OLD associations, and the pleasure derived from excursions in the principality in earlier days, and under brighter skies, were not without their influence in directing the Wanderer's steps on his return from other and distant scenes. Ties of early friendship, warm greeting and hospitality, with pleasant companionship, gave additional zest to the charm of rambling through a beautiful country, combining so many features to interest the imagination and to allure the eye. The old British birth-place of elf and fairy lore, famed alike for triumphs of the sword and prizes of the lyre-to how many recollections did it give rise, as the Wanderer of many years looked back to those 'white days' so indelibly marked in memory's tablets' B 6 with the thoughts of Hawarden, Erthig, Holywell, Downing, Wynnstay, Penrhos, and other spots no less socially endeared. Like the wearied pilgrim, from some far-off clime, he seemed to renew his existence as the scenes familiar to his boyhood dawned upon him, -again he breathed the freshness of his morning hours, and impressions never wholly effaced filled his mind with mournful pleasure; for he now beheld the ancient seat of his forefathers, the spires of his native sea-port, and the wild blue hills of Cambria mingling with the distance. They were still the same; but he looked as a stranger upon the old halls endeared to his childhood;-his pleasant places' were filled with another youthful race-other faces which he knew notand it seemed as if an absorbing love of the past, strong as the motives which led to the pious pilgrimages of old, dictated his onward Course: "Where, on the summit of the mountain brow, Frowns many a hoary tower, bold Cambria's chiefs, Waving the banner'd dragon, dared to arms The Norman host. Breathing his native strains, Hoel, or lofty Taliessin, oft At the dim twilight hour, in pensive mood, The giant oak, and chieftains crown'd with mead A strange feeling of the fleeting tenure of all human enjoyments filled his heart, as the Wanderer turned away and bent his steps towards the ancient retreats of British independence. With thoughts more awake to the memorable past, and to the scenes before him, from the circumstance of his previous rambles, he recognized many a favourite spot of his summer and autumnal haunts, when he was wont to spend days and weeks in exploring the wildest recesses of * Caerleon, the camp of the Legion.-Chester. A Tour through Parts of Wales. 19 the old glens, and lakes, and hills. And where is the human being who has not, like the Wanderer, had reason to contemplate, with sensations too strong for utterance, some well-remembered spotwho has not felt himself belonging to the past, even while, by his anticipations, he has turned tremblingly to catch the shadows of the mysterious future? It is in the presence of the mouldering monuments of ages past away-of a beloved country whose fame and splendour have vanished-of the old woods and hills no longer his own-that we can best sympathize with the transient show, and the sufferings of humanity, like the vanquished Roman who sat amidst the ruins of a fallen empire and wept. In its monumental grandeur,-with the foot of heroic nations every where upon its soil,-no country presents objects of more peculiar and varied interest than Wales. The prize of contending invaders, it was long the strong-hold of genuine British valour, and maintained, upwards of twelve centuries, unequal conflicts with nations far more powerful, yielding only on condition of being governed by a prince born in the country. And have not the sons of British kings, ever since the last of its heroic Llewellyns, assumed the name of Wales as the proudest of their titles? Nothing more clearly proves the importance attached to its possession than this simple historical fact. Nor does the voluminous character of the works devoted to its illustration tend to diminish the curiosity with which we retrace its annals-call to mind its former power; and now its great natural advantages-its increasing usefulness and prosperity. No traveller enters the principality without being surprised with evidences of its singular history; its numerous antiquities being no less striking than its splendid and romantic scenery. The arena of successive and fierce struggles, commencing with the dawn of the christian era-here met the Roman, the Saxon, the Dane, the Norman; and all these blending in the resistless English, Cambria still continued to bear a conspicuous part in the grand drama of British power and greatness. The reduction of the native inhabitants and princes, in their mountain fastnesses, required the lapse of ages and the strength of combined nations to accomplish. These persevering efforts to vindicate their freedom gave rise to extraordinary exploits, which, terrible as is the picture of Cambrian wars, powerfully appeal to the imagination and sympathies of the reader. No subject, indeed, could be mentioned, which better repays the inquiries of the learned or the curious-even considered as a pleasant pursuit-than the earlier portions of Welsh history. Allusion need scarcely be made to the popular belief respecting the Celtic origin of the Cymri or Welsh, in common with the ancient Gauls, and so many nations of the west. Nor is there much space to indulge in antiquarian researches respecting the language, the religion, or the druidical institutions of the country. But that devoted hereditary attachment shewn by the Britons for their native princes and their bards, a characteristic, doubtless from which sprung the genealogical study and pride of ancestry, so long held in high and honourable esteem, cannot be mentioned without applause. The pedigrees of the princes and nobles of the land, in fact, formed an essential portion of Cambrian history; and to trace them was the peculiar province of the learned even till the days of Elizabeth. To fix the descent of noble tribes thus became no less the object of the bards than the celebration of warlike exploits; and there is no necessity to go back to the Phoenicians or the Romans, to shew their veneration for a custom originating in human nature, and more deeply engrafted on the character of the country from the peculiar circumstances which surrounded it. It was from this fertile source TYSILIO drew his information of the patriarch Brutus; and hence also the authority of the TRIADes, and the curious fragments of the bardish records up to the sixth century. Through ages of despotism, in short, not less than under the iron sway of feudal vassalage,-the patriotic bards formed the most intelligent order of the Cambro-Britons. They preserved, in some |