It was then not rhymed at both ends
or in the middle, but it was rhymed quite enough, and if it had
not the harp-like sweetness of the original, it was still such a
musical stanza that I shall always be sorry to have lost it. What
I can never lose the impression of is the wide-spread literary
lore of the common Welsh people which the incident suggested. I
could not fancy even a Boston grocer's boy doing the like; and
perhaps this was an uncommon boy in Wales itself. He told me a
good deal, which I have mainly forgotten, about the state of
polite learning in his country and in what honor the living bards
were held. It seems that in that rhyming and singing little land,
the poets are still known as of old by their bardic names. As
Jones, or Evans, or Edwards they have no fame beyond other men,
but up and down all Wales they are celebrated as this bard or
that, and are honored according to their poetic worth.
IV
After the appearance of the White Neegurs on the Terrace, I could
hardly have expected any livelier appeal to my American pride,
and yet it came, one day, when I learned that the line of
carriages which I saw passing our windows were the vehicles
bearing to some public function the members of the British
Chautauqua.
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