The third line, which diverges westward from Stafford, is the branch to Shrewsbury. The first station, after leaving the town of Stafford and crossing into Shropshire, is NEWPORT,-a small The church market town and borough, with a corporation, which can be traced to Henry III.

is of the fifteenth century, with an interior of great beauty; but it has been frightfully disfigured by aisles built of bricks in a common builders' style of architecture. There is a free grammar school founded by one William Adams in 1756, which has a library attached to the school and five scholarships. The best, of £80 a-year, to Christchurch, Oxford.

WELLINGTON stands at the base of the Wrekin, and is the centre of the Shropshireman's toast. It is the chief town of the coal and iron district, and the point where the line from Wolverhampton makes a junction, which affords the nearest road from Birmingham to Shrewsbury. It was here that Charles I., on his march from Wellington to Shrewsbury, assembled his troops, and, in order to allay the growing disaffection among them, declared that he would "support the reformed religion, govern by law, uphold the privileges of Parliament, and preserve the liberty of the subject."

From Wellington you may proceed by omnibus to Coalbrookdale, where the first iron bridge was built over the Severn, where the Darbys and Dickensons have carried on iron works for more than a century, where coal was first applied profitably to smelting iron, and where the fine iron castings of Berlin have been rivalled, and successful attempts made to introduce the principles of the fine arts into domestic manufactures.

SHREWSBURY, ten miles from Wellington, is, in more respects than one, an interesting town, situated partly on a precipitous peninsula formed by the swift clear waters of the Severn, and united to the opposite side by bridges. The manufactures of Shrewsbury are not very important; they chiefly consist of thread, linen, canvas, and iron-works in the neighbouring suburb of Coleham. A considerable and ancient trade is carried on in Welsh flannel and cloths from the neighbouring counties. of Denbigh, Montgomery, and Merioneth, and markets and fairs are held for the benefit of the rich agricultural district around, in which, besides fine butter, cheese, poultry, and live stock, a large assemblage of the blooming, rosy, broad-built Shropshire lasses show the advantage of a mixture of Welsh and English blood. But Shrewsbury is most celebrated for its school, its cakes, its ale, and the clock mentioned by Falstaff, for which on our last visit we found an ingenuous Frenchman industriously searching. The royal free grammar school, endowed by Edward VI., was raised, by the educational talents of the late Dr. Butler, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to a very high. position among our public schools; a position which has been fully maintained by the present master, Dr. Kennedy.

In the history of England and Wales, Shrewsbury plays an important part. It is supposed that "the town was founded by the Britons of the kingdom of Powis, while they were yet struggling with the Saxons, or rather the Angles, for the midland counties, and, it is probable, was founded by them when they found Wroxeter (the Uriconium of the Romans) no longer tenable. On the conquest of the town by the Anglo-Saxons it received the name of Scrobbes-byrig; that is to say, Scrub-burgh, or a town in a scrubby or bushy district, and, in the Saxon Chronicle, Scrobbesbyrig-scire is mentioned, now corrupted or polished into Shropshire. Ethelfleda, whose name we have so often had occasion to mention as the builder of castles and churches, founded the collegiate church of St. Alkmund; and Athelstan established a mint here. It is evident that the "Athelstan the Unready" mentioned in Ivanhoe, must have very much degenerated from the ancestor who established a mint for ready money. According to Domesday-Book, Shrewsbury had, in Edward the Confessor's time, two hundred and fifty-two houses, with a resident burgess in each house, and five churches. It was included in the Earldom of Shrewsbury, granted by William the Conqueror to his kinsman, Roger de Montgomery, who erected a castle on the entrance of the peninsula on which the town now stands, pulling down fifty houses for that purpose. In the wars between Stephen and the Empress Maude, the castle was taken and retaken; and in the reign of John the town was captured by the Welsh under Llewellyn the Great, who had joined the insurgent Barons in 1215. It was again attacked, and the suburbs burnt by the Welsh in 1234. Shrewsbury was taken by Simon de Montfort and his ally, Llewellyn, grandson of Llewellyn the Great, in 1266, the year before de Montfort fell on the field of Evesham. Here, in 1283, David, the last prince of Wales, was tried, condemned, and executed as a traitor; and here, too, in 1397, in the reign of Richard II., a Parliament was held, at which the Earl of Hereford The charge was to have been (afterwards Henry IV.) charged the Duke of Norfolk with treason. decided by a trial of battle at Coventry. On the appointed morning," Hereford came forth armed at all points, mounted on a white courser, barded with blue and green velvet, gorgeously embroidered

with swans and antelopes of goldsmiths' work. The Duke of Norfolk rode a horse barded with crimson velvet, embroidered with lines of silver and mulberries."

