I visited the latter place during the last summer.  It was a glorious sunset in July, when after climbing a long and mazy turret-stair, we stood at the summit of Dundry Tower.  A magnificent landscape of vast extent, stretching around on every point of the compass, burst almost simultaneously on the sight, embracing views of the Bristol Channel, the mountains of South Wales and Monmouthshire, the Severn, Gloucestershire and the Malvern Hills, Bath, the Vale of White Horse in Berkshire, and the Mendip Range; while at the foot of the rich champagne valley below you, which gradually descends for about five miles, lies the city of Bristol with its numerous fine churches; and a splendid view of Clifton completed the scene.  This may be said to be a succession of truly English landscapes.

The recollection of such a moment as this, is treasured up in the memory as a green spot in the oasis of existence.  Fancies come thickly crowding on the mind, which banish for the moment, all feelings of the drear realities of life; if one may be pardoned for being sometimes romantic, it is surely on such occasions as these.  We descended the tower—­“Please remember the Sexton——!”

The church of Dundry is of great antiquity, and the tower, which is one of the most extraordinary in England, is a fine specimen of early church architecture.

There is another tower, remarkable for the beauty of its situation, which overlooks the Avon, about two miles west of Clifton, at the extremity of the Downs.  It is of an octagonal shape, and its name (Cooke’s Folly) is said to be derived from the following circumstance:—­ Several centuries since, the proprietor of the land, a gentleman named Cooke, dreamed that his only son was destined to be killed by the sting of an adder.  This idea took such hold of his mind, that in order to avert the dreaded catastrophe, he built this tower, to which he rigidly confined his son.  The tradition goes on to relate the futility of all human precautions against the decrees of fate:  for a short period after the erection of the tower, an attendant happening to bring in some bundles of fagots in which an adder was coiled, the youth was stung by it and died in consequence.

There has been a beautiful lithographic engraving, published in Bristol, of Cooke’s Folly, which includes a view of King’s Road.

VYVYAN.

* * * * *

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

* * * * *

THE GERMANS AND GERMANY.

Translated from a German Work, in the Foreign Review, No. 8.