In February 1650 an Act was passed "for the propagation of the Gospel in Wales." Power was given to commissioners to hold an enquiry into the lives of all the Welsh clergy, and to deprive all such as were found to be immoral, incapable, or hostile to the new Government. A large number actually were ejected, and their place taken by a new and specially certified body of preachers. These commissioners were extremely unpopular in Wales, for the country was strongly anti-Puritan; and much of the unpopularity was visited on the new preachers, who were frequently waylaid and beaten. Not much progress appears to have been made; for aslate as 1656 we find Berry, who was Major-General, first for North Wales, and afterwards for South, writing to Thurloe—"One great evil I find here, which I know not how to remedy, and that is the want of able preachers. Certainly, if some course be not taken these people will some of them become heathens."
The "Propagation Act" was repealed in 1653; and that brought to a head the antagonism which for some time had existed between Cromwell and the Fifth Monarchists. The Long Parliament was expelled by Cromwell in 1653; and its successor—the Short Parliament—displayed so marked a leaning in the direction of extreme republicanism, that it soon shared the same fate. Harrison, Vavasour Powell, and Morgan Llwyd were now in open opposition to the Protector; and the two Welshmen toured the Principality inciting the people to rise against him. They stood for complete separation of Church and State, for religious toleration, and for a form of pure democracy in which there would be no room for such an office as that of Protector. Their protest against the Protectorate was published in 1655, under the title of "A Word for God." Morgan Llwyd and Powell were the only two leading Welsh preachers to sign it. Thatthe majority of Welsh Roundheads were entirely favourable to Cromwell is proved by the counter protest which was at once issued, a document which was signed by almost all the leading men, including Walter Cradock. We must allow that Harrison and his followers were unfair to Cromwell in impugning his honesty. The great Protector was always sincere; but he had learnt, what successive generations of politicians have all in turn had to learn, that the ideals of Opposition cannot always be made to square with the facts of Office. The Commonwealth was shipwrecked on the rock of national opposition; the vast majority of the nation were, and continued to be, Royalists and Episcopalians.
From that time until his death Morgan Llwyd ceased to play any part in politics. He had always been studiously inclined. In 1653 had been written his great classic,Llyfr y Tri Aderyn(Book of the Three Birds). In the closing years of his life, the mystic tendencies which had always been strong in him got the better of everything else. He translated the writings of Jacob Behmen; and tramped about the hills and valleys of Wales, preaching to the peasantry in their own homes. His influence was immense;and without founding school, or sect, or party, he left a name and an inspiration which remained fresh and potent for generations.
Morgan Llwyd did not survive to see the Restoration; and well was it for him that he did not, for it would have filled him with the most poignant anguish. Most of all would he have been grieved by the manifest signs of joy with which the event was greeted in Wales. The dream of a moral, a religious, an educated, and a democratic Wales was shattered for the time being; it was not to be revived for another hundred years and more. Once again the country sank back into its intellectual torpor, its superstition, and its immorality. The old order was restored:—"The squire dispensed justice, the parson preached loyalty, the bard in remote Nannau praised the life of Charles the First and bewailed his death, and the peasant was told that the world was put right again." In many parts of the land Parliamentarians were pitilessly persecuted. In Merionethshire, where the influence of Morgan Llwyd had been most strong, and where Maes-y-Garnedd, the home of Colonel John Jones, stood in the shadow of the mountains, a sturdy spirit of independence had already been fostered. Determinednot to remain at home to be oppressed, a large number of them left Bala in 1682, and sailed for the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. There, from time to time, they were joined by other Welsh people. To the district which they occupied they gave the name of "Meirion," and they became the ancestors of many of the most distinguished citizens of Philadelphia.
In the making of modern Wales two men stand out pre-eminent, and without rivals—King Henry VIII, and the Revivalist Howel Harris. The former gave to Wales the opportunity of playing an equal part with England in the life of the Empire. The latter roused Wales from its mediæval lethargy into clear realization and appreciation of the opportunity which lay within its grasp. In the darkest hour of its history, in 1916, the British Empire entrusted its fortunes to the care of a Welshman. That Welshman had been made possible by Henry VIII: he was produced by Howel Harris.
Enough has been said already to prove that Nonconformity did not appear in Wales for the first time in the eighteenth century. The Act of Uniformity of 1662 occasioned the ejection from their livings of some two thousand clergy, more than a hundred of whom are said tohave been Welsh. Yet in spite of that, and in spite of the persecution made possible by the Clarendon Code, Dissent continued to exist. The Toleration Act of King William made matters easier; but even then Nonconformity did not thrive. There was nothing peculiarly Welsh about any of the sects; they were merely branches in Wales of bodies English or Continental in origin, thought, and outlook. Long before the time of the Methodist Revival these sects had ceased to be missionary enterprises. They had lost all their evangelical ardour, and were occupied mainly with rancorous disputations about recondite points of theology. For the moral and religious condition into which Wales had fallen, they were almost as much to blame as the Established Church. Even if we accept the most favourable accounts, the condition of the people must have been extremely bad. Few of the lower classes knew how to read. In many churches whole months would elapse without any sermon at all; while in others the parson would read a learned English discourse to a sparse congregation knowing nothing but Welsh. Wesley declared that the people were "as little versed in the principles of Christianity as a Creek or CherokeeIndian." That the people were completely indifferent to any religious impulse, and that they lived, for the most part, the life of mere animals, is proved by an overwhelming mass of evidence. Of course too much must not be made of the testimony of extreme Puritans, who were scandalized by what they considered desecration of the Sabbath, and by such things as wrestling, dancing, cock-fighting, and drinking. But when all allowance has been made for this prejudice, a terrible indictment can still be drawn up; for the vast majority of the people must have been totally illiterate, extremely superstitious, and without a thought save for the gratification of their bodily needs and desires. North Wales was almost wholly Anglican, there being not more than ten small Nonconformist congregations. In the South Dissenters were more numerous. But at the highest computation we cannot put the total number of Nonconformists in Wales at more than an eighth of the total population.
The awakening came with Howel Harris, a man, like Luther, of tempestuous passions, strong character, wide vision, and magnetic personality. A clear hint had already been given by the Rev. Griffith Jones, Vicar ofLlanddowror, of the method which would have to be employed for the regeneration of Wales. In spite of every discouragement from his fellow clergymen, he had begun the practice of preaching, in a popular style, in the open air, at fairs and wakes and wherever people were gathered together for dissipation. Griffith Jones, however, was an educator rather than a revivalist, and as such we shall have more to say about him in another place. Of the Revival itself he was a precursor, rather than a leading figure.
