From Gloucester, the nearest way to Pontypool is through Ross, Monmouth, and Usk; places entitled to some attention.

Ross is an old town, situated on the banks of the Wye. The air is healthy, and the neighbouring fields fertile and delightful. The houses are in general well built, and the place, for the size, populous. The only remarkable buildings are two charity-schools, supported by voluntary subscriptions. In this town lived Pope's famous character, whose charities the poet has delineated:

But all our praises why should lords engross ?
Rise, honest muse! and sing the MAN of Ross.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
The MAN of Ross, each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread,
The MAN of Ross divides the daily bread;
He feeds yon alms-house neat but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate.
He portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans; blest
The young who labour, and the old who rest,
Is any sick? the MAN of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes and gives,
Is there a variance? enter but his door,

Baulk'd are the courts, and contest is no more,
Desparing quacks, with curses fled the place:
And vile attorneys-now an useless race!
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue,
What many wish, but want the pow'r to do.
O say! what sums that generous hand supply!
What mines to swell that boundless charity?
Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear,
This man possess’d-five hundred pounds a year.

Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts withdraw your blaze !
Ye little stars-hide your diminish'd rays!

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RAGLAND CASTLE.

The name of this person, whose deeds are thus pourtrayed, was Mr. JOHN KYRLE:-he died here in the year 1724, at the age of ninety, after having spent sixty years of his life in doing good to his fellow-creatures. The poet has not exceeded matter of fact. Mr. Kyrle was a bachelor, and of his estate, amounting to 500l. per annum, he spent only 50l. in the support of himself. Such rare characters ought to be consigned over to immortality!

Monmouth is a place of antiquity. The castle, of which ruins are still visible, was probably built before the conquest. Henry of Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, resided some time in this building, where his son Edward the Fifth was born, for which reason he was called Henry of Monmouth. The situation of the town is pleasant, at the confluence of several streams, being both populous and well-built. Besides the county hall, where the assizes are held, there is a good town house, and a handsome Gothic church. There is not much trade here, except the exportation of the productions of the county, by means of the Wye, to Bristol. In the vicinity of Monmouth, Troy House rears its stately turrets, the seat of the Duke of Beaufort, who is lord lieutenant of the county.

On the road from Monmouth to Usk stands Ragland Castle, which, though it is believed to be more modern than all the other castles in Monmouthshire, was once a place of strength, and remarkable for having held out in the cause of Charles the First, under the Marquis of Worcester,

His conduct on

even to the end of the civil wars. that occasion has been the subject of admiration. His son was author of the Century of Inventions, to which some suppose we owe the rise of the Steam Engine, an invention of inestimable utility.

Usk (Isca) is a small town delightfully situated in the centre of the county of Monmouth. It is supposed, by Camden, to have been the Burrium of Antoninus, where, according to the Itinerary, there was a Roman colony. The town-house is a neat modern building, and the church is large and commodious. Here is an ancient inscription said to puzzle all the learned in the kingdom. For its explication the appendix to Coxe's History of Monmouthshire may be consulted, where the following free translation is given by the ingenious Mr. William Owen, author of the Welsh Dictionary:-it is supposed to be an epitaph on some celebrated personage, whose name seems not to be recoverable:

"Ah! behold the grave of the great Teacher is the sod of the vale; when a battle took place London felt embarrassed, and the song of the Bards of ancient lore, and their joy, all vanish through his death! He who was like Solomon, profound of word, on Isca's banks is his couch of sleep; Fairly the eloquent doctor reconciled disputes-clergy and laity were fully enlightened by him."

Formerly there was a fine Castle here, on the brow of the hill overhanging the town, which the Welsh princes used as a garrison against the in

cursions of the English. The remains of the fabric are still visible, and a part clasped round by the aged ivy, forms an interesting spectacle in the appearance of the country :

The mouldering walls

Black with the rust of age, and all within
Silence and waste, while not a sound was heard
But the wind, moaning; not a form beheld,
Save one, that fancy imaged to their mind;
The spirit of DESTRUCTION! she who haunts
The moss-grown temples, and the wild resort
Of bats and scorpions-where no mortal steps
Make the walls murmur with obtrusive sounds;
But cries and screeches, from all hated beings,
Sound even more, whilst the whole progeny
Of doleful things, that court rank solitude,
Thrive and make merriment. Upon a pile
She loves to sit, of broken monuments,
And o'er the scene casts an exultant eye
Smiling to view the massy pillars fallen,
The aged altars, trophies, pedestals!-
And where the invulnerable shaft withstands
Her hate and her derision, round she strews
The creeping ivy, with its living shade,
To hide all forms of man!

COTTLE.

The river Usk, running by the town, has a good stone bridge thrown over it, but the floods in the winter season endanger its stability. The limpid stream flowing through its arches, has been long famous for salmon, by which the Bath and Bristol markets are supplied. This fishery has proved profitable to its proprietors; and amusing it is to behold the contrivances which ingenuity has devised to secure its prey.

For the little rural town of Usk, I must be suf

PLACE OF MY NATIVITY.

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fered to indulge a degree of partiality natural to the human heart-for here I drew my first breath, on the second day of October, 1767:

Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine mentem,
Tangit et immemorem non sinit esse sui.

Even to the most common minds their natal soil presents some endearment. But, my worthy young friend, neither the time of our birth, nor the period of our dissolution, can be deemed of consequence :

Enough-that VIRTUE fill'd the space between,

Proved by the ends of being-TO HAVE BEEN! POPE,

Since writing the above I visited Usk, (in the summer of 1807,) and entered not only the house, but the very room where the light first beamed on my eyes. My emotions were peculiar-they cannot be described-existence is a blessing, notwithstanding all the troubles and vexations of mortality:

Life has no value as an end but means

As end deplorable—as means divine;

When 'tis our all, 'tis nothing-worse than nought,
A nest of pains; when held as nothing much,
Then 'tis the seat of comfort, rich in peace,
In prospect richer far-important-awful,
Not to be mention'd, but with shouts of praise,
Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy,
The mighty basis of ETERNAL BLISS !

YOUNG.

In approaching Pontypool, at the distance of only seven miles, the Cambrian mountains begin