When this was past, the names of six selected minstrels were announced. Each of these was of high celebrity in his art, and the respectability of the audience called on them for their best exertions. When four of this number had now acquitted themselves with great credit, and the plaudits of the hearers seemed to have been pretty equally bestowed amongst them, there remained only Robin Ap-Rees, the famous harper of Penruth Abbey, and David Williams of Kray Castle as yet unheard. In these celebrated performers there existed a high spirit of emulation, and the opinions of the country were divided between them: Though rivals in art, they were brothers in misfortune, for both were bereft of sight--_Blind Thamyris and blind Mœonides_. After a pause of some minutes, Ap-Rees presented himself to the spectators, led, like Tiresias, by his young and blooming daughter, and followed by his son, carrying his harp. The interesting group so touched all hearts, and set all hands in motion, that the hall rung with their plaudits. He was a tall thin man with stooping shoulders, bald head, pale visage, of a pensive cast, and habited in a long black mantle of thin stuff bound about with a rose-coloured sash of silk, richly fringed with silver, and on his breast, appending to a ribbon of pale blue, hung a splendid medal of honour. Before he took the seat, that was provided for him, he stopped and made a profound obeisance to the company: his daughter in the meantime, modest, timid and unprepared for such a scene, not venturing to encounter the eyes of the spectators, when she had placed her father in his seat, no longer able to struggle with her sensibility, sunk into his arms, trembling and on the point to faint: her brother stood aghast and helpless: the ladies manifested their alarm by screams, and the men were rising from their seats, when our hero, whose only monitor was his heart, leapt on the stage and sprung to her relief: she revived, and he gallantly conducted her to a seat, where she was no longer exposed to the observation of the company who cheered him with a loud applause.