below, and around. All was of a bright vermilion color. An agreeable sensation then crept through his frame, until he became insensible. "But," he added, "I can find no words to express the agony of gradually returning consciousness!" Necessity, or natural bent, or what modern cant would call “his mission," drove him back to his old trade, which drove him again to the gallows, but this time without benefit of resuscitation, On the subject of pain under torture or execution, we find the following passage in Sir Walter Scott's Diary, as recorded in Lockhart's Life of his father-in-law, “I remember hear ing that Mandrin testified some horror when he found himself bound alive upon the wheel, and saw the executioner approach with a bar of iron to break his limbs. After the second and third blow he fell a laughing, and being asked the reason by his confessor, said, he laughed at his own folly, which had anticipated increased agony at every blow, when it was obvious that the first must have jarred and confounded the system of the nerves so much as to render the succeeding ones of little consequence," In a novel by Balzac, or Jules

Janin, we forget exactly which, a party of auriens, not quite as respectable as Voltaire's dethroned kings, in "Candide," meet at a cabaret and discourse of their adventures-how they have undergone,and miraculously survived, hanging, drowning, shooting, strangling, &c., with their sensations under each process. A gravelooking Turk, hitherto silent, at length removes the pipe from his mouth, and asks, “Has any gentleman present ever been impaled ?" After the negative shudder has subsided, he describes his own case under that penalty. He was carried to the top of a public building in Constantinople, according to sentence; but the executioner thrust the stake through his drapery, by mistake, and left his body untouched. After being exposed the whole day, he was taken down at night, when he pretended to be dead. They left him, for a time, alone, stretched out in a sort of Morgue, or dead-house, previous to sepulture. He took advantage of the opportunity, and contrived to recover and escape. The author pretends that all these stories are true, not invented; and we know that reality is often more marvellous than fable.

WHETHER it was that the transcendant mystery of the Trinity was revealed to primitive man, or that the beautiful outline of the triangle seized on the minds of people from their earliest impressions of form, certain it is that the number THREE seems invested with a mysterious or magie quality from the earliest times. The poor folk who, after wide separation from their kin and their native Armenia, came to settle in our re

mote isles, and found themselves unable to pierce the ground for the materials of effective tools, were obliged to devote all their thoughts and all their cares to the procuring of mere sustenance, clothing, and lodging. Did they exercise their imaginations? Did they bring with them any dim recollections of the wonderful events that occurred between the abode in Eden and the scattering at Babel Had they household tales or

ballads of the most simple kind? If we keep the goodness and mercy of the Creator and his love for his creatures present to our minds, we cannot but think that they enjoyed existence in their own way, and that individuals among them felt from time to time the movings of the spirit of romance and poetry and gave them utterance. However as they did not commit their inspirations to smooth pieces of wood or the angles of the rock or standing stone, speculations on this head would only result in abuse of paper and print, and of the patience of our readers.

He

The stronger and more intelligent Celts, who disturbed, and dislodged, and enslaved the poor little men and women of the boat-shaped heads, came with early religious impressions corrupted and debased, and their minds furnished with poetic stores, and poetic shapes in which to present them to the less favoured. They held the mysterious number in veneration, and were prone to abuse the idea by reducing all things, material or ideal, to its gauge. However, the reader need not fear at our hands the full infliction of the Welsh Triads.* is only requested to consider the existence of three famous bards flourishing at the same time, among the same people, and celebrating the good qualities and the martial deeds of the same princes, father and son, Urien and Owen. Aneurin, Taliesin, and Llywarch the aged, lived through the greater part of the sixth century, and their poems, if we except those imputed to Fion Mac Cumhail, Oisin, Fergus, Caeilthe, and Ailve, daughter of King Cormac, preserved in the Book of Leinster, are the oldest that have survived among the Gael, or the Cymry, or the naturalized strangers from West Germany.

During the youth and manhood of these poets, the Cymric chiefs still held the south-west of Scotland, Cumberland, Lancashire, Wales north and south, and the south-western portion of the Island. The Romanized Britons eastward of those do

mains, too weak in heart and arms to make head against the West German invaders, and found combating in their ranks, were called Loëgrians, and were as much, at least, detested by the still independent Cymry as the foreigners themselves. The Saxon chief Ida, landing on the northern coast, and joining his forces to those already in possession of the eastern parts of the kingdom, directed his efforts to break down the strength of the still powerful and determined mountaineers, under the rule of the noble chief Urien. The changing fortunes of this strife were watched by the three bards, who were as capable of wielding the glaive as singing its exploits. Arthur, if, indeed, such a chief existed, which we are not disposed to question, did his duty in South Wales and Cornwall against the common enemy. His bard was the renowned Merlin, but of his productions the most learned and zealous Cambrian does not believe that any genuine relic remains to us.

