OF AN INSECT-HUNTER. 89 



less loaded with vapour, others appear in the background 

 at five, ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty miles' distance, and in 

 every instance those at the greatest distance present their own 

 outline as that of the horizon. Another cause of the liability 

 to change is the varied shadows cast by vapours, clouds, or 

 even the mountains themselves, according to the position of 

 the sun or moon ; this second cause is so unceasing, that it 

 is next to impossible to see the same view twice under the 

 same circumstances, consequently all its colouring is changed. 

 The colouring of distant scenery depends wholly on extra- 

 neous causes : the blackest fir plantations, or the brightest 

 purple heaths, entirely lose their natural colours under 

 peculiar circumstances; the fir may become purple, and the 

 heather black. Snow, however, is an exception; it is almost 

 invariably white. 



Reader, whoever thou mayst be, that art about to visit Brecon 

 for the first time, take my advice on three points: 1st. visit 

 the Priory Walk before breakfast ; 2d. take up thy quarters 

 at the Castle ; 3d. engage a bedroom that commands a 

 view of the Beacon. The Priory Walk is pretty, even 

 of an evening, when all the fashionables, male and female, 

 of Brecon, are flirting there ; and if there has been or is 

 expected any commotion at Merthyr, or other great iron- 

 works, a smart sprinkling of military is mixed with the natives, 

 making the assemblage gayer still by an admixture of scarlet ; 

 but the Insect-Hunter is no adept in country coquetry, or 

 country finery, nor is he a lover of red coats. He does not 

 censure all this — he applauds it ; if the enacters are gratified, 

 that is enough ; but give me, for my own particular enjoy- 

 ment, the hour of morning, when the voice of nature reigns 

 supreme, when the birds are offering up their morning hymn, 

 and — 



Reader, 'tis midnight ! gaze with me from the windows of 

 my bedroom on that glorious mountain. Talk not of conti- 

 nental wonders, of mountains which exceed the one before 

 us five times in height ; I tell you that excessive height 

 makes them less beautiful, less intelligible. Observe those 

 clouds slowly floating from the north-west, the edges of each 

 illuminated by the radiant moon, sailing in spotless purity over 

 the summit of the Beacon, but not illuminating any single 

 object adown its hundred slopes : the mountain is one mass of 