Howel Harris was born in 1714, at Trevecka in Breconshire. He was educated at the Llwynllwyd Grammar School, and was intended for the Church. But the death of his father made it necessary that he should earn his own living; and for some years he became a schoolmaster. During this period he studied hard, and, what is of more importance in his case, pondered over the evil condition of the people among whom he dwelt. An intense desire was awakened within him to save souls. In 1735 he matriculated at St. Mary Hall, Oxford; but his sojourn at the University was only a few weeks in duration, and he returned to his own home more eager than ever to preach the Gospel. He wasnot ordained, neither was he a licensed preacher of any Nonconformist body. On the contrary he was then, and remained all through life, a member of the Church of England. But he began to go on preaching tours into every part of Wales; and this work he continued, without intermission, for the next sixteen years. The life was a strenuous, and even a dangerous, one. On one occasion he writes: "It is now nine weeks since I began to go round South and North Wales, and this week I came home. I have visited in that time thirteen counties, and travelled most of 150 miles every week and discoursed twice every day—sometimes three or four times a day. In this last journey I have not taken off my clothes for seven nights, travelling from one morning to the next evening without any rest above 100 miles, discoursing at midnight, or very early, on the mountains in order to avoid persecution." The closing words have a very modest sound; but it must not be thought that Harris fled from danger; on the contrary it would be nearer the truth to say that he wantonly incurred it. The "persecution" of which he speaks was no figurative expression, but a hard and stern reality. Indeed this period of his life is oneof the most wonderful romances of modern times.
Innumerable examples could be given of the things which Harris endured at the hands of his opponents; and it must be confessed that his own aggressiveness, and the unseasonable moment selected by him for delivering his message, make one feel that his sufferings were, at times, almost deserved. On one occasion a Justice of the Peace, one Marmaduke Gwynn by name, came to hear him, armed with a copy of the Riot Act, but was so impressed with what he heard that he invited him to be a guest at his house. Sometimes his success was complete. "Yesterday," he writes, "was a glorious day: I was at a great feast, and chose to oppose the devil on his own ground; and we discoursed within a few yards of a public house, where diversion was to be. I never tasted more power. I believe some were cut through; many wept, and one fainted; others felt a great trembling, and all were filled with awe." His enemies did not hesitate to issue false reports about him. "Last night and to-day," he says, "I met with no opposition; many are deterred from coming to hear by a report passing for truth, that I really correspondwith the King of Spain, and that £40 are offered for taking me." At Llanbrynmair he finds the people living "like brutes, knowing nothing"; yet so convincing was the message which he delivered, that he left behind him there the nucleus of one of the first and strongest Methodist congregations. On the road from Cemmaes he was roughly hustled and beaten, and followed by a gang of men who cried, "Down with the Roundheads." A woman threw mud at him, calling him a "damned devil"; and he was hounded out of the parish with dogs. At Machynlleth he was beset by an infuriated rabble, headed by an attorney's clerk with mouth "so full of the language of hell as if his name had been legion"; and with him a gentleman and a clergyman whose language was, apparently, in no wise different from that of the clerk! Some years later this same clerk relented; but the parson, to the end of his days, never ceased to allude to the new preachers, in his sermons, as "those wicked Methodists." At Crickhowell Harris was so roughly handled that he was obliged to seek refuge in a friend's house, his clothes torn, his face covered with blood, his head cut in thirteen places, and his body bruised. South Wales seems tohave been decidedly more wicked than the North, and Glamorgan worst of all. An attempt to shoot Harris was made at Swansea and Llandilo; and at Carmarthen a man drew a sword, with the intention of killing him. But the North was bad enough. At Bala (so soon afterwards to become the Oxford of Welsh Nonconformity) he had a very unpleasant time on his second visit to the place. The Vicar raised a great club which he was carrying, and threatened to strike him with it. Not content with that, the reverend man caused a barrel of beer to be placed in the open street, where all comers might freely drink, in order that their will to harm the Revivalist might be strengthened, and their valour enhanced at the cost of their discretion. Nevertheless, in spite of all persecution, the whole country was soon ablaze with the Revival; and people came in hundreds and thousands to hear the preachers. Howel Harris was not alone in the field. About the same time, and quite independently of him, Daniel Rowlands, the eloquent curate of Llangeitho, had begun to preach, and a warm friendship was struck between the two men. Griffith Jones gave the new movement encouraging recognition; and Whitefield who,by his intense ardour and matchless eloquence, was infusing new life into the religion of England extended the right hand of fellowship. In 1740 Harris made an invaluable convert in the person of William Williams of Pantycelyn, in all probability the greatest hymn writer the world has ever seen, a man who gave imperishable expression to the theology, the ethics, and the ideals of the Revival. Williams was ordained by the Bishop of St. David's; and became curate to that charming and picturesque Welsh historian, Theophilus Evans. But the learned author ofDrych y Prif Oesoeddhad no liking for his curate's superabundant zeal; and when restraint was put upon his preaching, Williams joined the Methodists.
In 1743 was held at Watford what was probably the first Welsh Methodist Association; and, in the same year, another at Carmarthen. During the first few years there was active partnership between the Welsh Methodists and those of England; and plans were discussed for their unification. Fortunately these plans always failed to commend themselves to the majority, and the two bodies remained apart. By degrees Harris became estranged from all his earlyfriends and coadjutors. For this he himself was, no doubt, chiefly to blame. He was not an easy man to work with, being jealous, obstinate, and masterful. Furthermore, his theological opinions were undergoing a change, and he had become subject to frequent ecstasies and visions, all of which he regarded as special revelations and tokens of Divine favour. The upshot of it all was that Howel Harris decided to live a life apart, and to form at Trevecka a sort of religious community which he called a Family. Something must be said about this scheme, which engrossed the last twenty-two years of his life (1751-1773) before we return to follow the growth of Methodism in general.
As early as 1736 Harris seems to have cherished the desire to found at Trevecka a community, after the pattern of that of Frank at Halle, or of the Moravians at Herrnhut and Fulneck; but for several years he was altogether absorbed in the work of evangelization. Now, however, he took up the idea with renewed zest. In preparing the house at Trevecka for the reception of the Community, he had the assistance of his friend and adviser Madame Griffith. Residents began to arrive in 1752, and continued to do so,from time to time, for many years. But the average membership remained throughout somewhere near a hundred. Every member was expected to put all his worldly possessions into a common fund. The concerns of the Family were both religious and industrial. Three services were held every day, and on Sundays four. But industry held almost as important a place in the scheme as religion; and it is this that makes Harris so prominent a figure in the economic and social, as well as in the religious, life of Wales. The first faint indications of the coming Industrial Revolution were beginning to be descried in England; but as yet Wales was almost wholly agricultural and pastoral; and, of course, what industries there were, were carried on in the cottages of the people. In a few short years the enormous mineral wealth of the country would be discovered; and the introduction of the factory system, and the construction of turnpike roads, would alter the whole face of society. More than a century earlier, an Industrial Community had been founded by the Vaughans of Bredwardine, but that had long sunk into oblivion: it was the Trevecka Family that really brought the main ideas of the Industrial Revolution to the doors ofthe Welsh people. The industrial pursuits of the new Community were interesting and varied. They picked wool, carded flax, and knitted. A woollen factory was instituted, and a printing-press installed. Harris and his followers were equally interested in the development of the land. He introduced new, and better, methods of growing turnips and corn, and also an improved system of crop rotation.
