tants, now rolls its silent tide, in an undisturbed current, by its ruins. Nor has this celebrated fortress been the scene of contest and violence alone. It has had its high and solemn days of festivity and regal magnificence, and the splendid entertainment of Cadwgan ranks amongst the most distinguished of that early age of feudal hospitality, of minstrelsy and song. Its power and existence, however, terminated in the civil wars, at which time it was held in the name of the king, but yielded at last, like many others, to the bravery and perseverance of the Parliamentary forces under General Langhorne.* Fixing Cardigan as my head-quarters for a few days, I had some pleasant opportunities of making aquatic excursions upon the beautiful river Teivy, sailing up or down as the scenery invited, or my fancy might lead me; and occasionally leaving my little bark on the stream, and rambling, in all the ecstasy of invigorated spirits, along its sinuous and ever-varied banks. This is an unfrequented district by the ordinary tourist, because apparently a little diverging from the usual * This castle derives a more modern celebrity from having been the residence of Mrs. Catherine Phillips, a poet of Jeremy Taylor's days, and the lady for whom, under the fanciful name of Orinda, that excellent man long maintained a friendship. She is supposed by Bishop Heber to have been the author of a whimsical treatise on "Artificial Handsomeness," erroneously attributed to the divine; which is nothing more or less than a "formal defence of painting the face," and anointing the brows with "ceruse and antimony." To this lady Taylor addressed his "Discourse on Friendship,"—and for which, in return, she styles him, in one of her poems, the "noble Palæmon." This lady was the regular blue-stocking of the day, and was celebrated by all the wits of her age. Cowley wrote an elegy on her death, which, like most of the set poems of that time, is full of odd conceits and far-fetched allusions. track, but to me a more inviting one from that circumstance. The Teivy, which is the barrier river between the counties of Pembroke and Cardigan, presents, at every turn in its devious course, the peculiar beauties of both; and is, as Giraldus says, "stoared withe salmon and otter above al the ryvers in Wales." At one time it winds its silent way between the hills, filling the intervening space with its clear deep waters,except, indeed, where sometimes a narrow path is saved, seemingly to entice the foot of the delighted passenger, -its high and sloping banks covered with trees of the richest verdure, now gracefully dipping their pendent branches in the stream, or bristling on the summit in the stately forms of the fir and pine,—and then again, as if rejoicing at its escape from such seclusion, sending its laughing tide through many a richly-wooded and romantic dale, in full career to the main. Unmooring my boat at Cardigan, I pulled into the current of the stream, and soon reached that part where the river becomes contracted, gliding amongst rocky eminences, which rise on either side, occasionally broken into broad and picturesque masses, and as often relieved and insulated by intervening quarries and openings. The passage of the river discloses a continued variety of objects: not a few of the reaches, which its perpetual windings afford, are eminently beautiful. In many parts the course of the stream fades from the eye, and the little vessel glides gently forward as on the bosom of a lake, while its beauty offers a combination of rock and foliage, of quarry, level green, and manycoloured mosses, in constant and gratifying succession, throwing a singular air of loveliness and repose over the whole scene. CHAPTER XIII. KILGARRAN-CARMARTHEN-VALE OF THE TOWEY LLANDILO-KIDWELLY. "If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows that thou wouldst forget- Go to the woods and hills! - no tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears." Ar a distance of five miles from Cardigan, immediately following a graceful bend of the river, the noble Castle of Kilgarran bursts suddenly on the view. It was evening when I first saw this stupendous pile of interesting ruins. The moon shone with unequalled beauty and clearness. My bark lay silently upon the tranquil stream, under the shadow of two projecting capes, on one of which, rising perpendicularly from the bed of the river, the castle once stood in commanding majesty; but now in solitude, sadness, and desolation. As I gazed upon it, my mind ran over the stirring events associated with its history, and recalled its localities, with which from description I had become familiar. There were the frowning bastions and curtain walls, built on a line with the foundation-rock, seeming to grow from their base, as if to defy with it the ravages |