CHAPTER VII.

THEIRS was no dream, O monarch hill,
With heaven's own azure crown'd!
Who call'd thee-what thou shalt be still,
White Snowdon !-holy ground.

Eryri temple of the bard!

And fortress of the free!

Midst rocks which heroes died to guard,

Their spirit dwells with thee!

MRS. HEMANS.

"Now, Doctor, come close to the fire and tell me about Snowdon," cried Florence, one evening, the moment the gentlemen rose from table.

The Rector settled himself comfortably in an oldfashioned arm-chair; and drawing Florence to his side, desired her to look at him earnestly, and confess that she observed an extraordinary change for the better, in his physiognomy.

Florence, very much puzzled, looked at him, in silent bewilderment.

Mr. Dudley said, in a tone of affected sympathy, that he feared the Doctor was but an ordinary mortal after all. Florence begged for an explanation.

"Listen to me, my dear child," said her father, smiling. "We have ascended Snowdon this day

"I know that, papa," interrupted Florence.

"But you do not know that, according to an ancient prophecy of the bards, whosoever sleeps upon that mountain-throne will henceforth enjoy

“The sunlight of immortal dreams.'

In plain English, sleep upon the mountain, and if you survive the ceremony, you will awake in the morning a madman or a poet-perhaps both."

"But you did not pass a night upon Snowdon, papa," observed Florence.

"Granted; but the Doctor indulged in a little impromptu nap, and when I roused him, awoke with his eye in a fine frenzy rolling." "

"Ah, Dudley! you blasted my hope-blighted my ambition. Why cruelly disturb my charmed slumber? Why not leave me to the peaceful enjoyment of my rocky couch until the morrow's sun rode high in heaven? Then you might have hailed your friend, not as an embryo poet, but as the rival of a Taliesin, a Cadwallon !"

"Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical!" said Mr. Dudley, smiling.

"En attendant, je ne veux ni prose ni vers," retorted Dr. Leicester.

"Tout ce qui n'est point prose est vers, et tout ce qui n'est point vers est prose!" responded Mr. Dudley in the same vein. "But," he added in a graver tone, "I have faith in the promised inspiration."

"Indeed!" Doctor Leicester looked considerably startled.

"Nay, my creed is orthodox. What man could hail the morning spread upon the mountains without a thrill of poetic rapture? Stand on the mountain-top; from such high vantage-ground watch the curling vapours, 'pure as unsunned snows,' melt into a flood of rosy light at the touch of the god of day:

"Robed in flames and amber light,

The clouds in thousand liveries dight,'

roll far away into boundless ether, revealing God's beautiful world, fair as a glimpse of opening Paradise. A glow of poetic fire, a spark of light divine, illumines the soul of the spectator. He rises in his aspirations; he spurns all save the Infinite!"

"Sunrise upon the mountains, excites deeper and holier feelings than those of mere poetical rapture,' returned Dr. Leicester. "It drew a confession of faith from Voltaire; it pointed a moral to the Christian poet

"He beheld the sun

Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked-
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay

Beneath him :-Far and wide the clouds were touch'd,
And in their silent faces could he read

Unutterable love.

Oh, then how beautiful, how bright, appeared
The written promise! Early had he learned
To reverence the volume that displays
The mystery, the life which cannot die;
But in the mountains did he feel his faith.
All things, responsive to the writing, there
Breathed immortality, revolving life,
And greatness still revolving-infinite:
There littleness was not; the least of things
Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe, he saw.'"*

"I read a lesson of deep humility in the beauties of the natural world," said Mr. Dudley, after a pause. "When I rest on the mountain-top, a voice seems to echo through the dread vault of heaven the awful demand of the Deity: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof if thou knowest? or who stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corners thereof, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Such reflections humble the pride of man to the very dust; they drive him to the clefts of the rocks and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord and for the glory of His majesty."

Dr. Leicester laid his hand on his friend's arm: "Such thoughts raise the soul from nature up to

*The Excursion: Book First.

nature's God; but the glory of creation teaches a lesson of holy love, not of slavish fear."

Mr. Dudley bent his head in silent acquiescence. Florence, who had been listening to the foregoing conversation as attentively as if she had thoroughly understood the drift of the argument, sat, with her eyes fixed upon the glowing embers, in meditative silence.

"We have wandered far from our starting point," said the Rector, after a pause. "Revenons à nos moutons." And forthwith, the good-natured divine gave Florence a graphic and humorous description of their ascent of Snowdon.

"Moreover we visited a mystic rock," he continued in a solemn tone, "endowed with strange virtue, for here of yore

66 6
'Prophetic Merlin sat, when to the British king

The changes long to come auspiciously he told.'

"Who was Merlin ?" asked Florence in a puzzled tone.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Ye gods! as ye are strong, be merciful! Ŏ wizard-prophet, assert not thy wondrous power; come not on the blast of the storm to silence the audacious maiden, who demands in the very strongholds of Eryri, 'Who was Merlin?' Know, O vain mortal, that Merlin, the son of the Dragon, was a mighty magician. His prophecies, many of which have been strikingly fulfilled, are handed down even to the present day:

"In numbers high, the witching tale
The prophet pour'd along;
No after bard might e'er avail
Those numbers to prolong.

"Yet fragments of the lofty strain
Float down the tide of years,
As buoyant on the stormy main,
A parted wreck appears."

"Bravo, Doctor; the spell works!" said Mr. Dudley. "Upon memory, yes," returned the Rector. "Tell

me, Florence," he added, "have you no ambition to visit the sites of localized romance, which abound in your adopted country?"

The little girl fixed her wondering eyes upon the Rector's face; she could not fathom his meaning.

"Have compassion on Florence's tender years," said Mr. Dudey, with a smile.

"I do not understand you," said Florence, appealing to the Rector.

"You have not forgotten your visit to Gelert's grave, nor the pleasure with which you listened to the ballad which commemorates the fate of Llewellyn's faithful, but ill-requited hound?"

"Oh, no! I shall never forget Bethgelert, the grave of Gelert."

"Then you will never forget one site of localized romance," observed Mr. Dudley.

"Do you remember, Florence," said the Rector mischievously, "that I offered to escort you to Flint Castle, sacred to the memory of the faithless hound which deserted sweet Richard, our ill-starred Richard of Bordeaux, in the hour of his fall? That is another site of localized romance."

"I do not wish to go there," cried Florence, indignantly. "I love Gelert, but I detest Math!" She fondled Puck as she spoke.

The Rector laughed and leaned back in his chair.

"We intend to explore every mountain and valley, every hill and dale in Cambria," said Mr. Dudley, fondly stroking the little girl's glossy ringlets as he spoke. "We will visit the haunt of druid and of bard, the castle of warrior and of lady fair, the retreat of hooded monk and of veiled vestal

"And weave your own romance anent them," interposed the Rector.

"Not so," replied Mr. Dudley. "From Dinas Brân, where Myfanwy Vychan flourished in all her beauty, down to Carnarvon Castle, the birthplace of our first Prince of Wales, there is scarcely a hoary pile or moss