194. Robert Southey to the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 5 January 1797*

SIR,

I AM obliged to your correspondent Meirion, for the information he afforded me in your last Number; will he have the goodness to inform me likewise where the Poems of Hywel, son of Owain Gwynez¹ are to be found, and if they have been translated? One I have met with, among the valuable contents of the Cambrian Register;² if it be not trespassing too much on the more erudite researches of your correspondent, perhaps a translation of some of these pieces might be acceptable to your general readers.

Jan. 5, 1797.

Notes

MS: MS has not survived
Previously published: Monthly Magazine, 3 (January 1797), 4 [from where the text is taken] under pseudonym ‘B.’. New attribution to Southey. Back

1. Hywel (d. 1170) was the illegitimate son of Owen Gwynedd (c. 1100–1170). He died at the battle of Pentraeth on Anglesey in North Wales. In legend, he was the half-brother of Prince Madoc. Back

2. See ‘Y Dewis. Hywel ab Owain ai cant.', The Cambrian Register, 3 vols (London, 1795–1818), I, pp. 412–413. Back