going into the
inn found my wife and daughter, who rejoiced to see me. We presently had
tea.

CHAPTER XXVII

Bangor--Edmund Price--The Bridges--Bookselling--Future Pope--Wild
Irish--Southey.

Bangor is seated on the spurs of certain high hills near the Menai, a
strait separating Mona or Anglesey from Caernarvonshire. It was once a
place of Druidical worship, of which fact, even without the testimony of
history and tradition, the name which signifies "upper circle" would be
sufficient evidence. On the decay of Druidism a town sprang up on the
site and in the neighbourhood of the "upper circle," in which in the
sixth century a convent or university was founded by Deiniol, who
eventually became Bishop of Bangor. This Deiniol was the son of Deiniol
Vawr, a zealous Christian prince who founded the convent of Bangor Is
Coed, or Bangor beneath the wood in Flintshire, which was destroyed, and
its inmates almost to a man put to the sword by Ethelbert, a Saxon king,
and his barbarian followers at the instigation of the monk Austin, who
hated the brethren because they refused to acknowledge the authority of
the Pope, whose delegate he was in Britain. There were in all three
Bangors; the one at Is Coed, another in Powis, and this Caernarvonshire
Bangor, which was generally termed Bangor Vawr or Bangor the great. The
two first Bangors have fallen into utter decay, but Bangor Vawr is still
a bishop's see, boasts of a small but venerable cathedral, and contains a
population of above eight thousand souls.

Two very remarkable men have at different periods conferred a kind of
lustre upon Bangor by residing in it, Taliesin in the old, and Edmund
Price in comparatively modern time. Both of them were poets. Taliesin
flourished about the end of the fifth century, and for the sublimity of
his verses was for many centuries called by his countrymen the Bardic
King. Amongst his pieces is one generally termed "The Prophecy of
Taliesin," which announced long before it happened the entire subjugation
of Britain by the Saxons, and which is perhaps one of the most stirring
pieces of poetry ever produced. Edmund Price flourished during the time
of Elizabeth. He was archdeacon of Merionethshire, but occasionally
resided at Bangor for the benefit of his health. Besides being one of
the best Welsh poets of his age he was a man of extraordinary learning,
possessing a thorough knowledge of no less than eight languages.

The grea