fortresses in a country distinguished for the splendour and magnificence of its military structures. Though more extensive and better preserved, it somewhat resembles the castle of Falaise in Normandy. Its base, however, is less wooded, and there is no brawling streamlet leaping, as there, from rock to rock at its foot; but, instead, a broad, majestic river and a creak, full at high water, sweep round two of its sides. The other two face the town. Within the walls are two spacious courts; and the external sweep of the fortifications contains eight lofty towers, each with a slender turret, singularly graceful and elegant in form, springing from its summit.

Notwithstanding its grandeur and importance, this castle makes no great figure in history. Soon after its erection, the Royal founder was beseiged in it by the Welsh, and the garrison nearly reduced to an unconditional surrender by famine. Finally, however, they were extricated from their perilous situation by the arrival of a fleet with reinforcements and provisions. In 1399, Richard II., then in Ireland, commanded the troops raised in his behalf against the haughty Bolingbroke, to assemble at Conway,— and their numbers were considerable; but the vacillation and feebleness of purpose of that monarch induced many of them to abandon him on his arrival. Yet the remainder was still sufficient to have made head against the usurper, had not the King, who feared to fight his own battles, basely abandoned his followers, and rushed blindly into the snare laid for him by his enemies. During the Civil Wars, Conway Castle was at first held by Archbishop Williams for the King; but the warlike churchman, being superseded by the savage Rupert in the command of North Wales, went over in dudgeon to the Republican party, and personally assisted the gallant General Mytton in the reduction of the castle. While the Republic flourished, this noble fortress was suffered to retain all its ancient grandeur undiminished; but on the restoration, a grant having been made of it, by the Stuart, to the Earl of Conway, its new possessor ordered his agent to remove the timber,

iron, lead, and other valuable materials, and send them to Ireland, ostensibly for his master's service, though it is generally supposed they were converted to his own use.

In the interior, the magnificence of the great hall corresponded with the grandeur of its outward appearance. It was one hundred and thirty feet in length, and spacious in its other dimensions; and the roof was supported by eight arches, of which six only remain. Two large fire places, one at the further extremity and the other in the side, warmed the apartment; and nine windows, six of which command a prospect of the country, still admit light upon its ruins. Two entrances, both contrived for security, conducted into the fortress; one by winding narrow stairs, up a steep rock, from the Conway, and terminating in a small advanced work before one of the castle gates, covered by two round towers; the other towards the town, protected by similar works, with the addition of a drawbridge over a broad moat.

Of the town of Conway little need be said. The houses, as in most other Welsh towns, are mean and low, and dingy in colour. Since the erection of the Suspension bridge, by Mr. Telford, however, (which has taken the place of Charon and his ferryboat) and the consequent facilities of approaching the place from Denbighshire, the condition of the inhabitants has begun to improve, and the improvement of their dwellings will necessarily follow. This bridge, constructed on the same principle as that of the Menai, though on a smaller scale, presents an appearance singularly elegant, lying at the foot of the antique castle, and surrounded by scenery of the most picturesque description. It is three hundred and twenty feet in length between the supporting towers, and eighteen feet above high-water mark. The chains on the western side pass upwards of fifty feet under the castle, and are fastened in the rock on which it is built.

The church, though ancient, contains scarcely anything worthy of notice, except the following inscription, engraved on a stone in the nave of the building, which, though found in Pennant and

other tourists, is so curious as to deserve repetition: Here lyeth the body of Nicholas Hookes, of Conway, gentleman, (who was the forty-first child of his father, William Hookes, Esq., by Alice, his wife,) the father of twenty-seven children, who died the 27th day of March, 1637.' In the market-place is an old building called Plas Mawr, which was erected more than two centuries ago. It is deserving the notice of the antiquarian. The town is surrounded by a very thick wall, strengthened by twenty-four towers, most of which remain in tolerable preservation.

The pearl fishery of the Conway was celebrated even in the time of the Romans; and, according to the elder Pliny, Julius Cæsar, returning from his marauding expedition into Britain, from whence, as Tacitus observes, he was beaten out, dedicated, in one of the temples at Rome, a breastplate, set with British pearls, probably from this fishery. It is stated, but I know not how truly, that a considerable trade is still carried on in the pearls found in the bed of the Conway and on the adjacent coast. These pearls are supposed to be equal in size and colour to any found in Great Britain. Some years ago, Sir Robert Vaughan appeared at court with a button and loop in his hat crusted with Cambrian pearls.

Having a desire to see the splendid marine views which I had been informed are presented from the Great Orme's Head, a lofty promontory, which projects into the Irish Sea, and forms the

* About seven or eight years since, the brig Hornby, bound from Liverpool to South America, with a cargo of dry goods valued at upwards of £60,000, was driven from her course by a heavy gale; and, about midnight, was dashed against the rugged front of the Great Orme's Head, and instantly sunk. One of the crew happened at this terrible moment to be out upon the bowsprit, in the act either of loosing or taking in the jib, and he was flung by the concussion upon a narrow shelf of the rock, where he lay for some time stunned and confounded; but at length, exerting that mechanical energy which providence beneficently supplies for self-preservation, even in the total absence of consciousness, and which sometimes achieves more than deliberation would dare to attempt, he succeeded in getting to the top of that frightful precipice, and crawled to a smithy at a little distance, where he was found at five o'clock in the morning by some workmen employed there, in connection with a neighbouring copper-mine. He told his melancholy story, but was