270 WILD FLOWEKS OF 



nearly 60 feet ;* on our way to it we had passed on 

 the brow of the Cy Maen t huge overthrown masses 

 that had once been Cromlechs, and the neighbouring 

 parish of Stanton (stone-town), pointed out the tradi- 

 tion. High in the midst of an oak wood, but totally 

 concealed from a stranger, yet stands that tottering 

 stone of judgment (the Logan-stone), J beneath whose 

 awful shadow the Druid brought the unwilling crimi- 

 nal and we fancied as we passed on either side the 

 " broad-stones" where still exists a sacred well, that 

 we formed one of the procession, till, in imagination, 

 we saw the priest dip his hands in the pure water in 

 the hollow bole of the stone, and descend the nine 

 steps that still remain to the overhanging Logan, 

 which trembled in the eyes of the judges on their 

 stony seats as the Druid solemnly raised his hands. 



The antiquary who paces round and round the en- 

 trenchment on the cloud-capt hill, seeks in vain for 

 something to connect his mind with the people who 

 formed it but the botanist still sees on the green 

 turf the same flowers that met the gaze of the wild 

 aborigines, and they give out the same sweets to the 

 pure morning air now, as they did when the " iron 

 hoof of war" relentlessly tore up the soil on which 

 their prostrate beauties reposed. Even the castles 

 and the abbies, now abandoned and overgrown, bear 

 but the ivy, shrubs, and plants of the neighbouring 

 woods and rocks upon them that have advanced to a 

 new dominion, and know not the feudal tower on 



* This king of the woods, the " Newland Oak," stands in a field in the 

 parish of Newland, Gloucestershire, about five miles from Monmouth. 



i The Kymin Hill, near Monmouth. 



t It now bears the appellation of the " Buckstone," probably from some 

 buck out of the neighbouring forest that may have sheltered there. 



