owed Tom to read; he then had the honour of
becoming an amanuensis to a poet.

"I became very intimate," says he, "with a man who was a poet; he could
neither read nor write; but he was a poet by nature, having a muse
wonderfully glib at making triplets and quartets. He was nicknamed Tum
Tai of the Moor. He made an englyn for me to put in a book in which I
was inserting all the verses I could collect:

"'Tom Evans' the lad for hunting up songs,
Tom Evans to whom the best learning belongs;
Betwixt his two pasteboards he verses has got,
Sufficient to fill the whole country, I wot.'

"I was in the habit of writing my name Tom or Thomas Evans before I went
to school for a fortnight in order to learn English; but then I altered
it, into Thomas Edwards, for Evan Edwards was the name of my father, and
I should have been making myself a bastard had I continued calling myself
by my first name. However, I had the honour of being secretary to the
old poet. When he had made a song he would keep it in his memory till I
came to him. Sometimes after the old man had repeated his composition to
me I would begin to dispute with him, asking whether the thing would not
be better another way, and he could hardly keep from flying into a
passion with me for putting his work to the torture."

It was then the custom for young lads to go about playing what were
called interludes, namely dramatic pieces on religious or moral subjects,
written by rustic poets. Shortly after Tom had attained the age of
twelve he went about with certain lads of Nantglyn playing these pieces,
generally acting the part of a girl, because, as he says, he had the best
voice. About this time he wrote an interlude himself, founded on "John
Bunyan's Spiritual Courtship," which was, however, stolen from him by a
young fellow from Anglesey, along with the greater part of the poems and
pieces which he had copied. This affair at first very much disheartened
Tom: plucking up his spirits, however, he went on composing, and soon
acquired amongst his neighbours the title of "the poet," to the great
mortification of his parents, who were anxious to see him become an
industrious husbandman.

"Before I was quite fourteen," says he, "I had made another interlude,
but when my father and mother heard about it they did all they could to
induce me to destroy it. However, I would not burn it, but gave it to
Hugh of Llangwin, a celebrated poet of the time, who