However, I did escape that danger, and then, to cut the matter short-for I fear that I am wearying you-I resolved to marry again, and marry I did, and have now a son and heir; and, between ourselves, it is more than probable that there may be a farther increase in our family. I allow Jane so much a-year, in quarterly payments, and have taken care that the same shall be continued after my death. I know that she is not what she was, and have great reason to suspect that I don't know all. Be that as it may, I shall never forget that I am her father, though, thank God! she is no longer my only child. No, no. There's a pretty fair chance now that the Hartwells will hold the property for another generation or two, at least. So I can look round me with comfort; and, though of course it's fancy, I can really imagine, at this moment, that yonder grim old cavalier in the corner has got his eye upon us, and looks as though he would like to step down from his frame and join us in a cheerful glass. Well, here's a bumper to your memory, old gallant heart and strong i' th'arm! He was at the battle of Worcester, and—but I won't get into family stories. I've tired your patience already, I fear; but I feel as

though a load were taken off my mind, by thus unbosoming myself to a trusty old friend. I don't know when I have passed a half hour so agreeably."

Here a servant entered and aunounced that tea was ready, and thereby caused no small alteration in the worthy squire's countenance. He bit his lips for a second or two in silence then a flush o'erspread his cheeks and then, as though conscious that his appearance was somewhat ludicrous, and it behoved him to assert his independence, he summoned resolution, just as the man had reached the door, to say, in an authoritative tone, "Tell your mistress!" There he stopped, and the footman stopped likewise. It was an awkward pause; but presently the squire resumed the same tone, and said, " Tell

tell Jones to bring us a bottle of the old old. He'll know what I mean.What do you stand gaping there for? Do as I tell you, sir!"

"That's always the way whenever I have any visiters," he continued, when the man was gone; "but, now! with so old a friend! when we have not met for so many years! Hang me, if I will submit! It's hard indeed, if, in my own house, I may not be allowed to enjoy myself for once!"

NO. CCLXXXV, VOL. XLVI

THERE are two sorts of exhibitions now open for the improvement and delight of the eye of taste-Nature and Art. Are they rivals? They are not unfrequently in undue opposition. At this season we prefer taking the former first, and then, though late, pay respect to the latter; and visit the exhibitions of art in our picture-teeming metropolis. Having just seen the trees put on their glorious apparel (with the exception of some few late risers), we took to the mountains leaving all thoughts of magillup and varnish, we had in exchange the purest air. We have seen some beautiful scenery, and, strange to say, we did not meet with one artist. Artists are either confined to town at this season by professional engagements, or they prefer the autumn. If the latter be the case, we think them decidedly wrong; they lose Nature in her vigour and freshest hue. There is more colour, they say, in autumnal tints. That may be denied, however, unless they mean variety of colours, which are in autumn more positive; but it may be doubted if the indescribable colours, and for which there are no names, are not at this season the most beautiful the bloom of woodsnay, the bloom of earth, however covered for all is now of youth and freshness. The setting sun, with all his gorgeous clouds, is not now a distant glory; it now, even when it be less splendid, has a more pervading beauty, suffusing all to the admirer's feet. This may be one reason why artists do not reach the true pastoral; for that is to be seen and to be enjoyed, not in the brown horrors of a coming winter, but in the time of the green year. This is the season for repose in the shade, the "santa pace" in the deep glens-where the flickering sunbeam, softened through young foliage, just comes to play its hour upon the waters of a sheltered stream or mountain river, then leaves many a sweet blossom it has called into existence, to unobtrusive shade and quiet; and so it goes round the earth like Nature's finger of light, partially touching it, and beauty gladdens the very skies, that look with wonder on the new creation.

