pole that terminated piscatorially in a hook. The coracle began dropping down the stream. Elphin arrested its course, and guided it to land.

In the coracle lay a sleeping child, clothed in splendid apparel. Angharad took it in her arms. The child opened its eyes, and stretched its little arms towards her with a smile; and she uttered, in delight and wonder at its surpassing beauty, the exclamation of "Taliesin!"" Radiant brow!"

Elphin, nevertheless, looked very dismal on finding no food, and an additional mouth; so dismal, that his physiognomy on that occasion passed into a proverb: "As rueful as Elphin when he found Taliesin."*

In after years, Taliesin, being on the safe side of prophecy, and writing after the event,

* Mor drist ac Elffin pan gavod Taliesin.

addressed a poem to Elphin, in the character of the foundling of the coracle, in which he supposes himself, at the moment of his discovery, to have addressed Elphin as follows:

DYHUDDIANT ELFFIN.

THE CONSOLATION OF ELPHIN.

Lament not, Elphin: do not measure
By one brief hour thy loss or gain :
Thy weir tonight has borne a treasure,
Will more than pay thee years of pain.

St. Cynllo's aid will not be vain :

Smooth thy bent brow, and cease to mourn: Thy weir will never bear again

Such wealth as it tonight has borne.

The stormy seas, the silent rivers,

The torrents down the steeps that spring,
Alike of weal or woe are givers,

As pleases heaven's immortal 'king.
Though frail I seem, rich gifts I bring,
Which in Time's fulness shall appear,
Greater than if the stream should fling
Three hundred salmon in thy weir.

Cast off this fruitless sorrow, loading
With heaviness the unmanly mind:
Despond not; mourn not; evil boding
Creates the ill it fears to find.

When fates are dark, and most unkind
Are they who most should do thee right,
Then wilt thou know thine eyes were blind
To thy good fortune of tonight.

Though, small and feeble, from my coracle
To thee my helpless hands I spread,
Yet in me breathes a holy oracle
To bid thee lift thy drooping head.
When hostile steps around thee tread,
A spell of power my voice shall wield,
That, more than arms with slaughter red,
Shall be thy refuge and thy shield.

Two years after this event, Angharad presented Elphin with a daughter, whom they named Melanghel. The fishery prospered; and the progress of cultivation and population among the more fertile parts of the mountain districts brought in a little revenue to the old king.

78

CHAP. VI.

THE EDUCATION OF TALIESIN.

The three objects of intellect: the true, the beautiful, and the beneficial.

The three foundations of wisdom: youth, to acquire learning; memory, to retain learning; and genius, to illustrate learning.

TRIADS OF WISDOM.

The three primary requisites of poctical genius: an eye, that can see nature; a heart, that can feel nature; and a resolution, that dares follow nature.

TRIADS OF POETRY.

As Taliesin grew up, Gwythno instructed him in all the knowledge of the age, which was of course not much, in comparison with