Our account of this versatile man would not be complete without a word about a most curious, and wholly unexpected, episode in his life. In 1756 the Seven Years' War broke out, and a French invasion of England was deemed to be imminent. Loyal citizens everywhere rushed to arms; and the Breconshire Agricultural Society, with which Harris was intimately connected, offered to form themselves into a troop of light horse. Five members of the Family joined the regular army. They served in Nova Scotia, besieged Louisberg, and fought with Wolfe at Quebec. Four were killed, or died of fever, and one only lived to return to Trevecka. In 1759 Harris joined the local militia; and was made, first an Ensign, and soon afterwards a Captain-Lieutenant. In this capacity he accompaniedthe troops to Yarmouth; and he did not return home until 1763, when the Peace of Paris put an end to all danger of invasion.
The last ten years of his life Harris spent quietly with the Family, his calm existence varied only by the assistance which he gave to Lady Huntingdon in founding her Methodist College at Trevecka Isaf. To the end he remained a member of the Episcopal Church; and at his funeral, in July 1773, fifteen clergymen administered the Sacrament to a multitude of twenty thousand people, who had come to show their affection and respect.
By this time congregations of Methodists had grown very numerous in Wales, and the problem of administering to their spiritual needs was becoming a difficult and a pressing one. It was obvious that the few clergy who had joined the Association could not cope with the situation. Large numbers of lay preachers had arisen; but none of them were ordained, nor did they claim the right to administer the Sacraments. The English Church was confronted with the alternative of either making its doors wider, so as to make it possible for the newly converted multitudes to find a congenial home within it; or of keeping its doors rigidly narrow, and sokeeping the people out. The latter course was the one adopted. The leaders of the Church remained stiff, unsympathetic, and aloof. For years the small band of Methodist clergy strove hard to obtain recognition, having to perform the difficult task of restraining the eagerness of their own more extreme followers. To most of them, if not to all, the thought of a break with the Church was extremely repugnant; and they were prepared to go great lengths to make such a thing unnecessary. But on one point they remained firm: the people must have the preaching, and the religious services which they found to be of most spiritual value to them. If the Church could provide this, so much the better; if it refused, then secession must be bravely faced. In 1802 the Rev. Thomas Charles (better known as Charles o'r Bala) issued hisVindication, in which he repudiated the name "Dissenter," proved the absolute identity of the Methodists with the Church in creed, and made a last appeal for recognition. The appeal met with no response; and at the Association which met at Bala in 1811 Charles himself, while still protesting his preference for episcopal ordination, ordained eight preachers, of whom the great John Elias wasone. This implied a definite breach with the Church. The great body of Methodists formed themselves into a new Church, with its own constitution and its own Confession of Faith. It became known as the Calvinistic Methodist Church. But even then six Methodist clergymen refused to quit the Establishment.
Throughout the nineteenth century Nonconformity flourished abundantly in Wales. The Revival had not only produced the Calvinistic Methodists, but had given a new and powerful impetus to the older sects; and between them they claimed the allegiance of the vast majority of Welsh people. The young Welshman, and even more so the foreigner, finds it a little difficult to understand the enormous place which the Chapel filled in the life of Wales during the greater part of the century. Those little plain square buildings, scattered so profusely all over Wales, so ugly in the eyes of the tourist, yet so sacred to those who dwell around them; what was the secret of their power and their charm? To-day there are many competing institutions—the school, the college, the club, and the library; but in those days the chapel was everything. In the pulpit the artistic soul of Wales found its full expression, as ithas never quite succeeded in doing anywhere else. Its poetry (if we except its hymns), good as much of it is, never even approaches the very best. Its painting and its sculpture are almost non-existent. Even in music Wales has not given to the world anything of real distinction, and of abiding value. But between 1780 and 1880 it produced successive generations of preachers, who brought pulpit oratory to a point that has never been surpassed, even if it has been equalled, by any other nation before or since. Even to-day, when oratory has declined, and when there are so many competing attractions, there is nothing that the Welshman loves so well as a Preaching Meeting. Five thousand people will still come together eagerly to the village green on one of these great occasions. At six o'clock in the morning two sermons, averaging each an hour in length, will be delivered. These will be followed, at ten o'clock, by two others of the same length. In the afternoon two more will be delivered. The day will close with yet another two, or sometimes three, such sermons; and the multitude will disperse over hill and moor to their scattered homes, discussing the great feats of oratory to which they havelistened, quoting and conferring with discrimination, and singing, for the twentieth time that day, some favourite hymn.
The accounts which we possess, written by eyewitnesses, of some of the effects produced by the great preachers make marvellous reading. In the hands of a John Elias, a Henry Rees, or a John Jones, the vast congregation, standing before them throughout the long summer hours, would be like clay. From tears to laughter, from ecstatic joy to the profoundest sorrow and the most poignant terror, it would be moved by a word, or even a gesture. So realistic and dramatic was the preaching of John Elias that, on one occasion when he was describing the Almighty letting the arrow fly from his bow, the whole vast audience parted in two in order to allow passage for the shaft. So powerful was the voice of Owen Thomas that, preaching at Bangor his accents could be distinctly heard in Anglesey across the Menai Straits. Needless to say, scenes of the most uncontrolled enthusiasm would prevail. Fear of Hell, and hope of Heaven would alternate in the hearts of the congregation; but in all the utterances of the greatest preachers the dominant note was the compelling love of God in Christ.
In the chapel, and in the federation of chapels, the Welshman learnt the difficult art of self-government. The rule of the parson had been an autocratic one; that of the Nonconformist bodies was, from the first, democratic. Every official, including the Minister himself, was chosen by a direct vote of the whole congregation. Even in a further, and a different, sense Nonconformity was democratic. Its members were mainly drawn from the middle and lower classes; and its Ministers, until well advanced in life, were simple workmen—John Elias a weaver, Christmas Evans a farm servant, John Jones a quarryman, Williams o'r Wern a carpenter. The doors of the Universities were closed against them; and Glyndwr's University of Wales was still an unrealized dream. They were the poor preachers of a poor people.
