I felt that I was not qualified to be a soldier, at least a private one; far better be a drudge to the most ferocious of publishers, editing Newgate lives and writing in eighteenpenny reviews--better to translate the Haik Esop, under the superintendence of ten Armenians, than be a private soldier in the English service; I did not decide rashly--I knew something of soldiering.

What should I do?
I thought that I would make a last and desperate attempt to dispose of the ballads and of Ab Gwilym.
I had still an idea that, provided I could persuade any spirited publisher to give these translations to the world, I should acquire both considerable fame and profit; not, perhaps, a world-embracing fame, such as Byron's; but a fame not to be sneered at, which would last me a considerable time, and would keep my heart from breaking;--profit, not equal to that which Scott had made by his wondrous novels, but which would prevent me from starving, and enable me to achieve some other literary enterprise.

I read and re-read my ballads, and the more I read them the more I was convinced that the public, in the event of their being published, would freely purchase, and hail them with the merited applause.

Were not the deeds and adventures wonderful and heart-stirring, from which it is true I could claim no merit, being but the translator; but had I not rendered them into English, with all their original fire?
Yes, I was confident I had; and I had no doubt that the public would say so.

And then, with respect to Ab Gwilym, had I not done as much justice to him as to the Danish ballads; not only rendering faithfully his thoughts, imagery, and phraseology, but even preserving in my translation the alliterative euphony which constitutes one of the most remarkable features of Welsh prosody?
Yes, I had accomplished all this; and I doubted not that the public would receive my translations from Ab Gwilym with quite as much eagerness as my version of the Danish ballads.
But I found the publishers as untractable as ever, and to this day the public has never had an opportunity of doing justice to the glowing fire of my ballad versification, and the alliterative euphony of my imitations of Ab Gwilym.
I had not seen Francis Ardry since the day I had seen him taking lessons in elocution.