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 able to take him unawares; and neither sleep nor old age always come unawares upon a man. People frequently The day of the fair was dull and gloomy, an exact counterpart of the previous Saturday. Owing to some cause, I did not go into the fair till past one o’clock, and then, seeing neither immense hogs nor immense men, I concluded that the gents of Wolverhampton had been there, and after purchasing the larger porkers, had departed with their bargains to their native district. After sauntering about a little time, I returned home. After dinner I went again into the fair along with my wife; the stock business had long been over, but I observed more stalls than in the morning, and a far greater throng, for the country people for miles round had poured into the little town. By a stall, on which were some poor legs and shoulders of mutton, I perceived the English butcher, whom the Welsh one had attempted to slaughter. I recognised him by a patch which he wore on his cheek. My wife and I went up and inquired how he was. He said that he still felt poorly, but that he hoped he should get round. I asked him if he remembered me; and received for answer that he remembered having seen me when the examination took place into “his matter.” I then inquired what had become of his antagonist, and was told that he was in prison awaiting his trial. I gathered from him that he was a native of the Southdown country, and a shepherd by profession; that he had been engaged by the squire of Porkington in Shropshire to look after his sheep, and that he had lived there a year or two, but becoming tired of his situation, he had come to Llangollen, where he had married a Welshwoman, and set up as a butcher. We told him that, as he was our countryman, we should be happy to deal with him sometimes; he, however, received the information with perfect apathy, never so much as saying, “Thank you.” He was a tall, lanikin figure, with a pair of large, lack-lustre staring eyes, and upon the whole appeared to be good for very little. Leaving him, we went some way up the principal street; presently my wife turned into a shop, and I, observing a little bookstall, went up to it, and began to That night I sat up very late reading the life of Twm O’r Nant, written by himself in choice Welsh, and his interlude, which was styled “Cyfoeth a Thylody; or, Riches and Poverty.” The life I had read in my boyhood in an old Welsh magazine, and I now read it again with great zest, and no wonder, as it is probably the most remarkable autobiography ever penned. The interlude I had never seen before, nor indeed any of the dramatic pieces of Twm O’r Nant, though I had frequently wished to procure some of them—so I read the present one with great eagerness. Of the life I shall give some account, and also some extracts from it, which will enable the reader to judge of Tom’s personal character, and also an abstract of the interlude, from |