Yet we did not meet with one

sketcher, and, perhaps, none to admire the scenery, varied in its character from the stupendous to the simply beautiful. Our excursion was

short in extent and in time. Our chief objects were the Devil's Bridge, and Aberystwith. The first night we slept at Rhayader, a very poor place, but where there is said to be good fishing. Our friend and companion, another Piscator, hoped to have had some sport, but the river was too low; and we proceeded the following morning, without making any attack upon the innocent fish. Let us here note a very silly habit of some travellers, or pretended travellers, who, in their idleness, manufacture tales of horror as actual events; giving them "local habitation and a name," to the annoyance of harmless inhabitants. We read, in the Magnet newspaper, a horrid murder in the neighbourhood of Rhayader, most romantically silly; in which a lady was stabbed to the heart, by her lover, at the source of the Wye. The writer professes himself to have been one of the discoverers of the murdered lady. But the whole is a wanton and foolish fabrication. Rhayader is not very distant from Llanidloes, celebrated for the Chartists' doings. The next stage from Rhayader, as we baited, we met with the landlord of the inn of Llanidloes, who showed us his coat pierced with a pike; and it appeared that the cowardly villain purposed to stab the unoffending man in the back. The landlord told us that one of the Chartists snapped a pistol at his (the landlord's) sister. What savages are the offspring of Democratic principles ! It is to be feared, agitation, having been planted in England by men in authority, and protected by them when young, has taken a deep root, and will scarcely be eradicated. There is but a step from the speeches of Ministers and their emissaries, during the Reform mania, to the doings of the Chartists. We doubt not that all the Chartist principles, and the recommendation of their proceedings, may be gathered from the speeches of influential and Government men of the Reform day. The one party were only not traitors because they succeeded the other will only be trait

ors until they do succeed. But, we are among the mountains; and let us not pollute the pure air with politics. If evil days come, they will come; and so let us see what refuge, what solace, may be found among these wild and lonely fastnesses.

The road, made with great skill and judgment, lay entirely among the mountains; we were for miles threading the high passes every turn of the road opening into some new course, some gorge, deep and close-and then some wild vale in the amphitheatre of mountainswith grand and sweeping lines folding within and about each other. Sometimes not a tree, not a shrub, to be seen in the whole, and somewhat wide, extent. It has been not unaptly said, that to enjoy solitude one must be more or less than human. The heart sinks under the oppressive desolation; the immediate effects of which are languor, apathy, a prostration of taste. It is long before we can admire the sweeping or precipitous lines before us, and not till the coming and receding shadows have relieved the mind, by offering, at least, this variety in the wilderness. It is in scenes where the disgust of unsociable and uninhabitable places is not at once overpowered by an awful grandeur, that this disinclination to admire is so strong. Actual sublimity will find something congenial with it in almost every mind, and its terror is even sought courted. The desolate scenes short of sublimity, we hate. We do not, on this account, think such scenery is fit for the artist's pencil. We are often surprised to find them chosen, and represented under their worst effects -a hot sun, under which the eye is forced to scrutinize dismal detail, and find no one object to rest upon; while at the same time, the gusty wind is blowing the coarse rushes, and whitening and making obtrusive the marshy pools. Yet here we need not stay pass we on. The scene is either more sublime, or changing into a lofty beauty. The rocky sides of the mountains are in larger masses, the foldings grander; or some wooded ravine bursts upon the sight, and the sound of water comes upon the sense with its fabulous mystery. Then we see, as we proceed, deeper and darker masses, and, at the bottom, deep and black pools, edged with white streaks or threads-the silver chords that

throw off nature's sweetest music. But wooded ravines in these regions are rare, and it was not until we approached the Devil's Bridge, that we met with any of much beauty. There were, however, some very beautiful scenes before we were perfectly within the area, or inner range of mountains. Wooded and low hills, with their deep shade and grassy openings, with little more than indication of a habitation among the trees, whose tops broke, not into the sky, but upon the loveliest blue of distant mountains; against which the whole low hill is dark, and of sheltered green repose, with a placid or gently interrupted stream at its base, that is lost to the eye as it winds round the base of the hill: and then lower down is a valley, if it may be called a valley which is but the descending land of higher territory, apparently, too, uncultivated -not a mark or division to be seen; but all of the loveliest colour-warm as gold beneath, yet veiled in the finest azure; and the sky, towards evening, so deep, so cool, yet so warm, so indescribable in colour!

Oh, the charm of these homes among the hills! Here might be trod the fallentis semita vitæ. Here is the poetry of pastoral life, sequestered, uninterrupted, safe, and happy. The very sky looks large and bountiful, and protecting all beneath it.

