shades of darker verdure, a rough stone wall stops the way. Even here a healthy mind may find enjoyment. It is not every day that the “ceterach,” with its shining scales, can be found in such profusion as it here runs riot. Haply a “gled” (as kites are called in Wales) may sail over you; he, too, is not seen every day in other counties. And if your visit be paid to the mountains in spring or early summer, you are certain to see more charming groups of mountain lambs crowning the rocks, and agilely leaping the fences at every turn, than Landseer or Ansdell ever transferred to canvas.
Those who are fond of English history will find traces in Siluria of many well-known personages. Take Glamorganshire alone. After the Conquest it belonged to the Clares and Spensers; then it passed to the Beauchamps and Nevilles and so to Richard III., who lost it, along with the rest of his kingdom, to Henry VII., at Bosworth; and that king gave it to his uncle Gaspar, Duke of Bedford. From its many castles, each thickly crusted with its own store of memories, we may choose Cardiff as a sample. In its dungeons languished the gallant Robert of Normandy for twenty-eight years, bereft of sight, and imprisoned by Henry I., and at Gloucester, where Robert’s shrine is to be seen in the Cathedral, he seems to pass almost visibly into the turbulent scenes of Anglo-Norman royalty.
Camden tells us, from Giraldus, a wonderful story of “two pleasant but small islands, called Sully and Barry” (from St. Baruch, who lies buried there), “scarce three miles from the mouth of the Taff.” There is said to have been a chink in a rock in one of these, “to which, if you put your ear, you shall perceive such a noise as if smiths were at work there.” Anyhow, its glories have now disappeared, having “migrated” according to some, to Wormshead. If we try this story in the scientific crucible, “the workshop of Vulcan” probably points to the phenomena of blow-holes, caverns, &c., where the incoming tide resounds against the walls, and the roar is conveyed by a natural funnel to the ear. The geologist can point to several of these wonders on the Cornish coast; and the whole story is an admirable illustration of Malebranche’s theory, that man is never deceived by his senses, but by the interpretation he puts on the information they give him of the outer world. It would be no unworthy object for a visitor tired of the Wye and Fluellen’s “salmons,” to investigate such phenomena. They who thus occupy themselves vastly increase the pleasures of a summer holiday.
It is astonishing how few people know anything of Siluria. North Wales, with its grander mountains and engineering marvels, is visited by everybody; and yet we will affirm that very many objects of interest may be found in that vast extent of country which spreads from the marches of Monmouth to Fishguard Bay.
Siluria is fruitful in hospitality, prodigal in natural beauty, and peopled with the strangest superstitions. As you listen to the old crones telling of corpse-candles, portents of death, and haunted houses lighted up by bluish flickers more thrilling than even the superstitions of Jersey, you feel yourself at once transported to the dark ages. Though to the sportsman Siluria will be most pleasing in winter, when the snipe rises from every wet meadow, and a woodcock may be flushed in every other coppice, we venture to recommend it in its summer dress to everyone tired of home and business. Then the wheat-ear flits over the commons, and the mountains look greener and brighter than at other times, for the light strikes up from the cultivated vales below, and is caught on their rugged sides. After spending a few days in Siluria, we prophesy that your notions on the country will be revolutionised.
So we cannot conclude better than in words Shakspeare puts in Gower’s mouth to a person similarly astonished at the reputation of South Wales:—“You find it otherwise; and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition. Fare ye well.”
TILL DEATH.
Two hands held in one clasp,
Two hearts bound in one chain,
Two bosoms beating warm,
Loving, beloved again.
Two smiles of fervent faith
On each caressing cheek,
Two voices soft and low,
As whispering angels speak.
Two figures kneeling glad
Before the sacred shrine,
Two vows of mutual love
Exchanged in sight divine.
Two coffins, side by side,
Beneath the daisied sod,
Two spirits dwelling in
The perfect rest of God.
HAMBURG TO COPENHAGEN AND ROSKILDA.
Tired of Hamburg and its handsome streets, tired of the Alster Lake and the famous Jungfernstieg, or Maiden’s Walk, where the trees are so exactly like the toy trees of our Noah’s arks, where the boats are clumsy and the oars worse; weary of Gruby’s and “Chablis” and “Clicquot” at Jacobson’s, the “Star and Garter” of Hamburg, and ill with its bad cigars—and in no town in Europe are there so many bad ones—and at last grown fairly callous to the familiar novelties of the city, we started for a week’s jaunt to Copenhagen. Is Copenhagen as fine a town as Hamburg? we asked of a fellow-passenger in a third-class carriage of the train to Kiel, to whom we had casually communicated our destination. Is it as gay and are the streets as broad and as frequented as Hamburg? It is a magnificent town—the streets swarm with people. My companion, half a German by birth, and quite one in feeling, stared somewhat indignantly I thought.
“Hamburg. Why, Copenhagen is the finest city in Europe,” he was about to say; but luckily for our peace and quietness, for my companion’s