news, Gruffydd Gryg was so affected, that, forgetting every other feeling, in the poignancy of his grief he composed an elegy, bewailing the supposed loss of his rival, in the most affectionate terms. Bola Bauol having previously contrived to get a similar account of the death of Gruffydd Gryg circulated in South Wales, returned thither, and was pleased to find it had had the same effect on Davyth ap Gwilym, he having also produced an elegy on his rival. Bola Bauol succeeded according to his expectation; for the contending parties, on each discovering the real sentiments of his opponent, and being brought to a delicate dilemma, though they laughed at the stratagem which had created it, from that time became warm friends[1].
Though Davyth ap Gwilym lived in an age deeply immersed in ignorance, yet it is obvious from his works that he was but little affected with the superstition of the times[2]. He had very little veneration for the monks; nor would he bend in the least to the authority of the priesthood in general—in those points that were derogatory to an enlightened mind. On the contrary, he took every opportunity to show that he held them in contempt and ridicule[3]; but when old age had disposed him to more serious reflections, in a confessional ode he acknowledged
- ↑ David Jones of Lanfair’s Coll. Brit. Poetry, p. 173.
- ↑ The poem, No. 79, addressed to St. Dwynwen, is an admirable satire on the invocation of saints. In it the bard prays that this female saint would be his Llatai to procure him a meeting with Morvyth.
- ↑ See the Poems Nos. 64, 149, 154, 217, 224,.
