Sweet Singers of Wales

CHAPTER VIII.
DANIEL DDU--NICANDER--IEUAN GLAN GEIRIONYDD.

THE REV. DANIEL EVANS (Daniel Ddu) was born at Llanfihangel-Ystrad, in the county of Cardigan, in the year 1792. He studied at Oxford, and afterwards became a Fellow of Jesus College. He used to spend much of his time between the terms in the neighbourhood of his birth, where he was half worshipped by the peasantry. They held some strange notions with regard to Oxford; and nothing could put out of their heads the belief that its ancient colleges were the favourite haunts of a motley crew of ghosts of a very doubtful character. He himself was considered an expert in 'raising spirits'; and as to his familiarity with the 'black art'--how could there be a doubt of it, when he could speak Latin as well as Mephistopheles himself? If he never abused his power to do them ill, it was only another proof of his good nature. In the latter part of his life he was much troubled with melancholy, and died when he was fifty-four years of age. He wrote some very successful 100 Eisteddvodic poetry; but nothing that he has written is so well known as the following hymn-poem on the Prodigal Son, with its effective arrangement of light and shade. Its dramatic cast stands in the way of its being used as a whole; but some of the verses are extensively known.