long interval to have lost almost every hold on the public sympathy. That theme, which at one period employed the most powerful pens in Europe, sank, comparatively speaking, into rest during the cold apathy of the latter part of the seventeenth and nearly the whole of the eighteenth century. The British church was scarcely recognised but to be sneered at; her ancient language was never regarded but as the wild jargon of a rude, uncultivated set of mountaineers. It was therefore no wonder that the dashing pen of a critic like Pinkerton, and the abstruse pages of the Critical Review, should be the sole arbitrators to decide whether so obscure a set of mortals as the Ancient Britons should venture to assert the right of having any national documents of their own. In vain did their partizans appeal to Usher as proof of the fact. In vain had Bishops Godwin, Lloyd, and Stillingfleet, written pages upon pages to prove that the Ancient Britons were really and truly human beings, capable of having a church and a written language of their own. Baronius, too, and Alford, and Cressy, hinted that the Ancient Britons possessed such documents. But these were Papists; they had some object in view; they might have been influenced by Rome. The learned author of Celtic Researches, Dr. Owen Pughe, Owen Myvyr, protested they had a literature, and produced their MSS. as vouchers of the fact. But these were Welsh: the critics could not comprehend them; besides, Ossian's poems had been already proved to be spurious; the Welsh, therefore, must follow the same fate.

But the day at length arrived when the hardy Britons were to have their rights. A champion arose in the person of Mr. Sharon Turner, who not only vindicated the ancient literature of Wales, but also awakened the curiosity, if it did not claim the respect, of every learned and impartial man upon this long-mooted question. It is no object of the present article to pass any encomium on Mr. Sharon Turner; his fame is far beyond anything that can be said; but there is a debt owing to him by the Principality, which it is felt assured the Principality will as cheerfully acknowledge, as we are ready to express it.

Notwithstanding the existence of these interesting documents, it is nevertheless a fact, that scarcely ten years have yet elapsed since the first attempt was made to apply them to their proper uses-that is, as subjects of investigation regarding the state of the church during the times in which they were written. It was, therefore, with some feelings of satisfaction we originally looked on the publication of the present subject of review; and more especially so, when we read in the Preface" that it was intended to supply the deficiencies of other more cumbersome and inaccessible works.' But as we proceeded, in medias res, this satisfaction grew less and less. ceived a want of judgment in the selection of materials, a degree of credulity in believing and receiving everything as undoubted history; that we felt it a duty owing to the church and the sacred cause of truth in general, as well as to the Principality, and the welfare of its literature in particular, to exhibit the true colours of most of the information upon which this book is founded. For certain it is,

We per

and this is our anxiety, that nothing can inflict a greater injury on Ancient British literature than neglecting to observe a proper examination of its just value-a clean sifting of the wheat from the chaff. To review, however, the whole of Mr. Williams's book is by no means our intention, as that would be to re-write the History of the Ancient British Church-a task which we are by no means inclined to perform at present.

Mr. Williams has promised in his Preface " a novel and striking source of information-the laws, triads, and genealogies of the Kymri,' "whose respective claims to credit," he says, " may be gathered from the notes which refer to them, and need not here be investigated."

Had these notes never been questioned, this species of evidence might have been satisfactory. But as they refer almost in every case, that is, in every questionable case, to the lucubrations that have, from time to time, emanated from the chair of Glamorgan, it becomes a duty to remind Mr. Williams that the chief qualification of a historian, when he seeks to found a new hypothesis on disputed grounds, is to get rid of the arguments which originally caused them to be disputed. This he has not done; he has received them all, as if the slightest shadow of a doubt had never been cast upon them. Surely Mr. Williams is not the man who can be ignorant of the manner in which the dictum of that Chair has been usually received? Is he, possibly, not aware of what a learned and able scholar said, in his Welsh History, of the famous Welsh alphabet-the invention, and not the discovery of the dictatorial Chair? The quarter from whence this gentleman came would, if anything, incline him to be partial to the great Chair. Yet did he not say how much it was to be regretted, if the alphabet were really a discovery, and not an invention, that the original was never produced and proved, and this more especially when such an opportunity occurred as that of the Eisteddvod held at Cardiff in 1834? It was not, surely, because it had never been questioned. The learned author of Druidic Mythology (no mean judge in a matter of this kind) did not hesitate, some forty years ago, to denounce this Chair, and to call upon its adherents to produce the originals of some of those very documents, which Mr. Williams would have his readers believe to be not only authentic, but from which there is to be no appeal.

