(10c of), is the most western county of North Wales. It is 24 miles in length, 14 in breadth, and sends one member to parliament. It is separated from Caernarvonshire by a strait called Menai, and on every other side is surrounded by the sea. It is a fertile spot, and abounds in corn, cattle, flesh, fish, and fowls; with very good mill-stones and grind-stones. The chief town is Beaumaris. Near Kenilworth-harbour is a quarry of stone called alabaster, which is a beautiful marble, out of which may be got the linum asbestinum, called here salamander's wool; and will bear common fire: not far from this is a yellow fulphurous copper-ore, which has never been worked. At Llansadrigs, about three miles eastward from hence, is a great body or vein of stony-oker, of various colours, as red, yellow, blue; and an extremely fine white-clay, of the cimolia kind, of great service to painters, potters, and stone-cutters. In ancient times this island was called Mona, Monia, or Moron; and got the name of Anglesey only when conquered by the English. It was the great nursery of the religion of the Druids; being the residence of the grand Druid, or chief pontiff, and consequently of all the learned doctors in that religion. In the reign of the emperor Claudius (A.D. 45) the Druids beginning to be persecuted by the Romans on account of their sacrificing human victims, most of them retired to this island; but they did not long enjoy their retreat in safety; for, in the year 61, Suetonius Paulinus governor of Britain, having observed that the island of Anglesey was a great seat of disaffection to the Roman government, and afforded an asylum to all who were forming plots against it, he determined to root them out. He accordingly entered the island, and defeated the Britons who attempted to defend it, though they were animated by the presence, prayers, and exhortations of a great number of Druids and Druidesses. After this victory, he cut down the groves, and overturned the altars, which had been polluted by the blood of many human victims; and even requited the cruelties of the Druids upon themselves, by burning many of them in the fires they had prepared for the Roman prisoners if the Britons had got the victory. Many ancient monuments of this religion still remain in the island.