“Denbigh, fair empress of the vale,” with its tottering towers, formed a
most beautiful landscape; whilst the neat little hamlet of Whitchurch
peeped from among the pomp of groves.
At the small village of St. Fynnon St. Dyfnog, this curious inscription
over a door,
“Near this place, within a vault,
There is such liquor fix’d,
You’ll say that water, hops, and malt,
Were never better mix’d;”
invited the “weary-way wanderer” to partake of the _good things_ within.
This inclined us to be better acquainted with the author of this
_extraordinary_ stanza; and we entreated the landlord to be our director
to the much-esteemed well of St. Dyfnog. Passing through the
church-yard, and from thence through the passage of an alms-house, we
reached a plantation of trees, with a broad gravel walk, almost concealed
from day’s garish light by the thick foliage. This brought us to the
fountain, enclosed in an angular wall, which forms a bath of considerable
size; and so
—“far retired
Among the windings of a woody vale,
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty, conceal’d,”
that the “lovely young Lavinia” might here plunge into the flood, secure
from the intrusion of Palemon. Many wonderful qualities are attributed
to this fountain; but it is more particularly celebrated for the cure of
the rheumatism: the water has no peculiar taste. We returned by a
subterraneous path under the road, which led to the pleasure grounds
adjoining the seat of Major Wylyn.
Several seats were beautifully dispersed on each side of the vale; among
which, Lord Bagot’s and Lord Kirkwall’s formed the most prominent
features in the landscape.
Ruthin is a large neat town, only divided from the parish of Llanruth by
a strong stone bridge: the church, which is beautifully situated, is a
handsome modern edifice: and the site of the old chapel is now converted
into a bowling-green. Owen Glendwr, as an act of revenge on Lord Grey,
plundered the town in the year 1400, during a fair, and then retired
among the mountains. In the last century, the loyalists fortified the
castle, and sustained a long siege in the year 1646.
We still continued skirting the rich vale of Clwyd; but winding up a
steep hill, overlooking the whole of it from one extremity to the other,
we were reluctantly compelled to bid a final adieu to all its vistas,
hamlets, steeples. The whole prospect, glowing with luxuriance, seemed
to assume fresh beauties at this our farewell view: the cattle, which
were grazing in the shorn meadows, and beautifully contrasted with the
ripening corn, appeared more animated; and we discovered, or thought we
discovered, an additional number of villages, peeping from the woody
skirts of the sloping hills. From this point the vale is certainly seen
to great advantage. To give a still greater effect, a thunder-storm came
rolling on; and the clouds were
“Silent borne along, heavy and slow,
With the big stores of steaming oceans charged.”
This storm compelled us to seek for shelter in a miserable pot-house; but
the civility of the landlady fully compensated for its want of
accommodations. The effects of the storm rendered the remainder of our
journey much more agreeable, and the heat less oppressive: a dull
uninteresting road continued till we arrived within four or five miles of