In the year 1803, my father received a letter of introduction from Mr. Rees, of the well-known firm of Longman, Paternoster Row, presenting Robert Southey, the poet, to him. He came into Wales with the hope of finding a cottage to reside in. Accordingly, a cavalcade was formed, consisting of Mr. W. Gwynne, the two brothers Southey, my father, and myself, and we rode up the Valley of Neath to look at a cottage about eight miles from the town. The poet, delighted with the scenery and situation, decided upon taking it; but the owner, unfortunately for the honour of Welshmen, actually declined to let it to Robert Southey, fearing that a poet could not find security for the small annual rent of twenty-five pounds. This circumstance led the man of letters, who eventually became one of the most distinguished men of his day, to seek a home elsewhere, and the Lakes were at length chosen as his residence. Probably the picturesque beauties of Cumberland compensated the Laureate for the indignity put upon him by the Welshman.
An act of Vandalism perpetrated in the same Vale of Neath, and reflecting no honour on my countrymen, deserves here to be noted with reprobation. A natural cascade, called Dyllais, which was so beautiful as to excite the admiration of travellers, was destroyed by an agent to Lord Jersey, the proprietor of the estate, in order to build a few cottages and the lock of a canal. The rock down which this beautiful cascade had flowed from the time of the Flood, and which had created a scene of beauty universally admired, was blown up with gunpowder by this man, who could probably appreciate no more beautiful sight than that which presents itself from a window in Gray's or Lincoln's Inn, of which he was a member.
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