Britain," which he professed to have compiled from old books in the collection of MSS. at Raglan Castle. Iolo Morganwg published, in 1794, his Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, in which he gave to the world some account of this system, and a work which he had prepared for the press, termed Cyfrinach Beirdd ynys Prydain, in the Welsh language and from the MS. of Llywelyn Sion, was published after his death by his son in 1829. A further instalment, termed Barddas, was printed, with a translation, for the Welsh MS. Society in 1862.

Among the contributions made by him to the documents printed in the Myvyrian Archæology, were the so-called Historical Triads (vol. ii. p. 57) which have been so much founded upon in writing Welsh history, and the Triads called the Wisdom of Catoc (vol. iii. p. 1), and the Triads of the Bards of Britain and Institutes of the Bards of Dyfnwal Moelmud (vol. iii. pp. 199 and 283). A volume of documents prepared by him as an additional volume of the Myvyrian Archæology, was printed after his death, with a translation, for the Welsh MS. Society, in 1848, termed The Iolo Manuscripts.

But the most important document which issued from him, and which has exercised the greatest influence on the popular views of Welsh literature, was the prose tale or Mabinogi, termed Hanes Taliessin, and containing the so-called personal history of that bard. A fragment of the Welsh text was given in the first volume of the Myvyrian Archæology; but the whole tale, with a translation, was published by Dr. Owen Pughe,

in 1833, in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine (vol. v. p. 198). In his introductory remarks he states that the compiler, Hopkin Thomas Philip, wrote this piece about the year 1370. He lived in Morganwg or Glamorgan. The same tale was published by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1849, in the third volume of her Mabinogion; and she states that her copy was made up from two fragments the one contained in a MS. of the library of the Welsh school in London, written in a modern hand, and dated in 1758; the other from a MS. belonging to Iolo Morganwg. The fragment in the Welsh school library was probably that printed in the Myvyrian Archæology; and the MS. belonging to Iolo Morganwg, that used by Dr. Owen Pughe, as the latter states in his introductory remarks, "Of the narrative part but one version exists." Iolo Morganwg himself states that the romance entitled Hanes Taliessin-i.e. the history of Taliessin-was "written so late at least as the fourteenth, or rather the fifteenth, century," and that he used the expression fifteenth century in the loose sense of the century from 1500 to 1600 is plain, as he likewise states that Hopkin Thomas Philip flourished about 1560. This is the same Hopkin Thomas Philip who, Dr. Owen Pughe says, wrote it about 1370; but there is no real difference between them as to his true age, for in his Cambrian Biography, published in 1803, thirty years before, Dr. Owen Pughe, then Mr. William Owen, has the following: "Hopcin Thomas Phylip, a poet who flourished between A.D. 1590 and 1630." At that

time, therefore, the compilation of the Hanes Taliessin was not placed further back than the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century. The prose narrative contains a number of poems stated to have been composed by Taliessin in connection with the events of his life, but these will be noticed when we come to deal with the poetry attributed to that bard.

It is a peculiarity attaching to almost all of the documents which have emanated from the chair of Glamorgan, in other words, from Iolo Morganwg, that they are not to be found in any of the Welsh MSS. contained in other collections, and that they must be accepted on his authority alone. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to say that they must be viewed with some suspicion, and that very careful discrimination is required in the use of them.

CHAPTER III.

SOURCES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF WALES.

In order to discriminate between what is true and what is fabulous in the early history of Wales as presented to us in the historic literature subsequent to the twelfth century, and to disentangle the fragments of real history contained in them, so as to enable us to form something like a true conception of its leading features, it is necessary to test it by comparing it with the statements in contemporary authorities of other countries, and by referring to such earlier native documents as have come down to us. Of the latter class there are only three, and it is requisite that we should form a right conception of their authority. The first are the works of Gildas, who wrote in Latin. They are usually considered as consisting of two pieces, the Historia and the Epistola, but they may be viewed as forming one treatise. Questions have been raised upon the lives of Gildas, as to whether there was one or two persons of the name-an earlier and a later; but, viewing the question in its literary aspect, it is of little consequence, for the treatise is evidently the work of one man, and there is evidence in the work itself of his date. The writer states that he was

born in the year in which the battle of Badon was fought, and that he wrote forty-four years after.* According to the oldest Welsh annals, the battle of Badon was fought in the year 516, which would place the composition of the treatise in the year 560; and the Irish annals record the death of Gildas in 570, ten years after.

Only three MSS. of Gildas are known to have existed, and the oldest of these has since perished. It was in the Cottonian Library (Vit. A. vi.), but fortunately the text of Josseline's edition of Gildas in 1568 was printed from it, and, according to Mr. Petrie, so correctly that it may be taken as representing it. The other two MSS. are in the public library at Cambridge (Dd, i. 17 and Ff, i. 27)—the one of the end of the fourteenth or beginning of fifteenth centuries, and the other of the thirteenth century. The first is said to have belonged to the monks of Glastonbury, and the second to the monks of Durham. This latter MS. inserts various passages which are not to be found in the other MSS. Thus the other MSS. mention that the Saxons were invited "superbo tyranno," and the Durham MS. inserts the words "Gurthrigerno Britannorum duce.'

Again, where the

Bede understood this well-known passage as implying that the battle of Badon was fought forty-four years after the arrival of the Saxons; but it is now generally admitted that this is a mistaken construction of the passage, and that the true import is as above, to which I also give my adhesion.

Josseline says it had belonged to Christ Church, Canterbury, and was 600 years old.