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"I will show you his monument, sir," then taking me into a dusky pew he pointed to a small rude tablet against the church wall and said: "That is his monument, sir." The tablet bore the following inscription, and below it a rude englyn on death not worth transcribing: Coffadwriaeth am THOMAS JONES Diweddar o'r Draws Llwyn yn y Plwyf hwn: Bu farw Chwefror 6 fed 1830 Yn 92 oed. Aged 92.
Leaving him we went some way up the principal street; presently my wife turned into a shop, and I observing a little bookstall went up to it and began to inspect the books. They were chiefly in Welsh. Seeing a kind of chap book, which bore on its title-page the name of Twm O'r Nant, I took it up.
The interlude I had never seen before, nor indeed any of the dramatic pieces of Twm O'r Nant, though I had frequently wished to procure some of them so I read the present one with great eagerness.
"There," said she, "is the portrait of Twm o'r Nant, generally called the Welsh Shakespeare." I looked at it. The Welsh Shakespeare was represented sitting at a table with a pen in his hand; a cottage-latticed window was behind him, on his left hand; a shelf with plates, and trenchers behind him, on his right.
The old gentleman concluded by saying that he had never read the works of Twm O'r Nant, but he had heard that his best piece was the interlude called "Pleasure and Care." The Treachery of the Long Knives The North Briton The Wounded Butcher The Prisoner. ON the tenth of September our little town was flung into some confusion by one butcher having attempted to cut the throat of another.
'She goes prowlin' about all day among the hills, as if she was a-lookin' for somebody; and she talks to somebody as she calls the Tywysog o'r Niwl, an' I know that's Welsh for the "Prince o' the Mist"; but back she comes at night. She talks to herself a good deal; and she sings to herself the Welsh gillies what Mrs.
"Ah," said the dame, "you know more about Tom o'r Nant than I do; and was he not a great poet?" "I daresay he was," said I, "for the pieces which he wrote, and which he called Interludes, had a great run, and he got a great deal of money by them, but I should say the lines beneath the portrait are more applicable to the real Shakespeare than to him."
His features were rude, but full of wild, strange expression; below the picture was the following couplet: "Llun Gwr yw llawn gwir Awen; Y Byd a lanwodd o'i Ben." "Did you ever hear of Twm o'r Nant?" said the old dame. "I never heard of him by word of mouth," said I; "but I know all about him I have read his life in Welsh, written by himself, and a curious life it is.
But setting aside those same skits at the Church, and that dislike of the church cat, venial trifles after all, and easily to be accounted for, on the score of his religious education, I found nothing to blame, and much to admire, in John Jones, the Calvinistic Methodist of Llangollen. Divine Service Llangollen Bells Iolo Goch The Abbey Twm o'r Nant Holy Well Thomas Edwards
John was a highly-intelligent lad, spoke Welsh and English fluently, could read, as he told me, both languages, and had some acquaintance with the writings of Twm o'r Nant, as he showed by repeating the following lines of the carter poet, certainly not the worst which he ever wrote: "Twm or Nant mae cant a'm galw, Tomas Edwards yw fy enw,"