A Biographical Sketch of some of the Most Eminent Individuals which the Principality of Wales has produced since the ReformationWilliams, Robert
History
A Biographical Sketch of some of the Most Eminent Individuals which the Principality of Wales has produced since the Reformation
Williams, Robert
Wales -- Biography
_Hugh Morris_, one of the first of Welsh poets, was born at
Pont-y-Meibion, in Denbighshire, in the year 1622. Being a younger son,
he was apprenticed by his father, who was a respectable freeholder, to a
tanner in Flintshire. He did not carry on his trade, but lived a life of
retirement in the cultivation of his talent for poetry, of which he has
left us splendid memorial. The productions of his pen are numerous; and
these valuable poems have been patriotically collected and published by
an eminent Welsh scholar and divine, in two volumes. Hugh Morris, on the
breaking out of the civil war, was a stanch friend to royalty, and he
exerted all the powers of his pen in its support, and there is no doubt
but that his writings had great influence over the minds of the common
people, ever attached to poetry. His satirical poems, where he lashes
the religious cant and vile hypocrisy of the times, are unequalled for
the keen wit and cutting irony, which he handles in so masterly a manner.
He was universally esteemed for his great abilities and excellent
character, and always exercised his influence in behalf of justice and
benevolence, and in the furtherance of religion. He died at the place of
his birth in 1709, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.
_Lewis Morris_, an eminent poet and antiquary, was born in the Isle of
Anglesea in the year 1702. In his youth he received but a slender
education; but, however, he and three other brothers, through
self-instruction, and cultivation of their natural talent, became eminent
characters in various branches of knowledge and science. He was chiefly
employed in the service of government; and in 1737 he was appointed by
the admiralty to survey the coast of Wales, which he accomplished with
great satisfaction, and an account of it was published in 1748. At the
same period he had the appointment of the surveyorship of the crown lands
in Wales, and in 1750 he had the additional offices of superintendent and
agent of the King’s mines in the principality. He was a very good poet
in his native language, and several of his productions have been
published. As an antiquary he was eminently skilful, and it is greatly
to be lamented that a valuable work entitled “Celtic Remains,” which he
left in manuscript, has never been sent to the press, as his acute and
learned remarks would be a great addition to illustrate our national
antiquities. He collected about eighty volumes of Welsh manuscripts,
which are now deposited in the Welsh School Library, in London. He died
in 1765, in Cardiganshire.
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