AMONGST the characteristic names of Wales, remarkable in that department to which we shall devote this chapter, whoever may be passed by, the name of Rees Pritchard, the ancient Vicar of Llandovery, ought not to go unmentioned. We suppose no book, ever published in Wales, has met the acceptance and circulation of “Canwyll-y-Cymry,” or “The Welshman’s Candle.” Since the day of its publication, it has gone through perfectly countless editions; and there was a time, not long since, when there was scarcely a family in Wales, of any intelligence, which did not possess a copy. Its author was born in the parish of which he became the vicar, so far back as 1575. He was educated at Oxford. His early life was more remarkable for dissipation of every kind, than for any pursuits compatible with his sacred profession. He was, especially, an inveterate drunkard; the worst of his parishioners were scandalised by his example, and said, “Bad as we may be, we are not half so bad as the parson!” The story of his conversion is known to many, who are not acquainted with his life, and work, and the eminence to which he attained; and it certainly illustrates how very strange have been some of the means of man’s salvation, and how foolish things have confounded the wise. As George Borrow says in his “Wild Wales,” in his account of Pritchard, “God, however, who is aware of what every man is capable, had reserved Rees Pritchard for great, and noble things, and brought about his conversion in a very remarkable manner.”