At that time it took more days to travel from Shrewsbury to Coventry than it now does hours. The cloth of gold was as splendidly, perhaps more splendidly, embroidered than anything we can do now; but in the matter of shirts, shoes, stockings, and the clothing necessary for health and comfort, and of windows and chimneys, and matters necessary for air and shelter, mechanics and day labourers are now better provided than were the squires and pages of those great noblemen. Five years after, Harry of Hereford having become Henry IV. of England, assembled an army at Shrewsbury to march against Owen Glendower, and the following year he fought the battle of Shrewsbury against Hotspur, and his ally the Douglas, which forms the subject of a scene in Shakspere's play of Henry IV. At that battle Percy Hotspur marched from Stafford towards Shrewsbury, hoping to reach it before the king, and by being able to command the passage of the Severn to communicate with his ally Glendower; but Henry, who came from Lichfield, arrived there first, on the 19th July, 1403. The battle was fought the next day at Hateley Field, about three miles from the town.

In the Wars of the Roses, Shrewsbury was Yorkist. In the great Civil War, Charles I. came to Shrewsbury, there received liberal contributions, in money and plate, from the neighbouring gentry, and largely recruited his forces; and in the course of the war the town was taken and retaken more than once. Thus it will be seen that Shrewsbury is connected with many important events in English history. The first Charter of incorporation extant is of Richard I.

From Shrewsbury to Chester there are many places of interest. The town of OSWESTRY is situated about eighteen miles from Shrewsbury. It was formerly enclosed by walls. It has a venerable and picturesque church, an ancient grammar school, a national school, several considerable charities, a town hall, theatre, and some remains of a strong castle erected in the reign of Stephen.

The DEE VIADUCT, across the Vale of Llangollen, is a noble work, simple in its design, but of massive strength and beautiful proportions. Its length is 1508, its height 147 feet, and the span of its arches (19 in number) 50 feet each. Its construction occupied about two years and a half, and cost £72,346. This arched road, crossing the river Dee under circumstances of great difficulty, is justly regarded as one of the most signal triumphs of engineering skill to be found amongst the magnificent railway works of the British isles.

Pursuing the railway route from CHIRK, the tourist arrives in a few minutes at the LLANGOLLEN ROAD station, whence he can be conveyed by one of Mr. Moses's cars, along the smooth bowlinggreen surface of the Holyhead road, to the celebrated town of Llangollen, the poetical birth-place of Charles Mathews' "Sweet Jenny Jones." During the summer season there are coaches running daily between this station, Llangollen, Corwen, Bala, Dolgelley, Aberystwith, and other places. This far-famed town consists principally of a long straggling street of small shops, public-houses, and private dwellings. There is not an architectural beauty in the place. All its charms are derived from the surrounding scenery, which has been celebrated both in prose and verse, and roused the enthusiasm of scores of painters and musical composers. The church, which is dedicated to St. Collen, whose Latin legend is extant, is in Early English, and possesses a fine ceiling of carved oak, two richly-coloured paintings of stained glass, by Egginton and Evans, and an ancient chased brass tablet to Magdalen Trevor, of Trevor Hall. The churchyard contains a monument to the memory of the two "Ladies of the Vale," the Hon. Miss Ponsonby and Lady Eleanora Butler, with their faithful servant, Mary Carrol. They all three occupy one spacious tomb, railed off and planted with yewtrees. The selection of Llangollen for a dwelling-place by these ladies, and the description, by various writers, of their residence, PLAS NEWYDD, with their mode of life, give a celebrity to the place which will doubtless long exist.-[For further details see the "Tour through North Wales."]

CASTELL DINAS BRAN (or Crowe Castle, as it is frequently called, from its elevated position) is about a mile from the town. It stands on the summit of a high conical hill, about 910 feet above the Dee. It is believed to be one of the earliest castles of North Wales.

PENGWERN HALL, once the residence of Tudor Trevor, Earl of Hereford and Lord of Bromfield, about 924, and from whom the Mostyn family are descended, is situated in a retired valley near Plas Newydd. It is now the property of the Hon. E. M. Lloyd Mostyn. Several of the windows are entire. A coffin-lid of Goronwy ab Jorwerth, from Valle Crucis Abbey, is built into a wall here.

RHUABAN is a little village, in the midst of a cluster of gentlemen's seats, and in the immediate vicinity of some extensive iron-works and collieries. The most important of the mansions upon which the eye rests is WYNNSTAY, once the residence of Madoc ab Grufydd Maelor, the founder of the Abbey