Since the publication of that work, several papers have appeared in the Archæologia Cambrensis, in which he has given his more matured views of the poems, modifying somewhat this classification. Mr. Nash deals with them in the two classes only, and on the whole considers the entire body of poetry connected with the name of Taliessin to belong to the twelfth and subsequent centuries. It is with the poems attributed to Taliessin that the objections under the first proposition mainly deal. The great body of those included under the head of mythological poems bear his name, or are said to be composed by him, and to these the school of Owen Pughe and Edward Williams, of Davics and Herbert, has given a mystic sense, and has supposed that a species of Druidic superstition was handed down in them. Now, I go a certain length with them in this objection. I agree with them in thinking that these poems do not contain any such esoteric system of semi-pagan philosophy, and so far as their criticism goes to demolish the fancies of this school, I think it is well founded. But there I stop. It does not follow that because the poems are not what Davies and Herbert represent them to be, they are therefore not genuine. It does not follow that because a mistaken meaning has been applied to them, therefore they can have no rational meaning whatever. Like all poems of this description, they are full of obscure allusions and half-expressed sentiments, and where the real drift of the poem is not understood, it will of course have the aspect of meaningless verbiage, just as the ritual of a church, to one who does not know what it is intended to convey or to symbolise, appears mere mummery; but as soon as a clue is obtained to the real meaning of the poet, the allusions in the poem, however obscure they appear, become intelligible and consistent; and before the critic can justly urge this objection, he must be very sure that he has grasped the real meaning of the poet, as well as comprehended the true bearing and place in literature of the poems he is dealing with. That these poems are really intended to convey a definite meaning I do not doubt. They will be found to harmonise with the history and intellectual character of the place and period to which they belong, and the first work of the critic is to ascertain, on definite grounds, what that place and period really is. The other ground given for doubting these poems is more tangible-viz. that they contain such allusions to the prose tales and romances of the middle ages as to show that they must have been written after these tales were composed, and here Mr. Nash makes a special case against the poems attributed to Taliessin. He states that a prose tale, containing the personal history of Taliessin and his transmigrations, was composed in the thirteenth century, and that a copy of this tale contained in the Red Book of Hergest has been published, with an English translation, by Lady Charlotte Guest, in her collection of Mabinogion. This prose tale is interspersed with poems said to have been sung by Taliessin, and Mr. Nash maintains that it is in the main the basis from which the greater part of the so-called poems of Taliessin has sprung, and that a large number, besides those contained in the Mabinogi of Taliessin, derive their inspiration from it. It seems rather strange that so severe a critic as Mr. Nash, who will accept none of the poems which are the subject of his criticism as ancient or genuine, except upon the clearest evidence, should yet assume at once the genuineness and antiquity of the Mabinogi of Taliessin. It is beyond question, that the only text of it before him is written in much more modern Welsh than any of the poems it is supposed to have given birth to, and yet he makes no difficulty. It is further strange that in founding upon this prose tale as the very basis of his argument throughout, and his most formidable weapon, he should not have taken means to ascertain whether it really is in the Red Book of Hergest. No copy of this tale is to be found in the Red Book of Hergest at all, and as that valuable MS. contains all the other prose tales of that period, this of itself is an argument against its authenticity. But, moreover, no copy of it is to be found in any known MS. prior to the eighteenth century. Dr. Owen Pughe, who published it in 1833, says explicitly that there was but one version of the prose narrative, and that version was furnished by Iolo Morganwg. Every notice regarding it upon which Mr. Nash founds emanates from him, and is not to be found elsewhere. Even if we accept the account given by Dr. Owen Pughe, his explicit statement is, that it was composed by Hopkin Thomas Philip, and it cannot be taken farther back than 1590 or 1600, long after every poem we are dealing with had been transcribed; but its history is so questionable as to lead to the suspicion that it had no earlier origin than the school which produced it, and it is quite as necessary for Mr. Nash, before he can legitimately found upon it, to bridge over the interval between Einion Offeiriad in the thirteenth century, if he lived then, or if he ever lived at all, and Dr. Owen Pughe in the nineteenth, as it is for the advocates of the authenticity of the poems to bridge over the interval between the sixth century and the Black Book of Caermarthen. So much for the prose narrative. With regard to the poems imbedded in it, whether naturally or artificially, the text published by Dr. Pughe in 1833 contains eleven poems; that published by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1849, fourteen, but in the notes we are informed that four of these poems were added to her edition from the Myvyrian Archaeology, and were not in the MSS. from which she printed. Now, of these eleven poems contained in the MSS. of the prose tale printed by Dr. Owen Pughe and Lady Charlotte Guest, not one is to be found in the Book of Taliessin; and of the four poems which she added from the Myvyrian Archæology, only two are in that Book. At the time, therefore, when the Book of Taliessin was transcribed, the poems inserted in the prose tale had either not been written, or were known to be spurious, and not to belong to the body of poems at that time attributed to Taliessin. Moreover, several of these poems are said to have been in reality the work of Jonas Athraw o Fynyw, or Jonas, the Doctor or Divine of St. Davids, of whom, however, and the true period in which he lived, we know really nothing, but one of these poems appears among the poems transcribed in the end of the Red Book of Hergest in the fifteenth century. The poems attributed to Jonas Athraw of St. David's are 1. Hanes Taliessin, beginning "Prifardd Cyffredin." 5. Yr awdl Fraith, beginning with the line "Ef a It is the last of these poems from which the wellknown sentiment has been so often quoted, as a saying of Taliessin Eu ner a volant Eu hiaith a gadwant Ond gwyllt Walia. Their God they shall adore, Their language they shall keep, Their country they shall lose, Indeed, it is generally considered that the history |