Wales.

lations-It seemed to have no other preparation. Tour to At evening we came to Combermere1, so called from a wide lake.

Friday, 22d July.-We went up the mere-I pulled a bulrush of about ten feet-I saw no convenient boats upon the mere.

3

Saturday, 23d July. We visited Lord Kilmorey's house-It is large and convenient, with many rooms, none of which are magnificently spacious 3—— The furniture was not splendid-The bed-curtains were guarded-Lord Kilmorey showed the place with too much exultation-He has no park, and little water.

5

Sunday, 24th July.-We went to a chapel, built by Sir Lynch Cotton for his tenants-It is consecrated, and therefore, I suppose, endowed-It is neat and plain—The communion plate is handsome— It has iron pales and gates of great elegance, brought from Lleweney, " for Robert has laid all ope 7.

[At this time the seat of Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton, now of Lord Combermere, his grandson, from which place he takes his title. It stands on the site of an old abbey of Benedictine monks, which was founded 1133; and, about the year 1540, at the dissolution of the monasteries, was granted, with a great part of the estates of the abbey, to George Cotton, esq., an ancestor of Lord Combermere. The library, which is forty feet by twenty-seven, is supposed to have been the refectory. The lake, or mere, is about three quarters of a mile long, but of no great width; it is skirted with woods, and from some situations it has the appearance of a river. It is situated in Cheshire, twenty-two miles from Shrewsbury.-DUPPA.]

2 [Great Cat's-tail, or Reed-mace. The Typha latifolia of Linnæus.— DUPPA.]

3 [This house, which is called Shavington Hall, is in Shropshire, twenty-one miles from Shrewsbury, and, like Wrottesley Hall in the adjoining county, is said to have as many windows, doors, and chimnies, as correspond in number to the days, weeks, and months in a year.-DUPPA.]

4 [Probably guarded from wear or accident by being covered with some inferior material.-ED.]

5 [Thomas Needham, eighth Viscount Kilmorey.-ED.]

6 [At Burleydam, close to Combermere, built by Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton, Mrs. Thrale's uncle.-DUPFA.]

7 [This remark has reference to family conversation. Robert was the eldest son of Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton, and lived at Lleweney at this time.DUPPA. All the seats in England were, a hundred years ago, enclosed with walls, through which there were generally "iron pales and gates." Mr. Cotton had, no doubt, "laid all open" by prostrating the walls; and the pales and gates had thus become useless. The same process has taken place at almost every seat in England.-ED.]

Tour to

Wales.

[Monday, 25th July1.]-We saw Hawkestone, the seat of Sir Rowland Hill, and were conducted by Miss Hill over a large tract of rocks and woods; a region abounding with striking scenes and terrific grandeur. We were always on the brink of a precipice, or at the foot of a lofty rock; but the steeps were seldom naked: in many places, oaks of uncommon magnitude shot up from the crannies of stone; and where there were no trees, there were underwoods and bushes. Round the rocks is a narrow path cut upon the stone, which is very frequently hewn into steps; but art has proceeded no further than to make the succession of wonders safely accessible. The whole circuit is somewhat laborious; it is terminated by a grotto cut in the rock to a great extent, with many windings, and supported by pillars, not hewn into regularity, but such as imitate the sports of nature, by asperities and protuberances. The place is without any dampness, and would afford an habitation not uncomfortable. There were from space to space seats cut out in the rock. Though it wants water, it excels Dovedale by the extent of its prospects, the awfulness of its shades, the horrors of its precipices, the verdure of its hollows, and the loftiness of its rocks: the ideas which it forces upon the mind are the sublime, the dreadful, and the vast. Above is inaccessible altitude, below is horrible profundity; but it excels the garden of Ilam only in extent. Ilam has grandeur, tempered with softness; the walker congratulates his own arrival at the place, and is grieved to think he must ever leave it. As he looks up to the rocks, his thoughts are elevated;

This date is evidently here wanted; a day is otherwise unaccounted for; and it is not likely that Johnson would have gone sight seeing on a Sunday.— ED.]

2

[Now belonging to Sir John Hill, bart., father of Lord Hill. It is twelve miles from Shrewsbury.-DUPPA.]

Wales.

as he turns his eyes on the valleys, he is composed Tour to and soothed. He that mounts the precipices at Hawkestone wonders how he came thither, and doubts how he shall return-His walk is an adventure, and his departure an escape-He has not the tranquillity, but the horrors, of solitude; a kind of turbulent pleasure, between fright and admiration. Ilam is the fit abode of pastoral virtue, and might properly diffuse its shades over nymphs and swains. Hawkestone can have no fitter inhabitants than giants of mighty bone and bold emprise1; men of lawless courage and heroic violence. Hawkestone should be

described by Milton, and Ilam by Parnel2.

Miss Hill showed the whole succession of wonders with great civility-The house was magnificent, compared with the rank of the owner.

Tuesday, 26th July.-We left Combermere, where we have been treated with great civility-The house is spacious, but not magnificent; built at different times, with different materials; part is of timber, part of stone or brick, plastered and painted to look like timber-It is the best house that I ever saw of that kind-The mere, or lake, is large, with a small island, on which there is a summer-house, shaded with great trees; some were hollow, and have seats in their trunks.

In the afternoon we came to West-Chester; (my father went to the fair when I had the small-pox). We walked round the walls 3, which are complete, and

2

[Paradise Lost, book xi. v. 642.-DUPPA.]

