Manchester.
[This is Fynnon Vair, or "the Well of Our Lady," situated in a
richly-wooded dell near the river Elwy, in the township of Wigvair.
This well, which is inclosed in a polygonal basin of hewn stone,
beautifully and elaborately sculptured, discharges about 100 gallons
per minute: the water is strongly impregnated with lime, and was
formerly much resorted to as a cold bath. Adjoining the well are the
ruins of an ancient cruciform chapel, which, prior to the Reformation,
was a chapel of ease to St. Asaph, in the later style of English
architecture: the windows, which are of handsome design, are now nearly
concealed by the ivy which has overspread the building; and the ruin,
elegant in itself, derives additional interest from the beauty of its
situation. See Lewis's _Wales_, and _Beauties of England and Wales_,
vol. xvii. p. 550.]
* * * * *
_Wafers._--When and where were wafers invented? They were no new discovery
when Labat saw some at Genoa in 1706; but from a passage in his _Voyages
d'Espagne et Italie_, published in 1731, it would appear that they were
even then unknown in France. A writer in the _Quarterly Review_ says:
"We have in our possession letters with the wafers still adhering,
which went from Lisbon to Rome twenty years before that time; and
Stolberg observes that there are wafers and wafer-seals in the museum
at Portici."