ANEURIN,

Students of the "Idyls of the King" are familiar with the name Gereint. Gherent, grandfather of Aneurin, was slain at the battle of Longport (Portsmouth, Porta's Harbour), A.D. 501, while vigorously defending his land against Porta and his foreign troops. The poet was born at Dunbriton, at that time the chief stronghold of the Northern Cymry, his twin brother being St. Gildas, mentioned in the Dublin University Magazine for October, and his father, Aou, styled King of Alba. Unhappily the date of his birth hovers between 494 and 520. Gildas betook himself, while a youth, to the school of St. Kadok, at Lancarvan, and in time became one of the apostles of Brittany. Aneurin professed a vocation for Cymric poetry of the most difficult character. He was among the INSPIRED of the bards, who, when questioned on obscure subjects, began to shiver, and were soon wrapt in a

sort of ecstasy. After a little they commenced to utter sentences apparently without any connexion, and the questioner, by exercising minute attention, was sure to discover a solution of his difficulty among the "miscellaneous assortment" thrown before him. When the Vates was roused from his trance, and this was generally a difficult operation, he could not recollect a single expression that had passed his lips. We have already seen (Dublin University Magazine, October,) what slight value the good Saint Gildas set on poets and their productions, and how little he sympathized with the gentle Saint Kadok when he expressed a hope of Virgil's salvation. His love for his brother Aneurin did not prevent his uttering the most withering invectives against the order to which he belonged, especially the inferior members of it, who by no means avoided immoral themes in their performances.

Count de la Villemarqué will by no means join in the cry of anti-nationality raised against St. Gildas.

GILDAS NOT A SAXON PARTISAN.

“Gildas has been often accused of an antinational spirit. A Welsh priest has even said that the design of the monk was, with out doubt, to depreciate the Britons, as if a worthy Methodist minister (sic) would be less patriotic for thundering from the top of his pulpit against the vices of his parishioners. Aneurin in this case would not be less culpable than his brother, for he lays on the heads of the Northern British chiefs—the only ones whom Gildas had spared-the reproach of having destroyed their country by their intemperance. He uses more delicacy, however, than the pious monk. With a gentle hand he uncovers the wound from which the other tears off the dressing, and makes his patert, the intemperate Briton, ery al ud with jain.”

Zealous churchmen of the early and middle ages always held their contemporary story-tellers and minstrels in much disesteem. A good Saxon monk was so displeased with some of them for sounding King Arthur's praises that he could not find terms sufficiently severe to quality their impudence, in making a petty prince, such as he, greater than Casar

or Alexander. He would have even devoted them to the flames four authority being still Count Villemarqué,) had it not been for the deplorable weakness of the King of England, in covering them with his protection, and even taking pleasure in listening to their absurd recitals. The Viscount continues

THE DEVIL'S FAVOURITE READING.

"Another ecclesiastic of the same time, nearly as uncharitable, but disposed to take things in a less tragic fashion, maliciously relates that a certain holy man wishing to prove to all the world the falsity of the histories of Arthur, laid in a spot haunted by the demon, a manuscript in which his exploits were loudly extolled, and at some little distance from it the New Testament. The evil spirit slinking away in terror from the sacred volume flew to the collection of the exploits of the British monarch, sat on it and seemed greatly to enjoy his position."

Besides the princes of the art, there was in the days of the sixth century that class of disreputable men of prose and verse, of whom we have already spoken, and who so abused the privileges allowed them by their position as to bring down on their heads the following diatribe from no less a personage than the great Taliesin:

desire.

The birds fly, the bees make honey, the

fishes swim, the reptiles crawl. The Kler, the vagrants, and the beggars,

alone, live without labour."

Whoever has glanced at the stories of the trouvères of Northern France needs not be told of the revenge taken by Messrs. the Story-tellers on their censurers. Every second tale exhibits a monk involved in some disreputable intrigue. It is indeed possible that, as in the case of Boccacio, this irreverence may have preceded and provoked the censure.

The biography of our bards is inseparable from that of the princes whom they aided by their martial effusions. Ida and his twelve sons having made a descent on the coast, somewhere between the mouths of the Forth and the Tweed, circa 547, they proceeded westwards on their destructive mission. They were met and defeated by the noble Urien, chief of Reged (south-west portion of Scotland), and his valiant son, Owen; and after some other encounters, Ida, called Port Brandon (fire bearer), fell by the hand of the young prince at the fight of Menao, on the banks of the Clyde, A.D. 560. The Britons having become assailants in their turn, besieged the foreigners, then under the conduct of Diedrich, one of the sons of Ida, in the isle of Medcaud, now Lindisfarne. But in Urien's camp were mingled Cymric and Gaelic warriors, and some of his chiefs bore him a grudge. He was murdered by one of his own soldiers, whom Nennius pronounces an Irishman. The besieging forces separated without doing much injury to Diedrich. This event took place between 572 and

579.

