revealing their secret." We then descend to BOSSINEY, formerly a borough town which returned its representatives to Parliament, but now an insignificant collection of squalid huts, and pass through TREVENA (Inns: The Stuart Wortley Arms, and King Arthur's Arms) on our way to the song-famous headland of TINTAGEL (population of parish, 1084). The weather-beaten CHURCH, dedicated to St. Sinforian, stands all alone and unsheltered on the summit of a tremendous cliff overlooking the wild Atlantic. So violent here is the fury of the ocean-winds, that it is necessary to support the very tombstones by substantial buttresses of masonry. The church is cruciform in plan, and comprises a nave and chancel, transepts, porches, western tower, and a lady chapel between the north transept and the chancel. The main walls of the nave and chancel are undoubtedly Saxon. The north transept is chiefly Early English; the south transept Early Decorated. In the interior of the nave are some questionable Early English and Perpendicular insertions. The tower is the latest portion of the building, and appears to have been built in imitation of the original structure.

"The 'Ladye Chapel,' now used as a vestry, opens into the chancel on the north side by a characteristic wooden door, of the square-headed trefoil type, of oak, and of the thirteenth century. The chapel itself is not so evidently Saxon as the portions of the nave and chancel mentioned above, but we have little or no doubt but that it may be safely referred to that period. The windows are extremely small, round-headed, and deeply splayed. The original stone-altar remains, slab and all, in a perfect state, except that only four out of the five crosses on the slab remain. On either side are curious corbels, or rather brackets, on which images formerly stood"—(Building News, Aug. 1860).

The interior has recently been restored, and the windows have been filled with stained glass, the workmanship and contribution of the Rev. R. B. Kinsman, the present vicar. The principal points remaining to be noticed are, the Saxon door and windows of the nave; the Norman great south doorway of the nave; the Transition-Norman chancel-arch; the Early English east window, the sill of which was originally an altar; the Easter sepulchre or founder's tomb, Decorated, in the chancel; and the Perpendicular rood-screen, and seats, of oak.

The rectangular fish-ponds, and the Gothic archway of the vicarage, are worth examination.

TINTAGEL CASTLE.

[In Domesday, DUNCHINE, or Chain Castle; belonged to the Earls of Cornwall, and here Earl Richard, the so-called "King of the Romans," entertained his nephew David, Prince of Wales, in 1245; was allowed by Lord Burleigh, temp. Elizabeth, to fall into ruins, to avoid the expense of its repair; is now attached to the Duchy. The Earl of Warwick was imprisoned here in 1397.

34 m. from Truro; 18 m. from Launceston; 6 m. from Camelford; 21 m. from Bodmin; 230 m. from London.]

A magnificent castle it was in its palmy days, with halls and towers and ramparts, such as befitted the palace of a British king; but mouldering ruins alone remain to tell of what it must have been. Half of the castle has been washed away by the constant inroads of the sea, and still greater devastation is unhappily menaced. "The great circular tower," says Howitt, "the one where we may suppose the round table to have stood, has thus fallen half into the gulf, and has half yet standing, to shew a while longer, by its lofty walls and ample dimensions, what a noble banqueting-room for one hundred and thirty heroes, and a due proportion of ladies fair, it must have been."

The ruins, yet extant, are placed on the very brink of a tremendous precipice (300 feet above the sea), which forms the extremity of a bold headland or promontory, called by the peasants "the Island," because the rush of waters has nearly separated it from the main land. The castle originally occupied the promontory and the opposite hill-the two portions being connected by a noble bridge, whose massive foundations are yet visible. "Arches and flights of steps cut in the native rock remain and walls, based on the crags, as they protrude themselves from the ground, some at one elevation and some at another, and enclosing wide areas, which once were royal rooms, but are now carpeted with the softest turf; where the goat or the mountain sheep grazes, or seeks shelter from the noon sun and the ocean wind, and where the children from the neighbouring mill come up and pursue their solitary sports, build mimic castles with the fallen stones of the dwelling of ancient kings, and enclose paddocks and gardens with rows of them. Other battlemented walls, which constituted the outworks and fortifications, run winding here and there up the steeps, and along the strips of green turf, apparently natural terraces, on the heights of the promontory."

And so, stone by stone, will pass away the once glorious palace of Tintagel, but not the memory of the brave knights and peerless ladies who, in the old time, made its walls ring with song and laughter. No; poetry will renew them with a strange and mystic life. And these legends of the British heroes, these tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram, have exercised no inconsiderable influence on English literature

They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,

And mix in Milton's heavenly theme."

Milton himself has told us how-"I betook me among those lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood; so that even those books proved to me so many enticements to the love and steadfast observation of virtue." And Gower, and laurelled Chaucer, and kingly Shakspeare, drew inspiration from them; and, in a later day, Bulwer Lytton has extracted their gold, and moulded it into "King Arthur;" and Tennyson has sung, in immortal verse, of " manytowered Camelot."

The popularity of these old romances is creditable to our English nature, for there is nothing in them to gratify a prurient taste, nothing corrupt or enervating; they are all enthusiastic in praise of virtue and valour, chastity and generosity,—in commendation of a pure and stainless life. The great hero of these fables, King Arthur himself, is he not a perfect model of what kaiser and knight should be? "Noble, stalwart, and magnanimous ;"-brilliant in war, just and liberal in peace,—the friend of poets, the defender of the weak,-a patriot, a warrior, and a statesman! And around him are grouped knights worthy of such a chief! Modest and generous Gawain; Launcelot, the noble champion of the lake, somewhat stained, it is true, by his fatal love for Queen Guenever, yet ever foremost when a gallant deed is to be done; and Sir Tristram, the gentle, whom all love, and none dare envy !

So King Arthur held royal state in the castle of Tintagel, and because his knights were so equal in fame and valour that no one deserved to be placed above the others, there did he establish his "Round Table," and set at rest all questions of precedency for ever. And from Tintagel would they sally forth on deeds of perilous enterprise to slay a dragon, to protect an oppressed maiden, to defeat the wiles of some malignant enchan