mansion which Nash, the architect of Buckingham Palace, built for himself, in a commanding position on the brow of the hill just above the village. It looks best at a distance-but the view from it is very fine. East Cowes is much in repute as a quiet wateringplace; indeed both West and East Cowes are very lively agreeable summer resorts.

From Cowes, steamers are in frequent communication with Ryde; and perhaps the ordinary tourist will be content with seeing as much of the coast between these places as he can from the deck of one of them. Indeed, if he wishes to see more of it, he can only do so from the roads some way inlandand they are not particularly tempting. But we must look a little more closely at one or two spots. On rounding the point, the lofty towers and long battlemented front of Norris Castle will catch the attention. From the Solent it is a striking object-appearing like some grim relic of ruder times; but it is in reality a modern mansion, having been erected by Wyattville for Sir Henry Seymour. It is said to be less imposing close at hand than at a distance-which is very likely, for on looking steadily at it incongruities become sufficiently visible even from the steamer. According to Sir Henry Englefield, it commands the finest view of the Solent and the opposite shore of any spot in the island. Somewhat farther we see Osborne, the seat of Her Majesty, which shows very well from the sea, and we should fancy has a nobler view over the strait, as it has in every other direction, than Norris. We shall visit Osborne from Newport. The coast along rises into gentle well-wooded uplands, and wears a very cheerful air. At King's Quay we pass a river that enters the sea between banks covered with foliage to the edge of the water. A little further is Fishbourne Creek, the estuary of the Wootton river-in parts one of the most beautiful rivers in the island. The scenery about Wootton Bridge is celebrated, but the river is finer towards the

sea-we mean of course at high water, for these tidal streams are little better than a mud-swamp when the tide is out.

At Quarr Abbey we must stay a while. These remains, small though they be, are the most important left of the several conventual establishments that once flourished in the island. This was a monastery founded by the Earl of Devon in 1132, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The monks were of the Cistercian order. It was dissolved along with all the other religious houses by Henry VIII. A merchant of Southampton bought the building and speedily dismantled it. Nothing now remains but some of the outer walls, and the fragment that is represented in the engraving (Engraving.) This was converted into, and long used as a farm building, and is so altered that it is not easy to say what was its original purpose. Although but a very poor ruin compared with the relics of ecclesiastical edifices in other parts of the country, it is the best hereabouts, and it is worth walking over from Ryde to see-especially as in the large open space which surrounds it, there are magnificent spreading elms, as old almost as the building; and the walk itself whether by the sea-side or through Binstead would alone amply repay the exertion. Quarr Abbey is believed to owe its name to a quarry close by, which supplied the stone for many of the ecclesiastical buildings in the southern counties. Wykeham's restoration of Winchester Cathedral was made with stone obtained from the Abbot of Quarr, and of course from this quarry. Stone is still procured from it, but it is now chiefly employed for the cottages in the neighbourhood. Quarr Copse reaches down to the beach, and the rich hanging wood dipping into the sea at high water is a very handsome object from the boat. As we mentioned, there is a footway along the beach from Quarr to Ryde, but it is only practicable when the tide is out. The path through the copse and by Binstead is a delightful one.

The famous anchorage of the Motherbank stretches along this part of the Solent, and there are generally riding in it a goodly number of our magnificent ships of war, as well as other large vessels; while craft of every description are continually sailing to and fro. The high ground about Binstead commands the whole of this portion of the strait, the town and harbour of Portsmouth, and the Hampshire hills beyond: it is not easy to conceive a nobler prospect of its kind. Binstead itself is a pretty secluded village of genteel residences. It has a new church, which, though small, is of unusual gracefulness. By it is preserved a doorway of the old church, with a rather curious piece of sculpture built in the wall above the arch, which has been long known among the peasantry of the neighbourhood as "the Idol." Binstead is about a mile from Ryde.

NEWPORT.

We have thus made the circuit of this island; it now remains for us to visit Newport, its capital; and from thence we may glance hastily over one or two places in the interior.

