We soon after passed through the dreary village of LLANSANSFRIED, where a monastery is conjectured to have existed; and about two miles further entered LLANRHYSTID, which place is assigned to be the site of another. As we entered the latter village, “the dark mists of night” fell over us. We therefore finished our day’s journey at the Red Lion inn, a tolerably decent ale-house, where we were presently joined by a man in a labourer’s habit, whom we had observed on the road in very gallant intercourse with a peasant girl, and had rallied on the occasion; yet were we not a little surprized at finding him not only a man of extensive information, but a classical scholar and a well-bred gentleman. On his leaving the room, we had an opportunity of enquiring who this character was, and learned from our landlord that he was a native ’squire, who lived about ten miles distant, who till lately had been in orders and officiated in London; but on the death of his father had thrown off the gown and become a man of pleasure. “Though he is so shabbily dressed,” said our host, “it is only a frolic, for he is a very able man.” Now, as the term _able_ in Wales is synonymous with rich in other places, we enquired the amount of his income, and found it to be _near a hundred a year_. This gentleman proved a most agreeable and useful companion during the evening; but we were sorry to observe in him a professed Epicurean; the gratification of his appetites he declared to be his great object, and defended his practice on what he termed the fundamental principles of nature; nor was he in want of an ingenious sophism against every point of attack. We concluded that this gentleman’s habits would qualify him with due knowledge on a singular custom that is said to prevail in Wales, relating to their mode of courtship; which is declared to be carried on in bed; and, what is more extraordinary, it is averred, that the moving tale of love is agitated in that situation without endangering a breach in the preliminaries. Mr. Pratt, in his “Gleanings,” thus affirms himself an _eye-witness_ of the process: “The servant-maid of the family I visited in Caernarvonshire happened to be the object of a young peasant, who walked eleven long miles every Sunday morning to favour his suit; he usually arrived in time for morning’s service, which he constantly attended; after which he escorted his dulcinea home to the house of her master, by whose permission they as constantly passed the succeeding hours in bed, according to the custom of the country. This tender intercourse continued without any interruption near two years, when the treaty of alliance was solemnized.” Our companion, like every one else that we spoke with in Wales on the subject, at once denied the existence of this custom: that maids in many instates admitted male bed-fellows, he did not doubt; but that the procedure was sanctioned by _tolerated custom_ he considered a gross misrepresentation. Yet in