174 BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



CHAPTER XII. 



With the alien literature of the Visitors' Book, 

 Wales is endowed beyond all countries known to 

 us. Here, more than elsewhere, does the Bir- 

 mingham tourist, hitherto mute and inglorious, 

 become sensible of inspiration, and enter deliri- 

 ously into poesy ; here the funny man scintillates 

 with inveterate brilliancy, and the conscientious 

 churn forth adulation of scenery or cook, with 

 solemn and almost death-bed conviction. 



The funny man is, as might be expected, widely 

 prevalent — he is, indeed, inexhaustible ; and having 

 achieved immortality by his own personal entry, 

 gambols at large through the thumbed pages, and 

 bestows it upon the signatures of the less gifted 

 by lavish and sparkling comment. We find him 