Soon after occurred the siege of Caltraez, which Count Villemarqué, with every appearance of probability, supposes to be one of the fortresses on the wall that connected the Clyde

and the Forth. After surprising feats here performed by the Britons, and successive deep carouses sung by our bard in the piece called "Gododyn," the brave Owen was slain, and along with him as many chiefs as there are days in the year (circa A.D. 579). Aneurin did not long survive this sad disaster. Having satirized a recreant Cymric chief, who had failed to bring this scoundrel filled the measure of his contingent to the aid of his prince, his crimes by assassinating the aged bard. The slaying of druid or bard, even by his bitterest enemy, was in these days, and in the pagan days long before them, considered one of the most heinous crimes that could be perpetrated by a mortal hand. Reserving what we have to say furcome to treat of his poetry, we prother concerning our bard till we ceed to the biography of the second literary light of the sixth century in Britain.

LYWARCH HEN.*

Lywarch Hen was born in Cumberland (Argoed), circa 480, his father, Elidir, being chief of that region. At an early age he was sent to the court of Erbin, chief of Devon and Cornwall, whose son, the brave Gereint, already mentioned, served under King Arthur. This prince (Arthur) is distinctly mentioned in Lywarch's later poems as then heading all the British forces in the south against the Saxons. Lywarch was attached to the court of the young_Gereint, and fought under him at Longport (ante). The poet was then seventeen years old. In an after poem he celebrated the deeds of his young patron in that battle. The dreadful images presented by this his first fight haunted his imagination for many a long day, though in time he became well inured to the horrors of war. In his poem he pictured the horses up to the knees in blood, bounding and covering their bridle-bits with foam. The horses of Gereint's warriors were likened to eagles of many colours.

He afterwards attached himself to

King Urien, who gave him, both as chief and bard, a gold-banded horn to sound in fight and chase, and fill with mead at feasts. None used braver or more gorgeous apparel than our-bard. His purple cloak, yellow plume, and golden spurs, attracted observation; and his finely-tempered arms, and his skill in their use, won him renown.

What perhaps might not be expected from a general acquaintance with Celtic character was unhappily a fact the Cymry were as fond of guzzling as their swinish invaders, and Lywarch devoted a considerable portion of his time to the consumption of ale and mead, and to the society of the beauties of the Reghed Court. Twenty four sons of his approved their valour in time and place, and all perished fighting for their country before the eyes of their father. But in the glow of youthful manhood, before desolation and old age come on him, enviable was his situation at the Court of Reghed.

THE YOUTH OF LYWARCH HEN,

“Admitted in this court to the privilege of the couch of honour, he enjoyed his share of the generosity of Urien. He had his place by the fire, near the great cauldron, where steamed the venison, the produce of the chase or the forays of Urien; and when in the genial banquets the drinking-horn passed from hand to hand by the light of the torches, when the joyous warriors and the gratified applicants shouted out their acclamations, when the harps of the bards delighted the court, he mingled his lays with theirs.”'

The joyous medal was not without its sorrowful reverse.

"But the day came when there remained of the destroyed palace nothing but the cold hearthstone among nettles and rushes, and the bard was heard to murmur - The downfall of Urien is my downfall also. Be still, whisper of inspiring poetry! There shall be now but few songs of praise: Urien is no more.'"

Lywarch had the grief to see his great patron and friend slain at the siege of Lindisfarne (see above. He

bore his head away to save it from desecration. After the death of Owen, and the Cymric reverses in the north, he retired to the halls of Kendelann, the friendly chief of Powis (Montgomery).†

But this brave man united with the Welsh chiefs, Conmael and Caranmael, engaging the Saxon enemy at Keawlin, was defeated and slain; and after the now desolate hard had performed the last sad duties to his friend, he remained in loneliness and enduring grief, poorly clad, with one cow as his sole property, and a poor thatched cottage his asylum.

In that poor retreat he for years lamented the death of his brave sons, Gwenn, Peil, and the other twentytwo. Having been an idolater in his youth, and worshipped the sun, and the constellation of the north, called by the Britons the Car of Arthur, he at times gave way to invocations of his ancient divinities. A good monk of the neighbouring monastery of Lanvort moved with pity for the spiritual and corporal destitution of the poor bard, brought words of comfort and enlightenment to his relief. But the contrast between his former and present state so embittered and saddened his soul, that the good religious had as much trouble with him as ever St. Patrick underwent with Oisin. Griefs and losses beyond what humanity could endure had, as he alleged, been inflicted on him :-"His friend's God could not be a God of mercy and love!" Grace, however, prevailed, and this second Oisin died under the influence of the three Christian virtues. He was interred in the friendly monastery, and it is supposed that the earliest MS, copy of his poems was there preserved for a longer or shorter period.

TALIESIN.

The life of our third bard, Taliesin, is involved in the obscurity of fable. An attentive reader will easily separate the true from the fabulous in the recital. Thomas ab Einion, a Welsh

‡ Lian, area, church; vor, great.