PAIGNTON,

Three miles from Torquay southward, possesses a fine sandy beach-broad, firm, and smooth for bathers; but the tract is subject, during easterly winds, to the inconvenience of being encumbered with masses of sea-weed and drift-wood. The place, however, is free from the daily toll of the passing-bell of Torquay, the sad knell of those who have come thither to die of decline. Most melancholy it is in church or street constantly to meet the sight of that terrible decay, the slow wasting, the cheek with its exquisite flush growing hollow; the hand pale, feverish, and transparently thin; and the keen, brilliantly star-like light of the eyes, so earnest and so sad. All the loveliness of nature cannot compensate for this. The pier was built in 1838. The church of St. John (Perpendicular) (R. Gee, V.) is cruciform; it has a Norman west door, and a fine stone pulpit on the north side. It likewise contains a superb stone screen, Perpendicular, with three arches, parting off the south aisle. Against it are placed the effigies of Sir J. and Lady Kirkham, canopied statues on the tomb, and angels bearing shields in the pinnacles under it, rich and beautiful. There are some walls and a tower of the palace in which stout Miles Coverdale lived. The pier was built in 1838, and cider is exported in large quantities. The steps and shaft of a churchyard cross stand in the garth. Euphorbia peplis is found in the lanes. A pleasant walk of five miles leads to Berry Pomeroy, famous for St. Mary's church (the living of Prince, author of the "Worthies of Devon"), in which are effigics of Lord Edward Seymour, who died 1593, and of Sir Edward Seymour, with other monuments of the same family from the reign of Elizabeth to that of William III. The church contains a good parclose and roodloft. The Castle, begirt by a wood and seated on a perpendicular rock (a high ridge, partly covered with oak), is best seen from the

northern bank of the little glen through which a rivulet, a branch of the Dart, frets its way. The ivy-mantled walls, the great gateway, the round tower of St. Margaret, the south Tudor front, built by the Protector Somerset, and part of a Jacobean court of the period of Charles I., are full of rents, unroofed and open. This is all that survives of a once vast and sumptuous structure, originally built by a Norman knight, Ralph de Pomeroy, and held by his descendants, till Sir Thomas buckled on his sword in the rising of Devon, and his fair castle passed to the grasping Somerset. A fantastic legend is attached to the fortunes of the family; which, according to the tradition, depended on the safe keeping of a mysterious berry given to Audomar de Pomeroy by Ella, mother of Rollo, the night before he sailed with Duke William from Normandy. The last of the name, Constance, was compelled to surrender it to Henry VIII.; from him it passed to the Protector, Somerset ; and, finally, to Edward VI. On the night the boy-king died, an ancient form appeared before the duchess in this castle, and pronouncing its doom accomplished, buried the kernel in the ground, from which sprang a noble beech-tree, still pointed out. It is, perhaps, needless to say that Berry (Bury) means a fortified place. From the east, or St. Margaret's tower, it is said, the two sons of Henry Pomeroy, who murdered the king's herald, and fled to St. Michael's Mount, leaped on horseback into the glen rather than surrender the castle. It was last inhabited in the reign of James II. Tradition says that the lightning fired it shortly afterwards; trees and trailing plants conceal the rents, and fill the courts now voiceless and deserted.

"It stood embosomed in a happy valley,

Crowned by high woodlands, where the druid oak
Stood, like Caractacus in act to rally

His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunderstroke;
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally

The dappled foresters; as day awoke,

The branching stag swept down with all his herd
To quaff a brook which murmured like a bird."

Polypodium laceratum is found here.

TOTNESS (the. Look-out Headland) is two miles distant: it was the birthplace of the learned Kennicott, 1718; of Edward Lye, the Saxon scholar, 1704; and of Brockledon, the artist. The town's folk aver that Brutus of Troy, when he arrived at this spot, said,—

"Here I sit and here I rest,

And this town shall be called Totness."

