CHAPTER V. ST. ASAPH, RHUDDLAN, AND THE VICINITY. Far other thoughts, in inexperienced hours, Sotheby. THERE are moods of mind-the result, perhaps, of too deep experience or long travel, such as dictated some of the wildest and most pathetic poetry of Byron-when the beaten tracks of life, society, friendship, and the yet hollower promises of ambition, seem to lose their every charm. The thoughts of the heart revert, with a sigh of regret, to earlier and more genuine affections,-more unembittered pursuits. We sigh to cast off the worldly mask which custom condemns us to wear to turn from the empty forms and insincerity which direct the grand movements, and perform the lip-service of the day, and to shelter us in the sanctuary of younger and nobler feelings, when we worshipped the divine effusions of genius as holy truth, and dwelt on the beautiful and bright in nature with the love of a child on its smiling mother's face. With this irrepressible love, so early rooted—with habits of deep solitary study and contemplation which strongly marked his character and feelings, and with that restlessness which an early unhappy passion and wounded ambition equally produce, the Wanderer turned from the resorts of the great and the gay with a feeling of scorn and satiety, which seemed to render change of scene almost necessary to his being. He had studied life-as it is idly termed -under different aspects, and in all its conditions; he had beheld society in its equally vulgar extremes; he had experienced the strange mutabilities of fortune, and he now wandered solitary amidst scenes over which fancy, ennobling love, and youthful companionship, had cast the spell of their brief but glorious reign. The ruins of the time-dismantled castle of Flint, which threw its broad shadow in the clear moonlight upon the sands, like the reflection of those vanished scenes, assorted well with the traveller's mood, as he resumed his onward path. Within the precincts of those mouldering battlements monarchs had met,-a monarch laid down his crown; they had rung with the storms of battle, and re-echoed with the wildest revelry of feudal victory and pride. A brave people had there surrendered up their ancient freedom at the feet of their last oppressor, little regardful of the blessings which such a conquest had in store for them; and with thoughts strangely speculating on the results of human action, and the great compensatory system of mingled good and evil, the traveller gazed back upon what were once the massive bulwarks of Flint, fast crumbling into dust. He listened to the growing swell of those eternal surges which came sweeping over the sands, when the bulwarks were in their glory, as now they hasten their decay; and the moon shed a fitful light on the bleak prospect and farspreading shores of the Dee, as he pursued the lonely path along the banks towards the ancient Abbey of Basingwerk. Free as the native mountaineer to select his own time and route, without the breath of another's will, he felt the sense of loneliness lost in the strong and far delight' of exploring at pleasure scenes and spots congenial with the prevailing impulses of the hour. It was this feeling which induced him, on reaching his native hills once more, a sadder but a wiser man,-to throw off all ties and incumbrances of the way, and taking the cross-roads and well-known bye-paths, to resume acquaintance with the immemorial dwellers by the lake and hill-side-friends of the forest, and vale, and glen, with some of whom, humouring their national foible, he often loved to descant . on princely lineage, and the respective merit of their titles to rank with the common or the royal tribes. By this plan he enjoyed the best of all companionship, which he could drop or take up at any moment; gleaned many amusing particulars as to antiquarian games and sports, the old laws of assemblies and festivals, with the more traditional customs and manners of country life, and in return laid down the rules enacted by their first princes in the bardic contests for the prize of song. In his progress from Euloe he thus visited every spot, along the high-ways and byeways, which could excite his curiosity, or win him by the study of simple habits and reliance on personal exertion and resources, to free himself from the real servility of irksome dependence upon menials for his least wants and wishes. The advantages he derived were as pleasant as they were unexpected; he experienced the delightful confidence inspired by traversing the less frequented portions of the country at all hours and seasons-he beheld its wild picturesque scenery in its most contrasted lights and shadows-in cloud, in sunshine, or in storm-in the silence and the deepening hues of twilight-the opening splendours of the dawn, and under the solemn sway of night. In thus diverging from the old prescribed routes and line of roads, the Wanderer, on his way to St. Asaph, became acquainted with a number of interesting objects,-pleasant little hamlets,-the sites of ancient towns, stations, or royal seats-feudal and castellated ruins, which he could not otherwise have explored. The dreary coast-scenes about Kelsterston; the antique Northop, Nannerch, Halkin, Caerwys, once the theatre of the old British olympics, and the assemblies of the bards, with the surrounding neighbourhood, so full of historic associations;-Baghilt, Basingwerk, with its famed old abbey and castle-ruins on Offa's dyke, Pen y Pylle, Greenfield, Holywell, Whiteford, Downing,-sacred in the eyes of every tourist,-Moyston, with its wild-coast views, all in succession met the Wanderer's eye ere he passed the rocky, broken road from Holywell, and saw opening before him the delightful vale and river of Clwyd. He had often remarked the assemblage of mild yet picturesque beauties it affords, especially when viewed from the vicinity of Ruthin; but the quiet charm and loveliness of the scene, as he passed the seat of Sir E. Lloyd, through this Eden-as it is termed-of North Wales, with the little town and spire, seen on the hilly declivity before him, inspired feelings of deep serenity and repose, which it was long since he had experienced. The fertile tract of valley in which St. Asaph is situated extends not less than twenty-five miles in length and eight in breadth. Watered by its pleasant river, its productiveness, as well as beauty, may be regarded as unequalled by that of any other district. From the Bridge, with its light arches, the Cathedral tower, dark and massy on the summit of the hill, is seen to much advantage. The structure itself, though the diocesan church, and the ornament of a bishop's see, has few pretensions to architectural excellence or beauty. Its history begins with Kentigern Bishop of Glasgow, who, like some Scotch pastors of recent times, being driven from his pulpit, withdrew into Wales, and established a Monastery for 965 monks, part for labour and part for prayer, on a plan similar to that of Bangor. He built a church, established a see, and made himself the first Bishop of St. Asaph. But, invited back to Glasgow, some time in the sixth century, he named Hassaph, a Briton of great piety and of a good family, as his successor, who, on his death, was interred in his own cathedral, in 596. It was first built of wood, and soon after of stone. In the reign of Henry III. it was destroyed by fire and sword; and, incredible as it may now appear, its English bishop reduced to live upon alms. It was rebuilt, and in 1282 again burnt to the ground, and restored by Edward I., who granted to it lands in Newmarket, Nannerch, Dincolyn, Coed y Mynydd, and a fine mineral tract in Diserth;-in all about 409 acres, valued at only six-pence each. In 1402, Owen Glendower set fire to it, involving the palace and canons' houses in the same conflagration. On this its bishop, one John Trevor, conceived it |