poets, happy in having afforded no field for the one, and no materials of this kind for the other.

A heap of stones is the doubtful* monument of a battle which, in the middle of the tenth century, put an end to the kingdom of the Cumbrian Britons; after a war in which the victorious allies must have been actuated by any motive rather than policy; the King of South Wales having united with Edmund the Elder against a people of his own race, and Edmund giving the little kingdom, when they had conquered it, to the King of Scotland. That heap at Dunmailraise is our only historical monument, if such it may be called. There is something more for the imagination in knowing that three centuries earlier, the old bard, Llywarc Hen, was a prince of Cumbria, or of a part† thereof. He is said to have attained the extraordinary age of an hundred and fifty; and, having been driven from his own country, to have died near Bala, at a place which is still called after him, the Cot of

* Doubtful, because it is at the division of the two counties, upon the high road, and on the only pass, and may very probably have been intended to mark the division.

† Argoed, which, according to Mr. Owen, was part of the present Cumberland: it lay west of the Forest of Celyddon, and was bordered by that wood to the east, as the name implies.

Pabell Llywarc Hen, in the parish of Llanvor, in which church, according to tradition, he was buried.

Llywarc the Aged.

we know that he

From his own lamentations had four-and-twenty sons, wearing the golden chain, leaders of battles, 'men that were valiant opposers of the foe,' and that he lived to see them all slain! St. Herbert, our only Saint, is less remarkable among saints than Llywarc among poets; the single circumstance of his life that has been remembered, 'or invented of him, is that of his dying at the same hour with his absent friend St. Cuthbert, according to their mutual wish and prayer. From St. Herbert down to the tragedy of Lord Derwentwater, (who was connected with this country only by his possessions and his title,) our local history has nothing that leads a traveller to connect the scenes through which he is passing with past events,.. one of the great pleasures of travelling, and not the least of its utilities. The story of the Shepherd Lord Clifford affords a single exception; that story, which was known only to a few antiquaries, till it was told so beautifully in verse by Wordsworth, gives a romantic interest to Blencathra.

They who would ascend this mountain, should go from Keswick about six miles along the Penrith road, then take the road which branches from it on the left, (proceeding along the mountain side toward Heskett Newmarket,) and begin

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to ascend a little way farther on by a green shepherd's path, distinctly marked, on the left side of a gill. That path may be followed on the mountain toward a little stream which issues from Threlkeld Tarn*; you leave it, keeping the stream on the right, and mount a short and rugged ascent, up which a horse may be led without difficulty; and thus, with little fatigue, the Tarn is reached. A wild spot it is as ever was chosen by a cheerful party where to rest, and take their merry repast upon a summer's day. The green mountain, the dark pool, the crag under which it lies, and the little stream. which steals from it, are the only objects; the gentle voice of that stream the only sound, unless a kite be wheeling above, or a sheep bleats on the fell side. A silent, solitary place; and such solitude heightens social enjoyment, as much as it conduces to lonely meditation.

Ascending from hence toward the brow of the mountain, you look back through the opening, where the stream finds its way, to a distant view

* Absurd accounts have been published both of the place itself, and the difficulty of reaching it. The Tarn has been said to be so deep that the reflection of the stars may be seen in it at noon day,.. and that the sun never shines on it. One of these assertions is as fabulous as the other,.. and the Tarn, like all other Tarns, is shallow.

VOL. II.

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