ere 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 intractable 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 to the reason of my not having been to see him.

I returned an evasive answer. The truth was, that for some time past my
appearance, owing to the state of my finances, had been rather shabby,
and I did not wish to expose a fashionable young man like Francis Ardry,
who lived in a fashionable neighbourhood, to the imputation of having a
shabby acquaintance. I was aware that Francis Ardry was an excellent
fellow; but, on that very account, I felt, under existing circumstances,
a delicacy in visiting him.

It is very possible that he had an inkling of how matters stood, as he
presently began to talk of my affairs and prospects. I told him of my
late ill success with the booksellers, and inveighed against their
blindness to their own interest in refusing to publish my translations.
'The last that I addressed myself to,' said I, 'told me not to trouble
him again unless I could bring him a decent novel o