In point of song from Nature’s choristers, says an enthusiastic admirer of the Wye, these woods might challenge all England. It is impossible to enjoy a higher treat of the kind than the harmony of these little warblers on a fine summer’s evening, when, on each side of the Wye, they seem to vie with each other in the richness and fullness of their notes. Mr. Heath had the following anecdote from Signor Rossignol, so celebrated for his imitations of the feathered tribes:--“While at Monmouth,” said he, “I often walked towards Hadnock at a late hour of the night, for the purpose of comparing my own _notes_ with those which I attempted to imitate. First, I began with those of the blackbird, when every bird of that species within hearing would instantly awake as it were with the rapture of day. Then came the thrush, next the nightingale, and so on, until I had called forth the song of every bird in the woods; and thus I continued to amuse myself for an hour together. If, in the meantime, a traveller happened to be passing the road, he was immediately forced to conclude that he had quite mistaken the time of day!”[174]
<g>Walnut-trees.</g>--The Abbey appears to have been sheltered and enriched in its prosperous days by extensive orchards; but of the lofty walnut-trees, that formerly spread their luxuriant branches in its vicinity, one only remains. These trees were of great age: under their shadow many generations of monks and pilgrims had found shelter and repose; but having long survived their patrons, and attained that fatal majesty which insured their destruction, the axe was applied with ruthless force to their stems; they were hewn down, burnt, or sold; and the rich soil, from which they had derived their strength and fertility for centuries, was converted into patches of cabbage and potato ground, profusely bordered with weeds, and enlivened with pigsties that, to imaginative tourists, perhaps, may recall the memory of Friar Bacon.
<g>The Abbot’s Meadow.</g>--“I have often felt incommunicable delight,” writes Mr. Thomas, “in a walk southward along the meadows skirting the Wye. During the bright summer evenings, the glorious sun tinges the summits of the encircling hills with his oblique golden rays, while a gentle breeze makes the ripening grass wave in elegant undulations. How sweet at that pensive hour to sit upon the sedgy bank, and hear the artless music of the feathery tribes! The reedwren chants his vesper-song; full many a robin swells it by his perennial response; whilst the inimitable thrush and tender cushat revive the thrilling echo on the distant cliff.”