figures of statuary on the sides are life size. The excellence and extent of the building of the Monastery and Church since the founder, Rev. Joseph Leycester Lyne, better known as Father Ignatius, O.S. B., laid the foundation stone of the Abbey on March 17th (St. Patrick's Day), 1870, show that there has been no apathy on his part.

He is a fervent religious enthusiast, or as he calls himself “an Anachronism," his object being the revival, in his sequestered nook, of the 14th century monasticism in the latter half of the 19th. He calls his building the Church of England Benedictine Monastery of S. Mary and S. Dunstan.

After visiting the Monastery, the ascent was made of the hill under Tarenyr-Esgob, about half a mile further. The huge mass of Travertine Rock at Tal-ysarn, 24 feet wide, 30 feet high (according to the dimensions given in Transactions, 1867, page 47) was examined. This mass of Calcareous Tufa had evidently fallen from the heights above which appeared to be either constituted of, or at least to be coated with an unknown thickness of, this same material. From its appearance the mass has obtained the appropriate name of "The Honeycomb Rock." Moreover it is hollowed so as to form a small cave which is called "Twlch-y-foel-las," or the cave of the grey stone. Query? Is this the cave previously referred to on page 201 as being, on the authority of Drayton, called "St. David's cavern?"

Whilst engaged in the examination of this Travertine, after a fruitless attempt to scale the nearly vertical heights above it, a thorough-born native named James Lewis appeared on the scene and proposed himself as our guide to the waterfall about half a mile further. His invitation was accepted. These falls have been frequently written of under the term "falls of Afon Honddu." They are really the falls of a tributary brook called "Nant Bwch"; the neighbouring farm-house on the opposite left or northern-side is called "Blaenbwch." This brook, meandering through the green solitude, falls into the Honddu about two hundred yards below the Church of Capel-y-ffyn.

The time to return to Llanthony Abbey was now due, so with hurried steps the five miles of ground was retraced. Upon arrival at the Abbey green at 5.30 what remained of the original party was found taking their seats for the return journey to Llanvihangel Railway Station whence they proceeded home, picking up the complement at Pandy. All had pleasant recollections of the day, excepting only the cold luncheon from which they had so hurriedly dispersed in the earlier part of the day.

It would be unpardonable to quit Llanthony without some few reflections upon the connection of the late Walter Savage Landor with this locality. It is not, however, a theme sufficiently inviting to say much about, for this intellectual genius for years retained unpleasant reminiscences of it. He was born on January 30th, 1775, in Warwick, where his father was the leading physician; his mother was Elizabeth Savage, of Tachbrooke. Exchanging his inheritance in Warwickshire for a wilderness in Wales, he burdened his estate heavily in order to possess himself of it, and lost so much money on projected improvements that he was ruined before he could complete them. We have his "Biography," a book of two

