my chaplyns or some other good preacher doe make a sermon, or read a lecture, tending to instruct men to the reverent and worthy receiving of that holy and blessed sacrament. And such as shall either willfullie refuse so to doe, or cautiously absent themselves of purpose, that good notice be taken of such by my counsell or officers, and my selfe informed thereof, to give such further order therein as may stand for an eminent example and chastisement to such ungodly and unchristianlike disposition; for the which kinde of people my court shall be no shelter, nor my service any protection. The contents of the Archaiology of Wales are derived from various collections of old manuscripts, preserved, for the most part, within the principality; sources but little known to the inquisitive antiquary; sources of which even the existence hath been doubted by the candid literati; and, I may add, of course denied by the captious, ever more indulgent to their own prejudices, than anxious to investigate truth. But such must unavoidably be the case with respect to a people so circumstanced as we are in Wales, insulated from the nation, at large, by the barrier of a peculiar language: for, in this language, is written every thing deemed worthy of preservation; and, as none study it but ourselves, the whole remains, generally speaking, unknown to the rest of the world. the There are some instances, indeed, of a few articles having been présented to the public, through the medium of translation, by those, whose partiality for the subjećt, hath enabled them to overcome the obstacles which, in their situation, thwarted very much their wishes to bestow proper attention to the study of the literary remains of their ancestors. But they came forward, in all that simplicity of heart that is the attendant of truth, without the precaution * The first of these volumes contains the Welsh poetry from the sixth century to the fourteenth. The most ancient, or those preceding the tenth century, are arranged under the title of Cynveirz. The bards of the middle ages follow the foriner, under the title of the Gogynveitz. These words imply the early poets and the poets less ancient. The second volume consists of the Triads, which are our ancient traditions, arranged under that peculiar form; a form which I admit to be capricious, but which was probably used to fix them better in the memory. After these, are our genealogies of the founders of the British churches. Several ancient Welsh chronicles then follow. The others are genuine annals of Welsh history, in a plain simple form, from the seventh to the thirteenth century. A life of Grufudd ab Cvnan, who died in 1137, and written soon afterwards, follows; and some ancient divisions of Wales close the volume. Other ancient-documents of our nation are Now printing. precaution of being guarded with any kind of detence: for, being themselves convinced, by internal evidence, of the genuineness of what they produced, they gave no other opportunity for the curious to be satisfied, and thus left every thing open to the attacks of the infidel. To multiply the means of introducing the ancient British remains to the world, by other persons, was, next to their preservation, the motive which occasioned the Archaiology, under consideration, to be undertaken by the editors; and, as in the progress of bringing it forward, a sentiment hostile to the authenticity of its contents was discovered to prevail, with considerable influence, among men of letters; it was, therefore, found expedient to prefix to the volumes, a summary history of the present state of Welsh manuscripts. Before I proceed, however, I cannot help expressing my satisfaction at the happy circumstance; that such a doubt of the authenticity of our old writings hath been thrown out, and that such an account hath now become necessary, while the publication is carried on; and more especially, while we have those manuscripts in existence to produce, so as to convince all those who are anxious to establish the truth of this point, by taking the trouble of making the necessary inquiry: for, had it not been done until a century or two more had elapsed, endangering the still farther decay of those mouldering records, at which period should the authenticity of the Welsh archaiology be arraigned at the bar of strangers to the language of it, by the stern advocate of truth, still uninformed as to all the internal evidence; then, indeed, might the vo 3 tary of our venerable bards attempt in vain to stem the torrent of popular opinion, and have only to deplore that rigid fate, which would envelop at once, with the veil of oblivion, the memorials of a thousand years of our history. In reverting to the proposed account of manuscripts, it may be of some importance to observe, that a very general habit of reading was created by the bards, whose system, though declining, hath continued, in a very considerable degree, among the common people of Wales, down to the present period; insomuch that various editions of many hundred books have been published in their language, as appears by a catalogue of them, printed by the rev. Moses Williams, about a century ago; which is a remarkable fact, and unknown to the world in general. But of these books, however, none bear any proportion, iu extent of circulation, to the different editions of the bible; for it may be remarked, with pleasure, that the demand for the scriptures hath been extraordinary among so small a population; as may be conceived from knowing that nineteen editions, consisting of upwards of one hundred and thirty thousand copies, have been called for, since the first translation of the bible into Welsh. The invention of printing hath obviated the necessity of using manuscript books for the common purposes of reading; but among a people, circumstanced as the Welsh are, this has not taken place entirely, even to this day; though the use of manuscripts is gradually diminishing, and the bad consequence of it is, that great numbers of them have been destroyed, and many more have mouldered away in large collec collections, remaining in old deserted mansions: I can certify that such a fate hath befallen some collections, from my own knowledge; and am sorry to be able to point out three ancient houses, now in the hands of tenants, in each of which there are large chests of old writings, which have been locked up for many years. It is lamentable to think how many valuable manuscripts have been lost in this manner; so that it may be safely averred, that a number equal to