fore, "I never saw him but
once, and that was more than twenty years ago--but I have heard say that
he was an excellent man--I see, sir, that you are a clergyman."

"I am no clergyman," said I, "but I knew your uncle and prized him. What
was his native place?"

"Corwen," said the man, then taking out his handkerchief he wiped his
eyes, and said with a faltering voice: "This will be heavy news there."

We were now past the monastery, and bidding him farewell I descended to
the canal, and returned home by its bank, whilst the Welsh drover, the
nephew of the learned, eloquent and exemplary Welsh doctor, pursued with
his servant and animals his way by the high road to Llangollen.

Many sons of Welsh yeomen brought up to the Church have become ornaments
of it in distant Saxon land, but few, very few, have by learning,
eloquence and Christian virtues reflected so much lustre upon it as Hugh
O--- of Corwen.

CHAPTER LVIII

Sunday Night--Sleep, Sin, and Old Age--The Dream--Lanikin Figure--A
Literary Purchase.

The Sunday morning was a gloomy one. I attended service at church with
my family. The service was in English, and the younger Mr E--- preached.
The text I have forgotten, but I remember perfectly well that the sermon
was scriptural and elegant. When we came out the rain was falling in
torrents. Neither I nor my family went to church in the afternoon. I
however attended the evening service which is always in Welsh. The elder
Mr E--- preached. Text, 2 Cor. x. 5. The sermon was an admirable one,
admonitory, pathetic and highly eloquent; I went home very much edified,
and edified my wife and Henrietta, by repeating to them in English the
greater part of the discourse which I had been listening to in Welsh.
After supper, in which I did not join, for I never take supper, provided
I have taken dinner, they went to bed whilst I remained seated before the
fire, with my back near the table and my eyes fixed upon the embers which
were rapidly expiring, and in this posture sleep surprised me. Amongst
the proverbial sayings of the Welsh, which are chiefly preserved in the
shape of triads, is the following one: "Three things come unawares upon a
man, sleep, sin, and old age." This saying holds sometimes good with
respect to sleep and old age, but never with respect to sin. Sin does
not come unawares upon a man: God is just, and would never punish a man,
as He always does, for being overcome by sin if sin were