OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
RIVER WYE,
AND SEVERAL PARTS OF
SOUTH WALES, &c.

RELATIVE CHIEFLY TO
PICTURESQUE BEAUTY;

MADE

In the Summer of the Year 1770,

SECOND EDITION,

By WILLIAM GILPIN, M. A.

PREBENDARY OF SALISBURY; AND
VICAR OF BOLDRE IN NEW FOREST, NEAR LYMINGTON.

LONDON;
PRINTED FOR R. BLAMIRE, IN THE STRAND.
M.DCC.LXXXIX.

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Every thing around breathes an air so calm, and tranquil; so sequefered from the commerce of life; that it is easy to conceive, a man of warm imagination, in monkish times, might have been allured by such a fcene to become an inhabitant of it.

No part of the ruins of Tintern is seen from the river, except the abbey-church. It has been an elegant Gothic pile; but it does not make that appearance as a *diftant* object, which we expected. Tho the parts are beautiful, the whole is ill-shaped. No ruins of the tower are left, which might give form, and contraft to the buttresses, and walls. Inftead of this, a number of gabel-ends hurt the eye with their regularity; and difguft it by the vulgarity of their shape. A mallet judiciously uſed (but who durſt uſe it ?) might be of ſervice in fracturing ſome of them; particularly thofe of the croſs ifles, which are not only disagreeable in themſelves, but confound the perſpective.

But were the building ever so beautiful, incompaſſed as it is with ſhabby houſes, it could make no appearance from the river. From a ſtand near the road, it is ſeen to more advantage.

But

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line formed by the fummits of the banks; in
the fwellings, and excavations of their decli-
vities; and in the unequal surfaces of the lower
grounds.

In many places also the ground is broken;
which adds new sources of variety. By broken
ground, we mean only such ground, as hath
loft it's turf, and dicovers the naked foil.
Often you see a gravelly earth shivering from
the hills, in the form of water-falls: or per-
haps you see dry, ftony channels, guttering
down precipices; the rough beds of temporary
torrents: and sometimes so trifling a caufe,
as the rubbing of sheep againft the fides of
little banks, or hillocks, will often occafion
very beautiful breaks.

The colour too of the broken foil is a great
source of variety, the yellow, or the red oker;
the afhy grey; the black earth; or the marley
blue. And the intermixtures of theſe with
each other, and with patches of verdure,
blooming heath, and other vegetable tints,
ſtill increafe that variety.

Nor let the fastidious reader think, theſe
remarks descend too much into detail. Were
an extenfive diſtance defcribed, a foreſt-ſcene,
a fea coaſt view, a vaſt ſemicircular range of

C 3

mountains,