the eye can reach, and greatly surpassing the finest you have seen in Somerset or Devon. Viewed in perspective, and with a favourable light, you will do well to observe, how its surface is cut out into varied masses by the indented courses of the trees; but drawn, as I have seen it, with the cottages beneath, just from that point where the road winds to the right, it is little more than an elevation.

For several miles now the southern base of Cader Idris forms a dark, solemn back ground to the view. Do not halt at the Blue Lion; it is figured in some maps, but is only a poor ale-house; there are better accommodations at Tal y Llan,† and the little lake itself is worth a visit. It is about three miles round, encircled with sloping mountains, a

* The seat of Idris. Tradition makes Idris an enormous giant. He is supposed to have been a prince of these parts; but the period is so remote, that little more than his name and talents are now to be ascertained. In the old Bardic writings he is said to have been a poet, astronomer, and philosopher. He is sometimes called Cawr Idris, or King Idris, Cawr being an old Welch word for king. Bingley, vol. ii. p. 44.

+ The head of the pool, or lake.

scene of calm, retiring, peaceful beauty; but, as á picture, it seemed to want objects, and if drawn, it must owe its effect to some peculiar management a gleam of light on the centre of the water -a sunset, or the like. While there, go and see the Craig y Deryn:* the walk will repay you; it is about four miles. My guide and I took it early after sun-rise, and I would recommend you to do the same, that you may catch some of the sublime effects of "morning spread upon the mountains." Our road, for some way, ran along a precipice, overlooking a narrow lonely valley, the very original, one might fancy, of Du Barta's placid pictureintersected by a rapid, shallow stream, with here and there a patch of corn, or pasture, a mill and a cottage, whose simple owner,

Leading all his life at home in peace,

Always in sight of his own smoke; no seas,

No other seas he knows, no other torrent

Than that which waters with its silver current

His native meadows; and that very earth

Shall give him burial, which first gave him birth.

DU BARTA, W. 1. D. 3.

* Craig y Deryn is the rock of birds.

From its opposite side the mountains rose in all that beautiful variety of colouring and surface, so remarkable in this part of Wales. Upon the heights the straining eye discerned a few adventurous sheep; higher up, the blue smoke ascending from some shepherd's hut; while higher even yet the summits were lost in clouds. Further on, we passed the woody eminence where once stood the castle of Trev Seri, though now the very place thereof knows it no more. The road, then gradually descending, spread upon an extensive flat of coarse pasturage, bounded by mountains, with the Craig y Deryn towering in naked grandeur on our left. You must draw it in distant perspective, and then it is a simple, but bold, and uncommon subject. My station was near a turn of the road to the right, where there are two buildings within the stone fence.

STATION.

Let the two summits of the Craig be distinctly detached from each other, and the outline of the declivity be just above the buildings.

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