Excerpt from British Reason in English Rhyme This rendering of 'Welsh Proverbs' was made by my father in the last few years of his life. Originally undertaken as an employment for leisure hours, the work grew under his hands, and it was finally his intention to translate all the 'Welsh Proverbs' together with such of the laws and Bardic aphorisms as seemed to embody and give expression to the national wisdom. In many cases the original meaning of the proverbs was hard to discover, owing to the quaintness of their diction and the obscurity of the illustrations by which they were expressed. The English Rhyme, therefore, does not profess to be a literal translation of the British Reason; it merely attempts to express the original sentiments in language as far as possible analogous to that used by the Welsh sages. My father had intended to write an introductory essay dealing with the subject as a whole, but at the time of his death this was only just commenced. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

From the INTRODUCTORY NOTE. This rendering of 'Welsh Proverbs' was made by my father in the last few years of his life. Originally undertaken as an employment for leisure hours, the work grew under his hands, and it was finally his intention to translate all the 'Welsh Proverbs,' together with such of the laws and Bardic aphorisms as seemed to embody and give expression to the national wisdom. In many cases the original meaning of the proverbs was hard to discover, owing to the quaintness of their diction and the obscurity of the illustrations by which they were expressed. The English Rhyme, therefore, does not profess to be a literal translation of the British Reason ; it merely attempts to express the original sentiments in language as far as possible analogous to that used by the Welsh sages. My father had intended to write an introductory essay dealing with the subject as a whole, but at the time of his death this was only just commenced. Until lately I have been prevented by other work from giving up the time necessary for correcting the press. As it is, my work has been much facilitated by the kindness of Professor Rhys, who has revised all the Welsh before it was finally sent to press, though where the Welsh is capable of various meanings he is not responsible for the rendering adopted. I am glad of this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my indebtedness to him. -W. W. V., Brighton, 1889.

Excerpt from Rhyme and Reason My friend, I believe, is as nearly secure As anyone now is; at least I am sure That if merit can strengthen his tenure, he'll stay Till he wants to resign, or death takes him away. You'd like him, I'm sure, if you know him as I do, For he's one of the very few men you can tie to. Rare character? Yes, you're felicitous there. He is one of a class so remarkably rare That the newspapers speak of it often as non est, Being thoroughly, conscientiously honest; Not rough, like the commoner plain, blunt kind, But polished in manners, in speech refined; And yet a certain unconscious air Bids any who might presume beware Lest quick resentment should make them feel That under the polish is solid steel. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.