Читать книгу Scenes in North Wales - G. N. Wright - Страница 11

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The city of Bangor is one of the most prosperous and improving seaports on the Welsh coast. Its position, at the embouchure of the Cegin river and entrance of the Mænai strait, has given it a natural commercial superiority, an advantage spiritedly and wisely improved by the principal proprietor in the vicinity. The city occupies a narrow piece of ground, bounded on the east by a precipitous hill, and on the west by the bishop’s lands and the Mænai strait. Extension is inconvenient, from the necessity of lengthening the main avenue, already one mile long, whenever additional houses in a proper thoroughfare are required. Handsome assembly-rooms are constructed over the market hall: convenient lodging houses are erected in the lower part of the city, and many elegant villas in the immediate neighbourhood; besides which, the numerous visiters who frequent this agreeable spot, either for the benefit of sea bathing, the bracing influence of a mountain breeze, or the gratification of examining the noble design of the Mænai Bridge, have further accommodation afforded them at the spacious and elegant inns provided for their reception. H. D. Pennant, Esq. the heir and representative of the noble house of Penrhyn, is the chief proprietor and munificent patron of this place. To him, and to his amiable predecessor, Lady Penrhyn, this neighbourhood is indebted for the stability of its trade, as well as for the rapidity of its growth. The slate quarries of Dolawen, whence the Bangor slates, as they are generally called, are brought, are about seven miles distant from the sea-side. Here from fifteen hundred to two thousand hands are constantly engaged in quarrying metal, and fashioning it into slates. In the process of manufacturing the aid of machinery is embraced, and the powerful press of Bramah is used for crushing and splitting the metal. When formed into the classes or sizes designated by the fanciful distinctions of Queens, Duchesses, Countesses, and Ladies, they are transported by a rail-road of seven miles in length, (one of the earliest introduced into Wales,) to the quay of Port Penrhyn, the termination and consummation of the great and enterprising scheme, accomplished at individual risk and expense, to promote the conveyance of the Bangor slates to all the markets of Europe and America. Whatever modern importance Bangor possesses is attributable to the successful conduct of these quarries, and its commercial value will always be found to rise and fall with the prosperity of this trade alone.

Immediately adjoining the north-eastern extremity of the principal street, the noble demesne of Mr. Pennant originates, and spreads over a wooded surface of considerable area. His castle occupies the site of a palace, erected in the year 720, by Roderic Moelwynog, the last British Prince of Wales, who flourished in the eighth century. The ancient palace was destroyed by Meredydd ap Owain in the year 728, and not rebuilt until some time in the reign of Henry the Sixth, when Gwillim ap Gryffydd raised a stately castle here. This last building endured for many years, and was ultimately subjected to renovation by the hand of a Wyatt; but even this judicious restoration was unable to render it suitable to the rapidly accumulating wealth which the hills of Dolawen poured out upon the board of their fortunate possessor. From a noble design of Mr. Hopper, in a bold and pure Saxon style, a castle has been erected on the ancient site. The style is uncommon, rarely introduced in domestic architecture, and applicable only where the scale is great and the means ample. In this instance the materials, a beautiful dark marble, contribute much to increase the dignity and grandeur of the design, upon which probably one hundred thousand pounds have already been expended. A fine specimen of the Hirlâs, or ancient British drinking horn, bearing the initials of Piers Gryfydd, graven upon the silver mounting, is preserved in the castle of Penrhyn. The castle of Bangor is not to be confounded with that of Penrhyn just described. It was founded some time in the reign of William Rufus, by Hugh, Earl of Chester, but, little of its history survives, and even the ground plan now is with difficulty traced.

The process of quarrying, dressing, and preparing slates for public market, and the fanciful titles by which the various sizes are now uniformly designated, are very happily, playfully, and truly described in the following irregular verses. They are the production of the late Mr. Leycester, who was for many years a judge on the North Wales circuit, while the old system of judicature was tolerated.

It has truly been said, as we all must deplore,

That Grenville and Pitt made peers by the score;

But now ’tis asserted, unless I have blundered,

There’s a man who makes peeresses here by the hundred;

He regards neither Grenville, nor Portland, nor Pitt,

But creates them at once without patent or writ.

By the stroke of the hammer, without the king’s aid,

A Lady, or Countess, or Duchess is made.

Yet high is the station from which they are sent,

And all their great titles are got by descent;

And when they are seen in a palace or shop,

Their rank they preserve, and are still at the top.

Yet no merit they claim from their birth or connexion,

But derive their chief worth from their native complexion.

And all the best judges prefer, it is said,

A Countess in blue to a Duchess in red.

This Countess or Lady, though crowds may be present,

Submits to be dress’d by the hands of a peasant;

And you’ll see, when her Grace is but once in his clutches,

With how little respect he will handle a Duchess.

Close united they seem, and yet all who have tried them,

Soon discover how easy it is to divide them.

No spirit have they, they are thin as a lath,

The Countess wants life and the Duchess is flat.

