the pool of Three Grains, is for the moft part picturesque and beautiful. The town, for a Welsh one, is rather neat ; from hence to Aberistwith, is a pleasing and rich country, through which flows the river Dovey. There is a remarkable cuftom which the Welsh ftill continue, that I cannot forbear mentioning: When a marriage is about to take place amongst the middling and lower orders of people, it is ufual to invite all their friends and relations of every description, who, when they take leave, present the bridegroom with some fmall prefent, of one or two fhillings, which, however, they have a right to demand again after a certain space of time; the intent of it being probably to enable the new married couple to buy stock, or engage in fome bufinefs that may allow them them foon to repay the small donations of their friends. It is called "a bidding," and is drawn up in the following form. My only fon John has lately entered the facred state of union, and a bidding is fixed on the occafion, on Tuesday the 7th day of October next, in the village of Conwyl, when and where your good company and benevolence are highly folicited, which will be cheerfully acknowledged on a fimilar occafion, and esteemed a peculiar favor conferred on, CONWYL, Sept. 13, 1794 Your moft devoted humble Servants, JOHN JONES, Senior. P. S. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, of Pantyrhaidd, Mr. Jones, of Clynadda, Mr. Evan Harries, Harries, of Nant-yr-olchfa, and his brother, David Harries, of Llandre, unite us in complimenting all with their fincereft gratulation. The young man's parents request that all their donations of the above nature may be retaliated then." In the courfe of our tour I had often occasion to regret that I knew nothing of drawing; the pencil may find room for continual employment in the romantic views of North Wales; but without profeffing myself either a poet, a painter, or a botanist, I felt highly gratified at the magnificent scenery which that country every where displays. Equally delighted with the elegant fimplicity of nature, but not fo familiar with its productions as another, I cannot find the fame fources of. intellectual acquifitions. Undoubtedly the antiquarian and the botanist have a wide wider field of investigation, and a more enlarged page of fcience is conftantly dif played to their view. philofopher are more The poet and the abstracted in their observations, find other principles for the materials of thought, and apply the rude unconnected objects of their contemplation, as fo many foundations, upon which to build the light fabric of fancy, either in the regions of moral, political, or metaphyfical fpeculation; but where these are united, nature muft amply repay her obferver, and be at once an inexhaustible mine of information and amusement. |