Salop's noted citadel is safely done as two hours are gone, and there is time for tea or cider ere the train is in.

Of course we had no time to study the chained books of Chirbury, but we saw the outsides of them; and as for studying "Calvin on the Minor Prophets, for instance, why, that would give one the blues, if it were not taken as read.” Bishop Jewell's "Defense of his Apologie" happens to be the same as one of the few chained books that were at Didsbury. A blackletter folio of Chaucer, dated 1598, with other ballads, "the hard words of Chaucer explained," and notes, probably by Ed. Herbert, whose autograph is there, should be valuable. Pliny's "Natural History" has notes and the names, "Thos. Corbett. Libris. Ed. Lewis." Plutarch's "Lives," in Greek and Latin columns. Lots of theological works, and the many volumes of sermons, are worth more as curiosities than as butter paper.

There are 207 books dating from 1530 to 1684, many of them still having their chains attached to them. The chains are of iron, two to three feet long, with a swivel and links of about two inches, evidently once. fastened to an iron rod.

It is fairly well proved that this library was formed at Montgomery Castle by George Herbert, the poet and divine, there being several signatures of the Herberts in the books; that Izaak Walton, the patron saint of anglers, was wrong (for even saints are wrong at times), when he wrote the Rebels burnt it"; that the Rev. Edward Lewis, vicar of Chirbury for nearly fifty years, saved it, and kept it in the free schoolhouse which he built in the big churchyard when Montgomery Castle was destroyed. This Parson Lewis, who did these good things, may himself have been called "a Rebel" by the angler with the rod and writhing worm, for the Royalists persecuted him for being a Puritan, and preaching twice on the

Lord's Day. They rode into the church with pistols cocked, and pulled him out of the pulpit, saying if one sermon a day was not enough for the people there now, they should have none. This dangerous Puritan vicar actually gave written leave in 1641, the writing being still preserved, for a man to eat flesh on fast-days, and another parson went to law about the schoolhouse being built on the waste land of the churchyard. These parsons seem to have been as quarrelsome as Esop's frogs and mice, or even some of our own time. Of the first Lord Herbert of Chirbury-who was married at fifteen, became ambassador to France, wrote many works, leaving eleven volumes of manuscripts to Jesus College, Oxford, and wrote to Prince Rupert that "though it was his ambition to kiss his most valorous and princely hands, yet he could not receive him, for he was newly entered into a course of physic," then gave up his castle to the Parliament, and was shortly after besieged in it by his own son (1644)—there is no room to write here. The archives of deeds, literature, and correspondence of the Herbert family are immense.

POWYSLAND

THE PARADISE OF THE CYMRY

I

N the preceding pilgrimage we accidentally found the interesting old house Lymore, but could not find any history or mention of it in any book known to me, therefore I wrote to the agent of the Powis estates, asking him for any information. He courteously replied at once, over a signature seven and a half inches long (for I took a two-foot rule to measure it), referring me to the Hon. Secretary of the Powysland Club, who said Lymore and many other interesting places were mentioned in the Montgomeryshire Collections, thirty volumes of which were offered to members of the club for twenty guineas, and suggesting that I might be a member. Thinking that the city should have the volumes for the reference library, I took the letter to the librarian, who told me we already had some odd volumes, and now the rest are bought, so that any one may read them.

Scattered about these books I found several articles on old houses in Powysland, and with the Ordnance map planned a pilgrimage to some of them. We always try to come home at night, but that is difficult if one gets on the Cambrian line. It happened that several of these houses were around Moat Lane Junction, and we might have four hours there. We can do a good deal in four hours, but half-an-hour went with the train being late. Then we found that there was no road from the station. This is literally true as regards wheeled vehicles. There is a footpath by the line for about half a mile, and a

steep bridge over it. We twice lifted our bikes over a wire fence, wheeled them over hedge clippings brown with age that were strewn all over the path, and emerged through a gatekeeper's garden on to a road. I was told there were only two stations in England that had no road to them, and this was one; but I retorted, this is not in England; it is in Wales, and probably the other is in Ireland.

When we were dawdling in the train X had innocently asked what became of the old railway carriages, the answer being obvious—if they are not made into henpens they are made into Cambrians. We did enjoy the fresh air and good roads when free to cycle. The land lies high, four or five hundred feet above the sea, therefore the air is sharp and bracing. The hills are

fertile and the people few.

We soon came to Caersws, which, according to a Welsh history, was built twenty-two years before Solomon built the temple at Jerusalem, though it is not claimed that he copied the British architect; sixty-seven years before" the she-wolf's litter" founded the eternal city of Rome; and a thousand and eighty-six years before the birth of Christ. What a wonderfully long history! If we had known it when we were there we might have been more impressed. It is said that the dirty little station is on a bit of the site of a Roman camp, and the adjacent timber-yard through which we had to take bikes over the line stands where once was a luxurious Roman villa.

Through Caersws and Trefeglwys we found Rhyd-yCarw. What nice names those are for Christians to pronounce! The last means the ford of the stag, or Hartford, as we should call it. A small and lonely black-and-white house down a very steep and narrow lane, has far-projecting porch with upper storey, a quaint old head above it, worn stone steps with inlaid pebble pavement, where whiter pebbles and longer cobbles

make interlacing curves before the massive door. All the floors are cobbled, and the inmates free from corns. and healthy, though in our district e'en a cobbled yard would shock the so-called officers of health.

On the other side the valley is Talgarth, which we must also see, but between us is a deep ravine, where far below the little river Tarannon brawls among the

bushes. Here was the ford of the stag, Rhyd-y-Carw, and X says why should not we ford it instead of going miles round by the road. A muscular female in short skirts and curl-papers offers to show us the way, and lift our bikes or us over the stiles. So we cross a field of the thickest and best short clover I ever saw, drop down a precipitous bank, and find ourselves at the stream where the cattle cross, and a felled fir tree with a handrail makes a bridge. I shouldered my bike and crossed by the tree, scrambling up some nearly perpen