here there happened to be hanging some of
Westall's drawings, which I compared triumphantly (for a theory that I
had, not for the admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had
ferried me over the Severn, standing up in the boat between me and the
twilight--at other times I might mention luxuriating in books, with a
peculiar interest in this way, as I remember sitting up half the night
to read Paul and Virginia, which I picked up at an inn at Bridgewater,
after being drenched in the rain all day; and at the same place I got
through two volumes of Madame D'Arblay's Camilla. It was on the tenth
of April, 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the New Eloise, at the
inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. The
letter I chose was that in which St. Preux describes his feelings as
he first caught a glimpse from the heights of the Jura of the Pays de
Vaud, which I had brought with me as a _bon bouche_ to crown the
evening with. It was my birth-day, and I had for the first time come
from a place in the neighbourhood to visit this delightful spot. The
road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; and on passing
a certain point, you come all at once upon the valley, which opens
like an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills rising in majestic state on
either side, with "green upland swells that echo to the bleat of
flocks" below, and the river Dee babbling over its stony bed in the
midst of them. The valley at this time "glittered green with sunny
showers," and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the
chiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along the high road
that overlooks the delicious prospect, repeating the lines which I
have just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's poems. But besides the prospect
which opened beneath my feet, another also opened to my inward sight,
a heavenly vision, on which were written, in letters large as Hope
could make them, these four words, LIBERTY, GENIUS, LOVE, VIRTUE;
which have since faded into the light of common day, or mock my idle
gaze.

"The beautiful is vanished, and returns not."

Still I would return some time or other to this enchanted spot; but I
would return to it alone. What other self could I find to share that
influx of thoughts, of regret, and delight, the fragments of which I
could hardly conjure up to myself, so much have they been broken and
defaced! I could stand on some tall rock, and overlook the precipice
of years that separat