doubted by thofe, who never have traversed it, or who, traverfing, rather run a race than make a regular tour. It is certain, that several detached fpots, in feveral different English counties, exhibit to the eye of the traveller as much of fimplicity, here and there, as much of the fublime, and frequently more of cultivation; but then those are to be confidered as pickt and chofen places, and are, therefore, particular: whereas, the natural graces of Wales, the spontaneous fragrance of the wild herbs and flowers, the unreftrained redundance of the foliage, and the unlaboured fertility of the fouthern foil, are general. They often expand from one shire to another with fucceffions both of the beautiful and fublime, fometimes to the ftretch of thirty or forty miles, in the progress of which the fancy and the heart, the understanding, and all the higher emotions of the foul are, by turns, regaled and delighted. Hence it is impoffible for a traveller of a just taste not to catch pleasure and inftruction from that endless variety of land and water, hill and valley, dizzy afcent, and apparently fathomlefs precipice, which, in Merioneth and Carnarvonshire, would ftrike his eye at almost every hour's journeying. The traveller of imagination would feel an unwonted glow of head and heart, perhaps, in a warmer degree, and of a more fascinating kind,

kind, than the traveller of merely a just taste. The poetic and pictorial traveller, endued with the enthusiasm proper to thofe characters, would have a more animated pleasure from a furvey of fuch fort of beauties, than a person who has been in the habit of deriving his fatisfactions rather from the refined labours of art, than the eafy operations of nature: but all degrees of understanding and feeling, nay the foul itself would be gratified in a tour through Wales, allowing time to do justice to nature and themselves; and, indeed, none but the most worthless or diffipated of human kind could obferve, within the limit of a morning's ride or walk, fuch an affemblage of natural wonders, viewed at any period of the year, without tasting a pleasure of that moral kind, which, in looking above or below, must pronounce the objects of divine origin. I have ftood gazing on fome-Snowden and Plinlimmon, the vales of and of Cluyn,

for inftance, till they feemed of themselves to fay-Traveller! well mayeft thou gaze: we merit your pious admiration-for we are of God.

But my enthusiasm is running my letter into too much length. Invoking, therefore, the bleffing of that God on you, I bid you for the prefent-adieu.

LETTER

1

LETTER III.5

TO THE SAME.

South Wales.

A YOUNG painter of genius in a fummer tour, from Abergavenny to Milford Haven, South, and from Aberconway to Holyhead, including the Isle of Anglefey, North, taking into his route the intermediate landscapes and fea-pieces right and left, and making those paufes which are neceffary to exact obfervation, and those deviations from the beaten to the unfrequented tract, where, indeed, the chaster beauties of nature are to be found, as if they modeftly withdrew from the gaze of every common paffenger, could not fail returning home richly stored with materials for the winter exercise of his finifhing pencil. Or more properly advised, and duly ambitious of being just to nature as his original, and to himself as her imitator, were he to employ the winter only in giving to his first sketches a more correct form, then to make the fame tour the fucceeding fummer to meliorate and. improve, to catch new graces which new verdure may poffibly have given them, to bestow that mellowing, which the most vigorous mind and brightest fancy derives from precifion, without which, indeed, every compofition of

human

human art can hope but tranfitory fame; were he then to occupy his fecond winter to the last polishes, then fend them to Somerset House, I will venture to fay he would exhibit, to his country, one of the most beautiful, one of the most valuable collections that had, till then, been seen in the most select of her cabinets; accompanied by this peculiar honour and novelty namely, that it was taken from an original properly her own: a truth which nineteen out of twenty that had never feen that original would be far from fufpecting: nay, I

am furthermore convinced that even the best judges, the most celebrated artists, under the like predicament, would diftribute the different landscapes to as many different countriesappropriating the fcenery of one to Savoy, a fecond to Lausanne, a third to the beautiful Pays de Vaud, and so on: for all that characterise these lovely countries, affemble in the principality of Wales. The Cambrian excurfion I have here recommended to the young and ingenious artists of my country in particular, would, were they to travel pencil in hand, unite the merits of the patriot to the talents of the painter, and be productive of objects no less worthy the lovers of their art, than the lovers of their country. It is hence, that I would incite thofe who are bleft with abilities, C and

VOL. I.

and who incline to devote them to the mufe of painting, to a journey of deliberation through Wales, before they go farther from home, convinced, that if the study and imitation of nature, only, were, as it obviously is, the perfection of their art, a great deal of that time and money, which is expended in getting to the usual feminaries, and scenery, might be faved; for I repeat, that this little appendage to the crown of England, contains, within itself, the richeft ftores for the pencil, which can be contented with nature or with nature's God.

Does the painter look for the broad and beautiful expanfe of the fea, with all its attendant rocks, terminating towers, romantic fhellwork, and furrounding fhores? They await him on the coaft of Wales at innumerable openings. They falute him at the new and old paffage, even as he firft fets his foot on the Cambrian foil: He meets them again gathering beauties as he goes, in various parts of Caermarthenshire: they fmile on him as he visits the mouldering caftle, and romantic fcenery of the sweet village Laugharne, in that county. -At Kidwelly and Llanelthy, they again regale. Swanfea offers them to him in all the pride of charms, that have drawn the admiration of the fashionable world. They accom

pany,