however infignificant, has its university-educated native clergyman, who preaches in eloquent Welsh, and many of whom, as well as the native nobility and gentry, pay great attention to the language as a rich philological study, and discover in it traces of the highest antiquity, close kinship even to the oldest and nobleft languages of the earth. In this respect also the Eisteddfod may be called a national college. Nevertheless, it is to be wished that whilft all means fhould be used to preferve this fine old language as a spoken tongue, English were more generally understood by the people; pious, intelligent people as they are; but whofe dim Sassenach makes them as sealed books to the friendly English tourist or refident. But ftill, the power, deep fentiment, and mufical cadence of this remarkable_language, are often exhibited even to these in the little prayer meetings of the wayfide or village chapel, where the impaffioned and eloquent utterances of the foul are poured forth in the minor key, with an eloquence and pathos which even a Beethoven could not furpass.

Before clofing this long article on Conway, we must mention with approbation the good taste and judgment with which the great works of modern improvement and civilization—the suspenfion bridge, and the railway-works-are made, not only to harmonize with the castle, but even to add to it new features of beauty and dignity.

The castle is the property of the Crown, but is now held by Lady Erskine.

Goodrich Castle and Court.

Through shattered galleries, 'mid roofless halls,
Wandering with timid footstep oft betrayed,
The stranger fighs, nor fcruples to upbraid

Old Time; though He, gentlest among the thralls
Of Destiny, upon these wounds hath laid

His lenient touches, foft as light that falls

From the wan moon, upon the towers and walls,
Light deepening the profoundest sleep of shade.
Relic of kings! wreck of forgotten wars,
To winds abandoned, and the prying stars,
Time loves thee! At his call the seasons twine
Luxuriant wreaths around thy forehead hoar;
And, though paft pomp no changes can restore,
A foothing recompenfe, his gifts, are thine!

6

WORDSWORTH.

NE of the most striking beauties of the river Wye, is the tendency which it has to ftrike out fine circles in its course, sometimes almost as true as if ftruck by compaffes. These, amid alternating rocks and woods, and verdant meadows, are not only delightful to the eye themselves, but give to the advancing traveller all the charms of rural beauty. One of these fine sweeps occurs at Goodrich, about four miles from Rofs, in Herefordshire, and on a bold promontory encircled thus by the beautiful stream, stand the remains of Goodrich Castle, till the time of the wars of the Commonwealth one of the strongest fortreffes of England.

This caftle was granted in the fifth year of King John to William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who married Isabel, the sole heiress of the famous Strongbow, conqueror of Ireland, and succeeded to his vast estates. He was the fame Earl of Pembroke who advised Henry III. to grant the Great Charter. It afterwards went into the family of the De Valences, from whom it paffed by marriage to the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury, and remained theirs till 1616, when Gilbert, the seventh Earl, left three daughters his coheireffes. To one of these, Elizabeth, fell Goodrich, and she carried it by marriage to her husband, Henry Grey, Earl of Kent, who died in 1639 without iffue. The castle and estate then passed to his next relatives, who became Earls and afterwards Dukes of Kent. At the demife of Henry, the last Duke of Kent of that family, it paffed by purchase in 1740 to the Griffins of Hadnock : and a few years ago it was bought by Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick,

of Goodrich Court.

The caftle is moft famous for the ftout refiftance that it made in 1646, when it was held for the king by Sir Richard Lingen, against the Parliament force under Colonel Birch, to whom, however, it was eventually compelled to surrender.

It appears that Colonel Birch marched out of Hereford on the morning of March the 10th, with a party of horse and foot, and was joined at Goodrich by the horse of Colonel Kirle from Monmouth, and the firelocks of Rumfey. They fell on the stables and took fixty-four horses, with hay and other provifions. They burnt down the ftables, and then went into the paffage-house, seized the officers and foldiers in it, and invested the castle. The fiege continued till the 31ft of July, nearly four months. The castle was exceedingly strong, being built on a rock, and of the ftone dug out of the ditch, so that the ditch was very deep, and the walls and

towers were raised on maffive pyramidal bastions, like some of the towers at Chepstow. The nearer approach to the castle was defended by a fucceffion of gates and deep foffes and drawbridges. What these defences were may be imagined from this recent description :-"The body of the keep is an exact square of twenty feet. The additions made to

GOODRICH CASTLE.

this fortress down to the time of Henry VI. begin with the very strongly fortified entrance, which, commencing between two semicircular towers of unequal dimenfions, near the east angle, was continued under a dark vaulted paffage to an extent of fifty feet. Immediately before this entrance, and

within the space enclosed by the foffe, was a very deep pit, hewn out of the folid rock, formerly croffed by a drawbridge, which is now gone. About eleven feet within this paffage was a maffy gate. This gate and the drawbridge were defended on each fide by loopholes, and overhead by rows of machicolations for pouring down melted lead, etc., on the heads of affailants. Six feet and a half beyond this was a portcullis, and about seven further a second portcullis; and the space between these was again protected by loopholes and machicolations. About two feet more inward was another strong gate, and five feet and a half beyond this on the right a small door leading to a long, narrow gallery, only three feet high, formed in the thickness of the wall, and which was the means of access to the loopholes in the eastern tower, as well as to fome others that commanded the brow of the steep precipice towards the North-east. These works appear to have been thought fufficient for general defence; but a resource was ingeniously contrived for greater security in case they had been forced, for a little further on are massy stone projections in the wall on each fide, like pilasters, manifeftly defigned for inserting great beams of timber within them, like bars from one fide of the passage to the other, so as to form a strong barricade, with earth or stones between the rows of timber, which would in a short time form a strong, massy wall."

In the days of mere bows and battle-axes this would have been found an unafsailable stronghold, and even Colonel Birch, with such cannon and mortars as they had in those days, seems to have been rather staggered by the sturdy ftrength of the place; for when he had lain before it till the beginning of June, he wrote to the Committee of Parliament begging for battering cannon; "or elfe," he said, "I may fit long enough before it." He had, up to that time, it appears, only two mortar-pieces,