pany, refresh, and delight him, even to MilfordHaven, where they lofe themselves in unbounded ocean. Nor are the marine objects lefs beautiful in the northern diftricts. At Towyn, Abereftwith, Caernarvon, Harleigh, Penmorva, Bangor, Anglefey, Barmouth, &c. they increase in every grace of the grand and minute.

Does the youthful enthusiast pant after the fublime beauties peculiar to the land? Here are they in the most profufe abundance. The mountains are here, whofe immenfe height illuftrates and juftifies that bold imagery of the Poet, whofe defcriptions would appear the work of fancy, and of fancy run riot, to all thofe who have never yet look'd at the aspiring sublimities of nature as they present themselves in Merionethshire, and other northern parts of this island. The truth and the description of it, are thus exactly given in the poetry of Goldfmith,

"As fome tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the ftorm; "Tho' round its breast, the rolling clouds are spread, "Eternal funfhine fettles on its head."

"The clouds, indeed, feem fometimes to iffue from the feet, and sometimes from the bowels of thefe mountains, in paffing the fteaming fides of which

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which the traveller is, on the brightest day, involved in the thickest mist, while the fummit of the mountain, above, and of the valley, below are gilded by funbeams, which the vapours have not fullied.

Or, languishes our child of genius for the mountain Cataract, whofe white foam is precipitated, by the torrent, down its romantic, but rugged, fides, till it reaches the diftant vale, where it rolls over the dark rocks, made yet darker by the thick oaks that overhang them; the deepest green mofs growing on the parts of rock not washed by the turbulent, but laved only by the gentle waves that occafionally overflow them? Would he with to hear a beauty that he could not paint, the defcription of which he must refign to the poet, viz. The stunning found of the fame Cataract, foftening by degrees into the ftill, fmall, and fweet, voice of the rill, which fteals gradually out of hearing, along the woody dingle, where it dies away? If his genius leads to these, they are to be met with in Wales. I have clambered up the mountains, where they were paffable to human afcent; I have followed the found of the torrents, from the first deafening impetuofity, to the laft of its meanders through the valley; and have been paid for my excurfion by innumer

able

able beauties, which nature hides, as it were, in her nooks and corners, and denies the fight or fcent of to every one who does not deem them worth fearching for. It is almost a partiality unwarranted to point at any place in particular, where thefe charms, for the true lovers of nature, may be discovered, they are fo generally diftributed throughout the principality; but if I am juftified in giving the preference to any fpots, I should mention Merionethfhire, and the country about Pontipool as most replete with thefe beautiesthese and a thousand more.

It is impoffible for me, indeed, to give adequate sketches of the countless charms a traveller of genius will difcover in this route. The most vivid defcriptions of Gilpin, joined to the folid narratives of Pennant, should rather animate, than difcourage, to the journey. The living eye of fuch a traveller fhould not be contented with any thing fhort of the living volume; in every page and paffage of which, nature will here prefent him with fomething to admire and imitate fomething, which, though admired and defcribed before, will fupply new defcription, new imitation. In truth, the proper objects of genius can here never be exhaufted, nor genius itself fatigued with representing

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prefenting them. So redundant are the sports of nature in this happy foil, that with a flight. change of your point of view and the same spot of ground will afford a fet of landfcapes: Taken from the top of the mountain you may sketch the valley apart, and it is fufficiently enriched to fill your canvafs, and call your imitative powers into the warmest exertion; taken from the valley you have another feparate picture -the first interefting, foft, and delicate; the fecond noble, animated, and fublime join their several beauties by taking them in a middle direction between both, and, reverencing nature and yourself, you will prove the truth of my before repeated affertion, that it is unneceffary to quit your native empire, to gain the wreathe of immortality as a painter.

Excuse me, I beg of you, for thus enlarging on these beauties, with a view to bringing them upon canvafs, but befides that, I know you both love and cultivate the art in private; many of our mutual friends, amongst which is the enchanting De Loutherberg, and the brother of the ingenious Barfett, worthy the relationfhip, are public ornaments of it. I am perfuaded that if the former of these artists were to visit the scenes I have here alluded to, his moft glowing and justly celebrated landscapes

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from Switzerland, which we have fo often admired in his defcriptions, as well as on his canvass, would have companions of Welsh extraction highly deferving that honour. And I wish in your next converfation you would fuggeft these hints.

But it is time to commit my long letter upon paintings-which you may, perhaps, call an epistle to painters to the poft. Farewell then for the present,