number of common beggars, throughout every
part of Wales, is aftonishing: they come in
tattered tribes to your doors, from which they
never go away, if they have no worse faults than
idleness and indigence, without being relieved.
It would even be thought impious to refuse
them. Profiting hereby, there are whole fa-
milies, who fubfift folely on the charity of their
better fupplied neighbours.
The begging
brotherhood of Saint Francis, are not more
vagrant, nor more fuccefsful in their mendi-
catory pilgrimages: and it is not uncommon
for the parents, who happen to have fome
compunction, on the score of afking alms, while
they are able to procure the means of life by
their labour, to send out their children to shift
as they can, while they themselves are at work:
preferring this cafual, and difgraceful, mode of
fubfiftence for their children, to the honeft in-
duftry, by which they procure their own main-
tenance. There is, however, as you may fup-
pose, a material difference, even in the poverty
of the industrious, and that of the idle; the
former, as in the example of the barber of Bar-
mouth, covering the fhoulders of his family,
with remnants, which, although

"Coarfely patch'd with different colour'd rags,
"Green, red, blue, white, yellow."

certainly

1

certainly speak" variety of industry;" while the latter, though they are neither ashamed to beg, nor steal, and of course get their cloaths, with much lefs trouble, fuffer them to get into tatters, merely because they are too lazy to mend them, before they are irreparable. My friend, the barber, indeed, valued himself on his true British blood, very seriously afferting, that notwithstanding his present condition,' he was the first of his family, that had ever gained his bread, by the sweat of the brow, and that his father facrificed the estate, which ought to have defcended to his posterity, to an act of generosity to the unfortunate Prince, meaning the Pretender, who, he added, pointing to an almost worn out print of him, that hung on the wall, was more obliged to his father, and better deferved it, than he dared tell me. Not, continued he, but I am a true friend, and loyal fubject, to his Majesty King George'; but that poor Prince-again pointing to the print-was a disappointed out-cast man, wandering up and down this country, and I am proud that my father opened his door to him, though he let out, at the fame time, what pluckt up the hopes of his family by the roots. Hereby, hangs a forrowful tale, master, said he, fighing, but it is of no ufe to trouble you with it: and as for me, it is but doing fomething,

E 4

thing, instead of nothing, for my living, which is all the difference you know, Sir, betwixt a poor man and a gentleman; fo work away, my lads and laffes, work away old Dame Partletfor, as the song fays,

"The world is a well-furnish'd table

"Where guests are promifcuously set.”—

fung the mother of the family, continuing

the tune,

"We all fare as well as we are able."

carolled the eldest daughter, who had really a fine voice.

And fcramble for what we can get.' chorus, boys and girls, chorus.-Here the reft of the labourers took up the burthen, and the "long loud laugh" fucceeded, which not only "spoke the vacant," but the happy foul. I joined in it, with all my heart, and refolved to recommend as many customers, as I could, to the independent cottagers. And, I hereby beg they may be had in remembrance, whenever either you, or your friends emigrate to this part of the world, and fhould want either nets; fhaving, in the easiest manner; homefpun ribbons; home-knit ftockings; petticoats repaired; or breeches deftroyed. Adieu.

LETTER

LETTER VII.

TO THE SAME.

South Wales.

I HAVE now refumed my fouthern route, and write to you from Abereftwith, in my way to which I met with another little cottage enterprise that is fo defcriptive of that happiness, in the most lowly stations of life, of which people in the affluent or even the middle ranks of this variegated world have no manner of idea, that I cannot but imagine a relation of it will be welcome to you, whom I know to delight in viewing all fides of the human picture, particularly fuch as represent any part of the happiness of human beings...

You are yet to learn that I performed, and am ftill performing, this Cambrian expedition upon the back of my old faithful fteed, now in the twenty-fourth year of his age: a creature the best calculated of all others for the purposes of a deliberate and refidentiary traveller, having every difpofition in the world to allow his mafter time for obfervation and reflection. His character is very truly given in the words of the good old axiom-" flow and fure." His own history is fufficiently interesting and eventful to find a place in a heart like your's; and,

I

in

in abridgement, I will here give it you. The whole life of this poor flave, till within the two laft years, has been a continued trial of strength, labour, and patience. He was broken to the bit by a Yorkshire jockey, to be rode, the moment he was fit for service, by an Oxonian scholar, who, whatever might have been his learning in the abstruser sciences, was little converfant in the rudiments of humanity, though they are level with the loweft underftanding, and founded on the tender code of that great Lawgiver, who has told us "a juft "man is merciful to his beast." During the very first vacation, this sprightly youth so completely outrode the ftrength of his steed, that he fold him, on the fame day that he regained his college, at the recommencement of the term, for two guineas, to one of those persons who keep livery ftables, and at the fame time. have horses to let. It was not eafily poffible for a poor wretch, fo badly fituated before, to change fo much for the worfe: and of all the fates that attend a hackney horfe, that which belongs to the drudge of a public university is the most severe it is even harder than that of the fervitors of the college. He remained in this fervitude, however, fixteen years, during which he was a thousand times not only priestridden, but parish ridden, and yet was rarely

:

known