CAERNARVON CASTLE.- -SCENERY IN NORTH WALES. 9 Everything about this old castle shows the purpose for which, mainly, it was constructed; small apertures rather than windows, out of which arrows, or other missives could be thrown, and opening inward to a space in the wall large enough for a warder to stand in; three or four narrow loopholes on each side of the great gate of entrance, for the purpose of reconnoitreing those who approached; and inside of the gate, the groove in which the portcullis slided up and down. I am satisfied that in order to gain any approach to an idea of these things, without seeing them, one must not be content with barely reading the description, but must lay down the measurement upon some familiar spot. For instance, the walls of this castle, I judged from a rough measurement, to be two hundred rods in circuit; and they are nearly eight feet thick, and perhaps thirty feet high; and the principal tower may be ninety or one hundred feet high, and fifty feet in diameter. So of the Menai Bridge, or of Eaton Hall. I am sure I got a far more impressive idea of Niagara falls, and probably far more just, by laying it down on a landscape three quarters of a mile in extent, and then conceiving a precipice of one hundred and sixty feet in height, and an ocean pouring over it. Except the sublimest, I suppose that every description of mountain scenery is to be found in Wales; unless it be, also, the contrast of hills and mountains to the perfect levels of our New England intervals and river banks-like which I have seen nothing. The pass of Llanberis and the road from Capel Carig are almost level, while the wildest mountains rise almost from the very roadside, on either hand. There is every variety of form-steep, swelling, bald, shaggy; massy and pointed tops; sides sometimes ploughed by the mountain streams, and sometimes only seamed by the trickling rills; while around their eternal battlements and turrets, the light mist floated, every moment varying its shapes, now unveiling some stupendous ledge or crag, and then shrouding it in thick darkness. The pass of Llanberis is part of the Snowdon range; but old Snowdon himself was all day enveloped entirely in clouds. I observed one curious effect of wind in this pass. As I was walking along the road where it is cut out of a ledge of rock, and leaves a deep defile below, I heard a noise on the lower side, as of a rushing stream chafing its base. I stepped to the wall at the roadside, and perceived that it was, not water, but wind-a mountain gust so powerful, that it was necessary to hold on my hat as I leaned over. I stepped back but four feet, and all was quiet-the air was still. I repeated the experiment several times, with the same result. For another description of scenery in Wales, imagine something like the following: A deep dingle, sinking almost beneath you, at the roadside, with a little lane winding down through hawthorn hedges to one or two cottages half covered with ivy and overshadowed with trees; just beyond, rising and boldly swelling up from the chasm below, a noble. sweep of hills, cultivated to the very top, yet not bare and naked as it probably would be in America-cultivated and rich, but studded with beautiful clumps of trees; a ploughed field sweeping gracefully around a little grove; a pasture dotted over with noble oaks; the fences on all sides verdant hedges, not always well clipped to be sure, but beautiful in the distance, &c. Now, if you will introduce on the other side, ragged, bold, precipitous mountains, like those of the pass of Llanberis, with goats far up among the steepest ledges, quietly cropping the grass that springs among the rocks, or sleeping on the very brink, you will have a panorama of the scenery of North Wales. GENERAL REMARKS.-The houses (always of stone or brick, by the bye) are commonly low, miserable habitations. I went into several— those of the cottagers and small farmers, I mean—and I never saw a wooden floor upon any of them. They were paved with stone; or more The women I commonly not even that accommodation was afforded. thought handsomer than those of England—I speak of the common people-the faces not so bold, marked, and prominent, indeed not enough so, but more delicate. This provincial or national difference of countenances is certainly very curious. I perceived it as soon as I was in Wales. CHAPTER II. DUBLIN - ARCHITECTURE OF CITIES BEGGARS . -ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL — MRS. HEMANS - DROGHEDA - IRISH COTTAGES - PEAT BOGS squares. DUBLIN, July 5, 1833.-I am glad to get a pleasant impression of any spot in Ireland; Dublin is a fine city. It resembles Philadelphia in two respects-its regular ranges of buildings, and its fine open What a pity it is, that cities, or at least streets in cities, could not, like single edifices, be built upon some regular and well-considered plan! Not that the result should be such regularity as is seen in Philadelphia or Dublin; the plan, indeed, would embrace irregularity. But there might be an arrangement, by which a block of buildings, a street, or, indeed, a whole city, might stand before us as one grand piece of architecture. If single specimens of architecture have the effect to improve, humanize, and elevate the ideas of a people, if they are a language, and answer a purpose kindred to that of literature, poetry, and painting, why may not a whole city have this effect? To secure this result, there must, I am afraid, be a power like that of the autocrat of Russia, who, I am told, when a house is built, in his royal city of St. Petersburgh, which does not conform to his