all that, one cannot help feeling that he has, in several instances,
descended to a lower level than was demanded of him, with the inevitable
result that both the literary merit and the good influence of his work in
some measure suffer. Many passages which might be considered coarse and
indecorous according to modern canons of taste, have been omitted from
this translation.

From the literary point of view THE VISIONS OF THE SLEEPING BARD has from
the first been regarded as a masterpiece, but from the religious, two
very different opinions have been held concerning it. One, probably the
earlier, was, that it was a book with a good purpose, and fit to stand
side by side with Vicar Pritchard's Canwyll y Cymry and Llyfr yr
Homiliau; the other, that it was a pernicious book, "llyfr codi
cythreuliaid"--a devil-raising book. A work which in any shape or form
bore even a distant relationship to fiction, instantly fell under the ban
of the Puritanism of former days. To-day neither opinion is held, the
Bardd Cwsc is simply a classic and nothing more.

The Visions derive considerable value from the light they throw upon the
moral and social condition of our country two centuries ago. Wales, at
the time Ellis Wynne wrote was in a state of transition: its old-world
romance was passing away, and ceasing to be the potent influence which,
in times gone by, had aroused our nation to chivalrous enthusiasm, and
led it to ennobling aspirations. Its place and power, it is true, were
shortly to be taken by religion, simple, puritanic, and intensely
spiritual; but so far, the country was in a condition of utter disorder,
morally and socially. Its national life was at its lowest ebb, its
religious life was as yet undeveloped and gave little promise of the
great things to come. The nation as a whole--people, patrician, and
priest--had sunk to depths of moral degradation; the people, through