Welsh Journals

Spencer's Speculations? Why don't you answer? Is there not a second? Does the Bible stand so h:gh, that you with all your encyclopaedic knowledge cannot name a second? If so, how do you account for it? A book written by a few Jews, living in ages before science was born, without connection with each other, all members of the despised Jewish nation-how came they to so transcend the genius and scholarship of the immortal poets Jottings on English Writers and Wales-Henry Cary. By Prof. H. Wright. AMONG the many famous English writers who at one time or another have visited Wales we must reckon Henry Cary, the translator of Dante. As a matter of fact his connection with Wales began indirectly long before he ever set eyes on the country itself. Among the various establishments at which he received his education was Birmingham Gram- mar School, the headmaster of which was the Rev. Thomas Price, whose name," Cary once said, I cannot mention without reverence and affection." Price was a native of Hope Bagot, in Shropshire, and thus in this border county was within easy reach of Welsh scenery and tra- ditions. With his son, another Thomas, Cary remained on the most intimate of terms through- out his life. They were at Oxford together, joined in making walking tours, and in later years maintained a lively correspondence. The ties that united them were drawn still closer by the marriage of Price to Cary's sister, Georgina. It was with Price, the Cambro-Briton," for so Cary styled him, that he made a memorable tour through South Wales, along the banks of the Wye, in the Long Vacation of 1793. The following year, with another college friend called Wilkes, Cary made a second tour, this time in North Wales. From here he crossed over to Ireland, where he stayed with one of his mother's oldest friends, the wife of James Ormsby, of Sandymount, near Dublin. During this visit Cary became attached to the youngest daughter, Jane, which afterwards necessitated other visits to Ireland, and so, in passing, to Wales also. We may assume that one such journev took place in 1796, for in the summer of that year Cary sought the approval of Mrs. Ormsby to his en- gagement to her daughter, and received a cordial invitation to come over to Ireland and lay his proposal before the young lady herself. This evidently presented no difficulty, for Cary was married to her on September 19th. Troublous times were in store for Ireland, and the political convulsions of the rising of 1798 and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome? Yea, to transcend the genius and scholarship of modern Europe and America? Come, answer me. You don't, you can't. Then accept the Book's own explanation All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- tion in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. made it impossible for Cary to stay with his relations. The following year, however, he was able to do so, and from July 28th to December 24th he was absent from home in Wales and Ireland. Fortunately a letter from Cary to Thomas Price has been preserved which gives us information about his doings in Wales. Writing from Carnarvon on August 19th, he says that he has been in this remote part of the world for a fortnight and that he has found great pleasure in his surroundings. Let me impart to you," he says, the delight with which this country fills me by its romantic display of rocks, torrents, and lakes, by the mouldering magnificence of its ruined castles and palaces, but more than all by the good order and honesty that seem to prevail among its inhabitants. The only complaint I have to make against it is the incessant rains that gather on the mountains and seldom allow us a single day of uninterrupted fair weather. Last Wednesday we made an excursion to Llanberris Lake, which, as I think you have not seen it, I wish I could describe. It is from four to five miles long, and in most parts half a mile or three- quarters broad, except at the distance of about one-third its length from the top, where it con- tracts into so narrow a space that it is saddled by a small wooden bridge, that is commonly con- sidered as dividing it into two separate sheets of water, though not with much propriety. When by a gradual curve you lose sight of the opening where the lake flows out, you are at times sur- rounded on all sides by dark slaty rocks and piles of monstrous mountains, among which Snowdon seems willing to assert his sovereignty, but can scarcely lift his brow above the rest. At other times you discover one or two green spots with some wood and corn-fields, and a cottage or two. Then near the pass where the bridge is, but a little higher up, commanding that and each side of the lake, on a steep but not high rock, which projects before the rest, stands the single tower of Dolbadarn Castle, which the Welsh princes made use of as a place of retreat from the English, and is in the strong round Norman style of building. At the upper extremity is the poor little village of Llanberris, on a very flat, green, unwooded, but not extensive, plain, pent in by this same lake on one side, and these enormous mountains on all the rest. But now