PLAS NEWYDD.—PENRHYN CASTLE.
We all went down to-day in the boats of Lord Anglesey's cutter to Bangor to attend the service in the Cathedral, passing under the Menai Bridge, which I had not been able to see well on my way to Plas Newydd. A poor Church at Bangor, Cathedral service, but moderate music. The Church is divided into two, half for the English and half for the Welsh; the nave is made the parish Church, and there the service is done in Welsh. There were very few, if any, of the common people at the English afternoon service; in fact, few of them speak anything but Welsh. It has an odd effect to see the women with their high-crowned, round hats on in church; the dress is not unbecoming. After the service we were followed by a crowd to our boats, and they cheered Lord Anglesey when he embarked.
June 28th.—We walked to the Menai Bridge, where we got into a car and drove to Penrhyn Castle, a vast pile of building, and certainly very grand, but altogether, though there are fine things and some good rooms in the house, the most gloomy place I ever saw, and I would not live there if they would make me a present of the Castle. It is built of a sort of grey stone polishable into a kind of black marble, of which there are several specimens within. It is blocked up with trees, and pitch dark, so that it never can be otherwise than gloomy. We then went to the ferry, and got a boat in which we sailed over to Beaumaris, and went up to Baron's Hill (Sir Richard Bulkeley's), with which I was delighted. The house is unfinished and ugly, but the situation and prospect over the bay of Beaumaris are quite admirable. Nothing can be more cheerful, and the whole scene around, sea, coast and mountains, indescribably beautiful. They compare this bay to that of Naples, and I do not know that there is any presumption in the comparison. Just below the house is the old Castle of Beaumaris, a very remarkable ruin, in great preservation, both the Castle and the surrounding wall. Drove home in another car; these cars are most convenient conveyances and in general use in these parts.
June 29th.—This morning at eight o'clock went with Lord Anglesey in the 'Pearl' to Carnarvon, where he was, as Constable of the Castle, to receive an address. All the town assembled to receive him, and he was vociferously cheered and saluted with music, firing of guns, procession of societies, and all the honours the Carnarvonites could show him. After the ceremony we went to see the Castle, which is much finer and larger, as well as in better preservation, than Conway, but not in so grand a situation. Both Conway and Carnarvon were tenable, if not habitable, till after the Civil Wars, and I do not know why they were suffered to decay any more than Warwick, which has survived the general wreck. Carnarvon must have been much more magnificent than Warwick, but it has no surrounding domain, and is actually in the town. We then sailed about in the cutter, and saw Snowdon and the other Snowdonian mountains very advantageously.
THE WELSH PEOPLE.
July 2nd.—On Wednesday I went on an excursion with Augustus Paget to see the country. We set off at eight in the morning in a boat to Carnarvon, where we breakfasted, got into a car, which took us to Beddgelert, walked to Pont Aberglasslyn and back, then in another car to Llanberis, saw the cascade, changed cars, and went to Moyldon Ferry, where we hired the boat of a slater, in which we were rowed home. We then went all round Snowdon; but the weather got so bad in the afternoon that ascending the mountain was out of the question. Nothing can be finer than the scenery between Beddgelert and Llanberis, and the latter is very wild and picturesque, though I was a little disappointed with the lakes. Yesterday and to-day it did nothing but rain, so any more exploring was out of the question, but I hope to come again into North Wales. I have never travelled in any country which appeared more completely foreign. The road from Beddgelert is perfectly Alpine in character, and the peasantry neither speak nor understand anything but Welsh, so that it is impossible to hold any communication with them. The women, in point of costume, have no resemblance to English women. Besides the round hats which they almost all wear, and which, though not unbecoming, give them a peculiar air, many, though not all of them, wear a sort of sandal on their feet, without soles I believe, but with something bound round their naked feet, the nature and purpose of which I could not exactly make out. The women are generally good-looking, with a vigorous frame, and a healthy cheerful aspect; all the common people are decent in their appearance, and particularly civil and respectful in their manner. The cars, which have in great measure taken the place of postchaises, are very convenient, though, being totally uncovered, are only fit for fine weather. The horses which draw them—one horse—are excellent, and they go very fast; but the charge for them is enormous—a shilling a mile. It is really extraordinary that the English language has not made its way more among the mass of the people. It is spoken at all the inns, but, with the exception of people employed about the house or grounds of a proprietor, very few speak it, and many of those in his actual employment are wholly ignorant of it. A lad of eighteen years old here, who works about the house or on the water, and is in Lord Anglesey's service, cannot speak a word of English. The country seems to be very ill-provided with schools, nor is English taught at all in those which do exist. Nothing can be less advanced than education in these parts. The Welsh are generally poor and wages are low; their food consists principally of potatoes and buttermilk; the average wages of labour is about nine shillings a week. The people, however, are industrious, sober, contented, and well-behaved; they do not like either change or locomotion, and this makes them indifferent about learning English. They would rather remain where they have been accustomed to work, and live upon smaller wages, than go a few miles off to Carnarvon, where they might earn a couple of shillings a week more. The new Poor Law is only in partial operation here. There is a workhouse at Pwlhelly, and there are Boards of Guardians and all the machinery requisite; but the law is unpopular, and it has never been rigidly and universally enforced. The people are extremely averse to its establishment, and the old system works well enough, for which reason its operation has not been much meddled with, and they hope that some expedient will be found to prevent its being carried into effect here.
