The
double l of the Welsh is by no means the terrible guttural which
English people generally suppose it to be, being in reality a
pretty liquid, exactly resembling in sound the Spanish ll, the
sound of which I had mastered before commencing Welsh, and which is
equivalent to the English lh; so being able to pronounce llano I
had of course no difficulty in pronouncing Lluyd, which by-the-bye
was the name of the groom.
I remember that I found the pronunciation of the Welsh far less
difficult than I had found the grammar, the most remarkable feature
of which is the mutation, under certain circumstances, of
particular consonants, when forming the initials of words. This
feature I had observed in the Irish, which I had then only learnt
by ear.
But to return to the groom. He was really a remarkable character,
and taught me two or three things besides Welsh pronunciation; and
to discourse a little in Cumraeg. He had been a soldier in his
youth, and had served under Moore and Wellington in the Peninsular
campaigns, and from him I learnt the details of many a bloody field
and bloodier storm, of the sufferings of poor British soldiers, and
the tyranny of haughty British officers; more especially of the two
commanders just mentioned, the first of whom he swore was shot by
his own soldiers, and the second more frequently shot at by British
than French. But it is not deemed a matter of good taste to write
about such low people as grooms, I shall therefore dismiss him with
no observation further than that after he had visited me on Sunday
afternoons for about a year he departed for his own country with
his wife, who was an Englishwoman, and his children, in consequence
of having been left a small freehold there by a distant relation,
and that I neither saw nor heard of him again.
But though I had lost my oral instructor I had still my silent
ones, namely, the Welsh books, and of these I made such use that
before the expiration of my clerkship I was able to read not only
Welsh prose, but, what was infinitely more difficult, Welsh poetry
in any of the four-and-twenty measures, and was well versed in the
compositions of various of the old Welsh bards, especially those of
Dafydd ab Gwilym, whom, since the time when I first became
acquainted with his works, I have always considered as the greatest
poetical genius that has appeared in Europe since the revival of
literature.
After this exordium I think I may proceed to narrate the journey of
myself and family into Wales. As perhaps, however, it will be
thought that, though I have said quite enough about myself and a
certain groom, I have not said quite enough about my wife and
daughter, I will add a little more about them.
