It is said of Dafydd ap Gwilym
that he satirized one unfortunate butt of a bard so fiercely that he fell
dead at his feet.
{24a} Congregation of mutes.--At the time Ellis Wynne wrote, the Quakers
were very numerous in Merioneth and Montgomery and especially in his own
immediate neighbourhood, where they probably had a burying-ground and
conventicle. They naturally became the objects of cruel persecution at
the hands of the dominant church as well as of the state; their meetings
were broken up, their members imprisoned and maltreated, until at last
they were forced to leave their fatherland and seek freedom of worship
across the Atlantic
{25a} Speak no ill.--A Welsh proverb; v. Myv. Arch. III. 182.
{26a} We came to a barn.--The beginning of Nonconformity in Wales. In
the Author's time there were already many adherents to the various
dissenting bodies in North Wales. Walter Cradoc, Morgan Llwyd and others
had been preaching the Gospel many years previously throughout the length
and breadth of Gwynedd; and it was their followers that now fell under
the Bard's lash.
{28a} Corruption of the best.
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