The cloisters present a melancholy ruin; the west and south sides have long since disappeared; and for some unaccountable reason, the eastern arcade has lately been blocked up with freestone. The northern walk is therefore all that remains, and it would probably have shared a like fate with the others, but that the chapter-room opens from it, by means of a very rare Anglo-Norman porch. The chapter-room is in a most perfect state of preservation, and presents a fine specimen of the same style of architecture. The dean. and chapter, in restoring it, some years since, however, raised a wooden floor, about five feet over the ancient pavement, in order to keep out the sepulchral dampness; but much at the expense of the proportions of the room, and completely to the obscuration of the stone benches which surround it. Before leaving the cloister, if we peep through the keyhole of a large door, we

shall see the blackened ruin of the bishop's palace, burnt by the mob in the Reform riots of 1831. The bishop now has an episcopal palace at Stapleton, a few miles from Bristol, as well as in Gloucester; the two sees having, within these few years, been consolidated. As we proceed by way of the cloisters to the College Green, remnants of old Gothic work lie about us on all sides; and as we puzzle over an ancient manuscript, and try to eke out those letters that time has obliterated, so we conjecture of the original proportions of this monastery, by its detached and outlying fragments.

By far the most interesting and elegant of all the remains of the Abbey, however, is the Anglo-Norman archway, the most perfect and beautiful specimen of this early style, perhaps, to be met with in England. The intersecting arches, and the zig-zag mouldings, which ornament it, are almost as perfect as the day

the way."

Every house here is delightful to the painter's eye, from the great variety of its outline: in many cases, the windows-those handsome protruding structures, so prevalent in Queen Elizabeth's time extend the whole breadth of the house, and every floor is so built as to overhang the one below it. Here and there the arms of some ancient guild might be seen moulded in the plaster-work, but well nigh obliterated by the annual supply of yellow wash they receive. It is quite impossible for two carriages to pass each other in some parts of this street; yet we should fancy that the good people of Bristol would regret to see it swept away, even for the convenience of having a more serviceable thoroughfare. Wine Street is completely modernized; but in Peter Street we again meet with the gables and huge windows of the olden time. Behind St. Peter's Church is the Mint, so called from its being the house where money was coined after the destruction of the castle, in which this branch of the king's service was originally carried on. It is now a hospital, and the poor-house of the city; Bristol, by a Local Act, having the management of its own poor. And here before this fine-looking old mansion they congregate a wretched-looking crowd-twice a week for relief; yet within a few yards, among pauper's graves, covered with oyster-shells and rubbish, lies one who in his lifetime was still more wretched-Richard Savage, the poet! Castle Street is built upon the site of the old Castle, destroyed by Cromwell in 1655. Scarcely a vestige remains of this famous fortress, which once formed the military key of the west. Wandering along Castle Green, curious to see what remnants might yet be found of a stronghold which had endured twelve sieges, and had taken a part in all the great rebellions and civil wars of our history, we were attracted by the soughing of a forge-bellows, and the glow proceeding from an open doorway. Looking in, we beheld the red light illumining a finely-groined roof; and upon making inquiries, we found this blacksmith's shop to be an ancient crypt of the Castle, and the only remains of that building now in existence.

A fortress stood upon this spot as early as the time of the Saxons, and served as a check to Danish marauders in the neighbourhood; but it owed its importance as a mighty stronghold to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, bastard son of Henry I., who, foreseeing the impending struggles, and wishing for security against the time when his father's death would lead to fierce disputes for the crown, fixed upon Bristol, the head of his barony, as a place in which to entrench himself; and scarcely had he finished rebuilding the Castle, commenced in 1130, when King Stephen attacked him, but unsuccessfully. Shortly afterwards, however, he entered its walls, but as a prisoner instead of a triumphant conqueror; and here he remained some time. A writer who describes this Castle in the reign of that monarch, does not give it a very bright character: he says, "On one part of the city, where it is more exposed, and liable to be besieged, a

large castle rises high, with many banks, strengthened with a wall, bulwarks, tower, and other contrivances to prevent the approach of besiegers; in which they get together such a number of vassals, both horse and foot, -or rather, I might say, of robbers and freebootersthat they appear not only great and terrible to the lookers-on, but truly horrible; and it is scarce to be credited: for collecting out of different counties and regions, there is so much the more numerous and freer conflux of them, the more easier under a rich lord and the protection of a very strong Castle, they have leave to commit whatever pleases them best in this rich country." The citizens showed the estimation they held their gallant protectors in, by building a wall between the Castle and themselves! In later times, however, it freed itself of this charge of being a mere stronghold for freebooters. It was the last place which made any stand for Richard II., when the civil war broke out during his absence in Ireland; still later its dungeons held John Vere, Earl of Oxford, after the battle of Tewkesbury laid the Lancastrian banner in the dust. During the great Rebellion, Bristol, the second city of the empire, was naturally coveted by the King and the Parliamentarians, especially so by the latter. "The Parliament," says Prynne, "his Excellency, London, and the whole kingdom, looked upon Bristol as the place of the greatest consequence of any in England, next to London, as the metropolis, key, magazine of the west, which would be all endangered, and the kingdom too, by its loss." Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes held it for the Commons early in the struggle, but it was carried by Rupert in 1643, at which time King Charles and his two sons entered it in all the pomp of military triumph: it was not to be supposed, however, that the Parliamentarians would long allow such a strong place as Bristol to remain in the hands of the Royalists. Fairfax and Cromwell marched against it two years later, with a powerful army; and as they were not the men to go away again, leaving their work undone, Prince Rupert, after sustaining a sharp assault, thought it advisable to give the city and Castle up to them; and with Bristol fell the chief hope of despotic power in England.

