AUGUST. 351 



rt And as each heathy top they kiss'd, 

 It gleam'd a purple amethyst." 



On the cliffs to the south of Aberystwith, on Cors 

 Gochno, near Borth, and especially on Craig Breidden, 

 in Montgomeryshire, among the vast wastes of the 

 Berwyn mountains, in Merioneth, as well as on the 

 wildest parts of Bromsgrove Lickey, Worcestershire, 

 I have enjoyed many a wade and plunge among 

 thickets of heath, that almost buried me in their pur- 

 ple folds, while the murmuring and angry buzzing of 

 a thousand bees, I had disturbed at their flowery 

 banquet, filled the air on all sides. Scarcely less beau- 

 tiful does the glorious heather bloom on the bright 

 and lofty empurpled buttresses, that support the bro- 

 ken cyclopean summit of the Monmouthshire " Sugar 

 Loaf;" on the cat's back ridges around Llanidloes, in 

 North "Wales, where from the bleak sides of Plinlim- 

 mon numerous torrents rave and plunge to form the 

 united stream of the infant Severn ; or on the sides of 

 the solemn Black Mountains of Brecon, ever shadowed 

 by trailing vapours, where dark as indigo the Talgarth 

 Beacon looks down upon the lonely pool of Llangorse, 

 and the solitary turret of Tretower in the valley of 

 the gravelly Usk. Yet brighter still does memory 

 paint the heathy heights in that matchless landscape 

 on the banks of the Mawddach, between Barrnouth 

 and Dolgelle, where the broad river bathes rock and 

 wood in beauty, and the sun of August almost fires 

 the hills enwrapped in heath, that seem to burn amidst 

 the hoary or dark lichenized rocks. 



When in full flower, nothing can exceed the beauty 

 presented by a near prospect of hills of blooming 

 heather, while they offer to the way-worn wanderer a 



