He then began
building Fonthill Abbey, shrouding his proceedings in the greatest
mystery and surrounding his estate with a wall twelve feet high and
seven miles long, guarded by _chevaux-de-frise_ to keep out intruders.
The building of the abbey was to him a romance pursued with wild
enthusiasm. So anxious was he to get it finished that he employed relays
of men, working day and night and throughout Sunday, keeping them
liberally supplied with liquor. The first tower was built of wood, four
hundred feet high, to see its effect, and it was then taken down and the
same form put up in wood covered with cement. This fell down, and the
third tower was built of masonry. When the idea of the abbey occurred to
Beckford he was extending a small summer-house, but he was in such a
hurry that he would not remove the summer-house to make a proper
foundation for the tower, but carried it up on the walls already
standing, the work being done in wretched style and chiefly by
semi-drunken men. He employed five hundred men day and night at the
work, and once the torches used set fire to the tower at the top, a
sight that he greatly enjoyed. Beckford lived at the abbey, practically
a hermit, for nearly twenty years, but his fortunes being impaired he
removed to Bath in 1822. Preparatory to selling Fonthill, he opened the
long-sealed place to public exhibition at a guinea a ticket, and sold
seventy-two hundred tickets. Then for thirty-seven days he conducted an
auction-sale of the treasures at Fonthill, charging a half-guinea
admission. He ultimately sold the estate for $1,750,000. In 1825 the
tower, which had been insecurely built, fell with a great crash, and so
frightened the new owner, who was an invalid, that, though unhurt by
the disaster, he died soon afterwards. The estate was again sold and the
abbey taken down, so that now only the foundations can be traced.

BRISTOL.

Proceeding about twelve miles down the beautiful valley of the Avon, we
come to its junction with the Frome, where is located the ancient city
and port of Bristol, the capital of the west of England. A magnificent
suspension-bridge spans the gorge of the Avon, connecting Bristol with
its suburb of Clifton, and it is believed that the earliest settlements
by the Romans were on the heights of Clifton and the adjoining Brandon
Hill. The Saxons called it Bright-stow, or the "Illustrious City;" from
this the name changed to Bristow, as it was known in the twelfth
c