Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Evans, Daniel (1792-1846)
EVANS, DANIEL (1792–1846), Welsh poet, commonly called Daniel Du o Geredigion, that is Black Daniel of Cardiganshire, was born in 1792 at Maes y Mynach in the parish of Llanvihangel-ystrad in that county. His father, David Evans, was a well-to-do farmer, and he was the second of three sons. He was educated at Lampeter grammar school under Eliezer Williams, and subsequently went to Jesus College, Oxford, where in 1814 he proceeded B.A. with a third class in classics (Honours Register of Oxford, p. 199). He was elected to a fellowship, in his college, took holy orders, and proceeded M.A. 1817, and B.D. 1824. Though retaining his fellowship, he resided mostly in Wales, where he won prizes at Eisteddfodau, and became famous as a poet. His disorderly and irregular life was brought to a tragical end by his suicide on 28 March 1846. He was buried in the churchyard of Pencarreg in Carmarthenshire, the parish whence his family had come, and where many of his relatives were buried. Daniel Du's first published Welsh poem was a short pamphlet of twenty pages, printed in 1826 at Aberystwith, and called ‘Golwg ar gyflwr yr Iuddewon.’ He next issued in 1828 ‘Cerdd arwraidd ar y gauaf,’ in his friend Archdeacon Beynon's ‘Cerddi arwraidd ar yr hydref a'r gauaf.’ In 1831 his collected works were published at Llandovery with the title ‘Gwinllan y Bardd; sef prydyddwaith ar amrywiol destunau a gwahanol fesurau.’ A second edition was published at Lampeter in 1872, with considerable additions, mainly collected from unpublished sources. The simple and unaffected style and the homely intelligibility of Daniel Du's poems have given him a wide popularity in Wales, especially in his native county. The few English poems in the collection are of very inferior merit.
[Williams's Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen, p. 149; G. Jones's Enwogion Sir Aberteifi, p. 39; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]