Goch, but whose real name
was Llwyd, was of a distinguished family, and Lord of Llechryd. He was
born and generally resided at a place called Coed y Pantwn, in the upper
part of the Vale of Clwyd. He was a warm friend and partisan of Owen
Glendower, with whom he lived, at Sycharth, for some years before the
great Welsh insurrection, and whom he survived, dying at an extreme old
age beneath his own roof-tree at Coed y Pantwn. He composed pieces of
great excellence on various subjects; but the most remarkable of his
compositions are decidedly certain ones connected with Owen Glendower.
Amongst these is one in which he describes the Welsh chieftain's mansion
at Sycharth, and his hospitable way of living at that his favourite
residence; and another in which he hails the advent of the comet, which
made its appearance in the month of March, fourteen hundred and two, as
of good augury to his darling hero.

It was from knowing that this distinguished man lay buried in the
precincts of the old edifice, that I felt so anxious to see it. After
walking about two miles we perceived it on our right hand.

The abbey of the vale of the cross stands in a green meadow, in a corner
near the north-west end of the valley of Llangollen. The vale or glen,
in which the abbey stands, takes its name from a certain ancient pillar
or cross, called the pillar of Eliseg, and which is believed to have been
raised over the body of an ancient British chieftain of that name, who
perished in battle against the Saxons, about the middle of the tenth
century. In the Papist times the abbey was a place of great
pseudo-sanctity, wealth and consequence. The territory belonging to it
was very extensive, comprising, amongst other districts, the vale of
Llangollen and the mountain region to the north of it, called the
Eglwysig Rocks, which region derived its name Eglwysig, or
ecclesiastical, from the circumstance of its pertaining to the abbey of
the vale of the cross.

We first reached that part of the building which had once been the
church, having previously to pass through a farmyard, in which was
abundance of dirt and mire.

The church fronts the west and contains the remains of a noble window,
beneath which is a gate, which we found locked. Passing on we came to
that part where the monks had lived, but which now served as a farmhouse;
an open doorway exhibited to us an ancient gloomy hall, where was some
curious old-fashioned furniture, particul