CASTLE.]

HISTORY-CHARTER OF INCORPORATION.

"The scale has shifted-freighted barks no more
Visit, with welcome sail, the lonely shore:
Unprofitable weeds usurp the strand-
The once wide port presents a mound of sand.
But these stout towers, defying time and tide,
Still o'er the scene in massive strength preside
Kidwelly's walls, firm as the native rock,

Have braved, for centuries, the tempest-shock."

335

Many fruitless attempts have been made to improve the navigation of the river, by removing the obstructions alluded to. In 1766, some docks and a short canal were constructed here. The navigation was afterwards transferred to the "Kidwelly Canal Company," by whom it was extended about two miles up the valley of the Gwendraeth; and a branch, three miles and a half in length, was constructed to communicate with Pembrey harbour. Here were formerly both iron and tin works, the former of which have been entirely abandoned, and the latter are continued only in a diminished scale.

Kidwelly received its first charter of incorporation from King Henry VI. James II., in the sixteenth year of his reign, granted to its inhabitants their present charter, by which the government is vested in a mayor, a recorder, two bailiffs, and a common council of twelve aldermen, and twelve principal burgesses, assisted by a town-clerk, chamberlain, two sergeants-at-mace, and other officers.

LLANSTEPHAN CASTLE,

Carmarthenshire.

"Let them pass

I cried: the world and its mysterious doom
Is not so much more glorious than it was,
That I desire to worship those who drew
New figures on its false and fragile glass,
As the old faced-phantoms ever new
Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may;
We have but thrown-as some before us threw-
Our shadows on it as it passed away.

But mark how chained to the triumphal Cross
Were the great figures of an elder day!"

This Castle-one of the oldest in Wales-crowns a bold eminence projecting into the bay of Carmarthen, and defends the entrance of the river Towy, which falls into the sea at this point. It is a military fortress of great strength and antiquity, but by whom founded-whether by Roman or Briton -or to what precise era it belongs, are questions which have never been satisfactorily answered. Yet the very obscurity which hangs upon it imparts to its dilapidated walls, mouldering turrets, and grass-covered courts, an interest which is seldom or never felt in the survey of those castellated ruins which make a prominent figure in the pages of history. All that has yet been advanced by archæologists regarding the founder of Llanstephan, is only based on plausible conjecture. It is not improbable, however, that the present castle occupies the position of a Roman fort; for it is not to be supposed that, during their оссираtion of the Silurian territory, a situation presenting so many natural advantages, and commanding the embouchure of the Towy, would be neglected by a people so prone to conquest, and so circumspect in all the means that could secure and fortify them in their new possessions. Nor were the Normans-who were equally observant and expert in the distribution of their military posts-likely to lose sight of the advantages which a castle on this promontory would afford in facilitating their operations, and widening their encroachments beyond the Welsh frontier; and in the citadel which now covers the steep, we have ample