Llangollen, July 3rd.—Left Plas Newydd this morning, and came to this place, stopping to see Pennant's slate works—a beautiful road, certainly, for the greater part of the way.
London, July 9th.—I slept at Llangollen on Saturday night. On Sunday morning early clambered up to the ruin—a mere heap of rubbish—of the Castle of Dinas Bran, and after breakfast walked to Val Crucis Abbey, where there are inconsiderable remains of a Cistercian convent in a delightful spot. Then set off in magnificent weather, and, travelling through a beautiful country, arrived at Shrewsbury, only stayed there an hour, and slept at the place between that and Wolverhampton. Next morning went on to Newmarket, and got there on Monday night: very pleasant expedition, and in some measure answered my purpose—at least, for the time. However, I have tried travelling and scenery, and I will go again.
DEFEAT OF THE WHIG PARTY.
July 11th.—I find London rather empty and tolerably calm. The elections are sufficiently over to exhibit a pretty certain result, and the termination of the great Yorkshire contest by the signal victory of the Tories—a defeat, the magnitude of which there is no possibility of palliating, or finding any excuse for—seems to have had the effect of closing the contest. The Whigs give the whole thing up as irretrievably lost; and though some of them with whom I have conversed still maintain that they did right to dissolve, they do not affect to deny that the result has disappointed all their hopes and calculations, and been disastrous beyond their worst fears. They now give Peel a majority of sixty or seventy. The most remarkable thing has been the erroneous calculations on both sides as to particular places, each having repeatedly lost when they thought the gain most certain. The Whigs complain bitterly of the apathy and indifference that have prevailed, and cannot recover from their surprise that their promises of cheap bread and cheap sugar have not proved more attractive. But they do not comprehend the real cause of this apathy. It is true that there has not been any violent Tory reaction, because there have been no great topics on which enthusiasm could fasten, but there has been a revival of Conservative influence, which has been gradually increasing for some time, and together with it a continually decreasing confidence in the Government. They have been getting more unpopular every day with almost all classes, and when they brought forward their Budget the majority of the country, even those who approved of its principles, gave them little or no credit for the measure, and besides doubting whether the advantages it held out were very great or important, believed that their real motives and object were to recover the popularity they had lost, and to make a desperate plunge to maintain themselves in office. It was all along my opinion that their dissolution was a great blunder, that they would have consulted their own party interests better, and still more certainly the success of the fiscal measures they advocate, by resigning. But they thought they could get up excitement, and by agitation place matters in such a state that their successors would be unable to govern the country. This their understrappers and adherents kept dinning into their ears, and by urging the Cabinet one day in the name of the Queen, another in that of the Party, and setting before them the most exaggerated and erroneous representations of the state of public opinion, they at last persuaded Melbourne, Clarendon, and the two or three others who were originally against dissolution, to acquiesce in that desperate and, as it has turned out, fatal experiment. They richly deserve the fate that has overtaken them, for their conduct has been weak and disgraceful, and as no Ministry ever enjoyed less consideration while they held power, so none will ever have been more ignominiously driven from it. They have tenaciously clung to office, and shown a disposition to hold it upon any terms rather than give it up; and when at last they have made a formal appeal to the country, and demanded of public opinion whether they should stay or go, they have been contemptuously and positively bid to go. They have done their utmost to make the Queen the ostensible head of their party, to identify her with them and their measures, and they have caused the Crown to be placed in that humiliating condition which Melbourne so justly deprecated when the question was first mooted. In no political transaction that has ever come under my notice have I seen less principle and more passion, selfishness, absence of public spirit, and less consideration for the national weal. Rage for power, party zeal, and hatred of their antagonists have been conspicuous in the whole course of their language and conduct.