,
from Louis XVIII. and George IV., down to magazine poets and
quack-doctors, are a museum. I shall never see the spirit of
blue-stockingism again in such perfect incarnation. Peveril won't
get over their final kissing match for a week. Yet it is too bad to
laugh at these good old girls; they have long been the guardian
angels of the village, and are worshipped by man, woman, and child
about them.'"

In July, 1828, the charming vale of Llangollen was visited by a German
Prince (Puckler-Muskau of Prussia), who has thus left on record the
impressions which his excursion in that vicinity excited:--

"The most beautiful reality, however, awaited me this morning in
Wales. The vision of clouds seemed to have been the harbinger of the
magnificence of the vale of Llangollen,--a spot which, in my opinion,
far surpasses all the beauties of the Rhine-land, and has, moreover,
a character quite its own, from the unusual forms of the peaked tops,
and rugged declivities of its mountains. The Dee, a rapid stream,
winds through the green valley in a thousand fantastic bendings,
overhung with thick underwood. On each side high mountains rise
abruptly from the plain, and are crowned with antique ruins, modern
country-houses, manufactories, whose towering chimneys send out
columns of thick smoke, or with grotesque groups of upright rocks.
The vegetation is everywhere rich, and hill and vale are filled with
lofty trees, whose varied hues add so infinitely to the beauty and
picturesque effect of a landscape. In the midst of this luxuriant
nature, arises, with a grandeur heightened by contrast, a single
long, black, bare range of mountains, clothed only with thick, dark
heather," and from time to time skirting the high road. This
magnificent road, which from London to Holyhead, is as even as a
'parquet,' here runs along the side of the left range of mountains,
at about their middle elevation and following all their windings; so
that in riding along at a brisk trot or gallop, the traveller is
presented at every minute with a completely new prospect; and without
changing his position, overlooks the valley now before him, now
behind, now at his side. On one side is an aqueduct of twenty-five
slender arches, a work which would have done honour to Rome. Through
this a second river is led over the valley and