ondon garret, out of tune with his environment in gland, or an exile in America, and Twm o'r Nant aking ink from elderberries—how these things moved m! As he entered the church at Oswestry where ronwy had preached he was seized with agitation. With That veneration he regarded the poet may be seen from s words to the sexton, covered with mould and mire, whom he had just discovered the great-grand-nephew Goronwy:

'I wouldn't turn my head to look at a prince, my friend, t I would have come a hundred miles to shake you by the nd. Here's my hand, if you will do me the honour to shake Come, never mind the mud and clay. I shall be only too oud to take a little of it off you.'

Yet with all this was mingled a large measure of intempt for poets, the instinctive contempt of the man action for the thinker and dreamer. Whenever he n, Borrow emphasises the other qualities of a man part from his poetic skill. 'Iolo Goch was a great bet,' he tells us, but independent of being a great poet, was a remarkable man'; while Lewis Morris 'was a at-rate mechanic, an expert navigator, a great musician oth in theory and practice, and a poet. . . of singular xcellence.' The poetry comes last, the manly accomishments first, and that is characteristic of Borrow's titude. He speaks even more clearly in referring to wm o'r Nant, who, with his feats of strength, his andiness and adaptability, his vitality and elasticity of ind in trouble, embodied those Viking virtues that ere ever Borrow's ideal. He contrasts him with oronwy Owen: 'How different was Tom's behaviour to that of the Welsh bards in general, always lookg for a gift and dearly loving the bread of idleness! ow different from that of that beautiful poet Goronwy wen, who could not live without help and who with family would have died in starvation in London, ad not Lewis Morris got him that same situation in irginia!' A little earlier he says of Tom :

'He was what the poet very, very seldom is a man. bets in general as men are certainly very poor creatures. hey are weak, cowardly and effeminate. Horace, one of eir princes, says so. If their verses will not support them,

which they very seldom do, they are quite helpless and woul starve unless somebody were to take pity upon them, givir them a place, a sinecure, or bed and board, which they a always most happy to accept, for in them there is no ind pendence of spirit, no noble pride, though an enormous de of vanity. Their Elysium is the table of a great man who they flatter, who treats them with gentlemanly condescensic and whose wife and daughter pet, flatter and despise the taking particular good care never to run away with the O, poets in general are certainly very poor creatures a sidered as men, though certainly there have been poets w besides writing verses could play a bold part in the dra ̈ of life, could build and sail a ship like Lewis Morris, cleave the chine like Taillefer at Hastings, hedge, ditch, drive a c or load a cart like Thomas Edwards, who took much mez pride in being considered the first carter in Wales than ad best poet.'

And who would blame him? Not George Borrow, any rate, for 'is not one grand deed better than all t singing, harping and scribbling in the world?' A with his eye on the Crimean War, Borrow continus 'Would it not have been better for England to hath taken Cronstadt or the Redan than to have produc ... some exceedingly clever book every month? W to the country which has writers to boast of instead men.' Borrow agrees with Dr Johnson in judging po by the same standards as other men. He will conce to them no privileged position. Even those poets whos he praises for their manliness may be found wanting some other respect. Thus, in spite of all his versatili Lewis Morris does not escape unscathed from the fie furnace of Borrow's criticism, for is not his poeti sometimes licentious and the language of his 'Bug Tregaron' enough to make a harlot blush?

The power to play a bold part in the drama of li was the test that Borrow applied to all men, wheth writers, soldiers, statesmen, or kings, and it was becan such men as Henry VIII and Richard III passed this te that he was more easily reconciled to them. Borrow ideal man of action was Griffith ap Nicholas. Shrev and far-sighted, he was able to hold his own again the jealousy and greed of his powerful neighbours, a while supporting his own countrymen and even co niving at their misdeeds contrived to remain on go

rms with the Court in London. He was one of those aff, downright characters that Borrow loved. Once had pledged himself, he never swerved from the th of loyalty. There was no limit to his aid of those om he had undertaken to support.

What a contrast was Ryce ap Thomas, the grandson Griffith ap Nicholas, the embodiment of the qualities at Borrow most detested! Throughout his life he Tought only of himself, and with cold calculation sought t everything which would lead to the attainment of goal. His courage and perseverance, his caution d sagacity, were remarkable; with the result that his reer was uniformly successful and prosperous. At e time of his death he was the most powerful man in Jales, the owner of enormous wealth and vast territories. at he was entirely devoid of generous impulses, and in is Borrow compares him to Wellington, for whom our riter entertained a passionate dislike because of his eatment of his soldiers and his failure to save Ney om the vengeance of the Bourbons. Borrow hated the suistry by which Ryce broke his oath to Richard III ad threw in his lot with Henry of Richmond. He ntrasts the caution of Ryce ap Thomas with the blunt cklessness of his grandfather and asks ironically: After all, what becometh a young man more than rudence, for has he not many fair years in prospect? he aged can afford to be rash: no fair years can he spect, only a few days, and those clouded.' Borrow sympathy for the double-dealer who achieves orldly success. That is no doubt why he admired the on-jurors who sacrificed prosperity to carry out the edge they had taken. Borrow thought ill of the Stuarts, at esteemed the honesty and loyalty of their supporters. connexion with Ryce ap Thomas he says, possibly ith an eye to himself:

