before us; as a cloud suddenly appeared to rise out of the rocks beneath; and, rolling into a globular form, seemed like an immense balloon, balanced in the air; which, rising gradually up to the place where we stood, shut out the whole of this tremendous scene. Viewed from below, this precipice excites emotions of sublimity, unmixed with apprehensions; from its edge, terror is predominant. In the latter instance, our thoughts are, for a time, concentrated in our fears; in the former, the mind, upon the instant, wings its course to heaven! Height and depth create a much more awful sensation than length or width. The difference between looking up and looking down a precipice is well marked by Mr. Jefferson, in the account he furnished the Marquis de Chastelluse, of the Virginian bridge of rocks. "Though the sides of the bridge," says he, "are provided, in some parts, with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have resolution to walk to them, and look over into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and knees, creep to the parapet, and look over it. Looking from the height about a minute, gave me a violent head ache. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in the extreme. It is impossible for the emotions, arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are on the sight of so beauti ful an arch, so elevated and so light, springing up, as it were, to Heaven. The rapture of the spectator, is indescribable." After ascending above half a mile, we again paused to take a look around us. Below, appeared those innumerable mountains, by which Snowdon is, on all sides, surrounded. These are sometimes studded with lakes, which appear like large mirrors, placed for the purpose of reflecting the clouds, which are seen in three different directions. They glide over our heads, their shadows are depicted on the mountains; they are reflected in the lakes below. Some of the mountains are round upon their summits; others wear a triangular appearance; while some rise like pyramids. Now they seem like backs of immense whales, or couchant lions; and, while the apices of some resemble the cra ters of volcanos, the more elevated lift their points above those clouds, which roll, in columns, along their gigantic sides. Near the place where we paused to observe this fine prospect, we stopped to quench our almost ungovernable thirst at a spring, which wells out of the side of the mountain. No travellers over the deserts of Ethiopia were ever more rejoiced at coming to an unexpected fountain, than we were at this delightful spring. "O Fons," we were ready to exclaim. "O Fons Snowdoniæ, splendidior vitro, Cras donaberis hædo." Well may the nations of the east consecrate their wells and fountains! Ere we departed, we took large libations; consecrated it with our praises and our blessings; and called it Hygeia's fountain. 1 After climbing over masses of crags and rocks, we ascended the peak of Snowdon, the height of which is 3571 feet above the level of the Irish sea. Arrived at its summit, a scene presented itself magnificient beyond the powers of language-Indeed language is indigent and impotent, when it would presume to sketch scenes on which the great Eternal has placed his matchless finger with delight.-From this point are seen more than five and twenty lakes.-Seated on one of the crags it was long before the eye, unaccustomed to measure such elevations, could accommodate itself to scenes so admirable: the whole appearing as if there had been a war of the elements, and as if we were the only inhabitants of the globe permitted to contemplate the ruins of the world.-Rocks and mountains, which, when observed from below, bear all the evidences of sublimity, when viewed from the summit of Snowdon, are blended with others as dark, as rugged, and as elevated as themselves; the whole resembling the swellings of an agitated ocean. The extent of this prospect appears almost unlimited. The four kingdoms are seen at once; Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland! forming the finest panorama the empire can boast. The circle begins with the moun tains of Cumberland and Westmoreland; those of Ingleborough and Penygent, in the county of York, and the hills of Lancashire, follow; then are observed the counties of Chester, Flint, and Denbigh, and a portion of Montgomeryshire. Nearly the whole of Merioneth succeeds; and, drawing a line with the eye along the diameter of the circle, we take in those regions, stretching from the triple-crown of Cader Idris, to the sterile crags of Carnedd's David, and Llewellyn. Snowdon, rising in the centre, appears as if he could touch the south with his right hand, and the north with his left. Surely Cæsar sat upon these crags, when he formed the daring conception of governing the world! At this moment, how contemptible appeared the vanity and folly of Xerxes, when he formed the resolution of cutting through a mountain which casts its shadow more than eighty miles" Athos, thou proud and aspiring mountain, that liftest thy head unto the heavens, be not so audacious as to put obstacles in my way, If thou doest, I will cut thee down, and throw thee headlong into the sea." From Cader