PROSPECT FROM THE SUMMIT.
In the foregoing descriptions by three of our most respectable tourists, sufficient is contained to afford the traveller a tolerably good idea of the nature of the ascent to the top of Snowdon; and we shall only add the subjoined animated description of a view from its summit, by the author of the “Beauties, Harmonies, and Sublimities of Nature.”
“After climbing over masses of crags and rocks, we ascended the peak of Snowdon. Arrived at its summit, a scene presented itself, magnificent beyond the powers of language! Indeed, language is indigent and impotent when it would presume to sketch scenes on which the Great Eternal has placed his matchless finger with delight. Faint are thy broad and deep delineations, immortal Salvator Rosa! Powerless and feeble are your inspirations, genius of Thompson, Virgil, and Lucretius!
“From this point are seen five-and-twenty lakes.—Seated on one of the crags, it was long before the eye, unaccustomed to measure such elevations, could accommodate itself to scenes so admirable:—the whole appearing as if there had been a war of the elements; and as if we were the only inhabitants of the globe permitted to contemplate the ruins of the world. Rocks and mountains, which when observed from below, bear all the evidence of sublimity, when viewed from the summit of Snowdon, are blended with others as dark, as rugged, and as elevated as themselves; the whole resembling the swellings of an agitated ocean.
“The extent of this prospect appears almost unlimited. The four kingdoms are seen at once: Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland! forming the finest panorama the empire can boast. The circle begins with the mountains of Cumberland and Westmorland; those of Ingleborough and Penygent, in the county of York, and the hills of Lancashire follow; then are observed the counties of Chester, Flint, Denbigh, and a portion of Montgomeryshire. Nearly the whole of Merioneth succeeds; and drawing a line with the eye along the diameter of the circle, we take in the regions stretching from the triple crown of Cader Idris to the sterile crags of Carnedds-David and Llewellyn. Snowdon, rising in the centre, appears as if he could touch the south with his right hand, and the north with his left. ‘Surely,’ thought Colonna, ‘Cæsar sat upon these crags when he formed the daring conception of governing the world!’
“From Cader Idris the eye, pursuing the orbit of the bold geographical line, glances over the bay of Cardigan, and reposes for a while on the summit of the Rivals.—After observing the indented shores of Caernarvonshire, it travels over a long line of ocean, till in the extremity of the horizon the blue mountains of Wicklow terminate the perspective. Those mountains gradually sink along the coast till they are lost to the eye; which ranging along the expanse, at length, as weary of the journey, reposes on the Island of Man, and the distant mountains of Scotland. The intermediate space is occupied by the sides and summits of mountains, hollow crags, masses of rocks, the towers of Caernarvon, the fields of Anglesea, with woods, lakes, and glens, scattered in magnificent confusion.
“A scene like this commands our feelings to echo, as it were, in unison to its grandeur and sublimity. The thrill of astonishment, and the transport of imagination seem to contend for the mastery, and nerves are touched that never thrilled before. We seem as if our former existence were annihilated, and as a new epoch were commenced. Another world opens upon us; and an unlimited orbit appears to display itself as a theatre for our ambition.”