pent that had writhed about the child, and which this faithful animal had destroyed.

In the middle of the south aile of the choir, generally called the Herberts' chapel, is the effigy of Sir William ap Thomas, and his wife Gladys, daughter of the celebrated Sir David Gam. Beneath a handsome alabaster monument, at the further end of the chapel, repose the ashes of Sir Richard Herbert, of Coldbrook, and his wife. This Sir Richard, a younger son of the just mentioned Sir William ap Thomas, was a man of gigantic stature and uncommon strength. In the contest between the houses of York and Lancaster, he with his brother the Earl of Pembroke supported the White rose at the battle of Banbury, where he was at length taken prisoner, and finally executed by the successful faction; but not until he had passed and repassed twice through the adverse army, killing with a pole-ax no less than 140 men; which, his illustrious descendant and biographer, lord Herbert of Cherbury, remarks, is more than is famed of Amadis de Gaul, or the Knight of the Sun. The richest monument in the church is that of Sir Richard Herbert of Ewias, his nephew, which

x 3

which occupies a recess in the south wall of

the chapel.

Before the dissolution of religious houses, this church belonged to a priory of Benedictine monks, which which was founded by Hamelin Baladun *, who is also said to have built the castle. The priory house, adjoining the nave of the church, is converted into a commodious dwelling, which was lately te, nanted by the Gunter and Milborne family, The free-school in the town was founded by Henry the Eighth, and amply endowed with the revenues of forfeited monasteries, &c.

Abergavenny was a Roman town, the Gobannium of Antoninus. Leland describes it to be a faire waulled town, meately well inhabited;" and an account of Monmouthshire written in 1602 represents it as "a fine town, wealthy and thriving, and the very

One of his posterity, William de Braose, in the reign. of King John, says Dugdale," gave the tithes of his castle, “viz. of bread, wine, beer, cyder, all manner of flesh, fish, "salt, honey, wax, tallow, and in general whatsoever "should be brought thither and spent there, upon con"dition that the Abbot and Convent of St. Vincent's in "Mans, to which the priory was a cell, should daily pray for the soul of King Henry the First; as also for the soul of him the said William and the soul of Maud his wife."

best

best in the shire." But during the last century it was in a very declining state until the establishment of some great iron-works, which have lately sprung up in the adjacent mountains. When full-bottomed flaxen wigs were the rage, the town enjoyed a temporary prosperity from a method peculiar to its inhabitants of bleaching hair; but, perriwigs being; no longer the rage, the place was hastening to decay just at this juncture the faculty proclaimed that goats-whey was a specific in consumptive cases; and crowds of invalids, under the fiat of death, immediately enlivened the town. But the fashions of doctors are no more stationary than those of beaux; the ton for goats-whey soon diminished; and, deprived of patients as well as perriwigs, the place was relapsing into poverty and desertion; when the fortunate discovery of the Blaenavon iron mines (a grand concern in the recesses of the Blorenge mountain well worth the tourist's attention) gave a new face to the town, and still daily en creases its population.

ABOUT two miles from Abergavenny is WERNDEE, a poor patched-up house: though once a mansion of no less magnificence than antiquity, it is now only interesting as being considered to have been the spot where the prolific Herbert race was first implanted in Britain. Henry de Herbert, chamberlain to king Henry the First, is supposed to have been their great ancestor. Of the vast pos sessions that formerly supported the grandeur of the Herberts, the inheritance of Mr. Proger, the last lineal descendant from the elder branch of this family, who died about twenty years since, had dwindled to less than two hundred a year, Mr. Coxe relates an anecdote of this gentleman's pride of ancestry,

cestry, which may be compared with the remarks on Perthir*; at the same time, it conveys a brief outline of the family's genealogy.

Mr. Proger accidentally met a stranger near his house, who made various enquiries respecting the prospects and local objects of the situation; and at length demanded, “ Pray, "whose is this antique mansion before us?"— "That, Sir, is Werndee: a very ancient

house; for out of it came the earls of Pem "broke of the first line, and the earls of Pem"broke of the second line; the lords Her"bert of Cherbury, the Herberts of Cold"brook, Rumney, Cardiff, and York; the "Morgans of Acton; the earl of Hunsdon; "the Jones's of Treowen and Lanarth, and "all the Powells. Out of this house also, "by the female line, came the dukes of "Beaufort."" And pray, Sir, who lives "there now?"-"I do, Sir."-Then pardon

me, Sir-do not lose sight of all these prudent examples; but come out of it yourself, or 'twill tumble and crush you.” A principal excursion from Abergavenny is that which leads northward to Lanthony