C Y M R A E G

Lewis Hopkin (1708-71)


Lewis Hopkin, Hendre Ifan Goch, Glamorgan was a carpenter and a glazier. He was also a poet and a prominent member of the poetic circle called the Grammarians which met in the uplands of Glamorgan. A selection of his poetry, Y Fêl Gafod (1813), was published posthumously, and although it is not first rate it nonetheless bears witness to his commitment to maintain the tradition of strict-metre poetry in Glamorgan. Edward Evan and Iolo Morganwg were among his poetic students. Iolo published an elegy to his poetic master, Dagrau yr Awen (1772), and also describes him as an influential figure in some of his biographical writings and drafts [NLW 21387E, no. 10]. However, Iolo did not transform Lewis Hopkin into an important druidic figure in bardism, as he did with John Bradford and Edward Evan. Lewis Hopkin and John Bradford were men of broad literary and cultural horizons: Iolo refers to their interest in Latin and French literature, and to the fact that they were conversant with English literature and the principles of contemporary English literary criticism. Iolo drew on their learning and culture in his personal quarrel against the men of north Wales, contrasting the wide horizons of these learned men of Glamorgan with the allegedly parochial horizons of their peers in north Wales.

Admin