my metier in the cellar; though I dare say, if I were to fix myself as comfortably in a hogshead as Diogenes himself, it would immediately be discovered that some of the hoops or staves wanted repair.”  “There is a war of old grates with new grates, and plaster and paint with dust and cobwebs, carrying on in this once tranquil abode, with a vigour and animosity productive of little less din than that occasioned by ’lance to lance and horse to horse.’  I assure you, when I make my escape about ’fall of eve’ to some of the green quiet hayfields by which we are surrounded, and look back at the house, which, from a little distance, seems almost, like Shakespeare’s moonlight, to ‘sleep upon the bank,’ I can hardly conceive how so gentle-looking a dwelling can continue to send forth such an incessant clatter of obstreperous sound through its honeysuckle-fringed windows.  It really reminds me of a pretty shrew, whose amiable smiles would hardly allow a casual observer to suspect the possibility of so fair a surface being occasionally ruffled by storms.”

The lyric “The Voice of Spring” was written in 1823.  It was followed by “Breathings of Spring.”  The season of spring had a marked influence upon her.  It was, with all its joy and beauty, generally “a time of thoughtfulness rather than mirth.”  It has been well observed that autumn in one way is a more joyous time than spring.  It reminds us that “we shall go to them,” while in spring everything seems to say “they will not return to us.”

     “But what awakest thou in the heart, O Spring! 
        The human heart, with all its dreams and sighs? 
      Thou that givest back so many a buried thing,
        Restorer of forgotten harmonies! 
      Fresh songs and scents break forth where’er thou art—­
        What wakest thou in the heart?

      Too much, oh, then too much!  We know not well
        Wherefore it should be thus, yet, roused by thee,
      What fond, strange yearnings, from the soul’s deep cell,
        Gush for the faces we no more may see! 
      How are we lamented, in the wind’s low tone,
        By voices that are gone?”

In 1825 there appeared one of her principal works—­the one she considered as almost, if not altogether, the best—­The Forest Sanctuary.  It related to the sufferings of a Spanish Protestant in the time of Philip II., and is supposed to be narrated by the sufferer himself, who escapes with his child to a North American forest.  The picture of the burial at sea was the passage of whose merits she had the highest opinion.

VI.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

Another change of home took place in 1825.  The new home was not more than a quarter of a mile from the old one.  Rhyllon could be seen from the windows of Bronwylfa.  It was a very different house.  The former is described as a tall, staring brick house, almost destitute of trees; the latter as a perfect bower of roses, peeping out like a bird’s-nest from amidst the foliage in which it was embosomed.  The contrast is playfully depicted in a dramatic scene between Bronwylfa and Rhyllon.  The former, after standing for some time in silent contemplation of Rhyllon, breaks out into the following vehement strain of vituperation:—­