There

would afford an habitation not uncomfortable. were from space to space seats cut out in the rock. Though it wants water, it excels DOVEDALE by the extent of its prospects, the awfulness of its shades, the horrors of its precipices, the verdure of its hollows, and the loftiness of its rocks: the ideas which it forces upon the mind are, the sublime, the dreadful, and the vast: above is inaccessible altitude, below is horrible profundity. But it excells the Garden of ILAM* only in extent. Ilam has grandeur tempered with softness; the walker congratulates his own arrival at the place, and is grieved to think he must ever leave it. As he looks up the Rocks his thoughts are elevated; as he turns his eyes on the Vallies he is composed and soothed. He that mounts the precipices at Hawkstone, wonders how he came thither, and doubts how he shall return. His walk is an adventure, and his departure an escape. not the tranquillity but the horrors of solitude; a kind of turbulent pleasure between fright and admiration. Ilam is the fit shade of pastoral virtue, and might properly diffuse its shades over Nymphs and Swains. Hawkstone can have no fitter inhabitants than

"Giants of mighty bone and bold emprise,"†

He has

men of lawless courage and heroic violence.. Hawkstone should be described by Milton, and Ilam by Parnell. Miss Hill shewed the whole succession of wonders with great civility. The House was magnificent, compared with the rank of the owner."-Diary of a Journey into North Wales, in 1774, by Samuel Johnson, Edited by R. Duppa, L.L.B., Barrister. London, 1816, Jennings Poultry.

·00·

* Ilam was the celebrated residence of Mr. Porter, at the entrance of Dovedale.

† Milton.

The following lines are extracted from the "SHREWSBURY CHRONICLE" of May 10th.

1811.

SONNET

On visiting the Grounds at Hawkstone.

O, gentle Spirit of these fairy lands!

Where fragrant Bowers and peaceful Caves abound,
Where craggy Rocks with

green eternal crown'd
Frown on the Vale, in which quiescent stands
The silver Lake expansive; where the Tower,
Relict of ages, casts a mournful shade

Along the turf, 'neath which the bones are laid
Of warriors once exalted high in power,
Who wielded here, in martial line, the sword :-
Where Order dwells with rude Disorder wild,
In scenes―tremendous these, those sweetly mild:
-Spirit! a place in these thy haunts afford:

Here gay and sad a calm retreat may find,-
Peace for the peaceless breast-Joy for the joyful
mind.

A recent popular Foreign Tourist, in travelling through England, writes from Hawkstone the following emphatic passage:

"Though I felt yesterday perfectly satiated with PARKS, and thought I could never take any interest in them again, I am quite of another mind to-day, and must in some respects give Hawkstone the preference over all I have seen. It is not art, nor magnificence, nor aristocratical splendour, but Nature alone, to which it is indebted for this pre-eminence; and in such a degree, that, were I gifted with the power of adding to its beauties, I should-ask, "WHAT CAN I ADD ?" "Tour of a German Prince."

THE COLUMN IN SHREWSBURY,

IN HONOUR OF

GENERAL LORD HILL;

AN

ACCOUNT OF HIS MILITARY ACTIONS,

BY CAPTAIN MOYLE SHERER;

AND A BRIEF

MEMOIR OF HIS LORDSHIP.

SHREWSBURI:

Printed and Sold by J. WATTON; sold also by Mess
WHITTAKER and Co. Ave Maria-lane, London.