We have given a cut of Steep Street. (Cut, No. 6.) It was by means of this precipitous defile that the Parliamentary forces entered the city; and the people within their houses keeping up a bloody fire from their windows as they passed, the troopers grew so exasperated that they entered, and put every one they found in them to the sword. Cromwell wisely ordered the Castle to be levelled with the ground immediately it came into his possession; and with its venerable towers the military history of Bristol might be said to have ended. The Castle moat still remains, and shows the extent of ground it once occupied; and this stagnant water-girdle, of old designed to keep out assault, has now in its turn become assaulter; and from year to year slays more with its pestiferous breath than ever did the culverins, crossbows, and cannon of the Castle. Why do not the Bristol people complete the work

THE MANUFACTORIES, ETC., OF BRISTOL.

St. Philip's and Temple Meads, two districts which lie to the east of the city, and on either side of the river, are almost entirely given up to manufactories, and there is perhaps no place in England which contains such a variety of them in so small a space. St. Philip's especially is

"A huddled mass of brick and stones,

And working shops, and furnace fires." As we pass along, one moment a huge glass-house cone attracts our notice, the fierce glow of the great fires which we see through the open door making black silhouettes of the busy workmen who stand before it; the next brings us to where the din of hammers proclaims an iron-foundry; then again 'tis some distillery, or a pottery, or alkali works. And here, indeed, as one of Bristol's native poets has said,

"Tall belching chimneys rise in vain,
To mock the poor deluded town ;
Pouring a poisonous vapour-rain,
Their heavy vomit, down."

Glass may be considered a staple manufacture; this city has been the seat of the trade for many centuries: immense quantities of bottles are made here, and the flint glass of Bristol is famed throughout England. Soap is also a staple product of the city: as long ago as the thirteenth century it sold largely of this article to London. The locomotive factory of Messrs. Stothard and Slaughter, one of the most entensive in the kingdom, is situated in St. Philip's, and a peep into their workshops shows us goodly rows of these gleaming monsters, in different states of progress, some but gigantic skeletons, others puffing with their first trial, and just ready to be launched upon their arrowy course. Within a short distance lies the Bristol cotton-works, with its noble façade and little village of workmen's houses clustered around it. This factory is more complete within itself, perhaps, than any other in the kingdom; it has attached to it large bleaching-works, and a foundry and engineering establishment, where all the looms and other machinery of the works are made and repaired. Upwards of two thousand persons are here employed, chiefly in the manufacture of a coarse kind of cotton goods calculated for the Levant trade; the whole place is very perfect in its arrangements, and the comforts of the workpeople are carefully attended to. These works are situated on a short canal running into the Avon. Still farther up the river, at Crew's Hold and Keynsham, large lead and brass-works are carried on. The manufactures of Bristol are by no means confined to this quarter of the city, however. Walking along some of the greatest thoroughfares, we come now and then upon huge many-storied buildings, emitting at all possible parts little jets of steam: these are the sugar-baking houses; Bristol has a name for refining

markets of the world than the refineries of any other place. About the middle of the last century these establishments were much more numerous than at present, and immense fortunes were made by this manufacture. "A Bristol sugar-baker" was a stock character of many of the comedies of that day, and was generally put forward as the representative of everything that was rich and vulgar; it need not be said with what slight reason. The poor sugar-bakers are now allowed to pursue their avocations unmolested, and the calumny has been transferred to the great millocrats of the north. Groups of boys may generally be seen about these refineries, trying to get a out of the empty sugar casks piled in front of with respect to the sledges, or drays, employed in this A word or two might not be here out of place,

"taste

them.

and other branches of trade in Bristol, as most absurd things have been said about them; one writer will have it that "they suffer no carts, lest, as some say, the shake occasioned by them on the pavement should affect the Bristol milk (sherry) in the vaults, which is certainly had here in the greatest perfection." And to this day one of the common falacies respecting Bristol is, that all its traffic is carried on with these sledges; to some extent this is true, but from no care, however, lest the lactuaries of the city be damaged, but for the simple reason, that where heavy goods, such as tobacco, sugar, rum, &c., have to be moved from place to place, a low dray is much more convenient for the purpose of lifting in and out than a high-wheeled cart. Strangers who visit Bristol, however, will find just as many of the ordinary kind of vehicles as are to be met with elsewhere. In addition to the foregoing list of manufactories, we must not forget the many important founderies and wrought-iron works flourishing here, in which chain cables and anchors of the largest size are made; manufactures of patent shot, sheet lead, tobacco and snuff, chocolate, cocoa, and floor-cloth, absorb a vast amount of labour; and by the trades of hat and pinmaking the two neighbouring villages of Easton and Winterbourne are in a great measure supported. The reason of the manufacturing activity displayed in a place which a stranger would imagine wholly given up to commerce, is to be found in the vast coal-fields upon which Bristol is built, and which renders fuel, -the very life-blood of metal working, and other trades requiring great heat, so plentiful and cheap. These coal-fields extend from a point a few miles north-east of Bristol to the south-west, and east a distance of thirty miles; the beds are generally shallow, but the quality is excellent. Unlike the pits about Birmingham and in the north, those in the immediate neighbourhood of the city, especially the Ashton and Brislington colleries, are situated in the midst of the most rural and beautiful scenery; verdure extends up to the very pit mouths, and the tireless arm of the mighty giant steam, lifting like a plaything enormous loads from out the bowels of the earth, continually meets the eye as we clear a clump of trees or the brow