which Richard Baxter lived when a boy; and which the great Puritan divine
describes as "a mile from the Wrekin Hill." The visitor, in his ascent
of the hill, passes a conical knoll of deep red syenite, clothed with
verdure, and known as Primrose Hill. The summit is 1,320 feet above the
level of the sea, and commands a prospect embracing a radius of seventy
miles. Our engraving represents a severed cliff of greenstone at the
top, called the Needle's Eye, and which tradition alleges to have been
riven at the Crucifixion. Near it is a culminating boss of pinkish
felspar known as the Bladder Stone, a name derived, it is supposed, from
Scandinavian mythology; whilst at a short distance is the Ravens' Bowl, a
basin in the hard rock, always containing water. On its sides are
stratified rocks which the trap has pierced in its ascent; and which, by
the action of heat, have been changed into a white crystalline substance.
At the northern termination is an entrenched fortification called Heaven
Gate, supposed to be of British origin; and near it is another, called
Hell Gate, with what is supposed to be a tumulus. In the valley at the
foot of the hill, on the eastern side, tumuli have been opened, in which
hundreds of spear heads and other broken weapons have been found. Here
formerly,

"Unknown to public view,
From youth to age a reverend hermit grew.
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruit, his drink the crystal well.
Remote from man, with God he passed his days,
Prayer all his business--all his pleasure praise."

Henry III., in order to afford the said anchorite, Nicholas de Denton,
greater leisure for holy exercises, and to support him during his life,
or so long as he should be a hermit on the aforesaid mountain, granted