In his own work and interests he represents many of the Welsh cultural activities of his day, as a poet, supporter of eisteddfodau, publisher, and itinerant bookseller, friendly with many of the leading literary figures of the time. Jones published a few ballads (1723–7), poems in chapbooks, ‘carols’ on topical and religious themes in the popular alliterative free-verse style, and other occasional verse, dedicatory poems in books, and elegies in the traditional strict-verse metres. Though he took pride in the title Dewi Fardd, by which the poet and antiquary Lewis Morris (1701–1765) sometimes referred to him, his poetry, though metrically competent, never attained a particularly high standard. Jones was an assiduous collector of Welsh manuscripts, and transcribed many texts including his own Welsh–English dictionary and collections of cywydd and other poetry. He helped with the revival of Welsh culture. Jones gave north Wales poets and writers, many of them craftsmen and farmers, the opportunity for the first time to have their work printed locally rather than at Shrewsbury or Chester.