ABSTRACT
I NOW write from a romantic village in North Wales, where I stay a day, as I never passed through this country before. The numberless travellers, whether equestrian or pedestrian, whether in chaises, coaches, or curricles,22 who, within a very few years have undertaken to give the public descriptions of the scenery of this division of the British empire, leave me nothing new to say of winding vallies, green hills, or rapid streams pouring from the mountains. The pencil and the pen have been so frequently employed in these descriptions, that I imagined the places I had read of would be all familiar to me; yet I find the ideas I had received, in almost every instance, unlike the reality. I have visited some of the finest remains of buildings formerly intended for defence, or dedicated to Religion. Of most of these you will find minute accounts in Pennant;23 and can imagine me poring over tombs, from whence time has erased the frail memorial of the dust that sleeps beneath. The thoughts that usually occupy the mind in such places, seem to me, above all others, humbling to human vanity. Of some men who imagined themselves of infinite importance in their day, no memorial remains, but a tradition that they founded one of these buildings, to extenuate, by such act of mistaken piety, fraud or murder; while the names of others are buried, fortunately, perhaps, with their ashes! – I here leave my pen till my next halt.