Did Nonconformity justify its existence? Was the life of Wales cleansed and elevated? The answer of the impartial historian must surely be an emphatic affirmative. Between the itinerary of the preacher Giraldus Cambrensis, and that of the preacher Howel Harris, a period of some five hundred and fifty years intervened; but it is difficult to see that the Welsh people were at all higher,mentally or morally, at the later date than they were at the earlier one. But add another hundred years, and no chance visitor would suppose that he was seeing the same people.
The indirect effects of Nonconformity were, in their own way, as important as the direct. The Welshman, hitherto so careless and docile in his politics, became thoughtful and independent, having accustomed himself to government by discussion and voting in his chapel. He had learned to read in the Sunday School; and it was not long before he added to his Bible and his commentary a newspaper and a literary and political magazine. Every chapel would have its Literary Society; and by that means new ideas in poetry and music, in science and in philosophy would slowly be disseminated among the people. A modern scholar probably did not go too far when he declared that "Nonconformity found Wales derelict; it has reared up a new nation. It found Wales pagan; it has made her one of the most religious countries in the world. It found Wales ignorant; it has so stimulated her energies that by to-day Welshmen, largely by their own self-sacrifice, have provided for themselves the most complete educational system in Europe."
The new spirit which began to manifest itself in Wales in the eighteenth century took various forms. Of these, by far the most important was religion, and with that we have already dealt. The other forms were education, industrialism, politics, and literature; and among these, education claims the first place. It is impossible to make any clear distinction between religion and education; for the chapel, by its Sunday School, its Literary Society, its Bible Class, and its preaching was, for many years, a far more important agent of education than any school or college. Again it is not easy to determine whether that peculiarly Welsh institution, the Eisteddfod, belongs more properly to the domain of education, or to that of literature and art.
Ever since the first coming of Christianity into the country Wales had had its schools.In an earlier chapter we dwelt upon differences between the Celtic Church and that of Rome; and one of the most conspicuous of these differences was its greater insistence upon the value of culture and knowledge. There were Grammar Schools in Wales in the sixth century, just a hundred years before the establishment by Augustine of the first English school at Canterbury. In the turbulent times of the Middle Ages these schools deteriorated sadly; still the lamp of learning was never wholly extinguished. Such as they were, the mediæval schools were connected with the monasteries, and with the dissolution of those foundations they too ceased to exist. A few Welshmen were always to be found at Oxford, and we have seen how they flocked back to their native land to participate in the rising of Glyndwr. The Tudor union of the two nations made intercourse much more easy; and, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the number of Welsh students at the old Universities greatly increased. They were further encouraged by the establishment of Jesus College, Oxford, a wholly Welsh foundation. But it is needless to say that it was only the sons of the gentry, and young men about to enter upon anecclesiastical career, who were able to avail themselves of these advantages. The great bulk of the middle class, and the whole of the lower classes, remained without any sort of direct education.
The Reformation period witnessed the founding of many new Grammar Schools, both in England and Wales. The new Established Church prided itself upon the possession of "sound learning"; and the schools were under its auspices. But these schools were all in the towns; and the instruction given in them was entirely in English, and by teachers who knew not a word of Welsh. The country districts remained untaught, as too did the vast majority of the people who, knowing no English, were unable to profit by the new schools.
Good people in London seemed to have felt an occasional qualm at the thought of the ignorance which prevailed across the Welsh border. For example, we hear of Oliver Cromwell and Richard Baxter playing with the idea of a Welsh University. In the last years of the seventeenth century an effort was made to provide Welsh children with instruction in the English language, and to circulate the Bible, the Prayer Book,and certain other books in Welsh. Archbishop Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Thomas Gouge, and James Owen founded a society for that purpose; and it was so far successful that about a thousand poor Welsh children were taught every year. In 1701 the work of the society was taken over by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. Lending libraries were formed, charity schools established, and much good work done. All these efforts, however, were eclipsed by the famous "Circulating Schools" of the Rev. Griffith Jones.
This remarkable man, the "morning star of the Revival" as he has been called, was born in 1684, at Cilrhedyn, and educated at the Carmarthen Grammar School. After holding the living of Llandeloi for five years, he became Vicar of Llanddowror. He was fully impressed with the desirability of providing education for the poorer Welsh children, and especially for those whose homes lay in the country districts. As it was clearly not feasible to provide a sufficient number of stationary schools, he hit upon the happy device of having circulating ones. Much help was given to him, and much encouragement in his enterprise by Sir John Phillips, thepioneer of the Charity Schools movement; by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and by Madame Bevan of Llacharn. The success of the undertaking was startling, and well-nigh instantaneous. Within ten years a hundred schools had been established; while within thirty years the number had swollen to between three and four thousand. The total number of scholars amounted to a hundred-and-sixty thousand. For the instruction of the teachers a seminary was established. Apart from subscriptions given by benefactors, the whole cost was borne by a collection made in church during the Communion Service. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this enterprise. It helped to preserve Welsh as a literary language. It taught a considerable part of the population to read the Bible. It prepared the way for the Revival which was at the door, and gave to the Revivalists a solid foundation upon which to build. Griffith Jones died in 1761; but the schools went on. In 1780 they were suspended, owing to a lawsuit; but in 1809 the scheme again came into operation.
The next momentous step forward in Welsh education was the starting of Sunday Schools, by Charles of Bala. This was one of thedirect results of the Revival. From that day to the present the influence of these schools has been incalculably great. Children had their place in them; but their primary function was the education of adults. The term "school" when applied to them is somewhat misleading; they were rather small study-circles, presided over by a democratically chosen leader, and, with the Bible as text-book, discussing almost every question pertaining to this world and the next. Sunday Schools were quickly adopted by all the Nonconformist bodies, and by the Episcopal Church as well; and among the former at least church membership implied membership of the school. Owing to this the minds of the people of Wales became saturated with the Scriptures. The geography of Palestine was more familiar to them than that of England. Bible stories, Bible arguments, and Bible metaphors were become interwoven with the very texture of their thought. Huxley once pointed out that no man who possessed a good knowledge of the Bible could be considered uncultured; and Ruskin maintained that to know by heart some of its greatest passages was to make the writing of an undistinguished style impossible.To these admirable results must be added, in the case of Wales, the training in reasoning, in dialectic, and in controversial fair-play which the Schools supplied.
