her minister, and said that a new church was being built, the old one
not being large enough to accommodate the numbers who thronged to hear
him.

I had a noble goose for dinner, to which I did ample justice. About four
o'clock, the weather having cleared up, I took a stroll. It was a
beautiful evening, though rain clouds still hovered about. I wandered to
the northern end of Llyn Tegid, which I had passed in the preceding
evening. The wind was blowing from the south, and tiny waves were
beating against the shore, which consisted of small brown pebbles. The
lake has certainly not its name, which signifies Lake of Beauty, for
nothing. It is a beautiful sheet of water, and beautifully situated. It
is oblong and about six miles in length. On all sides, except to the
north, it is bounded by hills. Those at the southern end are very lofty,
the tallest of which is Arran, which lifts its head to the clouds like a
huge loaf. As I wandered on the strand I thought of a certain British
prince and poet, who in the very old time sought a refuge in the vicinity
of the lake from the rage of the Saxons. His name was Llewarch Hen, of
whom I will now say a few words.

Llewarch Hen, or Llewarch the Aged, was born about the commencement of
the sixth and died about the middle of the seventh century, having
attained to the prodigious age of one hundred and forty or fifty years,
which is perhaps the lot of about forty individuals in the course of a
millennium. If he was remarkable for his years he was no less so for the
number of his misfortunes. He was one of the princes of the Cumbrian
Britons; but Cumbria was invaded by the Saxons, and a scene of horrid war
ensued. Llewarch and his sons, of whom he had twenty-four, put
themselves at the head of their forces, and in conjunction with the other
Cumbrian princes made a brave but fruitless opposition to the invaders.
Most of his sons were slain, and he himself with the remainder sought
shelter in Powys, in the hall of Cynddylan, its prince. But the Saxon
bills and bows found their way to Powys too. Cynddylan was slain, and
with him the last of the sons of Llewarch, who, reft of his protector,
retired to a hut by the side of the lake of Bala, where he lived the life
of a recluse, and composed elegies on his sons and slaughtered friends,
and on his old age, all of which abound with so much simplicity and
pathos that the heart of him must be hard indeed who can read them
unmoved.