dower, retired with his irregular bands before
Harry the Fourth and his numerous and disciplined armies, soon however,
to emerge from its defiles and follow the foe, retreating less from the
Welsh arrows from the crags, than from the cold, rain and starvation of
the Welsh hills.

But it is from its connection with romance that Snowdon derives its chief
interest. Who when he thinks of Snowdon does not associate it with the
heroes of romance, Arthur and his knights? whose fictitious adventures,
the splendid dreams of Welsh and Breton minstrels, many of the scenes of
which are the valleys and passes of Snowdon, are the origin of romance,
before which what is classic has for more than half a century been
waning, and is perhaps eventually destined to disappear. Yes, to romance
Snowdon is indebted for its interest and consequently for its celebrity;
but for romance Snowdon would assuredly not be what it at present is, one
of the very celebrated hills of the world, and to the poets of modern
Europe almost what Parnassus was to those of old.

To the Welsh, besides being the hill of the Awen or Muse, it has always
been the hill of hills, the loftiest of all mountains, the one whose snow
is the coldest, to climb to whose peak is the most difficult of all
feats; and the one whose fall will be the most astounding catastrophe of
the last day.

To view this mountain I and my little family set off in a caleche on the
third morning after our arrival at Bangor.

Our first stage was to Caernarvon. As I subsequently made a journey to
Caernarvon on foot, I shall say nothing about the road till I give an
account of that expedition, save that it lies for the most part in the
neighbourhood of the sea. We reached Caernarvon, which is distant ten
miles from Bangor, about eleven o'clock, and put up at an inn to refresh
ourselves and the horses. It is a beautiful little town situated on the
southern side of the Menai Strait at nearly its western extremity. It is
called Caernarvon, because it is opposite Mona or Anglesey: Caernarvon
signifying the town or castle opposite Mona. Its principal feature is
its grand old castle, fronting the north, and partly surrounded by the
sea. This castle was built by Edward the First after the fall of his
brave adversary Llewelyn, and in it was born his son Edward whom, when an
infant, he induced the Welsh chieftains to accept as their prince without
seeing, by saying that the person whom he proposed to