s I to do? turn porter? I was strong; but there was something
besides strength required to ply the trade of a porter--a mind of a
particularly phlegmatic temperament, which I did not possess. What
should I do? enlist as a soldier? I was tall enough; but something
besides height is required to make a man play with credit the part of
soldier, I mean a private one--a spirit, if spirit it can be called,
which will not only enable a man to submit with patience to insolence and
abuse, and even to cuffs and kicks, but occasionally to the lash. I felt
that I was not qualified to be a soldier, at least a private one; far
better be a drudge to the most ferocious of publishers, editing Newgate
lives, and writing in eighteenpenny reviews--better to translate the Haik
Esop, under the superintendence of ten Armenians, than be a private
soldier in the English service; I did not decide rashly--I knew something
of soldiering. What should I do? I thought that I would make a last and
desperate attempt to dispose of the ballads and of Ab Gwilym.

I had still an idea that, provided I could persuade any spirited
publisher to give these translations to the world, I should acquire both
considerable fame and profit; not, perhaps, a world-embracing fame such
as Byron's; but a fame not to be sneered at, which would last me a
considerable time, and would keep my heart from breaking;--profit, not
equal to that which Scott had made by his wondrous novels, but which
would prevent me from starving, and enable me to achieve some other
literary enterprise. I read and re-read my ballads, and the more I read
them the more I was convinced that the public, in the event of their
being published, would freely purchase, and hail them with the merited
applause. Were not the deeds and adventures wonderful and
heart-stirring--from which it is true I could claim no merit, being but
the translator; but had I not rendered them into English, with all their
original fire? Yes, I was confident I had; and I had no doubt that the
public would say so. And then, with respect to Ab Gwilym, had I not done
as much justice to him as to the Danish ballads; not only rendering
faithfully his thoughts, imagery, and phraseology, but even preserving in
my translation the alliterative euphony which constitutes one of the most
remarkable features of Welsh prosody? Yes, I had accomplished all this;
and I doubted not that the public would receive my translations from Ab
Gwilym