Here, on Sunday, Oct. 21, 1638, occurred that terrible storm, of which, credulous as the men of his diocese, Bishop Hall said, "It was plainly wrought by a stronger hand than Nature's." The town was occupied alternately by the Cavaliers and Goring's Roundheads; but it is most noted for its frantic devotion to the Prince of Orange, on whose arrival it offered 4s. in the pound land tax, and the remaining 16s. if that saturnine foreigner required it. The bridge, built 1825, cost 12,000l. The south gate and part of the town walls remain. The old ivied Norman keep of the castle is circular, and crowns a hill. St. Mary's church, Perpendicular, was built of red sandstone by Bishop Lacy in 1432; it contains a fine stone screen and pulpit. Dogs are ingeniously trained here to drive back the salmonpeel into the fishermen's nets. The town gave the title of Earl, 7th Feb. 1626, to George, Lord Carew: it became extinct with his death. About 1 miles distant, near the Ashburton Road, is the grand ruin of Dartington House. The great hall, roofless, measures 69 ft. by 38 ft. and was once 50 ft. in height; it has a capacious fireplace of stone, and a porch; the kitchen and outbuildings remain. Upon the front of the mansion, which is of the time of Richard II., are the arms of Holland, Duke of Exeter: the outer quadrangle 245 ft. by 157 ft., with the tower-gate, is nearly complete; but the west wall of the inner court alone remains, The church of St. Mary has some good stained glass, a Tudor pulpit and rich oak carving and screen-work; there is the effigy of a lady of the thirteenth century.

A boat daily makes the passage between Totness and

Dartmouth along the exquisite river-scenery of the English Rhine, the Dart-so named from its swiftness-the pride of South Devon. The moorsmen call it proudly "Dart ;" and say (with some truth, for it has few fords, and swells as rapidly as the Solway) that never a year passes but the river-spirits drown one victim.

"River of Dart, oh, river of Dart,

Every year thou claimest a heart."

The premonitory sign is the deepening blue of the water. "The cry," of the Dart is the loud sound which it raises at midnight. Spenser alludes to the primary cause of the decay of Dartmouth as a port.

Dart well nigh choaked with sands of tinny mines ;

but in addition to the silting of the river, the choice of Plymouth by the bold adventurers of the reign of Elizabeth, transferred thither the larger portion of its trade. Dyer, in the Fleece, mentions the removal of the cloth trade, which caused great distress in these parts.

"The Dart and sullen Exe, whose murmuring wave

Envies the Dune and Rother, who have won

The serge and kersey to their branching streams."

The Dart rises under the tall granitic pillar of Cranmere, beside a pool planted by the earthquake, where the lost spirits wail at night; and chafing with rapids, sparkling in the sun, or shadowed by trees, winding, ever-varying, a gay inconstant stream, it is hastening onward the swifter where it seems most to linger. Leaving Totness, it flows under steep and dark rocky banks by Sharpham Park (R. Durant), which it sweeps by in a splendid curve: then rounding a headland, it washes the fair enclosures and undulating meadows of Stoke Gabriel and Maisonette (R. P. Hulme), when it widens under wooded slopes-hill and dale, cottage and hamlet, succeeding each other-by the rich woodlands of Dittisham, the echoing banks of Sandridge (Lord Cranstoun) till below, glassy and broad, like a lake, it reflects the lofty hills and shining limestone quarries behind

which rises Watton Court (H. Studdy). Still downward by the trees of Greenway, the birthplace of stout Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and the home of Raleigh, skirting the anchor stone-where the gallant seaman smoked his pipe of Virginia, and mused of El Dorado-it expands into grandeur only to be lost in the foam and billows of the great sea in the bay of

DARTMOUTH,

Where is the most beautiful of coast scenes. The entrance of the river, and its opening to the sea, seem folded between the banks of an inland lake. These banks are the slopes of lofty hills, luxuriantly green; the lake is a magnificent bay, which will hold 500 sail. Within the harbourmouth, for the breadth of a mile, the town, rising with terraced streets and flights of steps, lies embosomed in trees, or is seen climbing the grand eminences, below which the quays and dockyards impart a seeming curvature to the strand. The harbour serves as a port of refuge during storms; and in winter-time, when the rivers of Holland and Germany are icebound, steamers and homeward-bound Dutch ships lie here. The town consisted formerly of three districts-Dartmouth, Clifton, and Hardness. The population in 1801 was 2398; in 1831, 4597; and in 1851, 4508. Since the fourteenth year of Edward III. the borough returned two members of Parliament, but only one since the Reform Bill. The exports are cider and barley; the imports, fruit, wine, oil, and salt from the Mediterranean. Dartmouth maintains a considerable trade with Newfoundland. The floating-bridge, established August, 1831, crosses the river, where it has a breadth of 1650 feet. The church of St. Saviour is cruciform, with many Decorated portions, a fine stone pulpit, carved misereres, a rich wooden screen, curious iron ornamental and scroll work on the great south door, and a brass of the fourteenth century to the memory of Sir John Hawley