ad no

Is worldly dignity the greatest good? Millions will say No," though they think that it is, and act in a manner that ows that they think so. There are a few, however, who ill say "No," who neither think that it is, nor act as if they ought it were; who think that even as far as this life is ncerned, what is called worldly prosperity is not the highest od, and that a person with a noble generous heart, even ough buffeted by fortune, may enjoy more pleasure, more

delight, than one of the cold-hearted ones most highl favoured by that Goddess.'

Borrow concludes by showing how the great Rycewhom bards had assured everlasting fame, is now fo gotten even in the lands over which he held sway, whi the name of the humble vicar, Rees Pritchard, is r membered and honoured.

In Celtic Bards, Chiefs and Kings' we find y another successful character for whom Borrow felt d like, in this case amounting to loathing. This w Douglas, the incumbent of Donnington in Shropshi where Goronwy Owen acted as curate. Douglas was Scot, who, coming to England, renounced Presbyteriani and entered the Church of England. He attracti attention by vindicating Milton against the charge plagiarism which another Scot, Lauder, had broug: forward in an attempt to damage the poet's reputatio Douglas was rewarded with the benefice of Donningto became tutor to the sons of the Earl of Bath, and w made successively Bishop of Carlisle and Bishop Salisbury. Borrow's grievance against Douglas w that he paid Goronwy Owen a mere pittance for carr ing out the double office of clergyman and schoolmast at Donnington, while he himself basked in affluence London. Borrow's comment is severe: ""He vindicat. Milton " was said in his funeral sermon. His prop epitaph seems to be the following: "Here lies the divi who vindicated the English Milton and starved t Welsh one." The nationality of Douglas was probab also responsible in part for Borrow's attitude. He ha an inveterate prejudice against the Scots; it was eve more deeply ingrained in him than in Dr Johnson. W it the result of some boyish resentment aroused durin the stay in Edinburgh described in 'Lavengro'? W it a reflexion of his jealousy of Jamieson's translation of Danish ballads, or was it a memory of his disagre ment with Lockhart? Doubtless all three factors col tributed something to the strength of his sentiment & the time when he wrote 'Celtic Bards, Chiefs and King At any rate the animus is unmistakable. We see again when Borrow, writing of the Scottish invasion i 1513, says: 'Harry hears that the scoundrel Scotch whe taking a mean advantage of his absence, had invade

native dominions, had been routed at Flodden by gland's yeomen and their king slain.'

There was another people against whom Borrow was judiced-the Americans. One wonders again what the cause. Perhaps the old parish clerk mentioned Lavengro,' who had fought at Bunker's Hill, had a id in it; but it was Borrow's own soldier-father who mainly responsible. Passages will be found in vengro' to illustrate this side of Borrow, and those miliar with Wild Wales' may recall the scene with Welsh-American in the inn at Bala. In Celtic rds, Chiefs and Kings' Borrow's bias appears when speaks of Goronwy Owen's emigration to Virginia, d the long silence which followed. Borrow would ve us believe that the poet, coming from the old antry, was an object of suspicion, and that his corpondence was opened and destroyed. He gloats over e disappointment of the Yankee on finding the letters itten in an unintelligible language-Welsh.

Among Borrow's prejudices we must reckon his hatred Roman Catholicism. We have already seen how this loured his outlook. His bitterness was such that he at all sense of proportion and could see no good whatever in the religion of Rome. This applied equally to e past and the present; his only solution was the rootd-branch policy. He dismissed all monks as equally y, and all Popes as equally wicked. His indignation the subjection of moral law to political aims knew no unds, while Mariolatry roused him to fury. How pical is his exclamation of fierce joy when he tells England's separation from Rome: Aye, mourn in the ast, old strumpet!' It can serve no useful purpose to ager over Borrow's violent and unmeasured sayings this connexion, but it is necessary to mention them then attempting a characterisation of Borrow as reealed by his work. They do show, also, that whatever ay be thought of his opinions, he had the courage to y what was in his mind, and that the agent of the ible Society, with all his bellicose temper and militant ethods, sincerely held the convictions that he professed. Borrow also held strong views about Methodism, and we had only Wild Wales' to guide us, we might think im incurably prejudiced in this matter too. Does he