LITMIR.BIZ

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my eyes prevents me from officiating as clerk beneath him.”

      I told him that I should never from the appearance of his eyes have imagined that they were not excellent ones.

      “I can see to walk about with them, and to distinguish objects,” said the old gentleman; “but see to read with them I cannot. Even with the help of the most powerful glasses I cannot distinguish a letter. I believe I strained my eyes at a very early age, when striving to read at night by the glimmer of the turf fire in my poor mother’s chimney corner. O what an affliction is this state of my eyes! I can’t turn my books to any account, nor read the newspapers; but I repeat that I chiefly lament it because it prevents me from officiating as under preacher.”

      He showed me his books. Seeing amongst them The Fables of Yriarte in Spanish, I asked how they came into his possession.

      “They were presented to me,” said he, “by one of the ladies of Llangollen, Lady Eleanor Butler.”

      “Have you ever read them?” said I.

      “No,” he replied; “I do not understand a word of Spanish; but I suppose her ladyship, knowing I was fond of languages, thought that I might one day set about learning Spanish, and that then they might be useful to me.”

      He then asked me if I knew Spanish, and on my telling him that I had some knowledge of that language he asked me to translate some of the fables. I translated two of them, which pleased him much.

      I then asked if he had ever heard of a collection of Welsh fables compiled about the year thirteen hundred. He said that he had not, and inquired whether they had ever been printed. I told him that some had appeared in the old Welsh magazine called The Greal.

      “I wish you would repeat one of them,” said the old clerk.

      “Here is one,” said I, “which particularly struck me: —

      “It is the custom of the eagle, when his young are sufficiently old, to raise them up above his nest in the direction of the sun; and the bird which has strength enough of eye to look right in the direction of the sun, he keeps and nourishes, but the one which has not, he casts down into the gulf to its destruction. So does the Lord deal with His children, in the Catholic Church Militant: those whom He sees worthy to serve Him in godliness and spiritual goodness He keeps with Him and nourishes, but those who are not worthy from being addicted to earthly things He casts out into utter darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

      The old gentleman after a moment’s reflection said it was a clever fable, but an unpleasant one. It was hard for poor birds to be flung into a gulf for not having power of eye sufficient to look full in the face of the sun, and likewise hard that poor human creatures should be lost for ever, for not doing that which they had no power to do.

      “Perhaps,” said I, “the eagle does not deal with his chicks, or the Lord with His creatures as the fable represents.”

      “Let us hope at any rate,” said the old gentleman, “that the Lord does not.”

      “Have you ever seen this book?” said he, and put Smith’s Sean Dana into my hand.

      “O yes,” said I, “and have gone through it. It contains poems in the Gaelic language by Oisin and others, collected in the Highlands. I went through it a long time ago with great attention. Some of the poems are wonderfully beautiful.”

      “They are so,” said the old clerk. “I too have gone through the book; it was presented to me a great many years ago by a lady to whom I gave some lessons in the Welsh language. I went through it with the assistance of a Gaelic grammar and dictionary which she also presented to me, and I was struck with the high tone of the poetry.”

      “This collection is valuable indeed,” said I; “it contains poems, which not only possess the highest merit, but serve to confirm the authenticity of the poems of Ossian, published by Macpherson, so often called in question. All the pieces here attributed to Ossian are written in the same metre, tone, and spirit as those attributed to him in the other collection, so if Macpherson’s Ossianic poems, which he said were collected by him in the Highlands, are forgeries, Smith’s Ossianic poems, which according to his account, were also collected in the Highlands, must be also forged, and have been imitated from those published by the other. Now as it is well known that Smith did not possess sufficient poetic power to produce any imitation of Macpherson’s Ossian with a tenth part the merit which the Sean Dana possess, and that even if he had possessed it his principles would not have allowed him to attempt to deceive the world by imposing forgeries upon it, as the authentic poems of another, he being a highly respectable clergyman, the necessary conclusion is that the Ossianic poems which both published are genuine and collected in the manner in which both stated they were.”

      After a little more discourse about Ossian the old gentleman asked me if there was any good modern Gaelic poetry. “None very modern,” said I: “the last great poets of the Gael were Macintyre and Buchanan, who flourished about the middle of the last century. The first sang of love and of Highland scenery; the latter was a religious poet. The best piece of Macintyre is an ode to Ben Dourain, or the Hill of the Water-dogs – a mountain in the Highlands. The masterpiece of Buchanan is his La Breitheanas or Day of Judgment, which is equal in merit, or nearly so, to the Cywydd y Farn or Judgment Day of your own immortal Gronwy Owen. Singular that the two best pieces on the Day of Judgment should have been written in two Celtic dialects, and much about the same time; but such is the fact.”

      “Really,” said the old church clerk, “you seem to know something of Celtic literature.”

      “A little,” said I; “I am a bit of a philologist; and when studying languages dip a little into the literature which they contain.”

      As I had heard him say that he had occasionally given lessons in the Welsh language, I inquired whether any of his pupils had made much progress in it. “The generality,” said he, “soon became tired of its difficulties, and gave it up without making any progress at all. Two or three got on tolerably well. One however acquired it in a time so short that it might be deemed marvellous. He was an Oxonian, and came down with another in the vacation in order to study hard against the yearly collegiate examination. He and his friend took lodgings at Pengwern Hall, then a farm-house, and studied and walked about for some time, as other young men from college, who come down here, are in the habit of doing. One day he and his friend came to me who was then clerk, and desired to see the interior of the church. So I took the key and went with them into the church. When he came to the altar he took up the large Welsh Common Prayer Book which was lying there and looked into it.

      “‘A curious language this Welsh,’ said he; ‘I should like to learn it.’

      “‘Many have wished to learn it, without being able,’ said I; ‘it is no easy language.’

      “‘I should like to try,’ he replied; ‘I wish I could find some one who would give me a few lessons.’

      “‘I have occasionally given instructions in Welsh,’ said I, ‘and shall be happy to oblige you.’

      “Well, it was agreed that he should take lessons of me; and to my house he came every evening, and I gave him what instructions I could. I was astonished at his progress. He acquired the pronunciation in a lesson, and within a week was able to construe and converse. By the time he left Llangollen, and he was not here in all more than two months, he understood the Welsh Bible as well as I did, and could speak Welsh so well that the Welsh, who did not know him, took him to be one of themselves, for he spoke the language with the very tone and manner of a native. O, he was the cleverest man for language that I ever knew; not a word that he heard did he ever forget.”

      “Just like Mezzofanti,” said I, “the great cardinal philologist. But whilst learning Welsh, did he not neglect his collegiate studies?”

      “Well, I was rather apprehensive on that point,” said the old gentleman, “but mark the event. At the examination he came off most brilliantly in Latin, Greek, mathematics, and other things too; in fact, a double first class man, as I think they call it.”

      “I have never heard of so extraordinary an individual,” said I. “I

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