One

So reckless were the promulgators of the doctrine of this Chair, at the same time so tainted were they with the popular axioms of the day-the French revolution—that they forgot, not only what Cæsar had said of the Druids (whose descendants they claimed to be), but actually they forgot what the Druids had said of themselves. of their favourite maxims was, "that there should be perfect equality among all." This was put forth in the shape of a triad, concocted, no doubt, by the Chair. Cæsar, however, says "His omnibus præst unus qui summam auctoritatem inter eos habet."

Taliesin, acknowledged even by the Chair to exhibit throughout his works a complete system of Druidism, said of himself—

"Minnau yw Taliesin,

Ben beirdd y Gorllewin."-Arch. 21.

"I am Taliesin, Head of the Bards of the West."

As far as the Bards and Druids, then, were concerned, there could have been no equality; but the case was not otherwise among the remaining ranks and orders of society. For the same Taliesin says— "Ys mwy gogoniant Vod Urien ai blant Ai ev yn arbennig Yn oruchel wledig."

"There is more glory that Urien and his children exist, and he the Supreme, the Sovereign Lord.”

After this, Mr. Williams has no room to shelter himself by saying, as he does in his Introduction, that Cæsar is not a fair expositor of Druidism, since all that he says can but apply to the Druidism of the Continent. For, the reader will observe, on this important question Cæsar is not at variance with British Druidism.

Another dictum of the Chair, which is of so great an authority with Mr. W., is," that it was unlawful for the bards and Druids to take up arms, and to set one party in opposition to another," (see p. 20.) That they were not divided into the modern constitutional classes of Whigs and Tories, Radicals and Locofocos is, we believe, a fact. But to say "that the bards, amid the storms of the moral world, must assume the serenity of the unclouded blue sky," is as laughable a piece of absurdity as the contrary fact is notorious. Who was Merlin? Was he not a bard and Druid? Yet did he not fight at the battle of Arderydd? Aneurin was a most celebrated bard. But was he not the man who saw and mingled among "the multitude of blood-stained weapons on the fatal day of Cattraeth?" So great a warrior was the noble bard and Druid, Llywarch Hen, and so evident was it to all, that even the Chair of Glamorgan could not but perceive it; consequently it gets over the difficulty by saying (on what authority it is impossible to add) "that Llywarch was not a member of the regular order of bards"—that is, it may be presumed, he was not a member of the Chair of Glamorgan :-He did not advocate the principles of the French Revolution; he was not "for universal peace and perfect equality;" he was too much engaged" in espousing a cause," and in supporting it by the manly vigour of his arm, and the soul-stirring spirit of his verse. Besides, has Mr. W. really forgotten how vainly the first Edward endeavoured to put down bardism in consequence of the great influence it had in rousing the Welsh to arms? He surely cannot be ignorant how much that "damned magician, Owen Glendower," was indebted for the greatest part of his success to the interference of the bards? Has he never read Lewis Glyn Cothi, almost the last remnant of genuine bardism, and is he not aware of the part which he espoused in the contest of the white and the red rose? Say nothing of the foolish quarrel between the two great bards, Davydd ap Gwilym and Gruffudd Gryg, and their final determination of deciding it by arms. These things must be known to Mr. Williams; he must have had some vague idea, some knowledge, however scanty, of the very general doubt with which the oracles of the Chair have been commonly received. And yet, notwithstanding this, Mr. Williams passes everything over with no other comment, with no other claim to credit, than" the notes which refer to them."

We have dwelt on this subject longer, perhaps, than agreeable to the patience of the reader, but certainly not longer than due to the importance of the subject, particularly if this book is to be the standard of information concerning the ancient British church, and "to supply the place of other more cumbersome and inaccessible sources of information." Nor will any one blame us, when it is considered how largely Mr. Williams draws from this Chair, which vaunts itself as being the only one of the four that has retained pure and intact the genuine tradition of the British Isles. Absolutely so genuine and so universally known to the rest of Wales were these oracles of Glamorgan, that the few rustics, even in the eighteenth century, by whom the bardic members were noticed in their fanatical and delirious meetings, usually supposed them to be, according to the choice expressions of the great occupier of the Chair, "infidels, conjurors, and we know not what." We may be permitted to add, that they were not very far wrong, provided we except the conjuring, of which it is believed no one ever justly suspected them. Yet, this is the very respectable source from which it is sought to write a history of the ancient British church.

