Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/25

 the wild landscape, especially in its relation to man and the human soul—the correspondence and harmony of the visible world with the invisible world." Henry Vaughan was the spiritual father of Wordsworth. But what is true of Henry Vaughan is true of the leading poets of Wales, of Dafydd ap Gwilym and of Goronwy Owain. This Welsh gift of nearness and insight into Nature was not confined to the poets. Richard Wilson, born in 1714 at the little village of Penegoes near Machynlleth, in the fair and spreading valley of the Dyfi. was, says Ruskin, the true father of sincere landscape art based upon loving meditation of nature, not only in England but in Europe. Wilson loved his native Wales, studied nature patiently, closely, lovingly, and declared that "the scenery of Wales afforded every requisite for a landscape painter whether in the sublime or in the pastoral representation of nature." He spent many years at Rome, and after a bitter struggle against the jealousy of rival artists and against the Philistinism of London, he returned to Wales and spent the closing years of his life at Colomendy, Llanferres, near