poor fellow, whose home was in a remote part of Cornwall, and who, fancying himself the last, if not the best, of the Cornubian or Cymrian bards, invoked his Muse, not of Parnassus, but rather of the venerable druidical hill of Carn Brêh, or Penringhuaed,-in Celtic, the Promontory of Blood, to compose a long Elegy on the lamented death of the Princess Charlotte, and an epistle of condolence to his Royal Highness Prince Leopold. With this bardish, or rather barbarous effusion, he set out on foot from his native village, and walked the whole way to London to obtain an audience, and present it to the prince. On his arrival in town, he was taken ill and confined for several days to his miserable lodgings. When he recovered, to his great disappointment, he found that the prince had quitted London, and was gone to reside at Came House, near Dorchester. He found, too, that all his money was spent, and that he must part with his watch, the purchase of his early youth, to defray the expenses incurred by his sickness and protracted stay in London, and to enable him to return to his distant home.

But the poor old bard journeyed not in despair. Dorchester lay in his road back, and he felt assured that when he got access to present his

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exquisite verses to Prince Leopold, his Highness would amply repay him for all his toils on the way, and enable him to return with overflowing pockets to his anxious wife and family. In good time, the wandering minstrel reached the capital of Dorsetshire; but he was now pennyless, and had nothing left to pledge, save the garments with which he was poorly clad. I chanced to be at the same inn where this Celtic Cornubian had put up, was informed by the landlord of his Quixotic journey, and entreated to read his Elegy. The tale of his toilsome wanderings had something wild and romantic in it, and I felt eager to see and converse with him. introduction, I found him to be a plain countryman, rude and unlettered, and totally dissimilar in every respect to those ideas we conceive of the ancient minstrels, the attendants and companions of kings and renowned warriors; yet so confident of the ultimate success of his poetry, as to leave no room for sympathetic sorrow at his disappointments. He soon produced a large sheet of paper, divided in several places by frequent folding and much soiled by repeated use, and placing it in my hands with an air of proud satisfaction, bade me read the very best verses yet composed on the melancholy occasion. I found

tion, and was the means subsequently of my disposing of many copies. Miss Emina Parker, who also resides there, became a purchaser, and expressed a flattering opinion of its merits. Indeed throughout the island, I met with great kindness and civility, which I shall not speedily forget. My success at Portsmouth was very limited; but at Winchester, with Miss O'Keefe's recommendations, it became considerably improved, and my list was augmented by several highly respectable names.

This city, my friend, is a most ancient and interesting place, having been for many ages the Saxon capital of the kingdom, and the scene of numerous remarkable events. My stay there was very short, and I had not time to view half its antiquities. Its British name was Caer Gwent, or the White City; but that it was built, as some suppose, by the Celtic king, Ludor Rous Hudibrass, 892 years before Christ, is an idle dream of ignorant historians. The fact is, that St. Catherine's Hill was the original British city of Caer Gwent. On its summit are to be found the irregular and lofty entrenchments of the Celts, such as surround all their hill-cities; and not far from it is a true British earth-work, forming a labyrinth for the exercise and sports of their

warlike youth, and which to this day is much frequented by the young students of Winchester College, In the valley below, and on the green banks of the Twyford, are still to be seen the rock-altars and pillars of the druids; and it is well known that their temples were seldom if ever erected within the earth-built ramparts of their defenced cities, but in the solemn retirement of groves and forests. On the subjugation of this mountain-fortress by the Romans, that people laid the foundations of the present Winchester, which from Gwent Bolg, the name given to the original fortress by the invading Belgæ, who three hundred years before had driven out and extirpated the ancient Celtic inhabitants, they softened into Venta Belgarum.

But I must be as concise as possible. Here are the ruins of ecclesiastic and royal castles, splendid palaces, superb monasteries, with a magnificent convent-cathedral still in fine preservation. The original cathedral, according to Rudborne and others, was built by Lucius, the first Christian king in Britain. Milner says, “As the Grecian architecture was then perfectly understood and practised, and as South Britain was at the same time in the highest state of civilization and refinement, we cannot doubt of

the cathedral's being built in that style." After the destruction of this church, during the tenth persecution, another arose from its ashes; which, when this city fell into the hands of the desolating Saxons, become the temple of Frea, Thor, and Woden. To this city, according to a work entitled Nero Cesar, was brought the body of Boadicea, who at the head of 230,000 ferocious Britons, had carried death and destruction through all the eastern Romanized stations. Here was her corpse burnt on the funeral pile with all the solemn magnificence, the druidical rites and barbarous superstitions, which the British tribes could pay to her memory. Here, in 519, Cerdic, its conqueror, founder of the English monarchy, was solemnly crowned King of Wessex; and with the diadem placed on his head and a gigantic sword in his hand, was carried on a shield by his nobles, amid the thundering shouts of his barbarous host, around the blood-stained idols of the north, while the smoke of the horrid sacrifices of the dead polluted the sanctuary of the house of God. From the period of that grandly savage ceremony performed on this spot, rose the empire of the West Saxons, which extended over the whole Octarchy, and continued increasing