y recalled the emotion I remembered to have
felt after viewing the mimic hills and vales, and passionless
cascades of the poet Shenstone, in his retreat at the Leasowes, near
Hagley."

Miss Costello, who made the tour of North Wales in 1844 is even less
complimentary, and is thus smartly satirical in the peculiarities of the
departed "Ladies:"--

"One of the great attractions of Llangollen a few years ago was the
romantic story attached to the place and the residence there of Lady
Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby. Pilgrimages were made to this
shrine of friendship, and the ladies were overwhelmed with visitors,
and their cottage filled with offerings. Their tomb is now in the
churchyard, and their cottage let; and very few persons recollect
much about them, or feel any interest in a sentimental history, which
belonged to the last century, and now can only excite a smile at the
eccentricity of its heroines, who, under pretence of retiring from
society, made themselves conspicuous throughout the country. Most of
their accumulated stores were sold by public auction, on the death of
the last of the friends, and the cottage, as it now stands, is by no
means either a rural or picturesque object. It is covered inside and
out with carved wood, some of value, and some quite worthless; and
all that remains of the taste of the former proprietors merely proves
how little was required to please fifty years ago. The trees,
planted by the friends, are now grown high, and shut out all view of
the country; in fact, the whole place has a vulgar, common-place
appearance, and excited in my mind no sort of interest, nor was my
indifference agreeably dispelled by the view of an engraving, hung up
in the little boudoir, representing the two ladies sitting at their
table covered with curiosities, both dressed in masculine habits, and
both frightfully ugly. These portraits, it seems, were taken by an
amateur, by stealth, as neither of 'The Ladies of Llangollen' would
consent to sit, and a lamentable record is it which creates most
unpleasing sensations to the lover of the graceful, beautiful, and
venerable.

"The 'ladies' were, although singular in the extreme, remarkably
charitable and considerate of the necessities of their neighbours,
and their loss has been greatly felt. They seemed vain and pompous,