re strict, so as to keep the unlearned rhymesters
from the privileged bardic class. This measure had a most important
effect on Welsh literature. It effectively put an end to the charming
spontaneity which distinguishes the poetry of Dafydd ab Gwilym and his
contemporaries, and by introducing an arbitrary set of rules gave an
artificial tone to almost all the poetry of the next two hundred years.
It had, indeed, exactly the same retarding effect on Welsh poetry as the
Unities had on the French drama. So that, whereas the poems of Dafydd ab
Gwilym, though written in the difficult alliterative metres, are nearly
all light and have a sweet lyrical re-echo, the poetry of Dafydd ab
Edmwnd and his successors is often heavy and nearly always artificial.
After making, however, all these deductions, it is a debatable point
whether the hard and fast rules which now regulated Welsh poetry did not
eventually justify their existence. They have helped, by inciting to
carefulness, to keep the idiom and the language pure and undefiled, and
to this day style in Welsh poetry is not necessarily a striving after
the uncommon as it too often is in English.

There are some poets included in this period who belong more properly to
the last, but even these show signs of the attempt at correctness and
distinction which was supplanting the old simplicity. Ieuan ap Rhydderch
ab Ieuan Llwyd, who is supposed to be a brother of the Llio Rhydderch of
Dafydd Nanmor's poem, is the author of some cywyddau and other poems
addressed to the Virgin, the structure of which shows great skill
accompanied by force and clearness. He flourished about 1425. Dafydd ab
Meredydd ap Tudur, who flourished about 1420, is the author of a cywydd
"to Our Saviour." About the same time lived Rhys Nanmor, Ieuan Gethin ab
Ieuan, and Ieuan Llwyd ab Gwilym. Among the earliest of the poets who
belong properly to this period is Meredydd ap Rhys, whose cywyddau are a
fair specimen of the generality of poems written in these years. Among
the most famous of his works is a cywydd "begging for a fishing-net,"
and another giving thanks for the same. We shall find that many of his
contemporaries were able to write long and interesting poems on such
seemingly dry and uninteresting subjects, but it is vain to look for
anything beyond good verse in such compositions. Of poetry, as generally
understood, there is none.

Dafydd ab Edmwnd

The commanding figure in this period is, of cours