Imogen A Pastoral Romance

Excerpt

The following performance, as the title imports, was originally composed in the Welch language.  Its style is elegant and pure.  And if the translator has not, as many of his brethren have done, suffered the spirit of the original totally to evaporate, he apprehends it will be found to contain much novelty of conception, much classical taste, and great spirit and beauty in the execution.  It appears under the name of Cadwallo, an ancient bard, who probably lived at least one hundred years before the commencement of our common era.  The manners of the primitive times seem to be perfectly understood by the author, and are described with the air of a man who was in the utmost degree familiar with them.  It is impossible to discover in any part of it the slightest trace of Christianity.  And we believe it will not be disputed, that in a country so pious as that of Wales, it would have been next to impossible for the poet, though ever so much upon his guard, to avoid all allusion to the system of revelation.  On the contrary, every thing is Pagan, and in perfect conformity with the theology we are taught to believe prevailed at that time.