Welsh Journals

days at Llanthony Abbey, sleeping in one of the towers of the ruin, where there were three rooms which could be occupied while the house was building. On his way north he halted again at Llangedwin. Southey had a great liking for this house, and eight years later told Wynn that he could never think of its noble terraces without pleasure, because they were beautiful in them- selves and also because they carried him back to old times. On this tour Southey went to Llangollen again and called on the famous "Ladies of Llangollen," Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, who were among his admirers, as may be seen from the letters which Miss Seward of Lichfield, ex- changed with them. Southey dined at Plas Newydd and wrote afterwards: "The singu- larity of their history, the highly ornamented state of their grounds, and the elegance of every- thing about their cottage, made this a very in- teresting visit." With this impression may be contrasted that of John Gamble, who on his way to Ireland in 1819 sought permission to view the house and the gardens. One of the ladies, he thought it was Lady Eleanor, gruffly sent him about his business, and so he penned a most un- flattering account of them They wore great coats and black hats, so that at first I could not tell whether they were women or men. They were old women, and they were plain women likewise I regret to say it, very plain."4 When Southey read this, he was indignant and characterised Gamble's remarks as uncivil, un- manly and written in resentment. At Llangollen Southey also saw the great aqueduct, Pont-y-Cysylltau, designed by Telford. In 1801 he had been struck bv it as an enterprise of wonderful magnitude, so large as almost to deserve forgiveness for its intrusion amid beauti- ful scenery, and now that it was finished, it seemed to him a prodigious work of art, of which he gives a vivid picture in a letter to Landor. It is not more than two-thirds the height of the aqueduct at Lisbon, but the effect is far more dizzying. At Lisbon you walk between the covered gallery, where the water runs, and a parapet wall breast high, so that you feel your security. The iron rails of the Welsh bridge, by giving sight of the depth immediately under your feet. make it an effort of reason to imagine yourself safe, and the effect of looking across a canal upon a precipice, from which nothing but two-inch plank seems to separate it, gave truth to the toys of desperation in a greater degree than I have ever before felt them. My knees were loosened, though I did not stop to allow 4 "Views of Society and Manners in the North of Ireland." London, 1819, p. 52. them to shake and I felt an absolute longing for wings that I might have launched myself into the air. This sort of feeling explains how animals are fascinated by the eye of a snake or a beast of prey." In 1825 Southey still remem- bered his sensations at the sight of Pont-y- Cysylltau, and when Sir Walter Scott saw it on his way back from Ireland and declared it the most impressive work of art he had ever seen, he was glad to concur. He embodied his ad- miration for Telford's genius in a poem on the Caledonian Canal at Banavie. Fitliest may the marble here Record the Architect's immortal name. Telford it was, by whose presiding mind The whole great work was plann'd and perfected; Telford, who o'er the vale of Cambrian Dee, Aloft in air, at giddy height upborne, Carried his navigable road, and hung High o'er Menai's straits the bending bridge; Structures of more ambitious enterprize Than minstrels in the age of old romance To their own Merlin's magic lore ascribed. In 1820 Southey made another journey in Wales which has some interesting associations. We learn something of this visit from a rhyming epistle which Southey addressed to his daughter from Shrewsbury on April 25th. He explained that Wynn had delayed his departure, because he wished to show him the church of Pennant Melangel. Many years before, when he was preparing Madoc," he received a drawing of it from Wynn, and in his poem he referred to the monument of Iorwerth and to the image of St. Monacel which were supposed to lie within its precincts. The two friends took with them to see the church Reginald Heber, the author of the hymn, "From Greenland's icy mountains," to whom during this stay at Llangedwin Southey showed such of his "Inscriptions" as were then completed. Two years after this meeting Heber was offered the bishopric of Calcutta through Wynn's instrumentality, and after much hesita- tion he accepted it. On his untimely death in 1826 Southey was asked to write a poem in memory of him, and in 1830 there appeared his "Ode on the Portrait of Bishop Heber." In it he recalled the occasion when they were last together Ten years have held their course Since last I look'd upon That living countenance, When on Llangedwin's terraces we paced Together, to and fro. Partaking there its hospitality, We with its honoured master spent. Well-pleased, the social hours;