“Havod,” says Mr. Cumberland, “is a place in itself so pre-eminently beautiful, that it highly merits a particular description. It stands surrounded with so many noble scenes, diversified with elegance, as well as with grandeur; the country on the approach to it is so very wild and uncommon, and the place itself is now so embellished by art, that it will be difficult, I believe, to point out a spot that can be put in competition with it, considered either as the object of the Painter’s eye, the Poet’s mind, or as a desirable residence for those who, admirers of the beautiful wildness of nature, love also to inhale the pure air of aspiring mountains, and enjoy that santo pacê (as the Italians expressively term it,) which arises from solitudes made social by a family circle.
“From the portico, it commands a woody, narrow, winding vale; the undulating forms of whose ascending, shaggy sides, are richly clothed with various foliage, broken with silver water-falls, and crowned with climbing sheep-walks, reaching to the clouds.
“Neither are the luxuries of life absent; for, on the margin of the Ystwith, where it flows broadest through this delicious vale, we see hot-houses, and a conservatory; beneath the rocks, a bath; amid the recesses of the woods, a flower-garden; and within the building, whose decorations, though rich, are pure and simple, we find a mass of rare and valuable literature, whose pages here seem doubly precious, where meditation finds scope to range unmolested.
“In a word, so many are the delights afforded by the scenery of this place, and its vicinity, to a mind imbued with any taste, that the impression on mine was increased, after an interval of ten years from the first visit, employed chiefly in travelling among the Alps, the Appenines, the Sabine Hills, and the Tyrollese; along the shores of the Adriatic, over the Glaciers of Switzerland, and up the Rhine; where, though in search of beauty, I never, I feel, saw any thing so fine—never so many pictures concentred in one spot; so that, warned by the renewal of my acquaintance with them, I am irresistibly urged to attempt a description of the hitherto almost virgin-haunts of these obscure mountains.
“Wales, and its borders, both North and South, abound, at intervals, with fine things: Piercefield has grounds of great magnificence, and wonderfully picturesque beauty. Downton Castle has a delicious woody vale, most tastefully managed; Llangollen is brilliant; the banks of the Conway savagely grand; Barmouth romantically rural; the great Pistill Rhayader is horribly wild; Rhayader Wennol, gay, and gloriously irregular—each of which merits a studied description.
“But, at Havod, and its neighbourhood, I find the effects of all in one circle; united with this peculiarity, that the deep dingles, and mighty woody slopes, which from a different source, conduct the Rhyddol’s never-failing waters from Plynlimmon, and the Fynach, are of an unique character, as mountainous forests, accompanying gigantic size with graceful forms; and, taken altogether, I see the ‘sweetest interchange of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, and falls, with forests crowned, rocks, dens, and caves;’ insomuch, that it requires little enthusiasm there to feel forcibly with Milton, with
“All things that be, send up from earth’s great altar
Silent praise!”“There are four fine walks from the house, chiefly through ways artificially made by the proprietor; all dry, kept clean, and composed of materials found on the spot; which is chiefly a course stone, of a greyish cast, friable in many places, and like slate, but oftener consisting of immense masses, that cost the miner, in making some part of these walks, excessive labour; for there are places, where it was necessary to perforate the rock many yards, in order to pass a promontory, that, jutting across the way, denied further access; and to go round which, you must have taken a great tour, and made a fatiguing descent. As it is, the walks are so conducted, that few are steep; the transitions easy, the returns commodious, and the branches distinct. Neither are they too many, for much is left for future projectors; and if a man be stout enough to range the underwoods, and fastidious enough to reject all trodden paths, he may, almost every where, stroll from the studied line, till he be glad to regain the friendly conduct of the well-known way.
“Yet one must be nice, not to be content at first to visit the best points of view by the general routine; for all that is here done, has been to remove obstructions, reduce the materials, and conceal the art; and we are no where presented with attempts to force these untamed streams, or indeed to invent any thing, where nature, the great mistress, has left all art behind.”
We now for many miles passed a barren, dreary country, completely encircled with hills, and we only climbed one, to observe still others rising in the distant perspective: not even a house or tree appeared to interrupt the awfulness of the mountains, which after the copious fall of rain in the night, teemed with innumerable cataracts. According to our directions, we enquired at the foot of Plinlimmon for Rhees Morgan, as a proper man to be our conductor over the heights of the “fruitful father of rivers.” This man being absent, the whole family appeared thunderstruck at our appearance, and run with all haste imaginable into their miserable cot, or which might rather be dignified with the appellation of a pig-stye; as that filthy animal seemed to claim, with the wretched family, an equal right to a share of the hovel. One apartment served for the inhabitants of every description, with only one small hole to admit the light; the entrance unprotected by a door, but with a blanket as a substitute, was exposed to the pitiless blast of the winter’s storm. Reviewing this despicable hovel, I recalled to my mind a very just observation of Goldsmith’s, “That one half of the world are ignorant how the other half lives.”
“Ah! little think the gay licentious proud
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround;
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;
Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
. . . . . .
. . . how many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery. Sore pierc’d by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty.”—Thompson.
With some difficulty we prevailed on the female part of the family to give us proper directions to the source of the meandering Wye, [79] and rapid Severn. The latter they only understood by the name of Halfren, its original British name; it is likewise called in Latin Sabrina. From the top of Plinlimmon we, for the first time, discovered the shaggy summit of Cader Idris, and the spiral head of Snowdon. There is nothing particularly engaging in the character of this mountain, except to its giving rise to no less than six or eight rivers, and on this account has frequently been celebrated by the Poet. Though its summit commands a circle of many miles diameter, yet the prospect by no means answered our expectations. We descended into a swampy bottom, which afforded us unpleasant walking for two or three miles, when a most delightful and well-cultivated valley unexpectedly enlivened our spirits. The sun was making
—“a golden set,
And by the bright track of his fiery car
Gave signal of a goodly day to-morrow,”
just as we entered this interesting vale: the hay-makers, in the coolness of the evening, were returning to their homes,
“Each by the lass he loved.”
In short, the whole valley breathed delicious fragrance: add to this, innumerable cataracts rushed from the mountain’s summits, occasioned by the late copious rains.
From hence a good turnpike-road soon conducted us to the romantic town of