Older memories cling to the Welsh side of the river, and of these there are not a few gathered round Mostyn Hall, the first country-house on the right-hand side of the river, sailing up from the sea. Though in describing such places one is obliged to repeat one's self, there is in reality a good deal that is individual and characteristic in each house, especially in those that keep the traces of their antiquity visibly upon them. The kernel of Mostyn dates from 1420, but without losing its old look the house has been added to and altered to suit the needs and tastes of its successive owners. The deer-park is large, and as well stocked as it is beautifully wooded, and the entrance, called Porth Mawr, leading into a fine avenue that ends at the hall-door, is suggestive, like many another of the kind, of the care taken of timber in England. There is no reckless and irregular cutting down of young wood unfit for anything but fuel: brushwood is cleared away systematically at certain intervals of from three to seven years, and various portions of the woods are cleared successively, instead of being all bared at once. Then, too, tracts are carefully planted with forest trees at proper distances, and these future groves fenced in, while in formerly neglected plantations the useless timber is thinned out and room given the older trees to grow and spread. The planting of lawns and pleasure-grounds with foreign specimen trees is one of the greatest delights of an English country gentleman, and the acres of young _wellingtonias, diodaras, araucarias_ (or monkey-puzzlers--so named from their spiky leaves, that defy a monkey's climbing powers), various American pines and oaks, catalpas, tulip trees, etc., etc., are as much his pride as a flower-garden or a poultry-yard is the favorite hobby of his wife. Mostyn, however, well surrounded by trees, could afford to dispense with that attraction, considering its family museum and its valuable library of old British history and poetry. The Welsh manuscripts are a treasure in themselves, and a silver harp which has been in the family for more than three centuries is shown with as much pride as the pedigree, which occupies nearly fifty feet of parchment. The old family armor is also interesting. Among purely historical relics is a golden _torque_, or neck-band, worn by the princes of Wales in ancient times. Some of the royal jewelry of the Irish kings in the museum at Dublin, and one or two specimens I have seen at a private collector's near London, have much the same shape and general appearance, and the plaid-brooches now in common use in Scotland are not unlike the old pins for fastening cloaks of which these museums, public and private, are full. [Illustration: OLD EPISCOPAL PALACE, CHESTER.]