sang a bard about two hundred and forty years ago, who styled himself
Robert Lleiaf, or the least of the Roberts. The meaning of the couplet
has always been considered to be, and doubtless is, that a time would
come when a bridge would be built across the Menai, over which one might
pass with safety and comfort, without waiting till the ebb was
sufficiently low to permit people to pass over the traeth, or sand,
which, from ages the most remote, had been used as the means of
communication between the mainland and the Isle of Mona or Anglesey.
Grounding their hopes upon that couplet, people were continually
expecting to see a bridge across the Menai: more than two hundred years,
however, elapsed before the expectation was fulfilled by the mighty
Telford flinging over the strait an iron suspension bridge, which, for
grace and beauty, has perhaps no rival in Europe.

The couplet is a remarkable one. In the time of its author there was
nobody in Britain capable of building a bridge, which could have stood
against the tremendous surges which occasionally vex the Menai; yet the
couplet gives intimation that a bridge over the Menai there would be,
which clearly argues a remarkable foresight in the author, a feeling that
a time would at length arrive when the power of science would be so far
advanced, that men would be able to bridge over the terrible strait. The
length of time which intervened between the composition of the couplet
and the fulfilment of the promise, shows that a bridge over the Menai was
no pont y meibion, no children's bridge, nor a work for common men. Oh,
surely Lleiaf was a man of great foresight!

A man of great foresight, but nothing more; he foretold a bridge over the
Menai, when no one could have built one, a bridge over which people could
pass, aye, and carts and horses; we will allow him the credit of
foretelling such a bridge; and when Telford's bridge was flung over the
Menai, Lleiaf's couplet was verified. But since Telford's another bridge
has been built over the Menai, which enables things to pass which the
bard certainly never dreamt of. He never hinted at a bridge over which
thundering trains would dash, if required, at the rate of fifty miles an
hour; he never hinted at steam travelling, or a railroad bridge, and the
second bridge over the Menai is one.

That Lleiaf was a man of remarkable foresight, cannot be denied, but
there are no grounds which entitle him to be considered a posses