alas! I know not where myself to purchase, or to steal, one copy of
Horatius Flaccus) hath said 'Dulce est desipere in loco.' It is sweet
to jest, but not within reach of claws, whether of kaisars or cats."

Therewith the knight drew up his spare but stately figure, and
arranging his robe with grace and dignity, awaited the coming chief.

Down the paths, one by one, came first the chiefs, privileged by birth
to attend the King; and each, as he reached the mouth of the pass,
drew on the upper side, among the stones of the rough ground. Then a
banner, tattered and torn, with the lion ensign that the Welch princes
had substituted for the old national dragon, which the Saxon of Wessex
had appropriated to themselves [171], preceded the steps of the King.
Behind him came his falconer and bard, and the rest of his scanty
household. The King halted in the pass, a few steps from the Norman
knight; and Mallet de Graville, though accustomed to the majestic mien
of Duke William, and the practised state of the princes of France and
Flanders, felt an involuntary thrill of admiration at the bearing of
the great child of Nature with his foot on his father's soil.

Small and slight as was his stature, worn and ragged his mantle of
state, there was that in the erect mien and steady eye of the Cymrian
hero, which showed one conscious of authority, and potent in will; and
the wave of his hand to the knight was the gesture of a prince on his
throne. Nor, indeed, was that brave and ill-fated chief without some
irregular gleams of mental cultivation, which under happier auspices,
might have centred into steadfast light. Though the learning which
had once existed in Wales (the last legacy of Rome) had long since
expired in broil and blood, and youths no longer flocked to the
colleges of Caerleon, and priests no longer adorned the casuistical