Coming to the nineteenth century, we find efforts to improve educational facilities in Wales so numerous and so varied as to be positively bewildering. The important date to remember is 1846. Prior to that landmark, efforts of a voluntary kind had been made by the National Society, and by the British Society. In that year a Royal Commission was appointed to make a thorough investigation into the condition of education in the Principality. When the Commission issued its report, a year later, a great outcry was raised in Wales; for it was discovered that it had gone much beyond the limits assigned to it for enquiry, and had made strictures, many of them demonstrably false, and others offensively expressed, upon the moral and religious condition of the people. The enquiry has been known in Wales, ever since, as "Brad y Llyfrau Gleision" (The Treason of the Blue Books). Nevertheless the Commission had done good work in that it had aroused interest in the question of education, and had impressed upon Parliament, and public men generally, thenecessity of dealing with it. There was, in consequence, a decided quickening of the educational life of Wales; and, down to 1870, a steady increase in the number of schools, as well as an improvement in the quality of the teachers. In 1870 the separate history of elementary education in Wales comes to an end; for it was then assimilated in almost every respect to that of England.
An increase in the number of schools and scholars involved an increase also in the number of teachers; and to supply them proved to be one of the most difficult of problems. The salary paid was so low that no man who had been to a University could be expected to accept it. As yet there were no secular colleges in Wales, and but few secondary schools. A few truly excellent secondary schools there were; establishments like Ystrad Meurig, from which, for a considerable period, Bishops used to ordain young men without any additional training. The result was that schoolmasters were generally grossly incompetent, being one-legged army sergeants, or retired sailors, with no knowledge of Wales, and but little knowledge of anything. And not only were they ignorant, but they were also snobs of the most contemptible kind,toadying to the vicar and the squire, whose henchmen they were, and never hesitating to express their detestation and scorn of everything Welsh. A poor farm boy, who afterwards became one of Oxford's most brilliant scholars, has left, in his inimitableClych Atgof, a half-amusing, half-pathetic account of his troubles in early life with teachers of this kind.
In 1846 there was only one normal college in the whole of Wales. To this were added two Church of England teachers' training colleges, the one at Carmarthen, the other at Bangor; and, in 1862, was established a second normal college. Sir Hugh Owen, one of the most illustrious names in the list of great Welshmen, had begun to agitate for a connecting link between elementary schools and places of higher education. No schools were then founded; but a "North Wales Scholarship Association" was formed; and this afforded much valuable assistance prior to the coming of the County School. The Magna Carta of secondary education in Wales was the Intermediate Education Act of 1889. This Act provided for the levying of a half-penny rate in all the Welsh counties by the County Councils. In every county a joint education committee was to be appointed todeal with existing endowments and buildings; and, where necessary, to provide new schools under the management of the recently appointed local bodies. In order that greater uniformity might be acquired, a Central Welsh Board was constituted, to which was entrusted the duty of supervising the schools generally, inspecting them, and examining the pupils. The Board continues to exercise some of its functions, but now shares a dual control with the Welsh Department of the Board of Education, a Department which was created as a concession to nationalist aspirations. From the commencement the success of the new Intermediate Schools was phenomenal. Schools starting with ten pupils would, in a dozen years, have two hundred or more. Of large gifts given by the rich there were very few. Apart from grants made by the Government, the schools depended upon the small, but generous, contributions of the poor. In the early days of their history they were admirably served by as devoted and far-sighted a body of teachers as any schools have ever been fortunate enough to possess. Only in recent years has the voice of hostile criticism been heard.
Side by side with reforms in elementaryand secondary education marched the reform of higher education. The Established Church had depended upon Oxford and Cambridge for the training of its clergy; but the Dissenting Churches soon discovered the need of colleges of their own. The first to be founded seems to have been the Academy of Brynllywarch, in 1662. Eventually this was moved to Carmarthen, where it became the progenitor of the present College. We have already had occasion to allude to the founding of a college at Trevecka, by Lady Huntingdon; but this was moved to Cheshunt in 1792. A Welsh Methodist college was, however, opened there in 1842. In 1836 Dr. Lewis Edwards opened a Methodist college for North Wales at Bala. The Episcopal Church, feeling the need of a college at which living would be cheap, opened a college at Lampeter, and that became the first Welsh college possessing the power to confer degrees. Other denominations possessing colleges, many of them dating back to the eighteenth century or even earlier, reorganized them, and, in some cases, transferred them to new localities. In this way the Congregational colleges at Brecon and Bangor, and the Baptist college at Bangor came into existence.
But excellent as was the work done by these seminaries in preparing men for the Christian Ministry, educationally the central theme of interest is the movement which culminated in the foundation of the University of Wales. The idea was as old as Owen Glyndwr; it had been discussed by Cromwell; but it was not until 1853 that a powerful popular agitation was started on its behalf. A memorable meeting was held in London in the following year, attended by Hugh Owen, George Osborne Morgan, Lewis Edwards and others, at which the idea was fully debated. Nothing further, however, was done until 1863, when another meeting was held, at which a resolution in favour of a national University was carried, and an executive committee appointed. An attempt to persuade the authorities of Lampeter to unite in forming one unsectarian University failed; and the committee proceeded with the heavy task of collecting money. From 1871 until his death Sir Hugh Owen gave the whole of his time to this work. The appeal met with a warm response; and in 1872 Aberystwyth College was opened, having been secured literally with the pennies and the shillings of a hard-working peasantry. From the start it was felt to be a real nationalpossession; and that feeling was deepened by the appointment of the saintly scholar-preacher, Dr. Thomas Charles Edwards, to be its first Principal. For ten years the College received no grant at all from the Treasury; yet it continued to flourish in ever-increasing measure. So successful was the venture that, in 1883, a similar College, for the use of South Wales, was opened at Cardiff; and in 1884 this was followed by one at Bangor. But so far the Colleges had no charter of incorporation, and were without the power to confer degrees. A further agitation in favour of an incorporation of the three Colleges in one University of Wales was set on foot. In this agitation the chief part was played by the Cymmrodorion, a society which, in the course of its long history, has conferred untold benefits upon Wales. When due investigation had been made, and the proposed charter had been fully discussed in Parliament, it was granted; and in 1893 the Welsh University came into being, with Lord Aberdare as its first Chancellor. Its success has been wonderful and sustained, and it is only with difficulty that the Colleges have been able to cope with the many hundreds of students who flock to them. So great hasthe pressure been, that it has since been found necessary to found a fourth constituent College, at Swansea. In most respects the Colleges are similar; but a particular branch of knowledge may be provided for in one, and not in the others. Thus Cardiff possesses a Medical School, Aberystwyth a Law School, and Bangor a Theological School. Aberystwyth is also the home of the Welsh Director of Musical Studies, and of the Wilson Chair of International Politics.
The work of the Universities has been helped and stimulated by the establishment of a National Museum at Cardiff, and a National Library at Aberystwyth.