Newport stands nearly in the centre of the island, in a spot apparently marked out by Nature for the site of the miniature capital. It is built on a gentle slope rising from the west bank of the Medina, which is navigable for vessels of considerable burden up to the town; and the nature of the surrounding hills allows of easy lines of communication to radiate from it to every part of the island. The town itself is neat, clean, cheerful-looking, and apparently flourishing. It contains about 5000 inhabitants, is a corporate borough, and returns two members to the House of Commons, being the only place in the island that was permitted by the Reform Bill to retain Parliamentary representatives. The streets are well paved and lighted, and filled with good well-stored shops. The public buildings are mostly modern; the town-hall, and one or two other of the largest and showiest, were erected some thirty or forty years ago, from the designs of Nash, and are about on a level with what would be expected from the specimens of his genius which the metropolis possesses. The old church is very large, but plain and low, and far from pleasing in its external appearance; while the interior is blocked up and darkened by huge pews and galleries, and every kind of ungainly obstruction, till it would require a laborious search to discover any beauties there, if any there be. Among the monuments one or two are noticeable. The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I., lies here under a plain slab; she died the year after the execution of her father, at the age of fourteen, a prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle. There are now a couple of new churches in the town, and it would be no discredit to the inhabitants if they were to remove some of the rubbish from the old one. Dissenting chapels abound, there being already some six or seven in existence, and one larger and smarter than any of them is in course of

erection. There is a literary society in Newport, which has one of the best buildings in the place. There is also a factory, wherein some hundred hands are employed in making the Isle of Wight lace, so much admired by ladies. There is, too, a theatre for the delectation of the towns-people, but it does not fill; and just by it there is a jail, of which no such complaint is heard. North of the town are extensive barracks; and not far from them is a House of Industry, or in other words a Union workhouse, for the poor of the island. With its grounds, which are laid out in fields, and cultivated by the inmates, it occupies an area of eighty acres, and it has accommodation (happily never required) for a thousand persons; it is praised for the excellency of its arrangements, which are said to have suggested some of those adopted by the new Poor-law Commission. The Reformatory for juvenile offenders, or, as it is more commonly called, Parkhurst prison, is also in the same neighbourhood,-all these three buildings being within the precincts of Parkhurst Forest.

Newport is not much dependent on summer visitors, who generally merely pass through it. The population is a fixed, and not a fluctuating one, like that of Ryde and Cowes, and the town wears altogether less of a holiday look. But it is a convenient place to stay at for one who wants to see the island and its inhabitants. The stranger ought to turn out early on Saturday morning to see the market, which is of the most miscellaneous character possible. Every household requisite or luxury, from beef and bedsteads to prawns and pine-apples, is collected in it; and the market folks and market vehicles are almost as miscellaneous as the commodities they have brought together, and very much better worth seeing. There is also an annual fair; and there are two or three Michaelmas hiring or 'bargain-fairs,' which afford rare opportunities for seeing the country folk.

Newport is the oldest existing town in the island. Newtown was indeed an old town when this was founded; but it began to decay as this grew up, and, as we have seen, it long since died off altogether, leaving only a few rude cottages and a ruined church as its siste viator. But Newport has nothing modern in its look, nor any antiquities to reward the archæological inquirer. The only building of any antiquity besides the church is the Grammar-school, which was erected in 1617, and is noteworthy only on account of the school-room being the place where Charles the First and the Parliamentary Commissioners met to negotiate the public Treaty of Newport,' as it was called.

The walks in the immediate vicinity of Newport are many of them very beautiful; but there is one spot in particular which affords so splendid a prospect, that it should on no account be left unvisited. We refer, of course, to Mountjoy, the lofty hill on the south of the town. From the summit of this hill you see, on a clear day, the whole lower valley of the Medina and the surrounding country,-a rich undulating tract, where shining meadows alternate with dusky lines of

the midst, leads the eye along the curves of the valley to its union with the sea, where a forest of small craft and a light hazy vapour mark the sight of Cowes. Bounding the valley on the right is a range of low hills, from the highest of which the tower of Osborne rises out of a dense mass of trees. On the left, another range of uplands terminates near you in the brown heathy tract of Parkhurst Forest. In the extreme distance are the purple hills of Hampshire; between which and the northern side of the island the Solent breaks upon the sight at intervals, between the depressions in the uplands, gleaming in the sunshine like a number of small lakes. And at the foot of the hill on which you stand lies the town of Newport; its regular rows of plain houses and dark red roofs, partly concealed by noble trees, which, with the gray tower of the old church and the masts of the ships that are lying by the town quay, not only break the uniformity and homeliness of the buildings, but render the little town a bold and striking relief to the open country beyond, and assist it in throwing the whole landscape into exquisite harmony. Our steel engraving will enable the reader to form a somewhat clearer conception of this noble scene than our feeble description can do.

