enius in
this age, and whose life has been more romantic than that of Edward
Nicholas.]

CHAPTER VII.

_Pand._ Hark, they ate coming from the field: shall we stand
up here, and see them as they pass towards Ilium? Good niece
do, sweet niece Cressida.

_Cress._ At your pleasure.

_Pand._ Here, here, here's an excellent place: here we may see
most bravely. I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass
by: but mark Troilus above the rest.

_Troilus and Cressida_: Act. 1.

When Bertram awoke, the sun was already high and pouring a golden light
through the frosted window of his bedroom. The church-bells of
Machynleth were ringing gaily: from one or two neighbouring villages
arose a fainter sound of bells; and the stir and motion within doors
and without proclaimed that this was some festal day. On descending to
breakfast, he found the house arranged in the neatest order and
garnished with branches of fir. The door was crowded and the street was
swarming with groups of country people--men, women, and children; the
women adorned with gay ribbons, and the men with bouquets of leeks. The
landlord and many of his inmates paid the same honor to the day: and
every thing announced that it was the great national festival of Wales,
sacred to good St. David; a day on which no man of Welch blood, though
he should be at Seringapatam, would think it lawful to forget this
ancient recognizance of Cambrian fraternity.--True it is however, that,
like all other old usages, this also (except in the principality
itself) is rapidly falling into disuse. Else surely it could never have
happened that precisely on this day a certain noble lord of Welch
descent should have thought fit to rise in his place in the House, and
make an eloquent exposition and apology for the jacobinical creed of
his friends. We cannot doubt that, had a bunch of leeks been suddenly
presented to his lordship at this moment, his face would have crimsoned
with a blush as deep as that of the red night-cap which apparently is
the object of his homage; for surely no hostility can be deeper than
that between the badge of jacobinism and this antique symbol of honor,
good faith, and loyal brotherhood, and reverence for the dust of our
forefathers.

"How now, landlord"--said the reformer--"Is this absurd, superstitious,
commemoration of St. David's day never to cea