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The political awakening in Wales came considerably later than the religious and the educational awakening; and when it did come it was largely as a consequence of the others. We have seen how, in the period of the Civil War, the Principality was almost wholly Royalist; and when two distinct political parties came to be formed at Westminster, in the closing years of the seventeenth century, it gave its steady support to the Tories. It is with shame that the historian is forced to admit that Welsh lawyers like the infamousJudge Jeffreys were among the most brazen and unscrupulous agents of Stuart tyranny. But just as there were a few Parliamentarians in Wales in the reign of Charles I, so also in the reign of James II there were a few prominent Welshmen, who gave strong support to the Revolution and the Bill of Rights. With the reign of Anne Wales settled down to the quiet Toryism from which it was not roused for over a hundred years. It is interesting to note that, as in the case of France, the first note of discord was heard among the men-of-letters. We hear it in the writings of Jack Glan-y-Gors, and in those of Iolo. But their rebellious sentiments found no echo in the hearts of the people; and the great leaders of the Revival were either strictly non-political, or else Tory. Nor did the French Revolution do much to rouse the country. An almost solitary exception was the philosopher-preacher Richard Price, the supporter of the American rebels, and the defender of the rights of man. He does not occupy a prominent place in history; but the man who occasioned theReflections on the French Revolutionof Burke, and who earned an able vindication from the pen of John Morley, certainly merits a passing allusion.
The Reform Act of 1832, which raised the number of Welsh Members from twenty-seven to thirty-two, seems to have made no alteration in the politics of the country; but soon afterwards the topics which were going to be fought over so passionately before the close of the century, began to emerge and to define themselves—the right of the Welshman to live his own life in his own way, to speak his own language, and to worship in his own chosen mode. It meant the recapturing of the lost dignity of Welsh nationality. In the eighteenth century Welshmen had, almost contentedly, sunk into a position of inferiority, and had never dreamed of asserting their claim to a place of equality in the Empire in which they were now, by law, partners. The cleavage between the newly anglicised gentry, and the middle and lower classes, had become wider; and after the Revival, to the difference of language, was further added the difference of religion. That any Welshman should aspire to occupy a position of trust and distinction would be scouted. Goronwy Owen, a curate in the Church of England, and the greatest Welsh poet, and possibly the greatest prose stylist too, of the eighteenth century, writes in one of his charming letters in 1753: "Doyou ever expect to see a Welshman a Bishop? Sooner would I give credence to the Brut which promises the second coming of Owain Lawgoch than expect ever to see a Welshman holding an office of the least distinction in either Church or State."
South Wales was rapidly becoming industrialized; and the Chartist Movement found there, and even more in the small manufacturing towns of the Severn valley, places like Llanidloes, and Newtown, the home of Robert Owen, many followers. All through the centuries, owing to its geographical position, Wales had been influenced by two things, isolation and contact; isolation from all kindred beyond the seas, and contact with its unfriendly neighbours on the land side. In the ancient Hellenic world the sea united; but for the Celtic races it has been a barrier to divide. Between the Celt of Ireland and the Celt of Wales intercourse was always slight and intermittent; while between the Welshman and the Breton there was hardly any intercourse at all. Unlike his Breton kinsman, the Welshman has never taken kindly to the sea; he has looked at it, and then raised his eyes to the mountains. He became a farmer, and not a fisherman or a sailor; and when he did look out at the greatworld he did so through the English window. This geographical isolation led also to a human isolation, which is a very marked characteristic of the Welsh nation. Fortunately the nation had been fully formed before the close of the eighteenth century, otherwise the combined influence of English political, social, and religious ascendancy might have swept away every vestige of the fine cultural inheritance of the past. In the great fight which began in 1832, and which occupied eighty years, Wales came out victorious in religion, in politics, in education, and in social matters. Even industrialism, the most potent foe of nationality, was kept at bay; and between it and the Welsh spirit the contest still goes on. With the Industrial Revolution itself, enormous as its influence was, we need not concern ourselves here; for in Wales it followed practically the same course as in England. The mineral wealth of Wales had been tapped by the Romans; but a new impetus was given to mining by the invention of the steam engine, of improved machinery, and by the new means of transport which came into being in the first half of the nineteenth century. In many parts of the land agriculture had to yield place to quarrying and mining; for there was slate in Carnarvon and Merioneth, copperin Anglesey, zinc in Denbigh, lead in Flint and Montgomery, gold in Merioneth, silver in Cardigan, and iron and coal in both North and South Wales. At first iron was regarded as the most important, coal being valued only for the part which it played in smelting operations. With the coming of Guest to Dowlais, and of Crashay to Merthyr, towards the close of the eighteenth century, the industry began to expand rapidly in Glamorganshire and Monmouth. It was not until the middle of the following century that the coal industry became important in itself; but once its importance was recognised, it was worked with the utmost energy, and exported to every part of the world. To-day upwards of a quarter of a million men work in the pits, and more than half the total population of Wales is contained in the mining valleys. The majority of these labourers are not Welsh; for to the pits, and to the great ports on the Bristol Channel, immigration has been taking place regularly, and on an enormous scale. Except for the thinly populated counties of Cardigan, Pembroke and Carmarthen, South Wales is no longer Welsh in any sense of the word, and it has ceased to sympathize with the political, the cultural, and the religious ideals of the North. This is the most difficultproblem with which Welsh statesmen are to-day confronted.
While the Chartist Movement was in full swing, the Rebecca Riots broke out. The new roads which had just been constructed were maintained by tolls, which were levied at turnpike gates placed at short intervals along them. As there were no railways, and as the small farmers of Cardigan and Carmarthen had often to carry great quantities of lime, for the fertilization of their land, over thirty or forty miles, the tax became an extremely burdensome one. Finding that protests availed nothing, some of the younger men, in 1843, disguised as women, broke the obnoxious gates in pieces. Their unruly conduct had two beneficial effects—it drew attention to a real grievance, and it taught the Welsh people to look to Parliament to redress their wrongs.
