“Elizaeus Wynne Cler. nuper Rector dignissimus huius ecclesiae sepultus est 17mo. die Julii 1734.” (From the parish register at Llanfair.)
[0f] “The Visions of the Sleeping Bard. First Part. Printed in London by E. Powell for the Author, 1703.”
[1a] The opening lines.—Ellis Wynne opens his vision as so many early English poets are wont, with a description of the season when, and the circumstances under which he fell asleep. Compare especially Langland’s Visions, prologus:
In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne
I went wyde in this world wondres to here,
Ac on a May mornynge on Malvern hulles
Me befel a ferly of fairy me thoughte,
I was wery forwandred and went me to reste
Under a brode bank bi a bornes side
And as I lay and leued and loked in the wateres
I slombred in a slepyng it sweyved so merye.
[1b] One of the mountains.—The scene these opening lines describe was one with which the Bard was perfectly familiar. He had often climbed the slopes of the Vale of Ardudwy to view the glorious panorama around him from Bardsey Isle to Strumble Head, the whole length of rock-bound coast lay before him, while behind was the Snowdonian range, from Snowdon itself to Cader Idris; and often, no doubt, he had watched the sun sinking “far away over the Irish Sea, and reaching his western ramparts” beyond the Wicklow Hills.
[1c] Master Sleep.—Cp.:
Such sleepy dulness in that instant weigh’d
My senses down.—Dante: Inf. C.I. (Cary’s trans.)
Now leaden slumber with life’s strength doth fight.
—Shakespere: Lucrece, 124.
[4a] Such a fantastic rout.—Literally “such a battle of Camlan.” This was the battle fought between Arthur and his nephew Medrod about the year 540 on the banks of the Camel between Cornwall and Somerset, where Arthur received the wounds of which he died. The combatants being relatives and former friends, it was characterised with unwonted ferocity, and has consequently come to be used proverbially for any fray or scene of more than usual tumult and confusion.
So all day long the noise of battle roll’d
Among the mountains by the winter sea,
Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonness about their Lord.—Tennyson: Morte d’Arthur.
[4b] To lampoon my king.—The Bard commenced this Vision in the reign of William III. (v. also p. 17, “to drink the King’s health”) and completed it in that of Queen Anne, who is mentioned towards the end of the Vision.