“Lewis Morris,” says George Borrow, “was born at a place called Trev y Beirdd, in Anglesey, in the year 1700. Anglesey, or Mona, has given birth to many illustrious men, but few, upon the whole, entitled to more honourable mention than himself. From a humble situation in life, for he served an apprenticeship to a cooper at Holyhead, he raised himself by his industry and talents to affluence and distinction, became a landed proprietor in the county of Cardigan, and inspector of the royal domains and mines in Wales. Perhaps a man more generally accomplished never existed; he was a first-rate mechanic, an expert navigator, a great musician, both in theory and practice, and a poet of singular excellence. Of him it was said, and with truth, that he could build a ship and sail it, frame a harp and make it speak, write an ode and set it to music. Though self-taught, he was confessedly the best Welsh scholar of his age, and was well versed in those cognate dialects of the Welsh--the Cornish, Armoric, Highland Gaelic, and Irish.... It was he who first told his countrymen that there was a youth in Anglesey whose genius, if properly encouraged, promised fair to rival that of Milton; one of the most eloquent letters ever written is one by him, in which he discants upon the beauties of certain poems of Goronwy Owen, the latent genius of whose boyhood he had observed, whom he had clothed, educated, and assisted up to the period when he was ordained a minister of the Church, and whom he finally rescued from a state bordering on starvation in London, procuring for him an honourable appointment in the New World.” Lewis Morris made a collection of Welsh MSS., consisting of about eighty volumes, which are now in the British Museum. He died in 1765 and was buried at Llanbadarn Vawr, in Cardiganshire. CHAPTER IV HOLYHEAD The Menai Straits to Holyhead--Llangadwaladr--The story of Cadwallon--Cadwaladr--Plague in 664--Ruskin on Holyhead--The old caer--Chapel of the Irishman--Story of S. Cybi--The menhir of Clorach--Cybi and Elian--Church of Caergybi--Chapel of Llochwyd--Holy well--Chapel of S. Brigid--Breakwater--The South Stack--Sea-birds--Their eggs--Cytiau’r Gwyddelod--Old villages--Camp--Construction of the huts--A conservative people that votes Liberal. THE line from Bangor to Holyhead, after crossing the Menai Straits, runs through country that does not impress the traveller with an opinion that it is fertile or beautiful. The land is for the most part flat, or slightly undulating; there are no trees, much waste land, no mountains--only hills, and these away to the north. The surface of the island is speckled with little white houses with whitewashed roofs, as though a giant’s wedding had taken place there, and it was sprinkled over with the rice cast at the bride. [Illustration: SOUTH STACK LIGHT, HOLYHEAD]