At Length The Celebrated Lewis Morris Chancing To Be
At Llanfair Became Acquainted With The Boy, And Struck With His
Natural Talents, Determined That He Should Have All The Benefit
Which Education Could Bestow.
He accordingly, at his own expense
sent him to school at Beaumaris, where he displayed a remarkable
aptitude for the acquisition of learning.
He subsequently sent him
to Jesus College, Oxford, and supported him there whilst studying
for the church. Whilst at Jesus, Gronwy distinguished himself as a
Greek and Latin scholar, and gave such proofs of poetical talent in
his native language, that he was looked upon by his countrymen of
that Welsh college as the rising Bard of the age. After completing
his collegiate course he returned to Wales, where he was ordained a
minister of the Church in the year 1745. The next seven years of
his life were a series of cruel disappointments and pecuniary
embarrassments. The grand wish of his heart was to obtain a curacy
and to settle down in Wales. Certainly a very reasonable wish. To
say nothing of his being a great genius, he was eloquent, highly
learned, modest, meek and of irreproachable morals, yet Gronwy Owen
could obtain no Welsh curacy, nor could his friend Lewis Morris,
though he exerted himself to the utmost, procure one for him. It
is true that he was told that he might go to Llanfair, his native
place, and officiate there at a time when the curacy happened to be
vacant, and thither he went, glad at heart to get back amongst his
old friends, who enthusiastically welcomed him; yet scarcely had he
been there three weeks when he received notice from the Chaplain of
the Bishop of Bangor that he must vacate Llanfair in order to make
room for a Mr John Ellis, a young clergyman of large independent
fortune, who was wishing for a curacy under the Bishop of Bangor,
Doctor Hutton - so poor Gronwy the eloquent, the learned, the meek,
was obliged to vacate the pulpit of his native place to make room
for the rich young clergyman, who wished to be within dining
distance of the palace of Bangor.
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