No passion or warmth to the Countess is known,

And her Grace is as cold and as hard as a stone;

And I fear you will find, if you watch them a little,

That the Countess is frail, and the Duchess is brittle;

Too high for a trade, without any joke,

Though they never are bankrupts, they often are broke.

And though not a soul either pilfers or cozens,

They are daily shipped off and transported by dozens.

In France, jacobinical France, we have seen

How thousands have bled by the fierce guillotine;

But what’s the French engine of death to compare

To the engine which Greenfield and Bramah prepare,

That democrat engine, by which we all know

Ten thousand great Duchesses fall at a blow.

And long may that engine its wonders display,

Long level with ease all the rocks in its way,

Till the vale of Nant Francon of slates is bereft,

Nor a Lady, nor Countess, nor Duchess be left.

The see of Bangor extends over all Anglesea, and parts of Caernarvonshire, Denbigh, and Montgomery. It was most probably founded, or at all events a monastic establishment was formed here, in the year 525, by St. Deiniol, who was at first abbot, and afterwards bishop. The name Bangor may signify “the White Choir,” or the “High Choir,” and is found applied to an ecclesiastic institution in Flintshire, as well as to a famous religious house in the County of Down, in the North of Ireland. The subject of this description was distinguished by the prefix “Fawr,” or great, to mark its superiority. The original church existed to the time of the Saxon intrusion, when it was wholly demolished by that fierce and relentless people. In the year 1212 it was restored in a style of much magnificence by John, King of England, but it was again much injured in 1247, during the contentions between Henry the Third of England and the Welsh nobles. The demon of destruction once more visited this sacred edifice in the year 1402, when it was wholly reduced to ashes by a violent conflagration. This occurred in the civil wars, kindled by the brave and artful chieftain, Owain Glandwr. For ninety years there was no resuscitation of the embers; no pious prelate wore the wealthy mitre of this see, who preferred the honour of the church to all earthly considerations, until the reign of Henry the Seventh, when the learned and amiable Bishop Deane commenced the reedification of the cathedral, by erecting the present beautiful choir at his own expense. From an inscription over the western entrance, it appears that the tower and nave were added by Bishop Skiffington, in 1532, whose heart was deposited in Bangor Cathedral, but his body removed to the Cistercian monastery of Beaulieu in Hampshire, of which he had previously been abbot. The conduct of Bishop Bulkeley has afforded matter of much disputation amongst ecclesiastical writers: it is asserted, on one side, that this prelate dishonoured the mitre, which should have graced his brow, by spoliating the see of its estates, and the cathedral of its plate and bells; others assure us, with great earnestness, that Bulkeley did not alienate or abstract the property of the see, but that, on the contrary, he was a benefactor of the church and diocese, and that this was a calumny raised against the church by Godwin, who thought proper to direct his venomous shaft against the establishment through the character of this respectable prelate.

Dr. Warren re-edified and improved the whole structure; and during the long incumbency of Dr. Majendie, still farther decorations were accomplished. The choir is handsome, though wanting height, and is lighted by a noble pointed window with stone mullions. The eastern transept serves as a parish church, in which Welsh service is performed; and the nave has lately been converted into a place of worship, for the celebration of the service in English, the choir being found inconveniently small during the summer season. Though several prelates were interred here, no monumental honours have been paid them. Morgan requires neither brass or marble to make his fame endure; he has erected a more eternal monument, and established a more immortal name by his learned and laborious translation of the Bible into his native tongue. An effigiated tomb, occupying an intermural canopy in the south transept, is, by some unaccountable tradition, said to belong to Owain Glandwr: if so, it can only be a cenotaph, as that chieftain was entombed at Monington, in Herefordshire, where he expired. The most likely appropriation of this ancient monument is to Owain Gwynedd, who was interred here with his brother Cadwalader, in the year 1169. The investigation of this little historic fact exposes to the light the unrelenting spirit of fanaticism and bigotry. Owain Gwynedd had displeased the hierarchy by marrying his own cousin-german, for which offence his very bones were pursued with the maledictions and hatred of Thomas à Becket, who ordered his remains to be disinterred and removed from the chancel into the cemetery of the cathedral. His servants appear to have possessed a more tender and christian feeling than the great pontiff himself, and in the execution of their pitiful task caused a subterranean passage to be made from the vault into the earth without, thereby evading in some degree the sacrilegious charge of exhumation. In the year 1831 a white marble tablet, bearing a latin inscription, written with much spirit and feeling, was erected here to the memory of Goronwy Owen, a Welsh bard, who flourished in the last century. He was born in the county of Anglesea in the year 1722, and the little story of his life is beautifully and briefly told in the concluding words of his epitaph.

“Nullus eum patronus exciperet, id quod sui negârunt,

Apud exteros quærens perfugium in Transatlanticis terris,

Obscurus vixit, ignotus obiit.”

Which may be translated,

At home he felt no patronising hand,

Then sought its warmth in Transatlantic land,

Where bowed with poverty, by years o’ergrown,

He sunk neglected, as he lived unknown.