The whole of this passage is so inflated and pompous, that it looks more like a burlesque of Johnson's style than his own travelling notes.-ED.]

3 [It would seem that a quarrel between Johnson and Mrs. Thrale took place at Chester, for she writes to Mr. Duppa-"Of those ill-fated walls Dr. Johnson might have learned the extent from any one. He has since put me fairly out of countenance by saying, 'I have known my mistress fifteen years, and never saw her fairly out of humour but on Chester wall;' it was because he would keep Miss Thrale beyond her hour of going to bed to walk on the wall, where, from the want of light, I apprehended some accident to her—perhaps to him."-Piozzi MS.-ED.]

Wales.

Tour to contain one mile three quarters, and one hundred and one yards; within them are many gardens: they are very high, and two may walk very commodiously side by side-On the inside is a rail-There are towers from space to space, not very frequent, and I think not all complete.

Wednesday, 27th July. We staid at Chester and saw the cathedral, which is not of the first rank-The castle-In one of the rooms the assizes are held, and the refectory of the old abbey, of which part is a grammar school-The master seemed glad to see me-The cloister is very solemn; over it are chambers in which the singing men live-In one part of the street was a subterranean arch, very strongly built; in another, what they called, I believe rightly, a Roman hypocaust 1-Chester has many curiosities. Thursday, 28th July.-We entered Wales, dined at Mold, and came to Lleweney 3.

["The hypocaust is of a triangular figure, supported by thirty-two pillars, two feet ten inches and a half high, and about eighteen inches distant from each other. Upon each is a tile eighteen inches square, as if designed for a capital; and over them a perforated tile, two feet square. Such are continued over all the pillars. Above these are two layers; one of coarse mortar, mixed with small red gravel, about three inches thick; and the other of finer materials, between four and five inches thick; these seem to have been the floor of the room above. The pillars stand on a mortar-floor, spread over the rock. On the south side, between the middle pillars, is the vent for the smoke, about six inches square, which is at present open to the height of sixteen inches. Here is also an antechamber, exactly of the same extent with the hypocaust, with an opening in the middle into it. This is sunk nearly two feet below the level of the former, and is of the same rectangular figure; so that both together are an exact square. This was the room allotted for the slaves who attended to heat the place; the other was the receptacle of the fuel designed to heat the room above, the concamerata sudatio, or sweating chamber; where people were seated, either in niches, or on benches, placed one above the other, during the time of the operation. Such was the object of this hypocaust; for there were others of different forms, for the purpose of heating the water destined for the use of the bathers."DUPPA.]

2 [Mold is a small market town, consisting principally of one long and wide street.-DUPPA.]

3 [Lleweney-hall, as I have already observed, was the residence of Robert Cotton, Esq., Mrs. Thrale's cousin-german. Here Mr. and Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson staid three weeks, making visits and short excursions in the neighbourhood and surrounding country. Pennant gives this description of its situation" Lleweney lies on a flat, has most pleasing views of the mountains on each side of the vale, and the town and castle of Denbigh form most capital objects at the distance of two miles." It now belongs to Mr. Hughes of Kin

Wales.

Friday, 29th July.-We were at Lleweney-In Tour to the lawn at Lleweney is a spring of fine water, which rises above the surface into a stone basin, from which it runs to waste, in a continual stream, through a pipe-There are very large trees-The hall at Lleweney is forty feet long, and twenty-eight broad-The gallery one hundred and twenty feet long (all paved)– The library forty-two feet long, and twenty-eight broad-The dining-parlours thirty-six feet long, and twenty-six broad-It is partly sashed, and partly has casements.

Saturday, 30th July.-We went to Bâch y Graig ', where we found an old house, built 1567, in an uncommon and incommodious form-My mistress chattered about cleaning, but I prevailed on her to go to the top-The floors have been stolen: the windows are stopped-The house was less than I seemed to expect-The river Clwyd is a brook with a bridge of one arch, about one-third of a mile 3-The woods have many trees, generally young; but some which seem to decay-They have been lopped-The house

3

mel, who lately purchased it, with the estate, for 150,000%.—Duppa.]—[of Lord Kirkwall, who had bought it of Sir Robert Cotton for 96,000l.-Piozzi MS.]

1 [Bâch y Graig had been the residence of Mrs. Thrale's ancestors for several generations; Pennant thus describes it. "Not far from Dymerchion lies half buried in woods the singular house of Bâch y Graig. It consists of a mansion of three sides, enclosing a square court. The first consists of a vast hall and parlour: the rest of it rises into six wonderful stories, including the cupola; and forms from the second floor the figure of a pyramid: the rooms are small and inconvenient. The bricks are admirable, and appear to have been made in Holland; and the model of the house was probably brought from Flanders, where this kind of building is not unfrequent. It was built by Sir Richard Clough, an eminent merchant, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The initials of his name are in iron on the front, with the date 1567, and on the gateway 1569." DUPPA. This was the mansion house of the estate which had fallen to Mrs. Thrale, and was the cause of this visit to Wales. Incredible as it may appear, it is certain that this lady imported from Italy a nephew of Piozzi's, and, making him assume her maiden name of Salusbury, bequeathed to this foreigner (if she did not give it in her lifetime) this ancient patrimonial estate, to the exclusion of her own children.-ED.]

2 [Quere, climbing?-ED.]

3 [Meaning perhaps that the bridge is one-third of a mile from the house. -ED.]