general plan, sends word to the owner, that he must remove that building and put up another of a certain description. But as we have not, and will not have, any such power exercised among us, I suppose we must have such cities as Boston and New York, such streets as Broadway : which is a sort of language, too, which sets forth visibly, in stone and mortar, what is the spirit that reigns in our country-the very personification of the principle of individuality-where every one builds to please himself, and pleases to build differently from his neighbour-usually a little higher. It is a principle that spoils a city; that it will make a people, is the reflection in which we must find our comfort. But to return. Dublin is, indeed, a fine city, and filled with noble mansions and showy equipages; but alas! all is marred by this dismal DUBLIN. BEGGARS. ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL. 11 looking population; full half that I meet in the streets, very shabbily dressed; many in rags; the boys would collect in America, and the very dogs would bark, at spectacles that pass me every moment; men and women on every side begging; women with children in their arms, imploring charity for God's sake; yes, innocent childhood is here involved in the common mass of misery, and that is the hardest of it to the spectator. Indeed, I have seldom seen anything more striking or touching, than a child sleeping in its mother's arms amid all this surrounding turmoil and distress. It is actually picturesque, if one may say so the image of repose amid noise and turbulence; innocence amid vice and wretchedness; unconscious ease on the bosom of suffering; helplessness imploring even more pathetically than the wan and haggard features of maternal solicitude. No doubt there is a good deal of acting in this system of beggary. For instance, I saw a little girl, last evening, seated on the curbstone of the sidewalk, and holding in her arms a sleeping infant-but holding a candle at the same time so as to exhibit the infant to the best advantage. This is going on the stage pretty early. What the receipts were I do not know, but they doubtless expected to be repaid the outlay of lights and wardrobe, and something more. It is a comfortable reflection which I have often had occasion to make, that Providence does, after all, dispense many blessings, which neither the pride nor improvidence of man can destroy. The children of the poor sleep as sound and are as merry, probably, as the children of the rich. And perhaps, after all, these splendid equipages that are passing on every side, bear as many heavy and aching hearts, as lean against the steps and balustrades by the wayside. Everything is done here to get money. For instance, the scene in the street before the windows of my hotel, last evening, presented the two following specimens. First, a man with a hand-organ struck up, and a woman and child (his wife and daughter probably), after carefully laying down their bonnets and shawls, commenced dancing in the street, and after a variety of evolutions, they went round to the spectators to collect as many pence as they could. Next came a man with a flute, and a child apparently four or five years old was set to dancing upon stilts five feet high. SUNDAY, P.M.—This afternoon I have heard the finest church-music by far that I have ever listened to; and the only performers were a man and two boys. It was at St. Patrick's Cathedral. The organ is the richest I ever heard. As to the ages of the children, the one of them might be ten, and the other twelve or thirteen years old. Their voices were so completely formed, that I supposed, for some time, that women were singing, and at the same time peculiarly soft, with none of that shrillness which is apt to be the fault in a woman's voice. The man's voice was a perfect organ. Amid the deepest notes of the organ, I heard it as distinctly as the diapason itself. The greatest ease characterized the whole performance, as it always does the highest music. The sermon was very well-the reading execrably bad. The prayers were sung forth in a kind of recitative tone peculiar to the cathedral worship of the church of England; for it falls short in the tone of song of that which is used in the Jewish and Romish rituals. The service, held as it was in this ancient building, beneath high Gothic arches, surrounded by ancient marble tombs and statues, by galleries of every fashion, and carved work, curious and antique, with banners overhead, and helmets and swords hung on the walls-the service, I say, in such circumstances, seemed as if it ought to be held by no common people— fort by the high born and the high-bred-by renowned knights, or heroes gang forth to battle for their country. After attending upon the service at the cathedral, I passed the evenlog with Al Hemans, The conversation naturally turned upon the som had just left, and her part in it was sustained with the utmost potpal enthusiasm She spoke of the various accompaniments of the 66 66 -mid when she came to the banners, she said, they seemed to nds me His music of the anthem rose to the lofty arches.' I ventured Ecthrow in a Billo dash of proso--saying that I was afraid that they red mergy Hout I wished they might, and looked up to see if they fodbad tud app "No," she replied with vivacity, wave is Her work fork they thrilled I am sure of that." And that, it is 4. wandhing shout of the vision divine" might see. Such Becker, His Tady undoubtedly possesses. She has the genuine wijkbe, mud Howes who think its breathings too measured and monotode and somalder or road her poetry in the right way. There