s; and that wonder will not
exist long, if government do not do something more than send down _a_
gentleman to ask the Welsh what they please to want? The temptation
forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy people,
by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over order, in the
annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants, is in itself a
great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at
last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for
poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the
sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might
have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house--fire its
contents--murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to
pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even _ask_ you again
for toll! Do this, and you shall not pay!!"

Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the _first_ torn down
toll-gate that remained in ruins, to every Welsh farmer. The farmer has
accepted it, and "justice"--justice keeps her promise religiously, for
no toll is demanded. If the law had been violated by trustees, we have a
body called parliament strong enough to reform, ay, and punish them, as
they, some of them perhaps, richly deserve; but was that a reason for
the laws to be annulled, and lawlessness made the order of the day, in
so important a matter as public roads, by the very men who are to profit
by it, self-erected into judges in their own cause?

* * * * *

Llandilo Vaur. Evening, Sept. 10.
Sunday.

A scene to turn even a "commercial traveller" (_vulgo_ a bagman) into a
"sentimental" one, if any thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride
of the last few miles, kindly "flew diverse" as we reached the bridge
over the Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this
romantic town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and
burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South
Wales--not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of
Dyer--on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often
reposed--the immortal _prose-poet_ bishop, Jeremy Taylor, a refugee here
during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove, his beautiful retreat,
with its venerable trees, was in our sight, the green mountain meadows
between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny
ric