Wanderings and excursions in North Wales . rance ofuninterrupted quiet and lonely beauty ascribed to the old pastorallife. And such it almost was; for here generation had followedgeneration in the same calm tenour of existence, and in the sameunvarying pursuits. There was about it an air of serenity andsolitude I had hardly before dreamed of, although I had beforespent many days among the hills. I had passed through scenes of the loveliest and the wildest cha^racter, yet the falls of the Conway, the Machno, the wild vale ofDolwyddelan—its heathy mountain and romantic pass, which laybefore me,—
Wanderings and excursions in North Wales . rance ofuninterrupted quiet and lonely beauty ascribed to the old pastorallife. And such it almost was; for here generation had followedgeneration in the same calm tenour of existence, and in the sameunvarying pursuits. There was about it an air of serenity andsolitude I had hardly before dreamed of, although I had beforespent many days among the hills. I had passed through scenes of the loveliest and the wildest cha^racter, yet the falls of the Conway, the Machno, the wild vale ofDolwyddelan—its heathy mountain and romantic pass, which laybefore me,—excited the imagination and pleased the eye in anextraordinary degree. It was an hour well suited to the scene;over the dark, majestic mountain of Moel Siabod, and the drearyheights about Tan y Foel and Bryncoch, a splendid sunset was nowclosing, tinging vale and lake, as its last beams yet lingered on theruins of the lonely tower of Dolwyddelan; from whose dilapidatedand shivered walls, and ivy-mantled wreck of former splendour, PSh3. 1 WANDERINGS THROUGH NORTH WALES. 103 I looked down upon the rocky vale below, and the romantic pass itonce commanded in the day of its power. Where the cattle nowpeacefully sought shelter in its lone, deserted court, chivalry andbeauty once held sway; those battlements, grey and worn, castingtheir lengthening shadow upon the ruins fast mingling with the soil,had rung with the din of war; those tenantless halls re-echoed withmirth and song, or strains addressed to the ear of love and beauty,or the pride of some lordly chief. They, too, beheld from its wallsthe same far-spreading prospect, full of the same bold, picturesquebeauties; but with feelings how different to those it now awakens inthe lonely and thoughtful strangers mind ! Rising from a bold projecting steep which overlooks the pass, ina wild, rocky valley, watered by the Lleder, the Castle appears froma distance embosomed in mountains, the crownless monarch of thescene. Dating as far
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