ess to the Raven," to whom he promises a right royal feast
when the hero whom all Wales is expecting has met his royal enemy. Tudur
Aled, too, was a zealous partisan of Henry VII. and wrote many cywyddau
in praise of Sir Rhys ap Thomas, the great champion of Henry's cause in
South Wales. He is also famous as having supplemented and made a new
recension of Dafydd ab Edmwnd's rules of poetry in the eisteddfod held
at Caerwys in 1524. Tudur Aled has always been more widely known in
Wales than almost any other of the earlier poets except Dafydd ab
Gwilym. This is perhaps due to the quotability and sententiousness of
his couplets. There is a certain refreshing dryness about his poetry
which partly makes up for his want of imagination. One of the most
interesting poets of this century is Lewis Glyn Cothi, who lived between
1410 and 1490. During the Wars of the Roses he was a zealous
Lancastrian, and his bitterest enemies were the men of Chester, who had
treated him scurvily while he was there in hiding, and his _awdl_,
satirizing the men of that city, is one of the most vigorous
compositions in the language. Indeed, among so many _cywyddau_ of this
period in conventional praise of different patrons, it is most
refreshing to find such an outburst of sincere personal feeling, boldly
and fiercely expressed. He wrote an _awdl_ also rejoicing in the victory
of Henry VII. Most of his work, however, consists of _cywyddau
mawl_--praise of patrons--containing weary and unpoetical pedigrees.
Gruffydd Hiraethog, who flourished about 1540, was a disciple of Tudur
Aled. A fierce poetical dispute raged between him and Sion Brwynog of
Anglesey, who was a contemporary of his. About this time there were many
poets in Wales who were imitators of Dafydd ab Gwilym, and who did not
follow implicitly the lead of Dafydd ab Edmwnd, like those whom we have
mentioned. Much of their poetry is feeble, but Bedo Brwynllysg
especially stands out from among the rest, and his poetry, though highly
imitative and often over fanciful, is of a much higher order than the
genealogical poems of Lewis Glyn Cothi and others. In the same way the
only poem of any merit of Ieuan Denlwyn printed in the _Gorchestion_ is
written in this imitative strain. Other poets of the middle of this
period are Deio ap Ieuan Du, Iorwerth Fynglwyd, Lewys Morganwg, Ieuan
Brydydd Hir, and Tudur Penllyn, who wrote a superb _cywydd_ to Dafydd ab
Siencyn, the outlaw.

Towards the end of the