ignorance and superstition; the patrician, through contact with the
corruptions of the England of the Restoration; while the priesthood were


"Blind mouths, that scarce themselves knew how to hold
"A sheep-hook, or had learnt aught else the least
"That to the faithful herdman's art belongs."


All the sterner and darker aspects of the period are chronicled with a
grim fidelity in the Visions, the wrongs and vices of the age are exposed
with scathing earnestness. Ellis Wynne set himself the task of
endeavouring to arouse his fellow-countrymen and bring them to realize
the sad condition into which the nation had fallen. He entered upon the
work endowed with keen powers of perception, a wide knowledge of life,
and a strong sense of justice. He was no respecter of person; all orders
of society, types of every rank and class, in turn, came under
castigation; no sin, whether in high places or among those of low degree,
escaped the lash of his biting satire. On the other hand, it must be
said that he lacked sympathy with erring nature, and failed to recognize
in his administration of justice that "to err is human, to forgive,
divine." His denunciation of wrong and wrong-doer is equally stern and
pitiless; mercy and love are rarely, if ever, brought on the stage. In
this mood, as in the gloomy pessimism which pervades the whole work, he
reflects the religious doctrines and beliefs of his times. In fine, when
all has been said, favourably and adversely, the Visions, it will readily
be admitted, present a very faithful picture of Welsh life, manners, and
ways of thought, in the 17th century, and are, in every sense, a true
product of the country and the age in which they were written.