304 Hints for English Travellers. England will surely never submit to be instructed how to appreciate the merits of her "illustrious dead," by a vapid, self-sufficient, disappointed scribbler, without a single qualification for the task. She will not, it is to be hoped, look for an estimate of the "talent" she has produced, from a paltry driveller, whose principal aim is to deteriorate the genius of her sons, and whose stupidity is the only preventative to the accomplishment of his design; one, of whom it may well be said, that his " 'dulness is an antidote to his malignity." It appears to be the object of Mr. Hazlitt, not only to vilify and calumniate native talent, but as far as he is able, to hold up his countrymen "en masse" to universal contempt and detestation. He is not content with invidiously endeavouring to blast the reputation of some of the most exalted geniuses this country has ever produced-his venom is not confined to Poets, Kings, Ministers, and persons moving in the higher circles of society, but is directed, with commendable impartiality, to all ranks and descriptions of people guilty of the enormous and unpardonable crime of claiming ENGLAND for their birth-place. "John Bull" is, according to this exEdinburgh Reviewer, an "ill-bred, stupid, brutal dolt, dupe, blockhead, and bully, and requires (what he has been long labouring for) a hundred years of slavery to bring him to his senses." "He boasts of the excellence of the laws, and the goodness of his own disposition, and yet there are more people hanged in England than in all Europe besides; he boasts of the modesty of his countrywomen, and yet there are more prostitutes in the streets of London, than all the capitals of Europe put together."*. How far Mr. Hazlitt's personal habits and practical experience may have assisted him in becoming acquainted with. the number of unfortunate females contained in our Metropolis, we shall not pretend to enquire; but we cannot help expressing our surprise that he should profess to be so well informed as to those of other nations, since it is hardly possible that he could have had similar opportunities of computing their amount. He furthermore asserts, that if any one complains of not succeeding in affairs of gallantry with Englishwomen, "it is because he is not gallant. He has mistaken his talent, that's all." This base * Round Table, p. 70, 71, 72. † Ib. p. 116, vol. I. [Nov. 1, and profligate attack needs but few comments. If he really speaks from experience, he must needs have kept very disreputable company; for we may safely affirm that such females as he has thought proper to characterize are only to be found in those lamentable abodes of vice and infamy, common to this as well as to other nations, where the form of woman, divested of its "original brightness," and dispossessed of that "pearl of the soul" which worlds cannot regain, has sunk into the lowest depths of misery and iniquity. It could only have been in such receptacles that Mr. Hazlitt acquired the vile notions he appears to entertain on this subject. At all events, his birth, parentage, and education" would preclude his having an intercourse with that description of female society, by which the character of the sex ought alone to be estimated. We shall now take our leave for a month of this "theatrical critic review, essay, and lecture manufacturer.' We have thought it our duty to enter thus fully into the nature of his various trespasses on good taste and morality, because, non vi sed sæpe cadendo, he has been recently gaining more ground with a certain gossiping class of readers, than his merits in any degree warrant. Under the pretence of offering an exposition of the genius of English poetry he has stolen into that notice to which the inferiority of his talents, and the shallowness of his acquirements would never otherwise have introduced him. It has fallen to our lot to unveil the impostor, and considering the nature of his manifold offences, we have, on the whole, executed our task with fewer regrets than might probably have attended the chastisement of a less hardened and atrocious criminal. HINTS FOR ENGLISH TRAVELLERS. 2. MR. EDITOR, HAVING observed in some of the late papers an article copied from those of the continent, reflecting on the extreme parsimony of such English travellers as are throwing their time and money away abroad, I beg leave, through the medium of your widely circulated Magazine, to undeceive the British public, as to the real state of the case, which has been completely misrepresented on this occasion, as well as many others, ever since the prevalence of the travelling mania that succeeded the peace of 1814. It is pretended, according to the article in question, that the great hotels are no 1818.] Hints for English Travellers. longer frequented by the English, owing to the latter having all of a sudden become so excessively penurious, that they are unwilling to pay the enormous charges usually demanded at those places. Now, happening to have just returned from a visit to the French capital and Netherlands, during which I was not inattentive to the mode of living adopted by our countrymen, I can truly affirm that no material change has taken place in their expenses; while every English resident on the continent will bear me out in asserting, that the disposition to impose on us, in every imaginable shape, has rather increased than diminished on the part of our Gallic neighbours. At Paris, for instance, several of the most splendid hotels there are fitted up for the