supposed to have formed a private entrance to the gardens and orchard of the Abbey. · The embattled wall bounding "the walks :" for some distance has been generally known as "the Nun's walk :" its great width enables two persons to move along it abreast. At one angle of this wall is a small tower distinguished as the still house of the monastery; it remains perfect, being protected from injury in the garden of the Rev. E. A. Bray. A pretty weir near the bridge is formed by a dam for turning some of the water into an artificial canal. Farther down is another cascade :-a natural one, boiling and foaming by, as if scorning the small clear drops that trickle into its heaving bosom from a font, supposed from the remains of a broken cross by its side, to have been a holy well, belonging to the hermitage and chapel of St. John. Let us look at those umbrageous limes near dipping their bright green leaves into the foaming stream. Saw you ever a prettier picture than that rocky river would make, with its fringing wood, and sister font, and old Abbey walls? It has afforded a subject for various artists who have lingered by these picturesque haunts.

A little further on and we are in a green field with the same glancing stream, bordered with firs and elms, and a withered oak, spreading out young and vigorous branches, even though the very heart of its trunk is decayed. A deep pool below tells a sad tale of some unhappy female who committed suicide by plunging into the still waters. We leave this gloomy scene to pass through two turn gates into the dusty public road from Plymouth; but our steps are quickly directed to a shady lane, which conducts by a useful stile again into green fields. We are going to see Crowndale, the birthplace of the celebrated Sir Francis Drake. A short path over the soft grass, and a turn again in the lane, brings us to the desired spot. But the house in which the famous navigator was born is no longer remaining. In

its stead is a substantial farm, with its barns, and outhouses, and garden, and orchard, all very pleasant for those to look upon, who are accustomed to the monotony

of a country town. * Still our curiosity is unsatisfied

without tracing some memorial to the naval hero. Vainly we reason ourselves into the opinion that a great man lives in his works; that he has raised an undecaying monument in the memory of his glorious deeds. We desire a further intimacy with the noble of the earth; we would look into their domestic life; into the scenes of their youth; on the home which sheltered their early years, and nurtured their aspirations of glory to come. Disappointment follows our fruitless research, and we must fain content ourselves with admiring the peaceful seclusion of the spot; and enumerating the good deeds of one, whose memory hallows it. Sir Francis Drake was a hero of romance, even in his own day. He accomplished the then wonderful feat of sailing round the world; he distinguished himself as one of the gallant defenders of his country against the Spanish Armada; but the work for which he deserves most honour is least known. He undertook the apparently Herculean task in those days, of bringing water from Dartmoor into the town of Plymouth, by which the inhabitants now enjoy

*The following lines are inserted by one who was formerly an inhabitant of this quiet spot, Crowndale.

Dear are the sylvan bowers, that crown the dale
Of Tavy with their overshadowing arms,

And whisper to the birds, the tender tale

Of love, renewed with spring's returning charms.

A shade of glory haunts this native vale

Of gallant Drake; who, rous'd by war's alarms,
Sail'd round the ocean with the buoyant gale;
And foremost to disperse impending harms,
Repell'd the armada's host that came like swarms
Of locusts, to o'erwhelm Britannia's isle.

Now while the breast with proud remembrance warms,
We own the powers that make the landscape smile,
Celestial Peace, and Truth, whose might disarms
Those twins of darkness, violence, and guile.

Let his phil

a sufficient supply of the pure element. anthrophic act be duly recorded, while we turn from the place of his birth, to view the scenes around.