is deng dramalls or epic in her best poetry; it is essentially lyrical; and fork win attempt to read it by the volume, as much mistake as if they should undertake to road a book of hymns, or the Psalms of Travid in that way. In her own chosen walk, Mrs. Hemans has few competitors in Britain, and no equal; and so long as solemn cathedrals, and ancestral halls, and lowly homes remain in England, her song will pot die away. July 8-I have experienced to-day my first traveller's vexation. I had fallen in with a couple of travellers in Wales, and we had agreed to go in company to the Giant's Causeway. We had taken our passage to Belfast, for this morning, and when the coach drove up to the door of our hotel, it was so overloaded that we could not go in it. It was amusing to see the national characteristics of my companions on this occasion. The Englishman was all pride, and wrath, and decision. "I will not go in this coach!" was his reply to the apologetic coachman-" and I will be sent on! or I will apply to a magistrate and see if there is any law in Ireland." The Frenchman appeared not a little like a subject under a galvanic battery; he shook his fist, and his elbows twitched, and he stammered and stuttered-saying I know not what— for I was too much amused with the muscular contractions, to take notice of anything else. The American-videlicet myself-was very cahn on the occasion, and this calmness is said to be our national trait of manner. I understand this last observation, however, to apply only to the case of an affray or dispute. TO BELFAST, July 9.-The most remarkable town on this route is Drogheda, with a population of 25,000, and yet looking like a population of mendicants; scarcely a well-dressed man or woman in the thronged streets; but decrepitude and disease, beggary, rags, presenting themselves everywhere in frightful masses. It is almost entirely a city of mud-walled cottages, and thatched roofs; and altogether a spectacle so entirely unlike anything I ever witnessed before, or shall probably ever witness again, that I would not have failed to come and see it. Drogheda is a walled town, standing on the river Boyne, and known in MRS. HEMANS.. DROGHEDA.- -IRISH COTTAGES. 13 history as surrendering to William III. after the battle of Boyne. The battle was fought near this town; an obelisk, which we saw at a distance, marks the spot. William's conquest is celebrated on the twelfth of this month, by processions of the Protestants, which, being held in dislike by the Catholics, often occasion quarrels-on which account, troops are at this time ordered into the north, and we passed a regiment of them to-day. Indeed, these "grievances red-dressed" of Ireland appear everywhere in all the cities and villages. We have passed hundreds of Irish cottages to-day; but what pen shall describe them, that does not literally bespatter the page with mire and dirt! Mud and thatch, with little light-nasty as pigstyes-ragged women and children about the door, and often the men lying down by their hovels, in laziness, filth, and rags-a horribly vile puddle always before the door, for the accommodation of the most horribly filthy animals - said animals, in the mean time, equally and worthily occupying the domicile with the human beings who inhabit it. And to complete the picture of general misery, women beggars surrounded us every time we stopped, with children in their arms, imploring charity. From the numbers of children, indeed, it would seem as if this were the most prolific country under heaven. But it may be, because none of them go to school, and all live out of doors. The latter part of the ride, through Newry, Hillsborough, and Lisburn, has been through a beautiful and rich country, and has been, indeed, such a redeeming scene for my general impressions of Ireland, that I am most glad to have passed through it. We have passed a number of large peat bogs. They are evidently the beds of decayed forests; for trees are constantly dug out of them. Do I remember to have read, or have I heard, that some king of England, perhaps Richard II. finding that the forests of Ireland rendered it difficult of conquest, gave to his English subjects, who would come over and settle in Ireland, as much land as they would fell the wood upon? If so, an act of destruction and tyranny laid up a treasure for the future wants of Ireland, and one almost indispensable to the existence of the people-and a treasure too, not only of materials for warming their houses, but for building them. For the trunks of those ancient forests are found in these peat bogs in such a state of preservation that they are actually valuable timber-particularly the spruce; the oak too, though not so sound. CUSHENDALL, July 10.-The ride to-day, in the county of Antrim, of which indeed Belfast is the shire town, and through the villages of Carrickfergus, Larne, and Glenarm, has been delightful. The vicinity of Belfast, on this side, is rich in scenery; and the little village of Glenarm, directly under your eye and almost under your feet, as you descend the lofty hill which you pass over to reach it, with its embowering groves of trees, and the fine seat and grounds of some lord of the manor here, is a perfect charm. The road has been mostly by the sea-shore, winding around bold bluffs, and promontories, and rocky crags, and has presented many delightful views of intermingled ocean. and hill or mountain scenery. Latterly, the rocky barriers of the ocean, by which I have been passing, have begun to assume something of that appearance of regular formation which I expect to see perfected at the Giant's Causeway. |