The Ladies of Llangollen—Sir Alured—Eisteddfodau—Pleasure and Care.
Shortly after my return I paid a visit to my friends at the Vicarage, who
were rejoiced to see me back, and were much entertained with the account
I gave of my travels. I next went to visit the old church clerk of whom
I had so much to say on a former occasion. After having told him some
particulars of my expedition, to all of which he listened with great
attention, especially to that part which related to the church of
Penmynydd and the tomb of the Tudors, I got him to talk about the ladies
of Llangollen, of whom I knew very little save what I had heard from
general report. I found he remembered their first coming to Llangollen,
their living in lodgings, their purchasing the ground called Pen y maes,
and their erecting upon it the mansion to which the name of Plas Newydd
was given. He said they were very eccentric, but good and kind, and had
always shown most particular favour to himself; that both were highly
connected, especially Lady Eleanor Butler, who was connected by blood
with the great Duke of Ormond who commanded the armies of Charles in
Ireland in the time of the great rebellion, and also with the Duke of
Ormond who succeeded Marlborough in the command of the armies in the Low
Countries in the time of Queen Anne, and who fled to France shortly after
the accession of George the First to the throne, on account of being
implicated in the treason of Harley and Bolingbroke; and that her
ladyship was particularly fond of talking of both these dukes, and
relating anecdotes concerning them. He said that the ladies were in the
habit of receiving the very first people in Britain, “amongst whom,” said
the old church clerk, “was an ancient gentleman of most engaging
appearance and captivating manners, called Sir Alured C---. He was in
the army, and in his youth, owing to the beauty of his person, was
called, ‘the handsome captain.’ It was said that one of the royal
princesses was desperately in love with him, and that on that account
George the Third insisted on his going to India. Whether or not there
was truth in the report, to India he went, where he served with
distinction for a great many years. On his return, which was not till he
was upwards of eighty, he was received with great favour by William the
Fourth, who amongst other things made him a field-marshal. As often as
October came round did this interesting and venerable gentleman make his
appearance at Llangollen to pay his respects to the ladies, especially to
Lady Eleanor, whom he had known at Court as far back they say as the
American war. It was rumoured at Llangollen that Lady Eleanor’s death
was a grievous blow to Sir Alured, and that he would never be seen there
again. However, when October came round he made his appearance at the
Vicarage, where he had always been in the habit of taking up his
quarters, and called on and dined with Miss Ponsonby at Plas Newydd, but
it was observed that he was not so gay as he had formerly been. In the
evening, on his taking leave of Miss Ponsonby, she said that he had used
her ill. Sir Alured coloured, and asked her what she meant, adding that
he had not to his knowledge used any person ill in the course of his
life. ‘But I say you have used me ill, very ill,’ said Miss Ponsonby,
raising her voice, and the words ‘very ill’ she repeated several times.
At last the old soldier waxing rather warm demanded an explanation.
‘I’ll give it you,’ said Miss Ponsonby; ‘were you not going away after
having only kissed my hand?’ ‘Oh,’ said the general, ‘if that is my
offence, I will soon make you reparation,’ and instantly gave her a
hearty smack on the lips, which ceremony he never forgot to repeat after
dining with her on subsequent occasions.”
We got on the subject of bards, and I mentioned to him Gruffydd
Hiraethog, the old poet buried in the chancel of Llangollen church. The
old clerk was not aware that he was buried there, and said that though he
had heard of him he knew little or nothing about him.
“Where was he born?” said he.
“In Denbighshire,” I replied, “near the mountain Hiraethog, from which
circumstance he called himself in poetry Gruffydd Hiraethog.”
“When did he flourish?”
“About the middle of the sixteenth century.”
“What did he write?”
“A great many didactic pieces,” said I in one of which is a famous
couplet to this effect:
“He who satire loves to sing
On himself will satire bring.”
“Did you ever hear of William Lleyn?” said the old gentleman.
“Yes,” said I; “he was a pupil of Hiraethog, and wrote an elegy on his
death, in which he alludes to Gruffydd’s skill in an old Welsh metre,
called the Cross Consonancy, in the following manner:
“‘In Eden’s grove from Adam’s mouth
Upsprang a muse of noble growth;
So from thy grave, O poet wise,
Cross Consonancy’s boughs shall rise.’”
“Really,” said the old clerk, “you seem to know something about Welsh
poetry. But what is meant by a muse springing up from Adam’s mouth in
Eden?”
“Why, I suppose,” said I, “that Adam invented poetry.”
I made inquiries of him about the eisteddfodau or sessions of bards, and
expressed a wish to be present at one of them. He said that they were
very interesting; that bards met at particular periods and recited poems
on various subjects which had been given out beforehand, and that prizes
were allotted to those whose compositions were deemed the best by the
judges. He said that he had himself won the prize for the best englyn on
a particular subject at an eisteddfod at which Sir Watkin Williams Wynn
presided, and at which Heber, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, was present,
who appeared to understand Welsh well, and who took much interest in the
proceedings of the meeting.
Our discourse turning on the latter Welsh poets I asked him if he had
been acquainted with Jonathan Hughes, who the reader will remember was
the person whose grandson I met and in whose arm-chair I sat at Ty yn y
pistyll, shortly after my coming to Llangollen. He said that he had been
well acquainted with him, and had helped to carry him to the grave,
adding, that he was something of a poet, but that he had always
considered his forte lay in strong good sense rather than poetry. I
mentioned Thomas Edwards, whose picture I had seen in Valle Crucis Abbey.
He said that he knew him tolerably well, and that the last time he saw
him was when he, Edwards, was about seventy years of age, when he sent
him in a cart to the house of a great gentleman near the aqueduct where
he was going to stay on a visit. That Tom was about five feet eight
inches high, lusty, and very strongly built; that he had something the
matter with his right eye; that he was very satirical and very clever;
that his wife was a very clever woman and satirical; his two daughters
both clever and satirical, and his servant-maid remarkably satirical and
clever, and that it was impossible to live with Twm O’r Nant without
learning to be clever and satirical; that he always appeared to be
occupied with something, and that he had heard him say there was
something in him that would never let him be idle; that he would walk
fifteen miles to a place where he was to play an interlude, and that as
soon as he got there he would begin playing it at once, however tired he
might be. The old gentleman concluded by saying that he had never read
the works of Twm O’r Nant, but he had heard that his best piece was the
interlude called “Pleasure and Care.”