“O ye who dwell
    Around yon ruins, guard the precious charge
    From hands profane!  O save the sacred pile—­
    O’er which the wing of centuries has flown
    Darkly and silently, deep-shadowing all
    Its pristine honours—­from the ruthless grasp
    Of future violation.”

In contemplating these ruins more closely, the mind insensibly reverts to the period of feudal and regal oppression, when structures like that of Tintern Abbey necessarily became the scenes of stirring and highly-important events.  How altered is the scene!  Where were formerly magnificence and splendour; the glittering array of priestly prowess; the crowded halls of haughty bigots, and the prison of religious offenders; there is now but a heap of mouldering ruins.  The oppressed and the oppressor have long since lain down together in the peaceful grave.  The ruin, generally speaking, is unusually perfect, and the sculpture still beautifully sharp.  The outward walls are nearly entire, and are thickly clad with ivy.  Many of the windows are also in a good state of preservation; but the roof has long since fallen in.  The feathered songsters were fluttering about, and pouring forth their artless lays as a tribute of joy; while the lowing of the herds, the bleating of flocks, and the hum of bees upon the farm near by, all burst upon the ear, and gave the scene a picturesque sublimity that can be easier imagined than described.  Most assuredly Shakspere had such ruins in view when he exclaimed—­

   “The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve—­
    And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
    Leave not a wreck behind.”

In the afternoon we returned to Bristol, and I spent the greater part of the next day in examining the interior of Redcliffe Church.  Few places in the West of England have greater claims upon the topographer and historian than the church of St. Mary’s, Redcliffe.  Its antiquity, the beauty of its architecture, and above all the interesting circumstances connected with its history, entitle it to peculiar notice.  It is also associated with the enterprise of genius; for its name has been blended with the reputation of Rowley, of Canynge, and of Chatterton; and no lover of poetry and admirer of art can visit it without a degree of enthusiasm.  And when the old building shall have mouldered into ruins, even these will be trodden with veneration as sacred to the recollection of genius of the highest order.  Ascending a winding stair, we were shown into the Treasury Room.  The room forms an irregular octagon, admitting light through narrow unglazed apertures upon the broken and scattered fragments of the famous Rowleian chests, that with the rubble and dust of centuries cover the floor.  It is here creative fancy pictures forth the sad image of the spirit of the spot—­the ardent boy, flushed and fed by hope, musing on the brilliant deception he had conceived—­whose daring attempt has left his name unto the intellectual world as a marvel and a mystery.