When we consider their intellectual resources, their energy and industry, their interludes of company and correspondence, we need not be surprised at the assertion they made to one of their most intimate visitors, that neither the long summer's day, nor winter's night, nor weeks of imprisoning snows, had ever inspired one weary sensation, one wish of returning to the world they had abandoned.
Anna Seward had so interested Lady Butler and Miss Ponsonby in the character of her dear friend, Honora Sneyd, by the sonnet addressed to her, which she showed them, by impassioned descriptions of her loveliness, as well as by the celebrated poem on the fate of Major Andre, that the two ladies were desirous of possessing a portrait of the deceased beauty.
With great pains, Anna succeeded in obtaining for them a copy of what was a perfect image of her, Romney's ideal picture of Serena in the "Triumphs of Temper." Writing on it, "Such was Honora Sneyd," she had it framed and glazed, and sent it as a gift to the Ladies of Llangollen. They received it with delight, and hung it in a prominent position, where the fair giver afterward had the pleasure of gazing on it with romantic emotion.
Miss Seward paid several happy tributes in verse to her admired friends. One of these, written at the close of a prolonged visit, began thus:
Oh, Cambrian Tempe! Oft with transport hailed,
I leave thee now, as I did ever leave
Thee and thy peerless mistresses, with heart
Where lively gratitude and fond regret For mastery strive.
She also published, in a little volume by itself, an enthusiastic poem in praise of the Cambrian Arden, Llangollen Valley, adorned with an engraving of the landscape as seen from the home of its Rosalind and Celia. They fully appreciated her affection, and returned it. They sent her the gift of a jewel consisting of the head and lyre of Apollo, making a ring and seal in one. In acknowledgment of this, the pleased and grateful poet wrote, "I have to thank you, dearest ladies, for a beautiful but too costly present. It is a fine gem in itself, and a rich and elegant circlet for the finger."
When Lady Butler and Miss Ponsonby left their splendid family residences in Ireland to seek in Wales a retirement where they might spend their days in the culture of letters and friendship, a faithful and affectionate servant who pined for them, after a few months of their absence, set out to search for them in England. She had no clew to direct her pursuit; since, to avoid solicitations to return, they had kept their place of abode secret even from their nearest relatives. Learning, however, of her attempt, they sent for her. She went, and was their fond servitor until her death, thirty years afterward. Miss Seward once writes to Lady Eleanor, "I was concerned to hear that you had lately been distressed by the illness and alarmed for the life of your good Euryclea. That she is recovering, I rejoice. The loss of a domestic, faithful and affectionate as Orlando's Adam, must have cast more than a transient gloom over the Cambrian Arden: the Rosalind and Celia of real life give Llangollen Valley a right to that title." When this endeared servant died, her mourning mistresses buried her in the grave which they had prepared for themselves, and inscribed above her a cordial tribute in verse.
Drawn by the pleasing sentiment that invests the story of these ladies, the writer, being then in England, made a pilgrimage from London to Llangollen in the early autumn of 1865.
It was Saturday afternoon when I arrived at the little Welsh inn. The next morning I found my way to the classic cottage. The fingers of Time had indeed been busy on it. The vestiges of its former glory were still apparent, but the ornaments were crumbled and dim. The prismatic lantern over the door was a mixture of garishness and dust. The bowers were broken, the vines and plants dead, the walks draggled and uneven, the gates rickety, the fences tottering or prostrate. The numerous tokens of art and care in the past made the present ruinousness and desolation more pathetic. I could not help recalling the final couplet of Miss Seward's poem, prophesying the fame of this place:
While all who honor virtue gently mourn Llangollen's vanished Pair, and wreathe their sacred urn.