We have now and then admired such scenes in Italy, and very similar in colour; but we have here the advantage of the refreshing green. Our friend, after his first burst of admiration, would talk of his hackles, and cast a longing eye to the stream stealing its way among the trees. But, as we may not stay, a mile or so is gladdened by social talk and fishing adventure, and sketching of adventure, all arising out of that home scene, till our attention is called off to admire some new wonder of nature's panorama. How different is the scene, when, unexpectedly and suddenly, we come to the very edge of a ravine, rocky, without any foliage, where meeting rivers, and not far, perhaps, from their sources, have scooped their courses, and torn away the cliffs above and, we might almost say, chiselled out ledges and masses of rock below, that, seen under water, look like steps down into black unfathomable pits of terrifying water, that not even "magician damned" could look at without

awe! And above, what have we ?—a habitation upon the very edge, overlooking the abyss, from which it is protected by its massy stone foundation. Around, all is wild and barren ; and grand are the forms of the high hills around, that, receding in two directions, fall below the horizon into lower valleys, and there, by their distance, intimating interminable regions of mountain range. But this habitation-is it desolate ?-It is large, though simple in its form. Why built here? Not a human being to be seen; no mark of human foot. The windows above, broken-below, closed, barricaded, boarded. The winds have come, like us, to make enquiry, and swept around it, and finding none to reply have made forcible entry, and torn some dozen feet or more off the roof. Never was more lonely spot. Is it magician's dwelling --or hold they here their nightly meetings the mountain spirits-their convocation of demons that hide them from the light of heaven by day, under bog in the cloudy fell? Such are the questions the imagination puts, and is satisfied for the time to receive no answer. The illusion is best. We afterwards learnt that it was built for an inn, the stage from place to place being long; but the scheme had failed, and it is now uninhabited. It is a lonely, dismal spot-yet with much grandeur, and the sketcher may find much about the rocks and black rivers for his portfolio of wilder nature. This is near another lonely place-an inn too-that has perhaps been the ruin of the other; for it is built where the road turns off to the Devil's Bridge, leaving the course of the poor dwindled Wye to the left, making its apparently uncomfortable way from its source in Plinlimmon, and not very far from this spot. The inn is Dufflyn Castle. The poor cattle in these regions look wretched, and starved-the sheep the most melancholy things; and wherever we came to habitations we were sure to find lambs without mothers, showing it had been a bad season among the ewes. There had been a great lack of rain, and vegetation was very scant. A man who kept a little inn by the roadside, told us that, three years ago, he had lost nearly five hundred sheep. He spoke in great admiration of the sagacity of his dogs; and of their readiness to do their duty, he gave us an interesting proof. There were a

few stray sheep on the very steep hill above us; he called to his dog in Welsh, and as he varied his words, so did the dog vary his course, ascending a very steep and disagreeable place. In one spot there were two holes, in which he told us the dog often fell; as he approached these we observed he used more caution. There was a line or track hardly distinguishable in the rough ground, which, though he came frequently upon it, he would never pass. This was the boundary of the owner's land-the dog effected the purpose for which he was sent, and drove the sheep up, ascending higher and higher until he was wellnigh out of sight-a word or two from his master brought him to a particular spot, and there he stood waiting for further orders. Sometimes at a word he would, while at great speed, suddenly change his course. Now the extraordinary thing is, this poor faithful creature was and is stone blind. We thought it wise; for it understood Welsh and we did not, and we should probably take a much longer time in learning it.

