with that dignity. This was six years before the death of King Edwin.

The labours of Paulinus were not confined to Deira, or Yorkshire, but they extended to the other side of the Tees, into Northumberland; and we are told, in particular, that he made many converts in the neighbourhood of MELFIELD,* which was the royal residence, and then called ADGEBRIN. There he staid for several weeks at a time, taken up with the employment of catechizing and baptizing; during which days, says the historian, he was engaged in instructing the people who resorted to him from all the surrounding country, from morning to night.

When in Yorkshire, he seems to have spent much of his time near to Catterick-bridge, anciently called CATARACTON. He baptized many in the river Swale, which runs by there. But particular mention is made of his erecting a church in the plain of Don, which Camden supposed to be at Almondbury; originally he thinks called Albanbury, in honour of St. Alban, the proto-martyr of Roman-Britain. There King Edwin had a country residence, which was destroyed in the subsequent war between him and Penda, the Mercian king. The kings of that nation afterwards built themselves a palace in the country of Loidis, or that region in which the town of LEEDS now stands.

We must here notice that there is an ancient tradition of Paulinus's preaching at DEWSBURY, OF DEUSBURY; and Camden mentions an ancient cross with the following inscription:

PAULINUS HIC PRÆDICAVIT ET CELEBRAVIT.

In consequence of that tradition, a neat cross, recently

* The name of Melved occurs in the elegy of Llowarch, on the death of Cadwallon.

erected, appears over the south entrance of the present parish church.

Through the interference of Edwin with Eorpwald king of the East Angles, and son of Redwald, the Christian Faith was once more admitted into that province. Redwald had, at one time, espoused Christianity; but, through the persuasion of his wife, he was seduced to apostatise from his profession; or at least to set up a kind of Samaritan worship: for in the same temple there were set up two different altars, the one an idol altar, and the other an altar for the Christian worship.* Eorpwald, his son, was more cordial and consistent in his profession; but after his days the people of his dominion relapsed again into idolatry for three years: but on the accession of Sigbert, who had lived as an exile in France, Christianity was once more established.

Paulinus extended his ministerial labours to the south of the Humber, and planted Christianity in Lincolnshire: Bede also states, that an aged priest had told him that he received information of Paulinus preaching at a place in Nottinghamshire, by the side of the river Trent, near an ancient city, which is supposed to have stood on the site of Southwell, in that county. The person referred to described Paulinus as being of tall stature, but a little stooping; his hair black, his visage meagre, his nose slender and hooked, his aspect both venerable and awful.

Paulinus remained in the dominions of Edwin until the death of that prince; and he then removed into Kent, where he presided over the see of Rochester from the year 633 to that of 634.

In the character of Edwin, as a monarch and as a

* Many would be pleased with such liberality; but the true Christians were reckoned very unsociable and bigoted, in not permitting the heathen idols to have some share in their devotions.

man, there were many excellent traits. He gained the esteem of his subjects by the wise regulations which he adopted. The internal police that prevailed in his dominions was so vigilant, that it became an aphorism to say, that a woman with her new-born infant might walk from sea to sea without fear of insult. For the accommodation of travellers, he caused brazen dishes to be chained to stakes by the side of those springs of water that were contiguous to the public roads. Such was the general affection for the virtues of the king, or the dread of his justice, that no one made an improper use of these vessels. After a prosperous reign of seventeen years, his last days were beclouded, and he died violently.

We have noticed before, the war between Edwin and the king of North Wales; and that the latter fled into Ireland, where he was obliged to abide for the space of seven years. Cadwallon, during his state of exile and humiliation, was concerting measures for the overthrow of Edwin, who had annexed the island of Anglesea (the ancient Mona), with part of North Wales, to his dominions. Penda, the king of Mercia, or the midland Saxons, entered into an alliance with the Welsh prince; and the two kings met Edwin in Hatfield Chace, where, in a desperate battle, his life and reign were terminated on the twelfth of October 633, in the forty-eighth year of his age. One of his children, and most of his army, perished.

Penda was a Pagan, and exercised great cruelties on the inhabitants of Northumbria. Edwin's queen fled, under the protection of Paulinus, to Kent, the land of her nativity; while Cadwallon, full of rage against the Angles, urged on the war, and ravaged the country for a whole year. He now might cherish the hope that the Cymry should yet regain the sovereignty of Britain by

complete subjugation of the Angles and Saxons, but his victories were soon to come to an end. After fighting "fourteen great battles and sixty skirmishes,"* Cadwallon and the flower of his army fell in a terrible battle fought with young Oswald, the brother and successor of Eanfrid.

Cadwallon was brave, but vindictive: and being so intimately connected with the Pagan king of Mercia, he shared in all the cruel proceedings of the latter; or, at least, was involved in the same disgrace. The ambitious and ungenerous conduct of Edwin, towards the friend and benefactor of his youth, furnished him with an excuse for that severe retaliation, which in those ages was considered justifiable in the victorious party.

This prince was the last of the Welsh who combated the Saxons with any success; and his son Cadwalader resigned all title to the sovereignty of Britain, so that he is considered the last who bore the empty title of king of the Britons.

The aged Llowarch lived to survive Cadwallon, who appears to have been a generous patron of the Bards. In his elegy composed by Llowarch, mention is made of various battles in which he was engaged. He is stiled "The lion of conflict," and "The enthraller of Loegyr." But in that poem there is no particular mention of his having fallen on the field of battle. It concludes with the following stanzas:

O gyssul-estrawn, ac anghyviawn venaich
Dillydd dyvwr o fynnawn

Trig trym-ddydd am Gadwallawn.

Gwisgwys coed cain dudded hâv;
Dybrysid gwyth wrth dynged—
Cyvarwyddom ni am Elved.

Translation.

The host of Cadwallon encamped on Meinin,
The lion with the numerous retinue,

The violent storm furious against the borders.

From the alien conspiracy and the unjust monks,
As water flows from the fountain

Long shall our moaning last for Cadwallon.

The trees are now covered with their summer foliage;
Let the fatal rage (of battle) impel us

To direct our steps to the plain of Elved.*

From comparing the Saxon and the Welsh accounts, the latter appears erroneous in assigning the year 646 as the date of Caswallon's death. Llywarch had lived some time, when young, in the court of Arthur: and he survived his patron Caswallon. The Bard was proverbial for his extreme old age: but we are not so easily induced to think that he lived one entire century, and the half of another... Instead, therefore, of 646, we may say 636 was more probably the time of Cadwallon's death.

In the elegy of Llywarch, on the death of that prince, there is allusion made to no less than fifteen different scenes of conflict in various parts of Wales; from which it would appear, that the Saxons frequently made irruptions into that country. Edwin is, in one place, called Mwg mawr drevydd, or The Conflagrator of Towns.

* Melved in some copies; and this was the same, in all probability, as Melfleet, the seat of the Bernician kings, near Morpeth.