All the resources of the town and its neighborhood, and indeed of the county itself, had been exhausted to give due effect to the parade, of which I regret to say that I cannot hope to give any adequate description. All the usual elements of processions were to be seen. Bands of music,--there were at least a dozen of them, all playing different pieces at one and the same moment, which had a somewhat distracting effect on those sensitively-eared people who weakly prefer one air at a time and do not appreciate tuneful tornadoes. As the procession went by at a brisk pace, it was curious enough to notice how the last wailing notes of "A noble race was Shenkin," played by a band in advance, blended with the brisk music of "My name's David Price, and I'm come from Llangollen," performed by a company in the rear. In fact, it was a genuine Welsh musical medley, and the daring genius who would have occupied himself in "untwisting all the links which tied its hidden soul of harmony," would have had about as difficult and distressing a task as he who tried to make ropes out of sea-sand. Of course, these bands were made up of divers instruments, but the national harp was head and chief of them all, as might naturally have been expected in such a place and at such a time. There were harps of all sorts and shapes; some of the Welsh urchins had even Jews-harps between their teeth. There were Irish harps, English harps, and Welsh harps. There was no Caledonian harp, though; but a remarkably dirty fellow in the procession seemed to be making up for the lack of one stringed instrument by bringing another,--the Scotch fiddle!--on which he perpetually played the tune of "God bless the gude Duke of Argyle!" There were harps with one, two, and three sets of strings,--harps with gold strings, silver strings, brass strings,--strings of cat-gut and brass,--strings red, and brown, and white. I looked sharp for the "harp of a thousand strings," but it was nowhere to be seen; and surmising that such is only played on by the spirits of just men made perfect, I ceased to search further for it in _that_ procession,--for though the men composing it might be just enough, they were evidently a long way from perfection. And when it is remembered that all these harps were twang-twanging away furiously, and that their strings were being swept over with no Bochsa fingers, few will wonder that I longed for cotton-wool, and blessed the memory of Paganini, who had only one string to his bow. Harps, however, would be of little value, were there no bards to sing and no minstrels to play. Walter Scott was decidedly wrong, when, speaking of his minstrel, he says,-- "The _last_ of all the bards was he."