'But
I say you have used me ill, very ill,' said Miss Ponsonby, raising
her voice, and the words 'very ill' she repeated several times. At
last the old soldier waxing rather warm demanded an explanation.
'I'll give it you,' said Miss Ponsonby; 'were you not going away
after having only kissed my hand?' 'Oh,' said the general, 'if
that is my offence, I will soon make you reparation,' and instantly
gave her a hearty smack on the lips, which ceremony he never forgot
to repeat after dining with her on subsequent occasions."
We got on the subject of bards, and I mentioned to him Gruffydd
Hiraethog, the old poet buried in the chancel of Llangollen church.
The old clerk was not aware that he was buried there, and said that
though he had heard of him he knew little or nothing about him.
"Where was he born?" said he.
"In Denbighshire," I replied, "near the mountain Hiraethog, from
which circumstance he called himself in poetry Gruffydd Hiraethog."
"When did he flourish?"
"About the middle of the sixteenth century."
"What did he write?"
"A great many didactic pieces," said I in one of which is a famous
couplet to this effect:
"He who satire loves to sing
On himself will satire bring."
"Did you ever hear of William Lleyn?" said the old gentleman.
"Yes," said I; "he was a pupil of Hiraethog, and wrote an elegy on
his death, in which he alludes to Gruffydd's skill in an old Welsh
metre, called the Cross Consonancy, in the following manner:
'"In Eden's grove from Adam's mouth
Upsprang a muse of noble growth;
So from thy grave, O poet wise,
Cross Consonancy's boughs shall rise.'"
"Really," said the old clerk, "you seem to know something about
Welsh poetry. But what is meant by a muse springing up from Adam's
mouth in Eden?"
"Why, I suppose," said I, "that Adam invented poetry."
I made inquiries of him about the eisteddfodau or sessions of
bards, and expressed a wish to be present at one of them. He said
that they were very interesting; that bards met at particular
periods and recited poems on various subjects which had been given
out beforehand, and that prizes were allotted to those whose
compositions were deemed the best by the judges. He said that he
had himself won the prize for the best englyn on a particular
subject at an eisteddfod at which Sir Watkin Williams Wynn
presided, and at which Heber, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, was
present, who appeared to understand Welsh well, and who took much
interest in the proceedings of the meeting.
Our discourse turning on the latter Welsh poets I asked him if he
had been acquainted with Jonathan Hughes, who the reader will
remember was the person whose grandson I met and in whose arm-chair
I sat at Ty yn y pistyll, shortly after my coming to Llangollen.
