the Cambrian Church is indebted for the version of the Psalms,
which for the last two centuries it has been in the habit of using.
Previous to the version of the Archdeacon a translation of the
Psalms had been made into Welsh by William Middleton, an officer in
the naval service of Queen Elizabeth, in the four-and-twenty
alliterative measures of the ancients bards. It was elegant and
even faithful, but far beyond the comprehension of people in
general, and consequently by no means fitted for the use of
churches, though intended for that purpose by the author, a sincere
Christian, though a warrior. Avoiding the error into which his
predecessor had fallen, the Archdeacon made use of a measure
intelligible to people of every degree, in which alliteration is
not observed, and which is called by the Welsh y mesur cyffredin,
or the common measure. His opinion of the four-and-twenty measures
the Archdeacon has given to the world in four cowydd lines to the
following effect:


"I've read the master-pieces great
Of languages no less than eight,
But ne'er have found a woof of song
So strict as that of Cambria's tongue."


After breakfast on the morning subsequent to my arrival, Henrietta
and I roamed about the town, and then proceeded to view the bridges
which lead over the strait to Anglesey. One, for common traffic,
is a most beautiful suspension bridge completed in 1820, the result
of the mental and manual labours of the ingenious Telford; the
other is a tubular railroad bridge, a wonderful structure, no