by the sight of his dwelling-place;
they were ranting roaring verses, against the Roundheads. I admired the
vigour, but disliked the principles which they displayed; and admiration
on the one hand, and disapproval on the other, bred a commotion in my
mind like that raised on the sea when tide runs one way and wind blows
another. The quiet scene from the bridge, however, produced a sedative
effect on my mind, and when I resumed my journey I had forgotten Huw, his
verses, and all about Roundheads and Cavaliers."

But it must be said that if the book is on the whole a cheerful one, its
cheerfulness not only receives a foil from the rhetorical sublime, but is
a little misted by a melancholy note here and there. Thus he sees "a
melancholy ship" out on the sea near Holyhead. He qualifies russet twice
as "wretched" in describing a moor. He speaks of "strange-looking" hills
near Pont Erwyd, and again near the Devil's Bridge. His moods were
easily changed. He speaks of "wretched russet hills," with no birds
singing, but only "the lowing of a wretched bullock," and then of
beautiful hills that filled his veins with fresh life so that he walked
on merrily.

As for his people, it cannot be asserted that they are always alive
though they are often very Welsh. They are sketched, with dialogue and
description, after the manner of "The Bible in Spain," though being
nearer home they had to be more modest in their peculiarities. He
establishes Welsh enthusiasm, hospitality and suspiciousness, in a very
friendly manner. The poet-innkeeper is an excellent sketch of a mild but
by no means spiritless type. He is accompanied by a man with a bulging
shoe who drinks ale and continually ejaculates: "The greatest poet in the
world"; for example, when Borrow asks: "Then I have the honour to be
seated with a bard of Anglesey?" "Tut, tut," says the bard. Borrow
agrees with him that envy--which has kept him from the bardic chair--will
not always prevail:

"'Sir,' said the man in grey, 'I am delighted to hear you. Give me your
hand, your honourable hand. Sir, you have now felt the hand-grasp of a
Welshman, to say nothing of an Anglesey bard, and I have felt that of a
Briton, perhaps a bard, a brother, sir? O, when I first saw your face
out there in the dyffryn, I at once recognised in it that of a kindred
spirit, and I felt compelled to ask you to drink. Drink, sir! but how is
this? the jug is empty--how is this?--O, I see--my frien