Welsh Journals

CAELYLE'S HOLIDAYS IN WALES. 469 nation pictures that silent man being carefully driven along Glamorgan roads and lanes, attended all the way by an aureole of tobacco smoke. At length all difficulties are ended, "the little talk with, Landor " has been enjoyed (would it had been recorded) and the little hamlet of Boverton has received its honoured guest. Insignificant as the place is now, it has been known to British history from its earliest dawn. Its name is derived from there having been a Eoman station there called Bovium, or Boventium, on the great Eoman road, the Via Julia, which ran from Caerleon, by way of Caerau, to Loughorand Carmarthen. The Romans seem to have had a strong liking for the district, calling it the Land of Corn; the climate being excellent, and its soil grateful and easy of cultivation. Their example was followed by other conquering races, for in the long night, in an historical sense, that succeeded the departure of the Eomans, the coast must have been liable to be sorely harried by the Vikings and their pirate brood; for it must have been against them that a series of camps for outlook and refuge, many of them still easily traceable, were erected along the heights fringing the Severn, and visible to each other from the end of Grower to Penarth, and probably on to Gloucester. The remains of one of these camps may still be seen at Boverton, and a second, of great strength and size, at Llantwit Major. When the Normans came, they fixed themselves with a firm grip on the land, and Boverton became a grange to Cardiff Castle; supplying for several centuries the Lords of Glamorgan with corn and beef and mutton. In the fifteenth century Boverton became the property of one of those numerous Flemish-Dutch families that settled in those parts about that time, for reasons not clearly discoverable. This family was named Vaulx or Voelcker, a name that got softened down into Voss, and has remained a name known to banking at Swansea down to the present day. In the sixteenth century the estate passed by marriage of a Voss heiress to the Seyes, of whom Serjeant Seyes was a member, and it continued in this family for four generations. It is now the property of Lord Wimbourne, having been purchased by the late Sir John Guest. Carlyle must now be left to silence and tobacco, to sea bathing, horse riding, and other exercises till next month, when, in a concluding paper, he will be made to reveal the results of his observation as respects the country and the people, in word pictures of striking merit which shall be given as extracts. Six more of his letters, which, like the present ones, have never before been printed, will reveal a good deal about himself and his later travels. Saint Athan. John Howells. (Will be concluded next month.)