sole purpose of receiving English travellers: they are conducted on a most expensive scale, and some of the apartments in those which have been opened near the Tuilleries, are let at as high a rate as those of the first houses in London; although rent and other expenses attendant on such establishments bear no comparison in the two countries. You cannot occupy an attic in French hotels of the above description under three francs a night; and as to your dinner, the only advantage of getting it somewhat cheaper than in England, is that of having your digestion destroyed, by sacrificing every thing in the shape of comfort. Those who have been in the habit of dining from the carte, or bill of fare, of a French or Italian traiteur, can easily fill up the picture, at which I have thought it quite enough merely to hint. With respect to the wines of France, upon which some of our epicures lay so much stress, there is not one in the whole catalogue, with the exception of their vin ordinaire, that is really drinkable, under five or six shillings a bottle; and as to the first named, it is in general infinitely less palatable than the table-beer handed round at an English farm-house, although about three times dearer. To the scene of filth and total absence of comfort witnessed at the public diningrooms, I am sure every one will bear ample testimony, who has ever been in France: on the moral tendency of taking English women to those receptacles, following the example of the French, it is needless to expatiate. As to the hotels and minor inns, I am prepared to prove, that their charges of every kind, both in Paris and all other parts of the French NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 58, 305 and Flemish territory, are as extravagant as they have ever been since the peace, at least with regard to English traveliers; for it is well known that those of every other country are neither asked so much by one third, nor would pay them if they were. If any thing was required to prove the shameless want of principle manifested by the continental hotel and innkeepers, it is amply furnished by their keeping up one set of prices for the English, and another for people of their own country, who will not brook their insolence or extortion. So far from leading a life of penury, or seeming to have economy in view, a visit to Brussels or Paris is, with our more opulent families, generally the signal of launching into a variety of expenses which are never thought of in England. It usually takes up from a month to six weeks to visit all the fine things contained in the capital of the world! as the great city is bombastically styled. If to the disbursements attendant on house rent, traiteurs' bills, equipage and servants, be added the purchases of lace, silks, and muslins, a couple of thousand pounds seldom cover one of these trips to Paris, of which there are, upon an average, about five thousand every year. As to the rent of private houses, lodgings, &c. it has increased very considerably, both in Paris and every other part of France frequented by the English since 1814. It is notorious, that every possible advantage is taken of the English tenant; and in allusion to private lodgings, I do not hesitate to say, that there is very little difference between the price of a really good suite of apartments in Paris and London. I allow, however, that if any person is willing to mount four pair of dirty stairs and can put up with a set of rooms about the size of our pantries in England, he may be accommodated at a much more reasonable rate. To give you an idea of the profits accruing to French landlords from their English tenants, I was confidently informed while at Tours, (and my authority was unquestionable,) that the rent paid for several houses in and about that town, for a lease of three or four years, has, in some instances, more than reim bursed the proprietor for what the house and land had cost him only a few years before! Although this curious fact does not apply with equal exactness to Caen, Havre and Boulogne, the other VOL. X. 2 R Notices illustrative of Cambrian History and Antiquities. [Nov. 1, 306 principal resorts of British emigrantsfor such we must now call those who have abandoned their country very high prices are paid at all these towns, particularly Caen, where acts of the grossest injustice have been committed against many of the English residents; in consequence of which, many have been induced to leave it in disgust. If, as the French editor asserts, our custom is less courted at the great hotels, it merely proves that, contrary to their usual practice, the English travellers have learned to profit by experience, and though late, have discovered that their French friends were in the invariable habit of asking DOUBLE for every thing called for. I can assure those of my countrymen, whom necessity or inclination carries to the opposite shore, that it is high time to resist the system of imposition so successfully practised on them hitherto; and by meeting their friends half way, that is to say, stooping to the ceremony of bargaining, marchander, the purchasers of either sex will, in nine cases out of ten, save a hundred per cent. of their money! Having thus replied to the unfounded insinuations of the continental paragraph, and appealing to those who have visited France for the truth of my assertions, I shall take my leave, with a promise, however, of troubling you with another letter on the political tendency of emigration, and its probable effect on the morals