XXVI.] WONDERFUL ECHO 181 "About four miles," he replied. "On the Bangor road?" "Yes," said he; "down the Bangor road." I learned that he was a carpenter, and that he had been up the gully to see an acquaintance-perhaps a sweetheart. We passed a lake on our right which he told me was called Llyn Ogwen, and that it abounded with fish. He was very amusing, and expressed great delight at having found an Englishman who could speak Welsh; "it will be a thing to talk of," said he, "for the rest of my life." He entered two or three cottages by the side of the road, and each time he came out I heard him say: "I am with a Sais who can speak Cumraeg." At length we came to a gloomy-looking valley trending due north; down this valley the road ran, having an enormous wall of rocks on its right and a precipitous hollow on the left, beyond which was a wall equally high as the other one. When we had proceeded some way down the road my guide said: "You shall now hear a wonderful echo," and shouting "taw, taw," the rocks replied in a manner something like the baying of hounds. "Hark to the dogs!" exclaimed my companion. "This pass is called Nant yr ieuanc gwn, the pass of the young dogs, because when one shouts it answers with a noise resembling the crying of hounds." The sun was setting when we came to a small village at the bottom of the pass. I asked my companion its "Ty yn y maes," he replied, adding as he stopped before a small cottage that he was going no farther, as he dwelt there. name. "Is there a public-house here?" said I. "There is," he replied, "you will find one a little farther up on the right hand." "Come, and take some ale," said I. "No," said he. "Why not?" I demanded. "I am a teetotaler," he replied. "Indeed," said I, and having shaken him by the hand, thanked him for his company and bidding him farewell, went on. He was the first person I had ever met of the fraternity to which he belonged, who did not endeavour to make a parade of his abstinence and self-denial. After drinking some tolerably good ale in the public. house I again started. As I left the village a clock struck eight. The evening was delightfully cool; but it soon became nearly dark. I passed under high rocks, by houses and by groves, in which nightingales were singing, to listen to whose entrancing melody I more than once stopped. On coming to a town, lighted up and thronged with people, I asked one of a group of young fellows its name. "Bethesda," he replied. "A scriptural name," said I. Is it?" said he; "well, if its name is scriptural the manners of its people are by no means so." He had a basket in his but he was a tremendous On we went side by side A little way beyond the town a man came out of a cottage and walked beside me. hand. I quickened my pace; walker, and kept up with me. for more than a mile without speaking a word. At length, putting out my legs in genuine Barclay fashion, I got before him about ten yards, then turning round laughed and spoke to him in English. He too laughed and spoke, but in Welsh. We now went on like brothers, conversing, but always walking at great speed. I learned from him that he was a market-gardener living at Bangor, and that Bangor was three miles off. On the stars shining out we began to talk about them. Pointing to Charles's Wain I said, "A good star for travellers." Whereupon pointing to the North star, he said: "I forwyr da iawn-a good star for mariners." XXVII.] BANGOR 183 We passed a large house on our left. "Who lives there?" said I. "Mr Smith," he replied. "It is called Plas Newydd ; milltir genom etto-we have yet another mile." In ten minutes we were at Bangor. I asked him where the Albion Hotel was. "I will show it you," said he, and so he did. As we came under it I heard the voice of my wife, for she, standing on a balcony and distinguishing me by the lamplight, called out. I shook hands with the kind sixmile-an-hour market-gardener, and going into the inn found my wife and daughter, who rejoiced to see me. We presently had tea. CHAPTER XXVII Bangor-Edmund Price-The Bridges-Bookselling-Future Pope -Wild Irish-Southey. BANGOR is seated on the spurs of certain high hills near the Menai, a strait separating Mona or Anglesey from Caernarvonshire. It was once a place of Druidical worship, of which fact, even without the testimony of history and tradition, the name which signifies "upper circle" would be sufficient evidence. On the decay of Druidism a town sprang up on the site and in the neighbourhood of the "upper circle," in which in the sixth century a convent or university was founded by Deiniol, who eventually became Bishop of Bangor. This Deiniol was the son of Deiniol Vawr, a zealous Christian prince who founded the convent of Bangor Is Coed, or Bangor beneath the wood in Flintshire, which was destroyed, and its inmates almost to a man put to the sword by Ethelbert, a Saxon king, and his barbarian followers at the instigation of the monk Austin, who hated the brethren because they refused to acknowledge the authority of the Pope, whose delegate he was in Britain. There were in all three Bangors; the one at Is Coed, another in Powis, and this Caernarvonshire Bangor, which was generally termed Bangor Vawr or Bangor the great. The two first Bangors have fallen into utter decay, but Bangor Vawr is still a bishop's see, boasts of a small but venerable cathedral, and contains a population of above eight thousand souls. Two very remarkable men have at different periods conferred a kind of lustre upon Bangor by residing in it, Taliesin in the old, and Edmund Price in comparatively modern time. Both of them were poets. Taliesin flourished about the end of the fifth century, and for the sublimity of his verses was for many centuries called by his countrymen the Bardic King Amongst his pieces is one generally termed "The Prophecy of Taliesin," which announced long before it happened. the entire subjugation of Britain by the Saxons, and which is perhaps one of the most stirring pieces of poetry ever produced. Edmund Price flourished during the time of Elizabeth. He was archdeacon of Merionethshire, but occasionally resided at Bangor for the benefit of his health. Besides being one of the best Welsh poets of his age he was a man of extraordinary learning, possessing a thorough knowledge of no less than eight languages. The greater part of his compositions, however clever and elegant, are, it must be confessed, such as do little. credit to the pen of an ecclesiastic, being bitter poignant satires, which were the cause of much pain and misery to individuals; one of his works, however, is not only of a kind quite consistent with his sacred calling, but has been a source of considerable blessing. To him the Cambrian Church is indebted for the version of the XXVII.] EDMUND PRICE 185 Psalms, which for the last two centuries it has been in the habit of using. Previous to the version of the Archdeacon a translation of the Psalms had been made into Welsh by William Middleton, an officer in the naval service of Queen Elizabeth, in the four-and-twenty alliterative measures of the ancients bards. It was elegant and even faithful, but far beyond the comprehension of people in general, and consequently by no means fitted for the use of churches, though intended for that purpose by the author, a sincere Christian, though a warrior. Avoiding the error into which his predecessor had fallen, the Archdeacon made use of a measure intelligible to people of every degree, in which alliteration is not observed, and which is called by the Welsh y mesur cyffredin, or the common measure. His opinion of the four-and-twenty measures the Archdeacon has given to the world in four cowydd lines to the following effect: "I've read the master-pieces great Of languages no less than eight, After breakfast on the morning subsequent to my arrival, Henrietta and I roamed about the town, and then proceeded to view the bridges which lead over the strait to Anglesey. One, for common traffic, is a most beautiful suspension bridge completed in 1820, the result of the mental and manual labours of the ingenious Telford; the other is a tubular railroad bridge, a wonderful structure, no doubt, but anything but graceful. We remained for some time on the first bridge, admiring the scenery, and were not a little delighted, as we stood leaning over the principal arch, to see a proud vessel pass beneath us in full sail. Satiated with gazing we passed into Anglesey, and making our way to the tubular bridge, which is to |