n thinking that with ten or
twelve thousand souls, made of fire, and children of the mine, he
could upset Old England, and be himself the legitimate successor of
King Coal.

Another day we spent among the ruins of Llantony Abbey, one of the
finest remains of ecclesiastical architecture in the kingdom. The
person who owns the ground and the ruins, is a poet, a philosopher, a
scholar, so at least he wishes to be thought; but from the condition
of the abbey, (a small pot-house protruding its vulgar sign from one
of the noble entrances, and a skittle-ground being established in the
main aisle--desolation, neglect, and dirtiness all around,) we formed
no very high estimate of the taste or feeling of Mr Walter Savage
Landor. If he had no higher object than merely to keep up the beauty
of the building, you might expect that he would have guarded it from
the degradation of beer, tobacco, and British spirits. A man of a
poetical mind would have taken care to prevent such miserable
associations as are supplied by a tap and skittle-ground;--a person of
loftier and purer sentiments would have shown more reverence for the
_genius loci_, and would have remembered that the walls were once
vocal with Christian prayers, and that what in other instances would
be only negligence, is profanation here. But probably the innkeeper
pays his rent regularly, and we hope will be made the interlocutor in
an imaginary conversation with the last abbot of Llantony.

The object we had in coming into Wales was now entirely gained; and
after ten weeks most happy wanderings over hill and dale, and
constantly breathing the clear fresh air of Monmouthshire, we packed
up bag and baggage, and returned to our home with a stock of health
laid in for winter use, which will keep us constantly in mind of the
benefits we derived from change of scene.

NEAPOLITAN SKETCHES.

GARDEN OF THE VILLA REALE.

This garden--which, during the winter months, is the lounge of the
English idler at Naples, and then looks as flowerless and dingy as
Kensington in an east wind--assumes a very different appearance in
spring. On the 7th of May, we, who had passed the winter at Rome, were
at once struck with the brilliancy of unusual blossoms, and the number
of distinguished vegetable foreigners who lifted their heads out of
parterres, of the very existence of which in winter one is scarcely
conscious. The formal line of clipt _Ilex_ that looks towards the sea,
had chang