Effigy, Presumed To Represent
CICELY BONVILLE, MARCHIONESS OF DORSET.
Astley Church, Warwickshire—circa 1530-5
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EXTINCT, FOR THE WHITE ROSE.

Leaving the antient town of Colyton by its south-western approach, the broad turnpike-road that leads over the hill to Sidmouth, at about half-a-mile's distance up its ascent, a turn to the right takes us into the trackway of a winding and somewhat narrow Devonshire lane. A pleasant prospect opens across the valley below, through which the Coly sparkles along with sinuous course, and immediately in the mid-distance appears the old ruinous cradle of the Courtenay family, Colcombe Castle, grey-walled, ivy-clad, and orchard environed. Beyond and just under the further fir-topped hill-line, another grey dot strugglingly emerges from among the dense garnishing of foliage that surrounds it, and shews us what remains of old Shute House, while to its left, across the far valley, rises the beautiful tree-crested acclivity of Shute Park; localities of special importance pertinent to the interest of our little narrative, to be referred to by and by. In front a delightful and typical Devonian landscape extends itself. Sprinkled over with the deserted homes of the olden lesser squirearchy, the antient lords of the vale, and picturesquely varied alternate with copse, plantations, and well-timbered hedgerow, the two valleys of the Coly and the Brinkly bifurcate just at this point, meeting under the shadow of the remarkable pyramid-shaped hill, Waddon Pen, and then stretch away, variously broken into lesser knoll and vale, until lost in the misty outline of the high, far-distant curtain of the Farway hills, with their tiny clumps of trees that just break the even contour, and stand like sentinels on the rampart-appearanced outline against the grey sky. They recall also for the moment to the historic memory, the burthen of a pleasant story, connected with its breezy, and comparatively unfrequented altitude, one of the numberless traditions that throng the hills and vales of the olden region of the Danmonii.

A rest for awhile on the parapet of the bridge spanning the little Morganhayes brook, hastening to join the Coly a few fields' distance below; a rivulet whose banks at Spring time are almost fairy-land with abundance of some of our finest wild flowers, broad stretches of daffodils, myriads of white-starred anemones, gleams of pale primroses and bleached lady-smocks, and sheen of golden-cups in their succession, but specially, when uncertain April brings her tears and sunshine, the haunt of the most gorgeous of them all

THE MEADOW RANUNCULUS.

Close by the rippling streams' translucent marge,
Ranunculus of gold,
Bright to the sun in constellation large,
Thy glowing stars unfold

'Mid all the wealth Spring scatters without stint,
By meadow, bank or stream,
Gay daffodil, or king-cup's myriad glint,
Spread like a golden dream;—

She brings no rival whose attractions may
With thee in all compare,
Brave thy full beauty in its strong array,
And matchless clusters dare.

No, nor sweet Summer when adown the land
Her flower-sprent steps incline,
Bearing the sceptred iris in her hand,—
The glory still is thine.