About this time newspapers began to be founded; and their effect upon the political life of the country was immediate and immense. Without exception they were democratic, and nationalist in the wider sense. The history of the Welsh Press is a heroic record. These little papers hardly ever secured a sufficiently big circulation to make them self-supporting. Their owners, themselves far from rich, were true patriots, andwere content to suffer financial loss year after year.Seren Gomerwas first started in 1814, and revived in 1818. In 1835 appearedYr Haul, andY Diwygiwr. But it was not untilYr Amseraubegan to appear in 1843, under the editorship of the great poet-preacher Gwilym Hiraethog, that Welsh journalism quite realized what it was capable of doing. At last the Welsh people had found an adequate mouthpiece. Soon the "Letters of the Old Farmer" began to appear inYr Amserau; and throughout the troubled, but inspiring, period of Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Kossuth, this paper continued to give Wales a democratic and strong liberal lead. It fought energetically for the repeal of the Corn Laws; and it was the first paper to tell the people clearly—"The enemy is the landlord." From that day, down to the outbreak of the Great War, the political history of Wales consists of an unceasing struggle for the freedom of the tenant, and for the freedom of Nonconformity. Meanwhile other papers and journals were being established. Dr. Lewis Edwards foundedY Traetliodydd; and the articles contributed by him to it, when collected and published in a volume, became the Welsh counterpart of Macaulay's Essays. An able journalist, signing himself "S.R.",vigorously championed the cause of the poor and the oppressed in hisCronicl. He was a Free Trader, he condemned war, he opposed landlordism, and he advocated a penny postage before anybody else had done so. But perhaps the greatest of all the journalists was Thomas Gee of Denbigh. In 1854 he issued a Welsh Encyclopedia, a mammoth work first issued in parts, and afterwards bound in many volumes, which brought the most up-to-date knowledge into the homes of the people, in their own language, and at a price which they could afford to pay. Three years later he started a weekly paper calledBaner Cymru, with whichYr Amserauwas amalgamated in 1859. The paper won instant popularity; and when the weekly letter of its political correspondent—"Y Gohebydd"—began to appear, its success was assured. No paper did more for the political emancipation, and education, of the people, and to direct their thoughts towards the House of Commons. It would not be long before they claimed to send Welsh speaking democrats to represent them. The supremacy of the squire and the parson was approaching its end.
The closing years of the nineteenth century, and the early years of the twentieth, saw a wonderful literary efflorescence in Wales.TheCymruand theGeninenset and maintained a high standard of accuracy, learning, and art. Owen M. Edwards edited cheap reprints of all the Welsh classics; and himself wrote travel books, whose graceful style, delightful humour, and frequent passages of moving eloquence, entitle them to rank with theReisebilderof Heinrich Heine. The beautiful, but not always idiomatic, prose of the Welsh Bible, had become much more ornate, stiff, and difficult in the hands of Ellis Wynne, whoseBardd Cwscis, nevertheless, the finest work of creative genius in the Welsh language. Goronwy Owen, and Dr. Lewis Edwards, employed a much more flexible style; but it was not until the rise of Owen Edwards that the full possibilities of Welsh prose, as a vehicle for expressing modern ideas, became manifest. Welsh poetry there had always been an abundance of; starting with the obscure bards of the sixth century, and the Arthurian legends, passing through the warlike minstrels of the Middle Ages, to the sweet, but shallow, love poems of Davydd ap Gwilym. Then came a long period of monotonous and mediocre versifying; until real poetry again began to be produced by Goronwy Owen. A touch of sublimity in an occasional poem of Ishryn,and the true lyric flavour of much of Ceiriog, place these two men in the front rank of Welsh poets. The older poetry is couched in intricate and artificial metres, the twenty-four varieties of which every bard was expected to show an acquaintance with. But of late there has been a tendency to discard these, and to write more freely and naturally. There are some genuine poets in Wales to-day; but their home seems to be the college lecture-room and not the old home of the bards, the Eisteddfod.
Never has Welsh so flourished as a literary language as at present. At least nineteen weekly Welsh papers are published in Wales, eighteen monthlies, and six quarterlies; in addition to which Liverpool has its own Welsh weekly, the United States one, and Patagonia one. The output of Welsh books is not very large, but it cannot be computed at much less than a hundred in the course of every year. And Welsh is not only widely read, it is also widely spoken. In North Wales, and in at least two counties in the South it is still the language of the home, of the playground, and of public worship. And wherever the Welshman goes he carries his language with him. In America, in Patagonia, in Africa, and in Australia, there are Welsh colonies, withWelsh societies and Welsh chapels. In the United States alone the number of Welsh chapels is close upon four hundred. In Great Britain, outside Wales, the tale is the same. The numerous Welshmen who have left their own quiet homes in order to push their fortunes in the great cities have never forgotten the traditions of their youth. London has over thirty Welsh places of worship, Liverpool about the same number, Manchester nine, Birmingham four, and Bristol three, while many other English, Scottish, and Irish towns have at least one each.
The political calm of Wales was broken in 1859, the year of the last but one of the great Revivals. There was a General Election, and the tenant farmers of Merioneth decided, for the first time, that they would refuse to vote for the landlord's nominee, and would run a candidate of their own. Ruthless evictions followed; and ere long it had become the settled policy of most of the great estate holders to examine into the political, and even the religious, views of their tenants, and to expel all Radicals and Nonconformists. Persecution, however, only stiffened the determination of the people; and the contest went on. The Reform Act of 1867 helped the democratic movement; and in the followingyear Henry Richard was returned at the head of the poll at Merthyr Tydvil. Richard was one of the most able, and most interesting men of the day, and would have been an ornament to any representative assembly. As an advocate of peace he became known all over Europe; and was the first Welshman, in modern times, to occupy an international position. At the same Election seven Liberals were returned for Wales. Fresh evictions followed, and Welsh farmers emigrated in scores to the United States. But a measure of relief was at hand: in 1872 the Ballot Act was passed. From that day Liberalism swept onwards from victory to victory. In 1886 Tom Ellis, the noblest and most far-sighted of the men sent by Wales to Parliament, was elected for Merionethshire. Four years later David Lloyd George became Member for Carnarvonshire, and in the same year Samuel Evans (afterwards to become a famous President of the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Court) was elected for Glamorgan.
Wales had now won full political recognition, and its members were in a position to bargain with the Liberal leaders for the inclusion of such measures as Welsh Disestablishment and Disendowment in the party programme. After long waiting, and much acrimoniousdiscussion, that measure became law in 1914. It was a great act of justice, and its benefits have been felt by the formerly Established Church no less than by the Free Churches. Indeed, one of the most wonderful and hopeful things in the recent history of Wales is the way in which the new Welsh Church has organized itself, and adapted itself to the new situation. It is now a truly national body, with its own Archbishop and a thoroughly democratic constitution, in which the lay element counts for at least as much as the clerical.
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Thus from being the last refuge of hunted tribesmen, a land swept time after time by the tide of invasion, Wales has come to be actively and amicably associated with England in her high destinies. Everywhere Welshmen are participating to the uttermost in the wider life of the Empire. In all the professions, in literature, in the arts, in trade, in the Civil Service, in the Army, in the Navy, and in the Diplomatic Corps they are winning distinction for themselves.
