which he was so remarkable, yet as a poet of fancy, the vivid, delicate,
sympathetic fancy of the Celt, still remains unmatched. Amongst
Dafydd's contemporaries and successors, Iolo Goch's noble poem, "The
Labourer," very appropriate to our breadless days, Lewis Glyn Cothi's
touching elegy on his little son John, and Dr. Sion Cent's epigrammatic
"The Noble's Grave" have been treated as far as possible in the metres
of the originals, and I have gone as near as I could to the measures of
Huw Morus' "The Bard's Death-Bed Confession," Elis Win's "Counsel in
view of Death," and the Vicar Pritchard's "A Good Wife."

A word or two about these famous Welsh writers: Huw Morus (Hugh Morris)
was the leading Welsh poet of the seventeenth century and a staunch
Royalist, who during the Civil War proved himself the equal if not the
superior of Samuel Butler as a writer of anti-Republican satire. He was
also an amatory lyrist, but closed his career as the writer of some fine
religious verses, notably this "Death-Bed Confession." Elis Win (Ellis
Wynne) was not only an excellent writer of verse but one of the masters
of Welsh prose. His "Vision of the Sleeping Bard" is, indeed, one of the
most beautifully written works in the Welsh language. Though in many
respects indebted to "Quevedo's Visions," the matter of Elis Win's book
is distinctly original, and most poetically expressed, though he is none
the less able to expose and scourge the immoralities of his age.

The Vicar Pritchard, otherwise the Rev. Rhys Pritchard, was the author
of the famous "Welshmen's Candle," "Cannwyll y Cymry," written in the
free metres, first published in 1646--completed in 1672. This consisted
of a series of moral verses in the metres of the old folk-songs
(Penillion Telyn) and remained dear to the hearts of the Welsh people
for two centuries. Next may be mentioned Goronwy Owen, educated by the
poet Lewis Morris, grandfather of the author of "Songs of Two Worlds"