Welsh Journals

where near the Severn in Montgomeryshire, in spite of their earnest entreaties that the trans- lator of Ap Gwilym's odes and Elis Wyn's Bardd Cwsg should accompany them to the home of his heroes. But Borrow had great ideas as to how such a Welsh scholar as he was should enter the land of his literary adoption. "When I go into Wales," he told the simple Peter, "I should wish to go in a new suit of superfine black, with hat and beaver, mounted on a powerful steed, black and glossy, like that which bore Gredwr to the fight of Cattraeth. I should wish, moreover, to see the Welshmen assembled on the border ready to welcome me with pipe and fiddle, and much whooping and shouting, and to attend me to Wrexham, or even as far as Machynlleth, where I should wish to be invited to a dinner at which all the bards should be present, and to be seated at the right hand of the president, who, when the cloth was removed. should arise,, and amidst cries of 'Silence,' exclaim, 'Brethren and Welsh- men, allow me to propose the health of my most respectable friend, the translator of the odes of the great Ap Gwilym, the pride and the glory of Wales.' Nearly thirty heavy years had to pass before he entered his "Wild Wales," and although his visit lacked much of the pomp and splendour and adoration which he had vainly imagined in his younger days, it gave him a great joy and incidentally an opportunity, to the great gentleman that he was, of paying in his account of the tour as comprehending and sympathetic a compliment to a nation as was ever paid by a stranger. The "Spectator" (one of the few journals to review "Wild Wales" favourably) was not far wrong when it declared that "this is the first really clever book (i.e., in English) in TO-DAY I saw you pass. You did not know That you had passed me, and I did not show By word or motion how my starving heart Was fed by that sweet instant set apart. But, reading your unconscious face, I saw All that I need of gospel, prophets, law; Tired and inscrutable and nobly kind, You gave to duty your unswerving mind I saw you pass, grave, gentle, stoic, strong- And all the world was suddenly a song. which an honest attempt is made to do justice to Welsh literature He has written the best book about Wales ever published. He ought to have been a Welshman, for he is very fond of giving knock-out blows." And now we have another volume written by Borrow about Wales-written, it is true, before he had broken bread at our table and warmed his roving feet on our hearth. Naturally, therefore, it lacks a good deal of the loud auto- biographical gossip of his other books-but some of it there is here, for Borrow, even on occasions when he donned .something like a "scholars gown," could not keep it out. But as much as any one of his books it demonstrates his extensive, in- deed strangely accurate, knowledge of a subject in which at the time he could only have had an academic interest. It is a new "Borrow"-although when much, if not all, of it appeared in the "Welsh Outlook," it was thought by its Editor to be nothing more than discarded chapters of "Wild Wales." Pro- fessors are, of course, allowed to change their minds, and to call as little attention as possible to the change. Wykehamist mottoes are irrelevant in such cases. I have already spoken of the whims and changes of literary fashion. Although twenty- five years ago, as the "Times" reviewer declared, "a chance word in a London thoroughfare has before now elicited this ingenuous confession of faith: 'I'd walk any distance to see anything belonging to George Borrow, or to read anything fresh of his,' his cult is at its ebb to-day. But when the tide again turns, there will be many, especially among Welshmen, who will be devoutly thankful for the rescue of this remnant. GLIMPSE LESLEY GREY.