manity in vain, I suggested an appeal to that hospitality for which the country is famed, which had the desired effect: the hostler was called, a fire kindled in a small parlour, dry things brought, a comfortable supper prepared, and the best beds made an ample compensation for the previous painful state of anxiety.

I am, Yours, &c. J. E.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XIII.

THE morning was peculiarly fine, which enabled us to admire the verdant strip of romantic scenery, through which the Airon flows, under a neat stone bridge, a little below the house, into the sea; and reminded us of Ivy Bridge, Devonshire, where a similar stream passes under a bridge like this, with a neat inn built at the foot of it. We soon gained sight of Llanrysted, a village of mud-built cottages, with a very neat church, standing upon the top of a high hill to the south-east. On the sea shore are some ruins, said to be the remains of a religious house, but are evidently those of the castle built by Cadwallader, brother of Owen Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, A. D. 1148, who bestowed this part of Cardiganshire on his son Howel. It was considered a strong fortress, and very early after its erection its strength was tried: the sons of Gryffyd ap Rhys entered Is Airon with a confederate force, but the siege of this castle cost them the flower of the army; and its obstinate resistance so

enraged the young chieftains, that when it surrendered they inhumanly put the whole garrison to the sword. Part of the ruins have been washed away by the sea, and the rest are likely soon to share the same fate.

From Aber Airon to this place there is an extensive flat, between the sea and the mountains that bound it to the east, famed for the production of barley, and on inquiry we found that the produce was equal to its fame. We had often heard of the sterility of Cardiganshire, and we had witnessed it; but had we not visited this part, we should have been slow to believe that there was land which produced from sixty to eighty bushels per acre. Some was now cut, and others standing; and both in point of straw and car I never witnessed any thing like it, except in the vale of Evesham. These lands have been under barley for forty years, without a single intervening crop. In the winter the cattle come down the hills, and graze the stubbles, which in March or April are turned up, and the sea wreck thrown up by the waves on the coast collected and ploughed into the land wet, they being careful to cover the same day as much as they draw, having learnt, by experience, that if suffered to become dry, its virtue is lost. This dressing lasts three years, when they again pursue the same plan. From this simple process do these almost incredible effects invariably proceed: yet the custom seems to have been the effect of chance confirmed by habit, for we do not find that the inhabitants of any other part of the coast adopt this method of enriching themselves by the bounties which Providence has thrown in their lap.

About two miles from this village we observed two rude upright stones, one of them twelve feet high, and five feet and a half in breadth at the lower end, and the other little inferior in size or height.

We now passed over a high ridge of land, enjoying the most delightful scenery, till we found ourselves on the banks of the Ystwith, which crossing by a stone bridge of one arch, we climbed a high slate hill, and descended into the vale of the Rheidol, and crossing a very handsome stone bridge,* entered the town of Aberystwith, which stands at the conflux of the Rheidol; but the port is below at the mouth of the Ystwith, which forms but a poor harbour, there being a bar of shifting sand at its mouth, passable for ships of the smallest burthen only at high spring tides. The town, as you approach it, appears upon a bold eminence, overhanging the sea. The streets are steep, and badly paved; but the houses are decent, most of them erected or rebuilt within a few years, it having become a place of fashionable resort for sea-bathing. Lodgings are procurable here at a price as high as Weymouth. The sand is fine, but too open and exposed to the strong western gales; and the want of walks, with the dreary flat that surrounds the town at the openning of the vale, render it little inviting as a place of residence. A number of fashionables, however, were here; and six machines and two pleasure boats were in constant employ. A boarding table, with

*In 1796, from the extraordinary thaw, the old bridge experienced the fate of many in England and Wales, being blown up by the sudden swell of the river. The present, of six arches, was erected by that unrivalled architectus pontilis, Edwards of Dolgelly.

good accommodations, and at reasonable charges, is kept at the Talbot; and strangers cannot fail to be satisfied with the urbanity and attention of Jacob Jones.

Here was a herring fishery, but the fish do not as formerly frequent the coast. Some little business is done in ship building, and one was now nearly completed of three hundred tons, but it was uncertain when she would be able to put to sea.

It was formerly fortified with walls, some of which still remain; but as the stones are constantly taken for building, they will soon be no more. Its ancient castle is reduced to a few mouldering walls, with one tower standing, which serves as a sea mark. The gateway is bold, and before it is a modern ravelin, probably the work of the Parliamentary army. It was built by Gilbert Strongbow, 1107; but was afterwards razed to the ground.

The castle of which we now were contemplating the remains, was the work of Edward I. who, when he passed into Wales, put those severe conditions upon them, called the Articles of Ruthlan, to which Llewelyn, for the sake of the beautiful captive, Eleonora, with whom he was previously enamoured, submitted: thus, as the historian terms it, selling his country for a woman. To secure the performance of these, Edward built this among other castles. It was taken by some South Wallian Lords, 1281; but after the death of Llewelyn, it quickly again fell into the hands of the English. Round the hill on which it stands, a variety of walks have been made for the accommodation of the idle or the invalid, who may repair to the town; near which, as if to mock the fate of the royal structure, Uvedale

Price has erected a singular building for his summer residence. It is in the Gothic style, and castellated form, consisting of three octagon towers, with a balcony towards the sea. When I viewed this with the dilapidated fragments of the time-worn building by its side, I could not suppress a smile, and thought if the heroes of antiquity could return, with what contempt they would survey this mimickery of the antique.

The beach, which is a level sand northward of the castle, a few hundred yards in length, is succeeded by a bold shore of high schistose and shale rocks, several hundred feet high, worn into caverns and grotesque recesses, and their upper apertures affording a secure retreat for hawks, kites, sea-gulls, curlews, ravens, and other birds. Beneath these is a reef of quarter-tide rocks, extremely dangerous in blowing weather to ships making the port; these at low water form pools abounding with eels, crabs, and other shell fish, and furnish the naturalist with a variety of corallines and fuci.

In this vicinity are numerous slate quarries: they are on the rising ground on the opposite side the marsh. The slate lies in alternate strata of shale. The slate puts on the appearance of flag stone in the quarry, but when quarried out easily divides into thin laminæ. The shale appears like the slate, but when quarried falls into pieces of two or three inches long, containing much argillaceous earth between the laminæ. The inclination of the strata in these quarries is in all directions from vertical to horizontal, approaching the former as they abound with slate, and the latter as they contain a greater quantity of shale; and this I have found from observation Z