He composed pieces of great excellence on
various subjects; but the most remarkable of his compositions are
decidedly certain ones connected with Owen Glendower. Amongst
these is one in which he describes the Welsh chieftain's mansion at
Sycharth, and his hospitable way of living at that his favourite
residence; and another in which he hails the advent of the comet,
which made its appearance in the month of March, fourteen hundred
and two, as of good augury to his darling hero.
It was from knowing that this distinguished man lay buried in the
precincts of the old edifice, that I felt so anxious to see it.
After walking about two miles we perceived it on our right hand.
The abbey of the vale of the cross stands in a green meadow, in a
corner near the north-west end of the valley of Llangollen. The
vale or glen, in which the abbey stands, takes its name from a
certain ancient pillar or cross, called the pillar of Eliseg, and
which is believed to have been raised over the body of an ancient
British chieftain of that name, who perished in battle against the
Saxons, about the middle of the tenth century. In the Papist times
the abbey was a place of great pseudo-sanctity, wealth and
consequence. The territory belonging to it was very extensive,
comprising, amongst other districts, the vale of Llangollen and the
mountain region to the north of it, called the Eglwysig Rocks,
which region derived its name Eglwysig, or ecclesiastical, from the
circumstance of its pertaining to the abbey of the vale of the
cross.
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