memory of God’s saints; and, as I washed in the crystal waters, I allowed myself to believe that the spot had indeed been famous for some holy martyrdom, which perverse ingenuity has distorted into the fable aforesaid—of which I have only given the least ridiculous part. A fine and fragrant moss, which grows about the well, and some red spots in the stone, have furnished additional material to the fabulists, which tradition has not failed to preserve; but the light and graceful temple which rises over it, with a figure of the saint, and which is ascribed to Margaret, the mother of Henry the Seventh, is its most substantial monument. It is now a chapel of the adjoining parish church, and I found it filled with plain benches, and used for a Sunday-school room, and for service in the English tongue. But I was _en route_ for the vale of Clwyd, (pronounced _Clooyd_,) and so landing at Rhyl, I took a Welsh jaunting-car to St. Asaph. At the very entrance of the vale stands an old historic castle, in utter ruins, but overhung with ivy, and nobly bastioned, and presenting a very venerable appearance. It was built before the Norman invasion, and stands near the scene of that ancient battle, still commemorated in the national air—_Morva Rhuddlan_—which is full of traditional melancholy and plaintive sweetness. Near Rhuddlan Castle a bridge spans the Clwyd, adding a very picturesque feature to the scene; and just as you descend to the bridge, you observe, on the projecting wall of a mean cottage, the following inscription: “_This fragment is the remains of the building in which King Edward the First held his Parliament, A. D. 1283_.” Oh! what a romantic land is Wales. England is fine prose; but Wales is all poetry. Even here I fell in love with it; for Rhuddlan is a truly historic pile. Almost its meanest memory is that of the progress of the second Richard, who tarried here on his way to Flint, to be deposed by Bolingbroke. Its latest memory, however, is that of the national Bardic Festival, called an _Eisteddfod_, which was celebrated here in 1850, with sad if not fatal results. A staging gave way, during the performance, and several of the fair and noble received severe contusions.