volumes, by John Forster-Chapman and Hall, 1869. Forster also edited a nearly complete edition of his entire writings. This year, 1891, his "Imaginary Conversations," in six volumes has been edited by C. G. Crump. Forster shows (page 309) † how the acquisition of the Abbey cost him much more than was justified or was repaid by any happiness it yielded him, for no sooner was he in possession of it than there commenced an "uninterrupted series of vexations and disappointments in connection with it." His praiseworthy wish was to restore the magnificent centre nave, towards which the many stones which were taken down and numbered only added to the fragments of the ruin. He made his residence in the shooting box, originally fitted up by Colonel Wood, in the southern tower, now the Inn, with its antique kitchen at its base, the arched refectory serving as a cellar, portion of the adjacent abbot's residence fitted up for domestic purposes, as well as contiguous buildings now used as a farm. His efforts of restoration of the mountain wastes, of the Church and Abbey ruins, and of the shocking impassable roads of nearly a century ago, terminated in a lamentable and despairing failure. In 1810 he writes (page 318), "my house is not half-finished and has cost already two thousand pounds. I think seriously of filling it with chips and straw and setting fire to it. I doubt whether they (the Welsh) will allow me to make improvements, I am certain they will not allow me to enjoy them. I have expended in labour, within three years, eight thousand pounds amongst them, and yet they treat me as their greatest enemy." His planting did not thrive; his cedar-groves were like the groves of romance, and he saw the million trees with which he had indulged his fancy daily decaying or being rooted up by his enemies. He began by buying two thousand cones, calculating a hundred seeds to each, and believing that such had really been the product, "but, alas! the rains and field-mice have hardly left me a thousand, I must begin again; and instead of raising a hundred and fifty thousand trees, must be contented with fifty thousand, or perhaps with thirty." At last, as an oasis in the desert, a bright spot appears, as we read, "I have made a discovery, which is, that there are both nightingales and glowworms in my valley. I would give two or three thousand pounds less for a place that was without them;" and again when he writes in 1811 to Southey, "I have found a girl without a sixpence. . . She is pretty, graceful, and good-tempered," of whom he says, writing to his mother, "The name of my intended bride is Julia Thuillier. She has no pretensions of any kind, and her want of fortune was the very thing which determined me to marry her." In 1812 (page 333) he wrote again, "Violent floods have carried away two bridges. I am engaged in building a third also for the union of two farms now under one tenant." And in August of the same year he writes, "My masons have left me, after a job of three years. I live in my house merely to keep it dry, just as a man would live in a dog kennel to guard his house. I hate and detest the very features of the country, so much vexation have I experienced in it. . . . I never can be happy here, or comfortable, or at peace" (page 335).

* Since that period his Poems, Dialogues in Verse, and Epigrams have (1892) been brought out by the same Editor, making a total of eight volumes: reviewed in Macmillan's Magazine for February, 1893.

+ Forster's "Biography of Walter Savage Landor.

Injury is added to insult by the removal of his boundary fences, and the uprooting of his trees so that not one hundredth part of his million trees that were to have enriched his estate, eight miles long, is now represented.

In 1813 we find, from a letter to his friend Southey, that he is overwhelmed in disputes of an irreconcileable bitterness with his tenant "Betham," who, unfortunately, had been introduced by Southey, through one of his (Southey's) sisters. "Mr. Betham neglected to gather in his corn of which his crop is excellent, and he lost £200 by this; he did not thatch his hay by which he lost £200 more; and by a series of such conduct as might be expected from a sailor turned farmer, and by living at the rate of £1000 a year, he has succeeded in spending his wife's fortune, about £3000. In fifteen months I have received no rent from him, though his rent amounts to over £1100. I did not demand it the first half-year however much I wanted it; and that he might not pay it the second he lopped my trees and ploughed all the meadow ground on one farm.

To prevent my other meadows from being ruined, I have (as he foresaw and wished) brought an action against him, but expressed at the same time a readiness to settle it by arbitration. This he refused; and refuses also to pay any rent, under the pretext that the matters in dispute will be settled in a court of law." In the same letter follow charges of " 'roguery and ingratitude." "Betham told Addis, my tenant, and a very honest mason, that he should pay me no rent at all events for four years. Here is between four and five thousand pounds gone by trusting to his honour. I suffered the same infatuation before " (p. 387).

Matters grow worse to still further embitter his life, as sundry minor differences with all sorts and conditions of men who took Betham's part spring out. Insult is added to injury. Lawsuits follow unfavourably for him in quick succession. In a letter to Southey, conveyed by the post of May 27th, 1814, he writes (page 406), "I go to-morrow to St. Malo. My wife follows me when I have found a place for her reception. Adieu." And on November 4th of the same year he writes from Tours (page 414) full of gratitude for the sympathy of Southey, "I am told that all my woods and plantations are laid waste; three hundred thousand trees are lost-but not to me-nor have I room for any more vexations."

From 1814 to 1835 he lived, save for a short time abroad, and chiefly at Fiesole. During this interval of nineteen years, owing to the economical and judicious management of his more prudent mother he is more fortunate with his real estate. She, becoming the first of his creditors, demands conditionally the management of Llanthony, and a few years after her death we find that in 1835 (page 557) his estates of Llanthony and Ipsley may be said, at a rough calculation, to have been yielding very certainly more than £3000 a year rental. From 1837 to 1858 he was at Bath. At the age of 83 he flies from England once more, and the last stage of his long and strange life of nearly ninety years is spent, thanks chiefly to Robert Browning, in comparative peace: bearing his years with but little loss of intellectual power, he died at Florence, September 17th, 1864, maintaining an unquailing heroic aspect to its close,

"Implored so long in vain, at last is come

The hour that leads me to a peaceful home."
(Page 586).

and leaving behind him, in the estimation of critics, a surely awaiting fame, although the public has failed to admire his "Imaginary Conversations." The vast stores of his entire works embrace forty or fifty thousand lines of verse and some three thousand large and closely-printed pages of prose, of which, says George Saintsbury, in his review (Macmillan's Magazine, February, 1893), "the verse might almost always be, according to the old trick, 'unrhymed' and made into prose with but slight alterations; the prose, with certain allowances for greater exuberance and verbosity, in parts might with hardly greater trouble be arranged into Landorian verse."

LLANTHONY ABBEY.

By the Rev. JOHN DAVIES, of Pandy.

THERE are two important descriptions of Llanthony Abbey in the Archeologia Cambrensis, one is by the late Rev. George Roberts, M.A., of Monmouth, the other by the late Professor Freeman, the eminent historian and archæologist. Mr. Roberts' description appeared in the year 1846, and has been published since in a pamphlet form, and Mr. Freeman's appeared some ten years later.

Mr. Roberts has entered largely into the history of the Abbey, which he has worked out at considerable length and with great success. Mr. Roberts infers that the Church now remaining is the original one, and that the architectural details confirm his views. Mr. Freeman, on the other hand, has not entered into the general history of the foundation, but he has given a remarkably lucid and exhaustive architectural history of the remains of the Church and other buildings of the Monastery. Mr. Roberts says that Llanthony was built between 1108 and 1136, but much nearer the former date than the latter, as it was abandoned for Gloucester at the latter period. He puts therefore the completion of the structure not later than the year 1115. Mr. Freeman says that such an early date is impossible, and proves this beyond all gainsaying, if the details can speak for themselves. Mr. Roberts has taken for granted that the present Church at Llanthony was the one founded by Hugh de Lacy, Earl of Hereford, in 1108. The architectural style of the Church proves beyond any doubt that the work belongs to a later period than that between 1108 and 1115. If the work was carried on between these dates, we should have expected to find almost everything Norman in the architecture, but Llanthony has nothing Norman about it, except that it retains the cushion-capital in its decorative shafts, and the round arch in some of its smaller apertures. The Church could not have been built till the very last year of the 12th, or the first years of the 13th century.

Llanthony is later than the earliest parts of St. David's and earlier than the nave of Llandaff, so that it stands in date between the two South Wales Cathedral Churches.

The earliest transitional building in England, according to Mr. Freeman, is Malmesbury Abbey, commenced about 1135, and is thoroughly Norman, except that its pier-arches are obtusely pointed, whereas the transitional work at Llanthony is far in advance of this, the west front being nearly confirmed lancet-work. Mr. Roberts puts the completion of the work at Llanthony not later than 1115: if such was the case we should have expected the work to be nearly all Norman.

Mr. Roberts' notion, and that of others who have followed him, of the present Church at Llanthony being the original must therefore be condemned. Architectural science is against it, and if architectural science proves anything, it proves that Mr. Roberts has taken the present building at Llanthony for an earlier one. The style of the present Church is a complete 13th century style.