nineteen, to London, and got employment in a furrier's shop in Thames
Street; for forty years, with a single object in view, he worked at
his business; and at the end of that time his object was won. He had
risen in his employment till the business had become his own, and he
was now a man of considerable means; but those means had been sought
by him for one purpose only, the purpose of his life, the dream of
his youth,--the giving permanence and publicity to the treasures of
his national literature. Gradually he got manuscript after
manuscript transcribed, and at last, in 1801, he jointly with two
friends brought out in three large volumes, printed in double
columns, his Myvyrian Archaeology of Wales. The book is full of
imperfections, it presented itself to a public which could not judge
of its importance, and it brought upon its author, in his lifetime,
more attack than honour. He died not long afterwards, and now he
lies buried in Allhallows Church, in London, with his tomb turned
towards the east, away from the green vale of Clwyd and the mountains
of his native Wales; but his book is the great repertory of the
literature of his nation, the comparative study of languages and
literatures gains every day more followers, and no one of these
followers, at home or abroad, touches Welsh literature without paying
homage to the Denbighshire peasant's name; if the bard's glory and
his own are still matter of moment to him,--si quid mentem mortalia
tangunt,--he may be satisfied.

Even the printed stock of early Welsh literature is, therefore,
considerable, and the manuscript stock of it is very great indeed.
Of Irish literature, the stock, printed and manuscript, is truly
vast; the work of cataloguing and describing this has been admirably
performed by another remarkable man, who died only the other day, Mr.
Eugene O'Curry. Obscure Scaliger of a despised literature, he