we found unpleasantly hilly, but occasional Vallies to our left enlivened
our walk. Near Caermarthen we crossed a Bridge of free-stone over the
Towy. This River, running through the middle of this shire, falls into
the British Sea at Caermarthen Bay, and is navigable for small vessels as
far as the Bridge. Immediately over it, upon a hanging rock, stand the
remains of a once renowned Castle. This Town, according to Giraldus’s
authority, was anciently a place of great strength, and fortified with
brick walls, which are yet partly extant, near the river. This place,
now considered as the Capital of the county, was formerly the residence
of the Prince of South-Wales; and the Ancient Britons here held their
Parliaments. The Chancery likewise, and Exchequer for South-Wales, were
kept here, when this territory was first erected into a Principality, by
the crown of England. In the thirty-eighth year of Henry VIII. it was
created a borough-town.
This place is famous for being the birth-place of Merlin, who is styled,
by an ancient author, “the sonne of a badde angell, or of an incubus
spirit, the Britaine’s great Apollo, whom Geoffrey ap Arthur would ranke
with the South-saying Seer, or rather with the true Prophets themselves;
being none other than a meere seducer, and phantasticall vizard.” He
flourished in the year 480.
At the Inn (Old Ivy-Bush) Sir Richard Steel composed his celebrated Play,
called the _Conscious Lovers_.