of the rising generation of this country. Brighton, Sept. 20, 1818. VIATOR. NOTICES ILLUSTRATIVE OF CAMBRIAN CADER IDRIS. THIS well known mountain is the Parnassus of Cambria. The apex of it is like the crater of a volcano. The word cader, in common language, signifies a chain; but here it is synonimous with observatory. Idris was a shepherd and an astronomer. The flocks of remote ages in these rocky regions are described as consisting of many thousands; the shepherds must necessarily have been numerous, and the chief might probably be elevated by a superior sagacity. In Holy Writ, and the antiquity of nations, a knowledge of the stars appears to have resulted as a natural and concomitant produce of the leisure of pastoral life. THE ORMESHEAD. passengers to the sister kingdom, and juts out into the Bay of Beaumaris. The sailors call it Death's-head, from an imaginary similitude in its profile, when viewed from certain points at sea; and the idea is not a little confirmed by its dangerous vicinity. It is the Scylla of the Welsh coast; the Charybdis only is wanting. The British name is Gogarth, the projecting cliff. THE SEVERN In its passage becomes a Welsh river; its name is derived from Havren, with the prefixture of ys, and is prettily alluded to in the following well known saying: "Ni pheru Havren i avrad." David ap Gwilim was the Ovid of Britain, and died about 1400. Birch, which was the Bay of the Bards, must have been in great abundance in his time, as one of his favorite subjects is Cariad yn y Llwyn bedw-" love in the birchen groves." His amatory odesand beautiful they certainly are-were collected and published in 1787, by Jones and Owen, of London. One of the elegies of this bard contains the following extraordinary thought: "Bellach, naw llawenach Nêf." Heaven is now a happier heaven. It is still the custom in Wales to adorn a mixture of Birch and Criavol or Quicken (opulus arbor) with flowers, tie it with ribbon, and leave it where it is likely to be found by the person intended on May morning. David ap Gwilim has this allusion to the Birch: "Y vun lwys a'm cynhwy sai EDWARD I. Among the various acts of this ferocious but politic monarch, he cut down the woods in the forests of Snowdon. The trunks of trees are still frequently found in the turbaries, and hazles with nuts attached, which ascertains the time of their fructification to have been that of their destruction. The Emperor Severus, who died at York, is said to have lost 50,000 Romans by the repeated excursions of the Britons from their woods and ambushes. TALIESIN. Gwyddno garanhir, the long-headed, was (in 510) Lord of Cantre'r gwaelad, a district on the sea shore in Merionethshire, which was soon afterwards lost, This promontory is well known to like the Goodwin Sands. He gave his 1818.] Notices illustrative of Cambrian History and Antiquities. son Elphin for his maintenance the produce of a weir: in this weir the infant bard, Taliesin, was found, like Moses, wrapt in a leathern wallet, which Meredydd ap Rhys describes as the casket which contained a treasure. "Y tlws lle caed Taliesin." The bard, it would seem lived near Llyn Geirionydd, in Carnarvonshire. 66 Myfi yn Taliesin, ar lan llyn Geirionydd." I am Taliesin, on the shore of the lake Geirionydd. HARLECH CASTLE. This venerable fortress is situated on a high cliff, close to the sea, in Merionethshire. The original tower was called Tar Bronwen, but changed its nomenclature into Caer Collwyn, when Collwyn ap Tangno became its resident, and is at present denominated Ardd lech, or Harlech. The rock on which it stands has been excavated to prevent a hostile approach. David ap leuan ap Einion, celebrated for his fidelity to the house of Lancaster, had the command of it in the civil wars, and was summoned to sur render it by Sir Richard Herbert, brother to the first Earl of Pembroke, (who is said to have killed 140 men at the battle of Banbury, with his battle-axe!) His reply was, "that he had kept a castle in France till every body in Wales talked of him; and that he would keep the castle of Harlech till all France should hear of it." Harlech was for a time (in 1460) the refuge of Queen Margaret, after her defeat at Northampton. Howel, the bard of the Herberts, of Dolgiog and Ragland, says that 7,000 men fell during the siege. The national air, "The march of the men of Harlech," owes its origin to this siege. THE BARDS. It was common with the ancient bards to begin their performances with invocating the Deity. It was so, also, in the days of Heathenism; for Plato, in one of his epistles, tells his friend, that he believes him to be serious when he introduces in his letter the name of one of the gods. MARTIAL TENURES. The celebrated Ednyted Vychan, held Tre'r castell, in Anglesea, by the tenure of serving the Welsh Princes in their wars with England, at his own charge, within the limits of Wales, and beyond the Marches, with this condition annexed, that the leader must be toto sanguine ipsius Ednyoed. Similar to this was the tenure of the Barons of Halton, in Cheshire, namely, that in the Earl of Chester's Welsh wars" they should be 307 the first to enter that country, and the last to leave it!" CARADOC, Or Caractacus, the Silurian and Ordovicean chief, or, as Tacitus says, he described himself," Plurium gentium Imcountry against the Roman power for perator,"-having bravely defended his Cartismandua, Queen of the Brigantes, sixteen years, was at length betrayed by and sent prisoner to Rome, where his dignified conduct procured him his freedom and