Ab
Gwilym than I have hitherto told you, the two or three words that I have
dropped having awakened within you a languid kind of curiosity. I have
no hesitation in saying that he makes one of the some half-dozen really
great poets whose verses, in whatever language they wrote, exist at the
present day, and are more or less known. It matters little how I first
became acquainted with the writings of this man, and how the short thick
volume, stuffed full with his immortal imaginings, first came into my
hands. I was studying Welsh, and I fell in with Ab Gwilym by no very
strange chance. But before I say more about Ab Gwilym, I must be
permitted--I really must--to say a word or two about the language in
which he wrote, that same "Sweet Welsh." If I remember right, I found
the language a difficult one; in mastering it, however, I derived
unexpected assistance from what of Irish remained in my head, and I soon
found that they were cognate dialects, springing from some old tongue
which itself, perhaps, had sprung from one much older. And here I cannot
help observing cursorily that I every now and then, whilst studying this
Welsh, generally supposed to be the original tongue of Britain,
encountered words which, according to the lexicographers, were venerable
words, highly expressive, showing the wonderful power and originality of
the Welsh, in which, however, they were no longer used in common
discourse, but were relics, precious relics, of the first speech of
Britain, perhaps of the world; with which words, however, I was already
well acquainted, and which I had picked up, not in learned books, classic
books, and in tongues of old renown, but whilst listening to Mr.
Petulengro and Tawno Chikno talking over their everyday affairs in the
language of the tents; which circumstance did not fail to give rise to
deep reflection in those moments when, planting my elbows on the deal
desk, I rested my chin upon my hands. But it is probable that I should
have abandoned the pursuit of the Welsh language, after obtaining a very
superficial acquaintance with it, had it not been for Ab Gwilym.

A strange songster was that who, pretending to be captivated by every
woman he saw, was, in reality, in love with nature alone--wild,
beautiful, solitary nature--her mountains and cascades, her forests and
streams, her birds, fishes, and wild animals. Go to, Ab Gwilym, with thy
pseudo-amatory odes, to Morfydd, or this or that other lady, fair or