mament of the black and hot _Destruction_,
and the whole land of forgetfulness, even to the walls of the city of
Destruction, a full view of the accursed monster of a giantess, whose
feet I had seen before. I do not possess words to describe her
figure. But I can tell you that she was a triple-faced giantess,
having one very atrocious countenance turned towards the heavens,
barking, snorting, and vomiting accursed abomination against the
celestial King; another countenance, very fair, towards the earth, to
entice men to tarry in her shadow; and another, the most frightful
countenance of all, turned towards Hell to torment it to all eternity.
She is larger than the entire earth, and is yet daily increasing, and
a hundred times more frightful than the whole of hell. She caused
hell to be made, and it is she who fills it with inhabitants. If she
were removed from hell, hell would become paradise; and if she were
removed from the earth, the little world would become heaven; and if
she were to go to heaven, she would change the regions of bliss into
utter hell. There is nothing in all the universe, except herself,
that God did not create. She is the mother of the four female
deceivers of the city of Destruction; she is the mother of Death; she
is the mother of every evil and misery; and she has a fearful hold on
every living man: her name is Sin. "_He who escapes from her hook_,
_for ever blessed is he_," said the angel. Thereupon he departed, and
I could hear his voice saying, "_Write down what thou hast seen_, _and
he who shall read it carefully_, _shall never have reason to repent_."

The above is an outline of the work of Elis Wyn--an extraordinary work it
is. In it there is a singular mixture of the sublime and the coarse, of
the terrible and ludicrous, of religion and levity, of the styles of
Milton, of Bunyan, and of Quevedo. There is also much in it that is
Welsh, and much that may be said emphatically to belong to Elis Wyn
alone. The book is written in the purest Cambrian, and from the time of
its publication has enjoyed extensive popularity in Wales. It is,
however, said that the perusal of it has not unfrequently driven people
mad, especially those of a serious and religious turn. The same thing is
said in Spain of the 'Life of Ignatius Loyola.' Peter Williams, in
'Lavengro,' the Welsh preacher who was haunted with the idea that he ha