the esteem of Claudius. POLICY OF OUR BRITISH ANCESTORS. cisive battle of Hastings, and the imme- in the house of Tudor, was doubtless al- There will be to the Britons A deliverance of exalted power. ration of ages, Sion Tudor, in an ode "I Harri lan, hir lawenydd Yr hwn a 'n rhoes ninnau 'n rhydd, The union of Henry the Seventh, after the important battle of Bosworth, with the heiress of the house of York, connected together the rival houses; that of his daughter with James the Fourth, united the rival nations. It associated the Rose of the South with the Thistle of the North, and formed a grand national bouquet. Finally, it placed the British isles under one head, in which are concentrated aboriginal rights, the claims of connexion, and the pretensions of conquest. ARMORIAL COGNIZANCE OF GREAT Historians say that King Arthur bore upon his helm a red dragon; it was also the cognizance of his father, Uther, thence called Pen-Dragon. Henry VII. from a national attachment, adopted the red dragon upon a standard of green and white silk, which he bore at Bos Notices illustrative of Cambrian History and Antiquities. [Nov. 1, worth. This, when the standard-bearer, Sir Wm. Brandon, fell in a personal rencontre with Richard, Henry gave to Rhys ap Meredydd, of Hiraethog, a man of great personal strength and prowess, whose tomb is still shewn at Hosputty Evan, in Denbighshire. The red dragon was borne as a supporter to the royal arms, from the accession of the Tudors to that of the Stuarts, when it gave place to the unicorn, previously giving rise to a department in the herald college, called rouge dragon. Upon the late re-arrangement of the national quarterings, taste, science, and conciliation should have pointed out the adoption of this ancient symbol as one compartment in the royal escutcheon; and the omission is the more apparent in its inducing a repetition of the lions or leopards in the first quarter, which are in fact the arms of Normandy, Guienne, and Aquitaine. TUDOR VAUGHAN AP GRONO. This extraordinary personage lived in the reign of Edward III. Being a man of large estate and interest, he assumed to himself the honours of knighthood, insisting on being styled SIR Tudor ap Grono. The King, informed of this eccentric presumption, sent for him, and demanded by what power he assumed a prerogative that belonged only to royalty. Sir Tudor, however, exhibited some special pleading on the occasion, and answered, that he preserved that right by virtue of the laws of King Arthur. In the first place he was a gentleman; secondly, he had sufficient estate; thirdly, he was valiant and resolute; adding, "if my valour and resolution be doubted, here I throw down my glove for proof of courage, and stand ready to encounter any man.' The King, admiring his manly declaration, immediately confirmed the honour upon him. Henry VII. descended from this courageous knight, being the son of Edmund Earl of Richmond, son of Sir Owen Tudor, the son of Meredith, who was the son of this Sir Tudor Vaughan ap Grono. THE PARYS MINE, ANGLESEA. It is generally believed this mine was worked by the Romans. In 1765, some copper being accidentally found here, speculation was started, and Messrs. Roe and Co. of Macclesfield, in Cheshire, obtained a lease from Sir Nicholas Bailey, father of the first Lord Uxbridge. The company persevered, at great expense, in their labours, but met with little recompence till the 2d of March, 1768, when à vein of pure copper was discovered, which eventually proved a part of that immense bed since worked with unexampled profit. The Rev. E. Hughes, father of Col. Hughes, of Kinmel Park, being a part owner of land closely adjoining the fortunate discovery, commenced an adventure soon afterwards; and one proof of the success he met with is, that from circumstances by no means affluent, he was enabled at his death to leave his heir-at-law in the clear possession of an estate, the rent of which exceeds 80,0001. per annum, besides numerous other bequests, to the amount of some hundreds of thousands! At one time the bed of ore was more than 24 yards thick, and about 7,000 tons were annually raised. Mr. Hughes has had at one time on the bank 30,000 tons, worth, perhaps, 130,0001.! The Parys Mountain is one vast bed of minerals; for exclusive of native copper, may be enumerated-yellow sulphurated copper ore, sulphate of copper, crystallized and in solution, sulphate of lead, intermixed with portions of silver, black ore, containing copper with galena, calamine, and some silver; and native sulphur. Nearly 1,500 hands were employed here. EPITAPH. In the Church of Wrexham is an altar piece, presented to it by Elihu Yate, esq. who brought it from Rome. He was buried in the church-yard in 1721, and on his tomb is this inscription:Born in America, in Europe bred, In Afric travell'd, and in Asia wed; Where long he liv'd and thriv'd— even, In London died: Much good, some ill he did; so hope, all's care ANCIENT FORTIFICATION. On the celebrated mountain of Pen surrounded with a strong treble wall; Maen Mawr, is an ancient fortification, within each wall the foundation site of more than 100 towers, all round, each about eighteen feet diameter within, the walls about six feet thick. This situation must have been impregnable. The entrance, which is steep and rocky, ascends by many turnings: 100 men might defend it against fifty times their number. Within its walls is room for 20,000 men! grounded upon this epitaph-in particular Have not some plagiarisms been on the two first and two last lines? |