d playing upon the Irish
harp. Facing this rustic and melancholy scene the two friends have
raised a verdant seat, shaded by two poplars, and thither they told
me they often repair in summer to read together the poems of Ossian.

"The ride from Wrexham to Llangollen is remarkable for the sublimity
and awful grandeur of the prospects; the most prominent feature in
the landscape is a high and stupendous chain of mountains, sometimes
swelling into the clouds, or gently shelving into the vallies, around
which they form a wide amphitheatre; and by their elevations afford
shelter, and tend to fertilize the vales at their bases. I was led
to exclaim--

'I love thy mountain's giant forms!
Darkly clad in gath'ring storms;
I love thy rocks, down whose steep sides,
With foaming, dizzying crash,
Thunder the torrent's tan-brown tides,
And roaring whirlwinds dash.'

"For,

''Mid clouds and crags, dark pools and mountains drear,
The wild-wood's silence, and the billow's roll,
Great Nature rules, and claims with brow austere,
The shudd'ring homage of the inmost soul.'

"From the craggy sides of the rocks descend the tributary streams to
supply the river which divides the dales, and which dashes its
foaming impetuous course along the banks, often edged with broken
crags and grey rocks, or is seen winding in a deeper and more
peaceful stream through dark and silent groves, spreading their
autumnal shades over the surface, or often glistening through fields
of verdure and cultivated spots of ground; here foaming and chafing
some dark ruin's tottering base, there reflecting the modern villa or
the humble hamlet in its silver bosom, and by the variety of scenery
giving new beauty to the whole.

"The cottages, bridges, villas, towers, rocks, and dark ruins of
Gothic antiquity, are in unison with the surrounding objects, and the
attention is frequently called from beholding the beauties of nature
to pause on the works of art. In the centre of the long valley which
stretches to Llangollen, is erected a most stupendous aqueduct, by
which the canal is conveyed from a lofty hill over a wide chasm in
the mountains; the length of this amazing work of art and human
industry, is, I was informed, three hundred yards, the aqueduct
composed of cast iron, is supported on