as in the old house of Charles
Hoar's, previously mentioned.

Now if we turn from the north view to the west, we get a different
landscape. Right before us, a mile off, is Robin's Wood Hill,
a Cotteswold outlier; in Saxon times called "Mattisdun" or
"Meadow-hill," for it is grassed to the top, among its trees.
"Matson" House, there at its foot, was the abode of Charles
I. during his siege of Gloucester in 1643. To the left of
this hill we have again the Vale of the Severn, and beyond
it, a dozen miles away, and stretching for twenty miles to
the southwest are the hills of the Forest of Dean. They are
steep, but not lofty--eight hundred or nine hundred feet.
At their foot yonder, fourteen miles off, is the lake-like
expanse of the Severn; and where it narrows to something under
a mile is the Severn Bridge that carries the line into the
Forest from the Midland Railway. Berkeley Castle lies just
on the left of it, but is buried in the trees. Thornbury
Tower, if not Thornbury Castle, further south, is visible
when the sun strikes on it. Close to the right of the bridge
is an old house that belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh; and,
curiously enough, another on the river bank not far above
it is said to have been occupied by Sir Francis Drake just
before the coming of the Armada. The Duke of Medina Sidonia,
who commanded the Spanish fleet, was ordered to detach a force
as soon as he landed, to destroy the Forest of Dean, which
was a principal source for timber for the British navy; and
it is probable that the Queen's ministers were aware of this
and took measures in defence, with which Drake had to do.

Two miles lower than the bridge is the Forest port of Lydney,
now chiefly used for shipping coal; and as the ex-Verderer
of the Forest resides near it, and he would be able to furnish
information of interest to our American visitor, we decided
to drive to Lydney to begin.

It was too late to start the same day, however; and Senator
Hoar stayed at Upton, where his visit happens to mark the
close of what is known as the "open-field" system of tillage;
a sort of midway between the full possession of land by freehold,
and unrestricted common rights. The area over which he walked,
and which for thousands of years has been divided by "meres"
and boundary stones, is now to be enclosed, and so will lose
its archaeological claims to interest. In one corner of it,
however, there still remains a fragment of Roman road, with