But as we are at Dufflyn or Dyfflyn Castle, before we turn off towards Hafod and the Devil's Bridge, let us take a sketch of the scene before us. We have been long without seeing human faces; and here are some, not the worst in the world, before us. Here are, at least, a dozen women and half as many children, with their blue cloaks and round black hats, and what a world of baggage they have in that half-waggon halfcart-looking conveyance; and, alas, we find but one poor horse! Let us not cast eyes on him, lest his ghost, and if he be one of the country, he must be at least half a ghost, haunt us. They are bound for a great distance to join their husbands at some iron-works, a world of a way off. The poor beast! "A merciful man is merciful to his beast." In Welsh, this conveys no injunction to merciless women. As we are in the neighbourhood of Llanidloes, perhaps this migration may be one of the happy effects of the late Chartist disturbances. We spoke of their baggage. The Welsh, in these parts at least, and as far as we went, to Aberystwith, are all well and comfortably and cleanly clad, especially the women; nor is there any appearance of poverty among them, excepting in some very few hovels among the wilds. And how very pleasing is

their native politeness, urbanity-a strange term to use and apply to population far from city!-but not so far from polity, and rule, and order, and moral and religious feeling, or rather religious principle, which sweetly and simply directs this civil and intelligent people. What new systems of education may do for them, who knows? Not those who set them on foot; yet perhaps some of them do. Legislators take the whole world, with all its wondrously differing population, to be but the parish of Marylebone, and enact laws accordingly. Education, and political education-mongers, are at their work among this orderly people; orderly, for we look upon your Llanidloes Chartists, if they be Welsh, as exceptions. We find they are having the worst books, of mischievously political and irreligious tendency, translated for their benefit, and amongst them, "the Black Book." This we saw in a paper of advertisements. But our horse and tiger are refreshed, so we must be off for the Devil's Bridge, ill-omened name! but we dare say that the road thither is easy enough," sed revocare gradum." The distance must be under five miles-the first two of which are dismal and dreary-after which the road suddenly makes a turn, and we are on the summit of a hill, and look over a very extensive scene, all mountainous even to the extreme distance. Range after range descends, yet we see not the depth; and above are other mountains running off from the eye, showing their forms and foldings in perspective. Immediately before us is a ravine, whose sides are covered with coppice, one side in shade, excepting the tops, which recline backward and catch the sun's gleam; the other side, somewhat more than half way up, is of a dusky coppice colour, but suffused with the gold of the evening sun. The depth, undiscovered how deep, lies in that obscure haze, that, by making forms uncertain, adds sublimity. The alternate azure and golden hues of the lights and shadows, and their occasional blending one into the other, and all receding and softening into a vast distance of mountain range, make the whole scene particularly beautiful. We remained some time and attempted it in colour; but the materials were wanting for properly attempting the view, and we failed. Still we keep the attempt; this we always do, for not only will it impress

the real scene upon our minds as we may hereafter turn over our sketches; but we shall come to find a something in it that may be useful, and may be true, though it was not our particular object in the drawing. Some figures that made their appearance while we were sketching, were injurious to the effect; this perhaps determined the poetry of its character. It was a scene for angelic agency, and above the regions of "low-thoughted care."

one

It

As we proceeded, the ravine became deeper, and ere long we arrived at the Devil's Bridge. Here the waters of two ravines meet, and flow in one narrow channel at the base of very high hills. The Devil's Bridge Inn is finely situated upon the very edge of the precipice, and immediately above the falls of the waters rushing from the mountains on the right, in the direction of Hafod. It is situated very near the bridge that takes its name from that celebrated architect, the great Pontifex. "Give a dog a bad name and hang him," and so they have hung old Sootie's Bridge, as not wishing to be upon any footing with the builder; not liking much to meddle with him, they have built another above him, so there they are, over another. After all, it may be said "The devil a monk was he." There is nothing like a good mysterious legend, in a wild country. makes the woods, the waters, the hills fabulous. It is delightful at Killarney to hear of O'Donnoghue and his white horses under the lake. The legend here is a sadly mean affair. It is of old Sootie and an old woman, who seems, whenever they are brought into contact, to be a match for him. The old lady lost her cow; and at length found her, or rather saw her, for there was an awful chasm between them. Upon this, the old gentleman appeared on the opposite side, and offered his services to make a bridge, upon condition that he should have the first that put foot over it. The cunning old jade thought a moment, and agreed to it; whereupon the bridge arose, when the old crone took a cake out of her pocket, whistled to her dog, and threw the cake over before him. After it he went, the devil bit his lips; but took his perquisite, and was laughed off the field. The superstitious may think he was very near taking his revenge upon the sex a few years ago, by playing a