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 with quite as much eagerness as my version of the Danish ballads.
But I found the publishers as untractable as ever, and to this day the
public has never had an opportunity of doing justice to the glowing fire
of my ballad versification, and the alliterative euphony of my imitations
of Ab Gwilym.

I had not seen Francis Ardry since the day I had seen him taking lessons
in elocution. One afternoon, as I was seated at my table, my head
resting on my hands, he entered my apartment; sitting down, he inquired
of me why I had not been to see him.

"I might ask the same question of you," I replied. "Wherefore have you
not been to see me?" Whereupon Francis Ardry told me that he had been
much engaged in his oratorical exercises, also in escorting the young
Frenchwoman about to places of public amusement; he then again questioned
me as t