in one of the turrets, which from the inscription on the boss in the vaulted roof, Ave Maria. . . gratiæ,' and other characteristics, is supposed to have been intended for an oratory. High up in the south-west corner of this oratory is the entrance to a small recess, clearly designed for a safe retreat, for the door to it has a bar on the inside.

There is a room above the library, said to have been the residence of the curates in the seventeenth century, but which is now used as a bedroom. On one of the walls of it there were formerly figures of two houses and a man standing near one of them, that 'was a building, nigh to which was a tree, yt had this inscription, Si quis tamen ;' but this has been obliterated.

The old rectory-house which, however, was of no great antiquity, and detached from the tower, was taken down, being much out of repair, in 1830. The greater part of the present house, the exterior of which was designed, it is said, by the Rev. Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was completed in 1833. The whole house is Elizabethan in style, is attached to the tower, and contains many good rooms. In the dining-room, over the chimneypiece, is a view of Venice, also painted by Canaletti, and bequeathed to the benefice by Dr. Tanner. The handsome carved wooden chimney-piece and the other carved work in this room came from the old rectory.

About half a mile from the church, in a street leading eastwards out of the town, stand some ancient almshouses for old men and women, founded by Archdeacon Pykenham, and close to them a little chapel, probably of the same date. It is curious as being almost wholly of wood, and it is as unsightly an edifice as any village 'Bethel' or 'Bethesda' of a quarter of a century ago. In it, however, are some handsome stall ends, of the fifteenth century, and a finely carved pulpit of about the same date, the same which was once filled by Rowland Taylor himself. It is said that on being led past this chapel on his way to the stake at Aldham Common, Taylor threw his purse through the window of the last of these almshouses, in order that he might be able to say that he had parted with his last penny to the poor of his flock. He suffered with great fortitude and resignation, refusing to recant, though bribed to do so with the offer of a bishopric. The spot where he suffered on the adjoining common was marked out from the first by his friends as hallowed ground; and a large rude stone with the following inscription has probably lain there from the close of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century:-'1555. R. Tayler in defending that was good at this plac left his blode.'

45

A SUMMER DAY AT ST. DAVID'S.

MANY of my readers, no doubt, have seen the beauties of Tenby and Milford Haven; but to-day I would ask them to transport themselves with me to the town of Haverfordwest, prepared to start on expedition farther westward still to the once archiepiscopal city of St. David's, now, alas! reduced to the dimensions of a village, unable even to support a weekly market. They will own, I think, that it is one of those places which amply repay a visit, not merely to the antiquary or ecclesiastical architect, but to the man of finished taste, who has an eye educated to appreciate grand and imposing scenes, even amid their ruins.

A drive of some fifteen or sixteen miles westward from Haverford over a very rough and stony road, after a long series of ascents and descents, brings us past Roche Castle and the little town of Solva, to some high ground, rather bare of trees, commanding the view of a pleasant valley below. In that valley