you, and I affure ance with your earnest and repeated request, but under the immediate impulfe of my own wishes and inclination, that I am now induced to write to you. it is not alone in compli The mode of travelling which we have adopted, at the first view promifes nothing remarkably alluring; and I think you were of opinion that our refolution was not equal to the undertaking of fuch an enterprise, and treated the whole plan as vifionary and 'romantic. But I fatter myfelf you will now be convinced we are in earnest, especially when I tell you that experience has more than ever confirmed us in our original intention; for the pleafure we have hitherto derived from our progrefs, has much exceeded our most fanguine expectations. I fhall now proceed to give you a short detail of occurrences, from the day on which my compagnon de voyage and myfelf departed from Cambridge, to the prefent time. Behold us, then, more like two pilgrims performing a journey to the tomb of fome wonder-working faint, than men travelling for their pleasure and amufement. We are fo completely metamorphofed, that I much doubt whether you would recognise us through our difguife; we carry our clothes, &c. in a wallet or knapsack, from which we have not hitherto experienced the flightest inconvenience: as for all ideas of appearance and gentility, they are entirely out of the queftion-our object is to fee, not to be feen ; and if I thought I had one acquaintance who would be ashamed of me and my knapsack, feated by the fire fide of an honest Welsh peasant, in a country village, village, I fhould not only make myself perfectly easy on my own account, but should be induced to pity and despise him for his weakness. We made fome stay at Oxford, where we experienced the utmost hospitality and attention; and then profecuted our route by way of Glocefter, Rofs, Hereford, Bishop's Caftle, &c. I have annexed the names of the places we have paffed through in their regular order, as well as their distances from each other, fo that you will perceive we have not fatigued ourselves with very long marches. It is not my intention to trouble you with a minute defcription of places; or with uninteresting accounts of individuals, from which you would not derive any very defirable information in the perufal, nor I any gratification in the relation. The feelings of men generally harmonize with their fituation; and fublime images must naturally arife in the mind, when the external objects of its contemplation are accompanied with any thing peculiarly grand or majestic: under fuch impreffions I cannot, when I am upon the fummit of a mountain, with a beautiful and fertile country widely extending upon the fight, think of any thing but the prospect before me; nor in admiring a cathedral conftructed with all the elegance of finished architecture, could I reduce my thoughts to the rule and compass in order to measure its height and dimensions, or enter into a critique upon the juftness of its proportions; the form would triumph over the matter, and drive every other confideration to a distance: and after contemplating the venerable remains of fome fome once celebrated fabric, I could not patiently endure to give an historical detail of its founder, the different benefactors to whom it has been indebted, or the charters and privileges it has enjoyed. But they are not alone fublime fituations which excite fublime ideas; every object in nature is interefting, and wherever nature is, I feel fimilar fenfations; mountains and valleys, rivers and rivulets, nay the smallest plants that are trodden under our feet, unfeen or unregarded, are inexhauftible fources, to a contemplative mind, of gratification and delight. O how can't thou renounce the boundless store O how can't thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ! The Minstrel. Let |