The Poetry of Wales

Transcribed from the 1873 Houlston & Sons edition, by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
edited by JOHN JENKINS, Esq.
“I offer you a bouquet of culled flowers, I did not grow, only collect and arrange them.”—Par le Seigneur de Montaigne.
london: houlston & sons, paternoster square llanidloes: john pryse.
1873.
The Editor of this little Collection ventures to think it may in some measure supply a want which he has heard mentioned, not only in the Principality, but in England also. Some of the Editor’s English friends—themselves being eminent in literature—have said to him, “We have often heard that there is much of value in your literature and of beauty in your poetry. Why does not some one of your literati translate them into English, and furnish us with the means of judging for ourselves? We possess translated specimens of the literature, and especially the poetry of almost every other nation and people, and should feel greater interest in reading those of the aborigines of this country, with whom we have so much in common.” It was to gratify this wish that the Editor was induced to give his services in the present undertaking, from which he has received and will receive no pecuniary benefit; and his sole recompense will be the satisfaction of having attempted to extend and perpetuate some of the treasures and beauties of the literature of his native country.
The literature of a people always reflects their character. You may discover in the prose and poetry of a nation its social condition, and in their different phases its political progress. The age of Homer was the heroic, in which the Greeks excelled in martial exploits; that of Virgil found the Romans an intellectual and gallant race; the genius of Chaucer, Spencer and Sidney revelled in the feudal halls and enchanted vistas of the middle ages; Shakespeare delineated the British mind in its grave and comic moods; Milton reflected the sober aspect and spiritual aspirations of the Puritanical era; while at later periods Pope, Goldsmith and Cowper pourtrayed the softer features of an advanced civilization and milder times.