what now remains, hath perished through neglect, within the last two hundred years; that is to say, since the higher ranks of Welshmen have withdrawn their patronage from the cultivation of the literature of their native country. Before that time the bards were patronized, not only by the natives, but by the lords of the marches, and other strangers of distinction, who obtained possessions in Wales, whose policy it was to ingratiate themselves with the people, by encouraging their ancient learning. Several of these strangers even surpassed most of the natives in their zeal in this respect; for among the most distinguished patrons of the bards, we can boast of the following illustrious names: Jasper and William Herbert, earls of Pembroke; Richard Nevill, lord of Glamorgan; and sir Richard Basset, of Bewpyr Castle. To the three personages last named, and sir Edward Lewis, of Van, we owe a grateful remembrance, for being the means of preserving to us one of *In the years 1467, 1612, and 1681. the most curious treasures of ancient times, that any nation can produce; I mean the system containing the institutes and discipline of the bards of the isle of Britain, as they always styled it themselves, but which was more generally known by the name of Druidism. For such a person the above noblemen caused several congresses to be held for the bards to bring together whatever had been handed down to them from their predecessors; all of which was care fully entered into books, by persons appointed to perform that office; + this was the state of things in South Wales; a similar spirit prevailed in the north district of that principality, and of the foreign families who settled there, the names of se veral of the Salesburies, the Middletons, and the Bulkeley's, stand distinguished as patrons and writers, whose memories are still revered by the natives. To such a spirit then is to be attributed the many collections of valuable manuscripts, which have been formed in different parts of Wales; and several of which still remain; and detached volumes also are commonly to be met with, in the hands of obscure individuals. Therefore, according to the nearest calculation that can be made, we have still preserved upwards of two thousand manuscript books, of va rious ages, from the beginning of the ninth, to the close of the sixteenth century. The most valuable of those collections are in the possession of some of the leading families in the principality; And it ought not to be forgotten, that the royal sanction was obtained from Henry VIIth. for holding such meetings, of the bards, as it is stated in the preface to the papers which contained the transactions of one of those assem blies. Thomas Johnes, esq. at Havod. near Llandaf, Rev. Josiah Rees, at Gelli Gron, Out of Wales, the collections of The earl of Macclesfield, in Oxfordshire, Jesus College, Oxford, The British Museum, London, Mr. Owen Jones, London, Rev. Mr. Kenrick, Exeter. the contents of the before-mentioned stores of British learning may be classed are, poetry, bardic institutes, laws, history, theology, ethics, proverbs, dramatic tales, grammars. The first of these classes, the po. etry, is by far the most extensive; for it may be computed to fill about eight parts out of ten of our old writings, omitting to take into account the heraldric collections all together; but with respect to the quantity that is printed, such a proportion may be reversed. On this subject I have made a calculation, so as to enable me to infer, that I have perused upwards of thirteen thousand poetical pieces, of various denominations, for the purpose of collecting words, in the course of about eighteen years that I have been compiling the dictionary of the Welsh language. # Among 167 manuscript volumes in the Hengwrt collection, the leading articles of which are detailed by Llwyd, in the Archaeologia Britannica, the oldest that I have seen of Welsh poetry, is the Black Book, of Caermarthen; the first half of which, appears to have been written as early, at least, as the beginning of the ninth century; but the latter part of it is of later date, being generally supposed the hand-writing of Cynzelw, about the year 1160, one of whose productions, composed in that year, being added at the The principal heads under which end of the book*. The next de serving M. S. Arch. This curious manuscript contains, Dialogue between, Merzin (Merlin) of Caledonia, and Taliesin The Graves of the Warriors of Britain, by Taliesin A fragment of the Prospect of Dinbyc, by Taliesin Invocation to the Swine, by Merzim serving of notice, for their antiquity, are two volumes of the same collection, written towards the close of the eleventh century; of which, one is filled with the works of Taliesin, and the other with the odes of Aneurin. Transcripts of the more early poetry are also numerously interspersed among the productions of the bards who flourished under the auspices of the latter princes of Wales, of which there are many copies, as well in the Hengwrt collection, as among 106 volumes in the Wynnestay library, and, indeed, in most of the collections already enumerated. The red book, of Jesus College, in Oxford, written about the year 1300, is, for the most part, filled with the earlier poetry, mixed with other pieces, written at various times, down to the date of the book. I do not pretend to state all the manuscripts now extant; of our ancient poets of those which exist, I only mention what I The Apple Trees, by Merzin Moral verses, by Elaeth A Moral ode, by Gwyzno have seen myself. Some collections, as the earl of Macclefield's, which, I believe, to be valuable, and others I have had, as yet, no opportunity of examining. I hope, that some persons better qualified than I am, will be induced to give an exact catalogue of all our MSS. now in being. The bardic institutes were not regularly committed to writing, until they were arranged together under the authority of the congresses convened by the English noblemen in South Wales, as already mentioned. The original manuscripts then drawn up of such institutes, are in the collection of Mr. Turberville, at Llanaran, in Glamorganshire. Ancient copies of the Laws of the Britons are common in most collections: there are eighteen of them in that of Hengwrt; four in that of Wynnestay; and several in the British Museum and elsewhere: but I have not met with a late tran On the Inundation of Cantrev Gwaelod, by Gwyzno Contention with Gwyn ab nuz, by Gwyzno Dialogue between Arthur, Cai, and Glewlwyd A Religious Ode, by Cuhelyn |