ness of the day, Mr. Brooke, my patron, made me a present of some rum and other things, and honoured me with his company. When we were set, the pleasure I expressed at seeing a country-man at this first interview, turned the topic of the discourse upon Wales and the Welsh tongue. Mr. Owen, like an honest Welshman, owned that he was a native of Montgomeryshire, which pleased me well enough. But being asked by my patron, who, though an Englishman, has a few Welsh words which he is fond of, "whether he could speak or read Welsh," I found the young urchin was shy to own either, though I was afterwards that same day convinced of the contrary. Then, when they alleged it was a dying language, not worth cultivating and so on, which I stiffly denied, the wicked imp, with an air of complacency and satisfaction, said, there was nothing in it worth reading; and that to his certain knowledge the English daily got ground of it; and he doubted not but in a hundred years it would be quite lost. This was a matter of triumph to my antagonists; but to me it was such a confounding, overthrowing blow, as would certainly have utterly ruined and destroyed me out of the way, but that I have a queer turn of mind that disposes me to laugh heartily at an absurdity, and to despise ignorance and conceitedness. But he is not the first I met with of that stamp. Let them say so, and wish it so, if they will. But be not you discouraged in your laudable undertaking. And be sure, if I can but contribute my mite towards it, it shall not be wanting. I shall always think it my duty and greatest pleasure so to do.
