Tudalen:Cofiant a gweithiau Risiart Ddu o Wynedd.djvu/91

Gwirwyd y dudalen hon

nad Gwilym ap Joan, Utica; 1869, Awdl Farwnad y Parch. Henry Rees, Cadair y Gordoflgion, Liverpool; Pryddest Ddiodl, Marwnad Glan Alun; Englynion—y Llaw, y Llew, y Fyfyrgell, yr Ysgrifbin, yr Areithfa, y Fagnel. There are other compositions not contained in the above list: some of them unsuccessful in Eisteddfodau, and some that were never meant for competition. How to account for his wonderful poetical success?

He had neither the natural flow of Caledfryn, nor the power of Eben Vardd; many of his cynghaneddion are weak and far fetched; and some of his thoughts are commonplace. How was he so successful? He was a born poet; highly educated; as busy as a bee, and a living proof of the proverb, "Perseverance surmounts all difficulties:" took great pains with his best compositions; read everything he could find on the subjects; meditated on what he had read; worked at it incessantly day and night; had unerring judgment; was always neat and tasty; was master of language and of metres; had visions of a prophet; and took good care that his adjudicators could not find any glaring faults in his compositions. If he did not generally soar like an eagle among the highest peaks of genius, he took care to be always high enough above ground that nobody could shoot him. Even- ness and dignity run through his compositions. He combined accuracy of facts with poetical conception. Mr. Gladstone—the greatest statesman of the ages, and the prodigy of the last century—in his studies on Homer, says—" By a false association of ideas, we have come to place accuracy and genius in antagonism to one another. It is Homer who may best undeceive us. The later poets have too often torn asunder what in him was harmoniously combined." Risiart Ddu,