in which
they have been handed down to us scarcely older than the fourteenth
century. In interest they almost vie with the 'Arabian Nights,' with
which, however, they have nothing else in common, notwithstanding that
all other European tales--those of Russia not excepted--are evidently
modifications of, or derived from the same source as the Arabian stories.
Of these Cumric legends two translations exist: the first, which was
never published, made towards the concluding part of the last century by
William Owen, who eventually assumed the name of Owen Pugh, the writer of
the immortal Welsh and English Dictionary, and the translator into Welsh
of 'Paradise Lost;' the second by the fair and talented Lady Charlotte
Guest, which first made these strange, glorious stories known to England
and all the world.

The sixth and last grand prose work of the Welsh is the 'Sleeping Bard,'
a moral allegory, written about the beginning of the last century by Elis
Wyn, a High-Church Welsh clergyman, a translation of which, by George
Borrow, is now before us:--

'The following translation of the Sleeping Bard,' says Mr. Borrow, in
his preface, 'has long existed in manuscript. It was made by the
writer of these lines in the year 1830, at the request of a little
Welsh bookseller of his acquaintance, who resided in the rather
unfashionable neighbourhood of Smithfield, and who entertained an
opinion that a translation of the work of Elis Wyn would enjoy a
great sale, both in England and Wales. On the eve of committing it
to the press, however, the Cambrian Briton felt his small heart give
way within him: "Were I to print it," said he, "I should be ruined.
The terrible descriptions of vice and torment would frighten the
genteel part of the English public out of its wits, and I should to a
certainty be prosecuted by Sir James Scarlett. I am much obliged to
you for the trouble you have given yourself on my account--but myn
Diawl! I had no idea, till I had read him in English, that Elis Wyn
had been such a terrible fellow."

'Yet there is no harm in the book. It is true that the author is
anything but mincing in his expressions and descriptions, but there
is nothing in the Sleeping Bard which can give offence to any but the
over fastidious. There is a great deal of squeamish nonsense in the
world; let us hope, however, that there is not so much as there was.