Close by we are attracted by a homely, yet engaging picture. It is nature's own garden, possessing an entrance quite unique; an old drawbridge has been thrown across the canal (already mentioned) which runs close by Crowndale; we have only to cross this bridge, and on the right is the orchard, putting forth its buds, the early harbingers of promise. Beneath the moss grown and picturesque branches of the apple trees, are blooming innumerable snowdrops, primroses, lent-lelies or daffodils, and scentless violets. They are growing even to the water's edge. How beautifully that large cluster of snowdrops is reflected in the calm stream! But we must leave this gay scene to wander along the margin of the canal, observing on our left a beautiful valley, which breaks upon the view, formed by the windings of the Tavy. The rocks near Harts-hole jut out from amidst some short coppice on one side of the vale-on the other we see the light graceful foliage of Birch-wood-a famous resort for foxes as the country people aver; the favourite haunt too, of happy urchins in nutting season, whose merry shouts resound through the wood as they climb for the rich brown clusters of hazel nuts which are plentiful there. Now the cuckoo begins its cheerful note ; nor is it allowed to die away unnoticed; the rocks take up the strain; a fine echo has made its dwelling there, and the whole valley reverberates with the melody. We hear the sound best from an iron aqueduct which conveys the water of the canal across the old Beerferris road. Soon after a pretty cascade attracts our attention, and at length we arrive at the termination of our walk where the canal is carried under ground by a tunnel of a mile and three quarters in length, which enables it to reach Morwellham quay (with which it is connected by an

inclined plane 240 feet high.) and deposit the goods, which are conveyed thither in its iron boats * to be again shipped and borne away by the Tamar. "The tunnel

was opened in June 1817, having been completed at an expence of £68,000." There is little inducement to pass through the gloomy hole, which forms an entrance to this subterranean passage, we will therefore retrace our steps homeward, admiring in our way the beautiful view presented at one turn of the canal by the town of Tavistock, with its church tower and surrounding trees, and the tors of Dartmoor beyond. Before leaving the banks of the canal we must notice some pleasant fields, (closely cropped by the nibbling sheep,) which in the fine summer evenings have been used as a cricket ground-They belong to Fitzford, an estate once possessed by the family of Fitz, but which like most part of the land in the neighbourhood of Tavistock, has passed into the hands of the Duke of Bedford. A gothic archway overgrown with ivy, part of an ancient barn, and some venerable trees, are all that remain to mark the grandeur of the mansion of the Fitzes. "Tradition relates, that John Fitz whose horoscope was overshadowed from his birth had the mischance to slay Sir Nicholas Slanning in a duel, which took place beneath the old gateway at Fitzford. Having through continued ill fortune slain two

* The principal articles conveyed in them are Ore, Coal, and Lime. +On the monument to Sir Nicholas Slanning, which has but lately been taken down in Bickleigh Church, was the following epitaph, alluding to the fatal rencounter;

"Idem eœdis erat nostræ simul author et ultor,

Trux homicida mei, mox homicida sui;

Quamg, in me primum, mox in se conditit ensem:

O nostrum, summi Judicis, arbitrium."

Translated thus by Prince in his "Worthies of Devon:"
"He author of my murder was, and the revenger too,

A bloody murderer of me, and then himself he slew,

The very sword wich in mine first, he bathed in his own blood;
O! of the highest Judge "twixt us, the arbitration good!"

other persons, Fitz in despair at length fell upon his own sword, and perished." His only daughter Mary, born in 1596, married successively four noble gentlemen. Her third husband was Sir Charles Howard, son of the Earl of Suffolk: Her last husband Sir Richard Grenville as we have before said, embraced the royal cause in the great Rebellion in 1644, and was attacked at Fitzford, by the Parliamentary General, the Earl of Essex. This is therefore the Lady Mary Howard, (properly Lady Grenville,) of ghostly memory. * Lady Grenville is said to have suffered as well as others from the tyranical disposition of Sir Richard; but she bears the stigma according to Mrs Bray in her "Tavy and Tamar, of having been an unnatural mother; what greater crime can be imputed to a woman?

*KEMPE'S NOTICES OF TAVISTOCK &c.

In a meadow near the Tavistock gas station is a small building, erected over a spring which supplied the mansion of Fitzford with water. Mr. Kempe intimates that "the counterpart lease of a field, with liberty to John Fytz, Esq. to convey water from a fountain therein "in pipes of timber, lead, or otherwise," to his mansion house at Fitzford, dated 10th of Elizabeth, is extant in the archives of Tavistock parish."