RROW.

Another letter that Borrow owed to his _Wild Wales_ may well have place
here. It will be recalled that in his fortieth chapter he waxes
enthusiastic over Lewis Morris, the Welsh bard, who was born in Anglesey
in 1700 and died in 1765. Morris's great-grandson, Sir Lewis Morris
(1833-1907), the author of the once popular _Epic of Hades_, was
twenty-nine years of age when he wrote to Borrow as follows:--

To George Borrow, Esq.

REFORM CLUB, _Dec. 29, 1862._

SIR,--I have just finished reading your work on _Wild Wales_,
and cannot refrain from writing to thank you for the very
lifelike picture of the Welsh people, North and South, which,
unlike other Englishmen, you have managed to give us. To
ordinary Englishmen the language is of course an
insurmountable bar to any real knowledge of the people, and the
result is that within six hours of Paddington or Euston Square
is a country nibbled at superficially by droves of
holiday-makers, but not really better known than Asia Minor. I
wish it were possible to get rid of all obstacles which stand
in the way of the development of the Welsh people and the Welsh
intellect. In the meantime every book which like yours tends to
lighten the thick darkness which seems to hang round Wales
deserves the acknowledgments of every true Welshman. I am,
perhaps, more especially called upon to express my thanks for
the very high terms in which you speak of my great-grandfather,
Lewis Morris. I believe you have not said a word more than he
deserves. Some of the facts which you mention with regard to
him were unknown to me, and as I take a very great interest in
everything relating to my ancestor I venture to ask you whether
you can indicate any source of knowledge with regard to him and
his wife, other than those which I have at present--viz. an old
number of the _Cambrian Register_ and some notices of him in
the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1760-70. There is also a letter of
his in Lord Teignmouth's _Life of Sir William Jones_ in which
he claims kindred with that great scholar. Many of his
manuscript poems and much correspondence are now in the library
of the British Museum, most of them I regret to say a sealed
book to one who like myself had yet to learn Welsh. But I am
not the less anxious to learn all that can be