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. Truly in this world the full
shall be crammed, and those who have little, shall have the little
which they have taken away from them. Unable to obtain employment
in Wales Gronwy sought for it in England, and after some time
procured the curacy of Oswestry in Shropshire, where he married a
respectable young woman, who eventually brought him two sons and a
daughter.
From Oswestry he went to Donnington near Shrewsbury, where under a
certain Scotchman named Douglas, who was an absentee, and who died
Bishop of Salisbury, he officiated as curate and master of a
grammar school for a stipend - always grudgingly and contumeliously
paid - of three-and-twenty pounds a year. From Donnington he
removed to Walton in Cheshire, where he lost his daughter who was
carried off by a fever. His next removal was to Northolt, a
pleasant village in the neighbourhood of London.
He held none of his curacies long, either losing them from the
caprice of his principals, or being compelled to resign them from
the parsimony which they practised towards him. In the year 1756
he was living in a garret in London vainly soliciting employment in
his sacred calling, and undergoing with his family the greatest
privations. At length his friend Lewis Morris, who had always
assisted him to the utmost of his ability, procured him the
mastership of a government school at New Brunswick in North America
with a salary of three hundred pounds a year. Thither he went with
his wife and family, and there he died sometime about the year
1780.
He was the last of the great poets of Cambria and, with the
exception of Ab Gwilym, the greatest which she has produced. His
poems which for a long time had circulated through Wales in
manuscript were first printed in the year 1819. They are composed
in the ancient Bardic measures, and were with one exception, namely
an elegy on the death of his benefactor Lewis Morris, which was
transmitted from the New World, written before he had attained the
age of thirty-five. All his pieces are excellent, but his
masterwork is decidedly the Cywydd y Farn or "Day of Judgment."
This poem which is generally considered by the Welsh as the
brightest ornament of their ancient language, was composed at
Donnington, a small hamlet in Shropshire on the north-west spur of
the Wrekin, at which place, as has been already said, Gronwy toiled
as schoolmaster and curate under Douglas the Scot, for a stipend of
three-and-twenty pounds a year.
CHAPTER XXXI
Start for Anglesey - The Post-Master - Asking Questions - Mynydd
Lydiart - Mr Pritchard - Way to Llanfair.
WHEN I started from Bangor, to visit the birth-place of Gronwy
Owen, I by no means saw my way clearly before me. I knew that he
was born in Anglesey in a parish called Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf,
that is St Mary's of farther Mathafarn - but as to where this
Mathafarn lay, north or south, near or far, I knew positively
nothing. Passing through the northern suburb of Bangor I saw a
small house in front of which was written "post-office" in white
letters; before this house underneath a shrub in a little garden
sat an old man reading. Thinking that from this person, whom I
judged to be the post-master, I was as likely to obtain information
with respect to the place of my destination as from any one, I
stopped, and taking off my hat for a moment, inquired whether he
could tell me anything about the direction of a place called
Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf. He did not seem to understand my
question, for getting up he came towards me and asked what I
wanted: I repeated what I had said, whereupon his face became
animated.
"Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf!" said he. "Yes, I can tell you about
it, and with good reason, for it lies not far from the place where
I was born."
The above was the substance of what he said, and nothing more, for
he spoke in English somewhat broken.
"And how far is Llanfair from here?" said I.
"About ten miles," he replied.
"That's nothing," said I: "I was afraid it was much farther."
"Do you call ten miles nothing," said he, "in a burning day like
this? I think you will be both tired and thirsty before you get to
Llanfair, supposing you go there on foot. But what may your
business be at Llanfair?" said he, looking at me inquisitively.
"It is a strange place to go to, unless you go to buy hogs or
cattle."
"I go to buy neither hogs nor cattle," said I, "though I am
somewhat of a judge of both; I go on a more important errand,
namely to see the birth-place of the great Gronwy Owen."
"Are you any relation of Gronwy Owen?" said the old man, looking at
me more inquisitively than before, through a large pair of
spectacles which he wore.