Idris, the eye, pursuing the orbit of the bold geographical outline, glances over the bay of Cardigan, and reposes for a while on the summit of the Rivel. After observing the indented shores of Carnarvonshire, it travels over a long line of ocean, till, in the extremity of the horizon, the blue mountains of Wicklow terminate the perspective. Those mountains gradually sink along the coast, till they are lost to the eye; which, ranging along the expanse, at length, as weary of the journey, reposes on the Island of Man and the distant mountains of Scotland. The intermediate space is occupied by the sides and summits of mountains, hollow crags, masses of rocks, the towers of Carnarvon, the fields of Anglesea, with woods, lakes, and glens, scattered in magnificient confusion. A scene like this commands our feelings to echo, as it were, in unison to its grandeur and sublimity; the thrill of astonishment and the transport of admiration seem to contend for the mastery; and nerves are touched that nev er thrilled before! We seem as if our former existence were annihilated; and as if a new epoch were commenced. Another world opens upon us; and an unlimited orbit appears to display itself, as a theatre for our ambition. In viewing scenes so decidedly magnificent, to which neither the pen of the poet, nor the pencil of the painter, can ever promise justice; and the contemplation of which has the power of making ample atonement for having studied mankind; the soul, expanding and sublimed, quickens with a spirit of divinity, and appears, as it were, associated with the Deity himself. Few ever mounted this towering eminence, but, for a time, they became wiser and better. Here the proud may learn humility: the unfortunate acquire confidence; and the man, who climbs Snowdon as an atheist, feels as it were, ere he descends, an ardent desire to fall down and worship its Creator! Before our guide could induce us to leave this spot, the clouds formed around us; and at the moment in which we passed the Red Ridge, a peal of thunder murmured among the mountains. He, who has passed this tremendous rampire, will conceive the effect of the explosion, and the danger of our situation. The Red Ridge is a long narrow pass, elevated more than two thousand feet above the vale; the top of it, in some places, is not more than twelve feet across; and, by a slight inclination of the eye, a rocky valley is seen on one side, as deep, and nearly as perpendicular as the one on the other. The lightning now flashed over our heads; and the thunder, as we might have expected from the intensity of the day, rolled in sonorous volumes around us. If the prospect from the summit of Snowdon had been the finest we had ev er seen, so were these the most tremendous sounds that we had ever heard. Upon returning to Bethgelart, a sequestered village, rendered famous for the retirement of Vortigern, who insulated himself upon a lofty rock, since called the fort of Ambrosius, the moon, rising from behind the crags, threw a matchless glory over all the heavens. A transition more delightful to the imagination, it were scarcely possible to conceive. THE OCEAN. The ocean, which Sophocles considered the finest and most beautiful object in nature, fills every contemplative mind with that grateful awe, which bears witness that it acknowledges the hand of the Deity; and that we know the value of that religion which a French writer would call "the science of the soul," the language of which is that of the mind, in unison with the affections. This vast collection of globules, and fountain of vapor, occupies more than three parts of the globe; is the source of circulation and growth to all organized bodies; and the general reservoir of vegetable and animal decompositions, with sulphureous and mineral substances. While the myriads of animals it contains, no pen could ever number. Neither could it enumerate the multitude of shells, gems, and plants, which grow to us invisibly; and to which, doubtless, the present species, genera, orders, and classes, could not be referred. Some floating with the wind; others at the mercy of every wave; some secured to stones and rocks; some rising to the surface from the bottom: and others, sheltered from agitations, rising not more than two inches above the great bed of the ocean; receiving nourishment from its saline particles; and giving sustenance, in return, to innumerable fishes and insects. Thales was, therefore, not far from the truth when he said that the Deity formed all things out of water:-nor Proclus, when he taught that the ocean was the cause of secondary natures of every description. When we sit upon the ledges of rocks, rising over the ocean; when we behold its boundless surface, agitated with perpetual motion; and when we listen to the music of its murmur, or the deep intonations of its roar, what amplitude doth the mind acquire, as to extent, to numbers and duration! Amid storms and tempests it is that nature assumes the most terrific attitudes. Those who have beheld the waves beating along the recesses of Norway, heard the vast ice islands of Spitzenbergen crash against each other when contending winds strive for the mastery; and those who have had |