or's
_Holy Living_, under the title of _Rheol Buchedd Sanctaidd_ (1701). His
next work was the immortal _Gweledigaethau y Bardd Cwsc_ (1703). The
foundation of this work was L'Estrange's translation of the _Suenos_ of
the Spaniard Quevedo. Ellis Wyn has certainly followed his original
closely, even as Shakespeare followed his, but by his inimitable magic
he has transmuted the characters and the scenery of the Spaniard into
Welsh characters and scenery of the 17th century. No writer before or
after him has used the Welsh language with such force and skill, and he
will ever remain the stylist whom all Welsh writers will strive to
imitate. The magic of his work has endowed the stately idiom of Gwynedd
with such glamour that it has now become the standard idiom of Welsh
prose. See Stern, _Z. f. celt. Phil._ iii. 165 ff.

7. _The Rise of Popular Poetry, 1600-1750._--When Henry VII. ascended
the throne, the old hostility of the Welsh towards the English
disappeared. They had realized their wildest hope, that of seeing a
Welshman wearing "the crown of London." Naturally enough, therefore, the
descendants of the old Welsh gentry began to look towards England for
recognition and preferment, and their interest in their own little
country necessarily began to wane. The result was that the traditional
patrons of the Welsh muse could no longer understand the language of the
poets, and the poets were forced to seek some more profitable
employment. Besides, the old conditions were changing; the medieval
traditions were indeed dying hard, but it gradually and imperceptibly
came about that the poets of the older school had no audience. The only
poets who still followed the old traditions were the rich farmers who
"sang on their own land," as the Welsh phrase goes. A new school,
however, was rising. The nation at large had a vast store of
folk-poetry, full of all the poetical characteristics of the Celt, and
it was this very poetry, despised as it was, that became ultimately the
groundwork of the new literature.

The first landmark in this new development was the publication in 1621
of Edmwnd Prys's metrical version of the Psalms (followed by later
editions in 1628, 1630, 1638 and 1648), and of the first poem of the
_Welshmen's Candle_ (_Cannwyll y Cymry_) of Rhys Pritchard, vicar of
Llandovery (1569-1644). This was published in 1646. These works were not
written in the old metres peculiar to Wales, but in the free metres,
like those o