very many of this description in Wales, and they are the more meritorious, as, though there is infinite poverty, there is scarcely any appearance of it in the whole principality; it being a general, almost universal principle of the rich, to take care of the poor-a principle which, like every other good, is often abused. For the number of common beggars, throughout every part of Wales, is aftonishing: they come in tattered tribes to your doors, from which they never go away if they have no worse faults than idleness and indigence, without being relieved. It would even be thought impious to refuse them. Profiting hereby, there are whole families, who fubfift folely on the charity of their better-supplied neighbours. The begging brotherhood of Saint Francis are not more vagrant, nor more fuccessful in their mendicatory pilgrimages and it is not uncommon for the parents, who happen to have fome compunction, on the score of afking alms, while they are able to procure the means of life by their labour, to send out their children to shift as they can, while they themselves. are at work: preferring this casual, and disgraceful mode of subsistence for their children, to the honest industry by which they procure their own maintenance. There is, however, as you may fuppofe, a material difference, even in the poverty of the induftrious, and that of the idle; the former, as in the example of the barber of Barmouth, cover

ing the shoulders of his family with remnants, which certainly speak variety of industry; while the latter, though they are neither ashamed to beg, nor fteal, and of courfe get their clothes with much lefs trouble, fuffer them to get into tatters, merely because they are too lazy to mend them before they are irreparable. My friend, the barber, indeed valued himfelf on his true British blood, very seriously afferting that notwithstanding his prefent condition, he was the firft of his family, that had ever gained his bread by the fweat of the brow; and that his father facrificed the estate, which fhould have defcended to his pofterity, to an act of generofity to the unfortunate Prince, meaning the grandfon of King James the Second, who, added, pointing to an almost worn-out print of him, that hung on the wall, was more obliged to his father, and better deferved it, than he dare tell me. "Not," continued he, "but I am a true friend, and loyal subject, to his Majesty King George; but that poor Prince"-again pointing to the print—“ was a difappointed outcast man, wandering up and down this country, and I am proud that my father opened his door to him, though he let out at the fame time what plucked up the hopes of his family by the roots. Hereby hangs a forrowful tale, mafter," said he, fighing, "but it is of no ufe to trouble with it and as for me, it is but doing

you

fomething instead of nothing, for my living, which

is all the difference you know, Sir, betwixt a poor man and a gentleman; fo work away my lads and laffes, work away old Dame Partlett-for, as the fong fays,

"The world is a well-furnish'd table

Where guests are promifcuously set ;"

fung the mother of the family: Continuing the

tune,

"We all fare as well as we are able,"

carolled the eldest daughter, who had really a fine voice,

"And scramble for what we can get."

Chorus, boys and girls, chorus !-Here the reft of the labourers took up the burthen, and the " long, loud laugh" fucceeded, which not only "spoke the vacant," but the happy foul. I joined in it, with all my heart, and refolved to recommend as many cuftomers as I could to the independent cottagers. And I hereby beg they may be had in remembrance, whenever either you, or your friends emigrate to this part of the world, and fhould want either nets; fhaving, in the eafieft manner; homefpun ribbons; home-knit ftockings; petticoats repaired; or breeches deftroyed. Adieu.

VOL. I.

E

LETTER

LETTER VII.

TO THE SAME.

I HAVE now refumed

South Wales.

HAVE now refumed my fouthern route, and write to you from Abereftwith, in my way to which I met with another little cottage enterprise so descriptive of that happiness, in the most lowly ftations of life, of which people in the affluent, or even in the middle ranks of this variegated world have no manner of idea, that I cannot but imagine a relation of it will be welcome to you, whom I know to delight in viewing all fides of the human picture, particularly fuch as reprefent any part of the happiness of human beings.

You are yet to learn that I performed, and am ftill performing this Cambrian expedition upon the back of my old faithful steed, now in the twenty-fourth year of his age: a creature beft calculated, of all others, for the purposes of a deliberate and refidentiary traveller, having every difpofition in the world to allow his master time for obfervation and reflection. His character is very truly given in the words of the good old axiom" flow and fure." His own history is fufficiently interefting and eventful to find a place in

a heart

a heart like yours; and, in abridgement, I will here give it you. The whole life of this poor flave, till within the laft two years, has been a continual trial of strength, labour, and patience. He was broken to the bit by a Yorkshire jockey, to be rode, the moment he was fit for fervice, by an Oxonian scholar, who, whatever might have been his learning in the abftrufer fciences, was little converfant in the rudiments of humanity, though they are level with the lowest understanding, and founded on the tender code of that great Law-giver who has told us, "a juft man is merciful to his "beaft." During the very first vacation, this fprightly youth fo completely outrode the ftrength of his fteed, that he fold him on the fame day that he regained his college, at the re-commencement of the term, for two guineas, to one of those perfons who keep livery ftables, and at the fame time have horfes to let. It was not eafily poffible for a poor wretch, fo badly fituated before, to change fo much for the worfe: and of all the fates that attend a hackney horse, that which belongs to the drudge of a publick univerfity is the moft severe it is even harder than that of the fervitors of the college. He remained in this fervitude, however, fixteen years, during which he was a thousand times not only priest-ridden, but parish-ridden, and yet was rarely known to ftumble, and never to fall. Is it not questionable whether half the parishioners, or