18 23.] 
land view as can be seen from any 
point of land, in almost any country, 
not excepting even the famed Cam- 
pania of ancient Latium. This view is 
bounded by the distant blue Glou- 
cestershire-hills, very remarkable for 
uninterrupted extent, commanding a 
prospect of rather more than thirty 
miles in a direct line ; and, in horizon- 
tal obliquity, it extends from far 
above Worcester to the Bristol Chan- 
nel; indeed, you may see from the 
Wrekin, in Salop, down to the open 
sea: and for richness, I presume, it 
is not to be exceeded by any view in 
this country, or even in the British 
empire. Commanding the whole vale 
of Severn, in length, I believe, to 
above the extent of one hundred and 
fifty miles, the rich meadows on the 
shores of that river, the fertile corn- 
fields, and the populous cities and 
towns, whose smoke may be plainly 
discovered, with some accompanying 
tower, it aifords the spectator views of 
the well-peopled cities and towns of 
Worcester, Upton, Pershore, 'Cewkes- 
bury, Gloucester; with numerous large 
and populous villages, famed for plenty 
and generous hospitality. To a mind 
informed of the history of those local 
stations, the variety of imagery which 
rush on its perception, is far too 
much for solitary contemplation. 
The face to the east,—on the right- 
hand, in the distance, is seen Glou- 
cester, near which may be discerned 
the Isle of Alney, where the patriotic 
Saxon, Edmund Ironside, fought in 
single combat with the Danish chief 
Canute, in the presence of both armies, 
for the lives, the rights, the honours, 
property, the safety, and the liberty, of 
his people ; where the illustrious sove- 
reign’s fate was unaccompanied by that 
propitious justice, which, according to 
the dark and short-sighted view of 
wretched humanity, should have distin- 
guished his meritorious conduct, when 
the invading raven made the British 
lion succumb beneath his sable talons. 
Here those lines in the ‘‘ Cato” of 
Addison will recur to the memory of 
the sympathetic spectator, who will 
exclaim,— 
“ The ways of heayen are dark and intricate: 
Puzzled with mazes, and perplex’d in error, 
The understanding traces them in vain. 
Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search, 
We cannot see with how much art the 
windings run, 
Nor where the regular confusion ends:” 
Or else the magnanimous Anglo-Saxon 
monarch would surely have proved 
British Antiquities. 
515 
victorious over his own enemy, his 
country’s robber, and his people’s foe. 
In the luxurious spot where the 
Warwickshire Avon* conjoins the 
stately Severn, the lofty tower of 
Tewkesbury abbey-church is pointed 
out by large masses of circling and 
aspiring smoke: here the brothers’t 
wealth was displayed in raising the 
holy fane. In the vicinity of which, 
the historic eye will discover, in me- 
mory’s mirrour, in the mid-day blaze it 
will behold, the crested helms, the 
polished spears, the standards of the 
hostile roses of York and Lancaster 
waving in proud array; either party 
now advancing, then retreating ; now 
pursuing, then pursued. In_ those 
dire, those unnatural conflicts, 
“Where father fought with son, and son 
with sire, 
And where the brother spilt his brother's 
blood!” 
Here, in this unnatural commotion, the 
infant hope} of the ill-fated Margaret 
of Anjou was slain: here the demon 
of usurpation again prevailed. 
Around the lofty spires of Worces- 
ter, the reflecting mind will trace 
those fields and meadows, once satu- 
rated with floods of human gore, 
where abandoned usurpation was ren- 
dered doubly diabolical from the 
basest of human crimes, which fur- 
nished its original—hypocrisy ; the pro- 
duce of vilest bigotry, springing from 
the practice of puritanical and ignoble 
slaves. Where the genius of the 
second Charles was rendered subser- 
vient to the hypocritical policy of a 
Cromwell. 
About half-way between Worcester 
and ‘Tewkesbury, lie the peaceful vales 
of Upton, where Fielding’s genius 
loved to range; whilst it described the 
loves of his hero and the captivating 
Sophia Western.§ 
The course of the fertile and peo- 
pled Severn from this station, in the 
meridian heat of a summer’s day, may 
be distinctly traced for upwards of @ 
hundred miles, in its meandering in- 
flexions, by the blue misty exhalations 
which arise from its surface. Whilst 
* The British name for any 
therefore uppellative only. 
+ Odo and Dodo, Earls of Gloucester, 
founded ‘Tewkesbury church and monas- 
tery in the 6th century. (See Williams's 
History of St. Alban’s, Part I.) 
+ The young prince was killed after the 
battle in cool blood, in a house in Church- 
street. 
6 Vide Fielding’s “Tom Jones.” 
river; it is 
~ 
the 
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