purpose to fulfil, the successful issue of which could not but be
frustrated by the introduction of personal hatred and ill-will. Ellis
Wynne was only too ready to forego the honor of being the acknowledged
author of the Visions if thereby he could the better serve his country.

The Bardd Cwsc is not only the most popular of Welsh prose works, but it
has also retained its place among the best of our classics. No better
model exists of the pure idiomatic Welsh of the last century, before
writers became influenced by English style and method. Vigorous, fluent,
crisp, and clear, it shows how well our language is adapted to
description and narration. It is written for the people, and in the
picturesque and poetic strain which is always certain to fascinate the
Celtic mind. The introduction to each Vision is evidently written with
elaborate care, and exquisitely polished--"ne quid possit per leve
morari," and scene follows scene, painted in words which present them
most vividly before one's eyes, whilst the force and liveliness of his
diction sustain unflagging interest throughout. The reader is carried
onward as much by the rhythmic flow of language and the perfect balance
of sentences, as by the vivacity of the narrative and by the reality with
which Ellis Wynne invests his adventures and the characters he depicts.
The terrible situations in which we find the Bard, as the drama unfolds,
betoken not only a powerful imagination, but also an intensity of feeling
which enabled him to realise the conceptions of such imagination. We
follow the Bard and his heavenly guide through all their perils with
breathless attention; the demons and the damned he so clothes with flesh
and blood that our hatred or our sympathy is instantly stirred; his World
is palpitating with life, his Hell, with its gloom and glare, is an
awful, haunting dream. But besides being the possessor of a vivid
imagination, Ellis Wynne was endowed with a capacity for transmitting his
own experience in a picturesque and life-like manner. The various