Between two meeting hills it bursts along,

Where rocks and hills o'erhang the turbid stream;
There gath'ring triple force, rapid and deep,

It bounds, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.

THOMSON.

AMONG the many beautiful works of the Almighty's hands, the variety displayed in the surface of the earth, has always struck me as singularly admirable. I speak not of the utility of such an arrangement; though the consideration of this point would furnish a subject equally instructive and amusing. At a future period I shall endeavour to explain how the wisdom of God has ordained that the soil of the earth, which the rains are continually washing away, should be supplied from the mountains. But now I wish only to regard this inequality in the point of beauty— having reference only to its harmony with the mind of man. It would have been comparatively a dreary view had a vast plain extended on every side; it might be clad in the robe of brightest green; and daisies might bedeck it, like jewels on its vest. But we should soon tire of looking on the picture. The land

scape which charms by its grandeur, and delights by its glories, is, when hill and dale, forest and meadow, fiercely rushing torrents, and gently gliding streams, are blended.

It would be comparatively as nothing, if the year had been an eternal summer, trees always waving in their bright green clothing, and birds, as they hopped from twig to twig, always filling the air with melody but the sameness of the colour would cause it to lose its charms, and the ear would soon cease to delight in the music from having it so constantly repeated. The beautiful arrangement is, that, as season follows season in quick succession, trees and flowers bud, bloom, and wither, thus presenting an endless variety, and pleasing in every way. So quickly does the year roll round, that almost imperceptibly is the bright green of spring mellowed into summer, and as soon again tinted with the autumn yellow of decay.

Thus is the variety which nature presents exactly adapted to the human mind, for mankind are ever seeking novelty.

But while this diversified appearance is every where presented, there are spots and scenes on the earth where the spectacle is so sublime that the mind is awestricken at the sight. Of this character is the Bridge I am about to describe.

Near Aberystwith, in Cardiganshire, is an object of curiosity and wonder, vulgarly called the Devil's Bridge, properly Pont-y-Monach, or Monk's Bridge. It consists of a single arch between twenty and thirty feet in span, thrown over another arch of less than twenty feet, which crosses a tremendous chasm. Tradition assigns the construction of the lower arch to the monks of Strada Florida Abbey, about the year 1087. It is probable this date is too early, but Geraldus mentions having passed over it with Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the time of the Crusades, in the year 1188.

The original arch being suspected to be in a decayed state, the present one was built over it in the year 1753.

They span a chasm in a tremendous rock, which has evidently been enlarged, and was, perhaps, originally produced by the incessant attacks of the impetuous Mynach.

In order to view the scenery of this romantic spot, the visitor should first cross the bridge, and then descend by the right of it to the bottom of the aperture, through which the Mynach drives its furious passage, having descended from the mountains about five miles to the north-east. The depth from the upper bridge to the bed of the river is 114 feet. The effect of the double arch is picturesque; and the narrowness of the

fissure, darkened by its artificial roof, enhances the solemn gloom of the abyss.

On regaining the road, a second descent must be made by passing through a small wood, at the distance of a few yards from the bridge, to view the four concatenated falls from the point of a rock in front. Each of these is received into a deep pool at the bottom, but so diminished to the eye, at the present point of view, as almost to resemble one continued cascade. The first fall takes place about forty yards south-west of the bridge, where the river is confined to narrow limits by the rocks. It is carried about six feet over the ridge, and projected into a bason at the depth of eighteen feet. Its next leap is sixty feet, and the third is diminished to twenty, when it encounters rocks of prodigious size, through which it struggles to the edge of the largest cataract, and pours in one unbroken torrent down a precipice of 110 feet.