Our first stroll from Newport shall be down the Medina to Osborne. The Medina rises on the south side of the island, and falls into the sea on the north, as do all the streams in the island with the exception of those little ones that fall over the chines. Its source is at the north-eastern foot of St. Catharine's Hill, not far from Chale; at Newport it becomes a tidal river, and expands to a considerable width, and it continues of course to widen to its confluence with the sea five miles lower. It thus divides the island, as will be seen on referring to the map, into two nearly equal portions, which have been adopted as the legal divisions of the island, the eastern half being called East, and the other West Medina.

The Medina has a good deal of very pretty scenery along its upper course, but it altogether changes its character when it becomes a tidal river. At low water indeed it is but a narrow stream running through the centre of a wide bed of mud but when the tide is up it is a broad and noble river, and that is the time to stroll along it. Both the banks are hilly, and the slopes are well wooded, but it is on the right bank only that a foot path lies all the way along the water's edge —and it is on the right bank that Osborne is situated. The rambler may very well keep beside the river to Whippingham, occasionally ascending the uplands; and if he be a lover of river scenery he will not regret the devious course it has led him. The broad sweep of the stream stretches before you in bold sweeping curves, its clear green water curling into light ripples and reflecting in long tremulous lines the white sails that are gliding rapidly along; on either side are fine hanging woods, or slopes of "glad light green;" in front the view is bounded by softly swelling uplands,

opening where the river falls into the sea, by the silver Solent and the hazy coast beyond. Looking back, Newport for some way forms the chief feature; but as it diminishes, the high mound with the gray ruins of Carisbrooke Castle on its summit rises into importance, and from many a spot you have a landscape of a high order. There are a couple of mills on the river's banks called respectively East and West Medina Mills, but they add nothing to the beauty of the scenery.

Whippingham has no such a collection of houses as could be called a village. The church, which is the chief attraction, stands quite apart, not far from a farmyard, on an eminence just above the river. Its spire has served as a landmark, visible at intervals above the trees, from East Medina Mill, but the church itself is hidden by the wood till you are close to it. Since Osborne has been the property of her Majesty, Whippingham church has been her ordinary place of worship while residing there, and tourists are now accustomed to mark it in their list of visiting places; else it would draw few aside. The church is of a moderate size, and more complete in its equipments than many of the island churches; having nave, chancel, transepts, tower, and spire; but it is as plain and unadorned as village church can be. The only possible thing to notice inside would be its scrupulous cleanness. Now of course the royal pews are looked at by the stranger, but they too are quiet and unassuming, only distinguished from the rest by a rather richer lining. On the Sunday, we are told, there is no appearance of state, and the only thing that jars upon the simple solemnity of the service is the eager rudeness of those who crowd here to stare, who surely might leave the queen-though she be the queen-undisturbed in her hours of public worship.

Osborne House is about three-quarters of a mile from the church. It stands in the midst of its grounds, and cannot be seen from the road. The grounds are rather extensive, and from their elevated site afford fine views in many directions; but they are strictly private, and neither house nor grounds can be entered by the stranger. It would be useless, therefore, to describe them, if even the very hasty glance we have had of them enabled us to do so. It may be enough to state that the house has been much enlarged and altered since it was purchased for Her Majesty, and the alterations are still far from completed. It now presents an extended façade with a very lofty campanile on one side, of the Italian palazzo style, very sparingly enriched. Perhaps the house is seen to most advantage from the Solent, but it may also be very well seen from the high grounds on the opposite side of the Medina (Cut, p 433.) The campanile is a noticeable object from the higher hills all over the island, and the views from it are said to be of the most splendid description.

The tourist may take the road beyond the principal entrance to Osborne, which will lead him to the gates of Norris Castle, the grounds of which are open to him,