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magnificent ruins, leading the visitor to doubt "which he should 

 admire most, the grandeur of the ruined pile or the wondrous 

 beauty of the surrounding scenery, environed by mountains 

 wooded to their summit, so interlaced and locked into each 

 other as to leave no apparent egress from the valley. Amid a 

 wild seclusion, singularly still, placed on a very gentle eminence, 

 about one hundred feet from the river, stands Tintern Abbey, 

 with all the accessories to the perfection of scenery, of wood, 

 water, and mountain ; the graceful architecture of the ruins, 

 enhanced in picturesque effect by a profuse drapery of the 

 richest and purest ivy, has caused that eminent antiquarian, Sir 

 Richard Colt Hoare, to declare that " this Abbey had 

 exceeded every ruin he had seen in England or Wales." 

 Through the praiseworthy care of the lord of the soil the 

 ruins are kept in the neatest order. A detailed description 

 of the present appearance of the Abbey, and the adjoining 

 monastic offices, and the interesting archaeological remains 

 preserved therein, was then given. Tintern derives its name 

 it is said from two Celtic words, Din, a fortress, and Teyrn, a 

 chief. It is stated in Welsh history that a hermitage belong- 

 ing to Theodoric or Tendric, King of Glamorgan, stood in 

 the site of the present Abbey, and that the royal hermit, having 

 resigned his throne to his son, led here an eremetical life 

 amidst this wild and peaceful solitude. 



The Abbey of Tintern was ftmnded for Cistercian or White 

 Monks, and dedicated to St. Mary, by Walter Fitz Richard 

 de Clare, a.d. 1131 or 1132, as an expiation for his sins. He 

 was succeeded in his titles and estates by the father of Strong- 

 bow, who, succeeding to the throne of his father-in-law, Dermot 

 Macmorrough, died, leaving an only daughter Isabel, who 

 espoused William, Lord Marshal of England, conveying there- 

 by to him the English possessions of her father. Her son 

 William, the younger Earl of Pembroke, confirmed in 1223 

 to the abbot and monks of St. Maiy de Tynterne, all the lands, 

 possessions, and free customs heretofore granted by his prede- 

 cessors, and founded the Abbey of Tintern in the South of 

 Ireland. This nobleman and his five brothers all dying 

 without issue, the large estates of William, the Marshal, came 