The outlook in Wales is full of promise. The old period of antagonism between Welshmen and Englishmen seems, happily, to have come to an end. The democracy has won the day; and all obstacles in the way of thedevelopment of what genius lies hidden in the people have been removed. Home Rule is sometimes spoken of, but it is generally by theorists and doctrinaire pedants. Most patriotic Welshmen would be content with a slightly increased measure of local autonomy. The vast majority of the nation are satisfied that equality of opportunity for all the inhabitants of the British Isles, irrespective of race, has been achieved, and that in literature, in art, in music, in scholarship, in the professions, in politics, and in commerce there is nothing to hinder a Welshman from winning any distinction he may merit. The discordant cry of the extreme nationalist is occasionally heard, with its glorification of all that is vulgar and unworthy of preservation in the Welsh tradition. But this wins little sympathy. As a whole the people have seen a fairer vision than that of an independent Wales: the vision of a Commonwealth living a life of ordered prosperity; upholding and illustrating the great principles of justice, equality, and freedom, to secure which so many eyes have been dimmed with tears and so many fields sodden with blood; a Commonwealth in which Wales, in virtue of its splendid tradition of passionate idealism and of tireless spiritual effort, shall enjoy a foremost place.
The following passages are intended to illustrate within short compass the spirit of the Welsh classical prose writers. For the selection the author is indebted to Mr. John Lloyd's admirable anthologyLlyfr Darllen ac Ysgrifennu; but the translation into English is his own. The attempt to translate Welsh poetry is too difficult to be essayed except by a man of peculiar gifts; and Wales is still waiting for its Edward FitzGerald.
The first passage is from theMabinogion, a twelfth-century compilation containing a large number of ancient tales of love, romance, and war.
"How long soever they may have been on the way, they came at last to Dyfed, and went in quest of Arberth. They kindled a fire, and began to eat and to hunt, and in that manner spent a month. They assembled their dogs about them, and so remained a year. Now one morning Manawyddan and Pryderi arose to go out hunting, and got their dogs ready to depart from the court.And some of the dogs behaved in this fashion: they walked ahead, and reached a small bush close by; and as soon as they had reached the bush they instantly fled quickly back, their hair on end, and returned to their masters. 'Let us approach the bush,' said Pryderi, 'that we may see what it contains.' They approached the bush, and when they had approached, beheld a white tree boar rising out of it. Then the dogs, encouraged by the men, rushed upon it. And the boar, for its part, left the bush, and went some distance away from the men. When the men were at some distance it would bark at the dogs; but when the men drew near it again fled, and ceased to bark. And they followed the boar until they beheld a great and noble fortress newly built, where before they had never seen either stone or building. And the boar ran swiftly to the fortress, the dogs following it. And when the boar and the dogs had entered the fort they wondered at seeing a fortress where previously they had seen no building. And from the top of the throne they gazed, and listened for the dogs. But long as they waited they heard not a sound of the dogs. 'My lord,' said Pryderi, 'I will go to the fortress to enquire for the dogs.' 'Truly thou artill-advised,' answered he, 'to go to this fort which thou hast never before seen; and if thou wilt follow my advice go thou wilt not. He who hath laid a charm upon the land must have built this fortress here.' 'Yet truly loth am I to lose my dogs,' answered Pryderi. But in spite of the counsel which he had received from Manawyddan, Pryderi would go to the fortress. When he came to it he saw nothing within, neither man nor animal, neither boar nor dogs, house nor courtyard. But in the centre of the fortress he beheld a well of marble, and by its side a golden vessel standing upon a marble slab, and chains stretching upwards towards the sky, the ends of which he could not see. Great was his delight at the beauty of the gold, and at the fine workmanship of the vessel. And he came to the vessel and laid hold of it. And as he laid hold of the vessel his hands stuck to it, and his feet to the slab upon which the vessel stood; and he was bereft of speech, so that he could utter no word. And thus he remained.
Manawyddan waited for him till the close of the day. And in the evening, believing that he should receive no more tidings of Pryderi, nor of the dogs, he returned to the court."
The next passage is fromGweledigaethau y Bardd Cwsc(Visions of the Sleeping Bard) of Ellis Wynne.
"On a fine afternoon of ripe and sultry summer, I betook me to the summit of one of the mountains of Wales; and with me a telescope, to help my failing sight to see things distant near at hand, and things small large. Through the clear air, and the quiet haze I could discern, far across the Irish Sea, many a delightful sight. At last, after feeding my eyes upon every sort of delight around me until the sun had almost reached his fortress in the west, I laid myself down upon the grass, musing upon the superior beauty and comeliness of the distant lands of whose kindly plains I had caught a glimpse; and envying the happy lot of those who behold their full beauty and had seen the course of the world. And so, by much travail of my eyes, and afterwards of my mind, I became weary, and in company with weariness came my Master Sleep stealthily to bind me; and with his leaden keys he locked the windows of my eyes securely, and also all my other senses. Yet was it useless for him to attempt to lock up the Soul, which can live and travel without the body; for my spirit escaped on wings of fancy out of the locked body."
The third extract is from Daniel Owen, greatest of Welsh novelists.
"The office in which the Old Soldier held his school was a long and narrow building. Around it was a hard and bent form; and connected with it a desk which rested against the wall. One of the first things I noticed was that there was hardly a square inch of the desk's surface upon which a picture, a figure, or a name had not been carved. At the far end of the schoolroom, close to the fire, was the master's desk; and beneath it was a hole which, as I afterwards learnt, was for the master to insert his wooden leg into when he sat down. On my first entrance into the school I saw a strange and novel sight. All the boys were present, some on top of the desk, some on each other's backs playing horses and prancing round the school. One boy—a cripple with a crutch—was trying to mimic the master, sitting at the desk, his crutch thrust through the hole, and calling vainly for order. The scene changed every minute; and everyone shouted for all he was worth except one boy, who stood on top of the desk by the window, dividing his attention between the play and the road by which the master would approach. I felt strangely at the time, and believed that Ihad come amongst a most wicked set of boys, and that my mother, if only she knew what they were like, would never allow me to come again. On the other hand I thought it was the best place for fun that I had ever seen. But my predominant feeling at the time was a kind of painful strangeness and shyness; for Wil Bryan had left me by myself, and had joined eagerly in the games. While I was possessed by these feelings I saw the boy at the window put his two fingers to his mouth and give a shrill whistle; and in a twinkling every boy was in his place breathing quickly. I knew perfectly well that I should look foolish enough standing like a cold monument all by myself by the door when the Soldier came in. He passed me without pretending to see me. He looked angry and disturbed; and I perceived at once that the watchman had not sounded the warning sufficiently soon, and that the master had heard all the deafening uproar. He went immediately to his desk, whence he produced a long and powerful cane. I saw the boys bending in readiness, while the Soldier went about the school thrashing cruelly everybody without distinction. I was the only boy who did not taste the cane, and yet I was the only boy that wept, for I was greatly frightened."