"About a hundred yards distant was a small watermill, built over the rivulet, the wheel going slowly, slowly round; large quantities of pigs, the generality of them brindled, were either browsing on the banks, or lying close to the sides, half immersed in the water; one immense white hog, the monarch seemingly of the herd, was standing in the middle of the current. Such was the scene which I saw from the bridge, a scene of quiet rural life well suited to the brushes of two or three of the old Dutch painters, or to those of men scarcely inferior to them in their own style--Gainsborough, Moreland, and Crome. My mind for the last half-hour had been in a highly-excited state; I had been repeating verses of old Huw Morus, brought to my recollection by the sight of his dwelling-place; they were ranting roaring verses, against the Roundheads. I admired the vigour, but disliked the principles which they displayed; and admiration on the one hand, and disapproval on the other, bred a commotion in my mind like that raised on the sea when tide runs one way and wind blows another. The quiet scene from the bridge, however, produced a sedative effect on my mind, and when I resumed my journey I had forgotten Huw, his verses, and all about Roundheads and Cavaliers." But it must be said that if the book is on the whole a cheerful one, its cheerfulness not only receives a foil from the rhetorical sublime, but is a little misted by a melancholy note here and there. Thus he sees "a melancholy ship" out on the sea near Holyhead. He qualifies russet twice as "wretched" in describing a moor. He speaks of "strange-looking" hills near Pont Erwyd, and again near the Devil's Bridge. His moods were easily changed. He speaks of "wretched russet hills," with no birds singing, but only "the lowing of a wretched bullock," and then of beautiful hills that filled his veins with fresh life so that he walked on merrily. As for his people, it cannot be asserted that they are always alive though they are often very Welsh. They are sketched, with dialogue and description, after the manner of "The Bible in Spain," though being nearer home they had to be more modest in their peculiarities. He establishes Welsh enthusiasm, hospitality and suspiciousness, in a very friendly manner. The poet-innkeeper is an excellent sketch of a mild but by no means spiritless type. He is accompanied by a man with a bulging shoe who drinks ale and continually ejaculates: "The greatest poet in the world"; for example, when Borrow asks: "Then I have the honour to be seated with a bard of Anglesey?" "Tut, tut," says the bard. Borrow agrees with him that envy--which has kept him from the bardic chair--will not always prevail: