagement to the memory and

the fancy, while the senses have been thus regaled,—and all this surrounded, as it is, by the wild and untameable in nature, by gibbous and craggy rocks, precipices, magnificent mountains, the boundless forest, and tracks of heath and moorland.

The proprietor to whom Piercefield owes its improvement, and the public their enjoyment, was Mr. Valentine Morris. His history is short and melancholy. In the course of the American war he was appointed governor of of the island of St. Vincent, where he expended a large sum from his own private fortune in its fortifications. Upon its fall, the minister of the day disavowed his claim for compensation. His creditors became clamorous, and he was cast into the King's Bench prison, where he languished for twelve years. He was released from his confinement, broken in health and spirits, suffering most of all from the domestic calamity which his fallen fortunes had produced in the insanity of his wife, and shortly after he died at the house of a relative in London. He was a generous and benevolent man, as the poor of his neighbourhood could well testify. On his departure for the West Indies, they came in troops to bid him a tearful farewell, and the muffled bells of the neighbouring church rang a funeral knell as he left the home of his love, and the scenes which he had embellished both by his taste and his life.

From Llancaut Crags, on the opposite bank, a view is gained little inferor to the one at Windcliff: indeed, the difficulty would be to find a spot in this picture-like neighbourhood whence some grand or picturesque prospect could not be enjoyed; and numerous delightfully situated residences prove how well the surrounding beauties are appreciated.

On approaching Chepstow, the main point of attraction is its ancient Castle, a grand ruin crowning the whole length of a projecting rock, near which a handsome iron bridge spans