crosses the Avon by a wear, and conducts to Guy's Cliff Mill; passing the gardens of which, and entering the main road, about three hundred yards to the left, is seen one of the wings of Guy's Cliff Mansion, through a majestic avenue of trees: a little further on the turnpike road, the visitor will find a gate through a field leading directly to the entrance of the court yard, under a romantic rocky archway.

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- Near this spot, as the old legend goes, the valiant Earl Guy "for the love of fair Phelis became a hermit, and died in a cave of craggy rocke."

Guy's Cliff was first selected as the scite of a religious building by Saint Dubritius, who built an oratory on it, which he dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalen, and pind it under the care of a certain holy hermit, whose cell was hollowed in the native rock, which, being covered with trees, was a place of great solitude and secresy. Here the renowned Guy Earl of Warwick, from whom the Cliff takes its name, sheltered himself from his enemies, and, as Dugdale expresses it, "receiving ghostly comfort Dhomito, lie abode till his death.”

- This Cliff continued the residence of a religious recluse as late as the reign of Henry the 6th. when one John Burry was hermit, and received

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100s. per annum to pray for the good estate of Richard Beauchamp, then Earl of Warwick, as also for the souls of his father and mother.

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The above Earl Richard, in the first year of Henry 6th, rebuilt the chapel, and endowed a chantry here for two priests, who were to sing mass daily for the good estate of him and his wife. This Earl erected the large statue of the warrior Guy, which, though now in a very dilapidated state, is still to be seen in the chapel. At this place lived the famous antiquary of Warwickshire, John Rous, who was one of the chantry priests.

By a survey taken in the reign of Henry the 8th, the lands belonging to the chapel of Guy's Cliff were certified to be worth £19 10 6, which, toge ther with all its buildings and appurtenances, were granted by royal licence, in the 1st year of the reign of Edward the 6th, to Sir Andrew Flammock, Knight, in whose family it continued, till, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was purchased by William Hudson, Esq. an eminent surgeon of Kenilworth. On the marriage of his daughter to Thomas Beaufoy, Knight, the estate passed into that family. It became afterwards the property of Mr. Edwards, of Kenilworth, and from his heirs it was purchased by the late Samuel Greatheed, Esqby whom nearly the whole of the present edifice was

built, and who greatly improved and adorned the surrounding pleasure grounds. On his decease in 1765, it descended to his son, Bertie Greatheed, Esq. the present possessor, Nephew to the late Duke of Ancaster, by whose politeness, strangers are sometimes permitted to inspect a valuable collection of paintings, much enriched by the designs, originals, and copies of Bertie Greatheed, Esq. Jun. the only son of this gentleman, who unfortunately fell a victim to a most enthusiastic love of the arts, and died October 8, 1814, at Vicenza, in Italy, at the early age of twenty-two.

Guy's Cliff has long been celebrated for the romantic beauties of its situation, and is mentioned in terms of the highest admiration by Camden, Fuller, Dugdale, and other historians of note. Old Leland, so far back as the time of our Eighth Harry, describes it in these glowing terms:-" It is the abode of pleasure, a place delightful to the Muses; there are natural cavities in the rocks; small, but shady groves; clear and chrystal streams; flowery meadows, mossy caves, a gentle murmuring river running among the rocks; and to crown all, solitude and quiet, friendly in so high a degree to the Muses."!

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It may be remarked here, that its present possessor was, in early youth, a votary of the

Muses, having produced The Regent," Tragedy; and several little poems. Warner, in his "Northern Tour," thus speaks of Guy's Cliff:-"Two miles before we reached Warwick, the celebrated place of Mr. Greatheed, attracted us to its pleasing and picturesque scenery-where, a beautiful combination of wood, rock, and water, produces such a necromantic effect, as almost leads one to credit the tales of tradition; which made this place the retreat of the renowned Guy, Earl of Warwick, when he dedicated his last years to repose and prayer.'

Guy's Cave has all the appearance of being a natural cavity, though the lower part is hewn out of the rock, and bears the appearance of a grave, in which, as the tradition runs, that pious warrior was interred. The old legend, speaking in the person of Guy himself, thus relates the circumstances of his living here: After enumerating many valiant feats abroad, he says

Here follows his achievements among the Saraeens, and his deeds on his return, till he thus continues:

At length to Warwicke I did come,

Like Pilgrime poore and was not knowne;
And there I liv'd a hermite's life

A mile and more out of the towne.

Where with my hands I hewed a house
Out of a craggy rock of stone:
And lived like a Palmer poore,
Within that house, alone!

And dailye came to begg my bread
Of Phelis at my castle gate;
Not knowne unto my loving wife,
Who dailye mourned for her mate.

Till at the last I fell sore sicke,

Yea sicke, soe sore that I must die;
I sent to her a ringe of golde,

By which she knewe me presentlye.

Then shee repairing to the cave

Before that I gave up the ghost;
Herself clos'd up my dying eyes: vai
My Phelis faire whom I lov'd most.

My body that endured this toyle,
Though now it be consumed to mold;
My statue fair engraven in stone,

In Warwicke still you may behold.