There is another source of information of which as yet we have seen nothing more than the specimens printed and referred to by Mr. W. We allude to the genealogy of Jestyn ap Gwrgan. If, however, we may be allowed to form a judgment from these, we do not hesitate to say that it is derived from the same productive source as the lucubrations of the Chair. The full and discursive manner in which it treats of a subject, so utterly at variance with the brief and pithy accounts of those genealogies about which there can be no question, render it exceedingly doubtful whether any credit at all be given to it. For our own part we do not believe one word of what we have hitherto seen, that is not supported by other and better authority. Jestyn ap Gwrgan was a tyrant, a traitor, a robber, and a villain, in every sense of the word. Had it not been for his introducing Robert Fitzhammon and his Norman brood into Glamorganshire, it is more than probable that the riches of that county would have yet remained in the hands of their original possessors, and, what is of still greater importance, that the impoverished church of Llandaff might have retained to this day some of her large revenues, and not be compelled, as we have seen her, to go a begging of other churches to enlarge her scanty pittance. The good Bishop Urban tells Pope Calixtus II. an affecting tale of some of the ravages done to his church, and of which the meddling of this traitor only was the principal cause. Yet this is the man to whom so many Welsh families are more than proud if they can but trace their descent upwards without a flaw. Jestyn lived in the eleventh century-a prolific age for romance and story. It is not, then, a matter of wonder if the genealogy speaks with such extreme accuracy of events that occurred in the first and in the second century. Mr. Williams values it probably the more for this. As the genealogy is not yet published, it does not appear at what time it claims to have been written. If about the period in which Jestyn lived, that wonder-working age will

In

account for the record of such strange events. If, on the other hand, it was written later, there will be no difficulty to trace its source. either case, the cause is a bad one.

While perusing this history, it cannot fail to strike the reader how tenacious Mr. Williams is to represent every honour, every good doctrine, every pious and methodical saint, as proceeding solely from Siluria, the region of the Chair. If we would find "pure druidism," we must go to Siluria. "The last remnant of the ancient British throne" is to be seen only in Siluria. Siluria alone "fostered bardism in its native integrity." In point of fact, Siluria has everything short of Queen Victoria, a lord-mayor, and a Buckingham Palace. it is remarkable," says Mr. Williams," that all traditionary documents which relate to the doctrine and the institutes of the primitive system are invariably written in the Silurian dialect;" that is to say, in the dialect of the Chair. Now, this is remarkable-very remarkable; and for the sake of truth most fortunate is it that it is so, for it strikes at once at the root of the mystery. It proves beyond a doubt the credibility attached to the Chair. When a body of men affirm their system to be the only vehicle by which truth is conveyed, and if it be known that that system is at issue with all other systems, and can claim neither antiquity of origin, nor the voice of general tradition, as a means of support, the inference is, that its teaching becomes questionable. For instance, suppose my lord-mayor of York were to produce certain documents from the royal archives of that "ancient city," announcing, at the same time, that they contained matter very new and of the greatest antiquity-written, too, in the purest Yorkshire Doric-and that they affirmed, among other things, that the sovereigns of England held their parliaments at all times, and nowhere else, but in their ancient city, down to the close of the eighteenth century-and this, too, let the reader observe, in the face of all that the History of England has asserted to the contrary. To whom, in such a case, ought credibility to be given? To my lord-mayor, or to the printed volumes of the History of England? It is just so with the Chair of Glamorgan.

Apart, however, from these considerations, should any one wish to see some gross misrepresentation, if not absolute forgery, on the part of this Chair, let him consult the first section of Davies's Mythology of the Druids.

With respect to "the laws" referred to by Mr. Williams, it is sufficient to observe that the legislator, Dyvnal Moelmud, lived 430 B.C.

The "triads" are many of them of great antiquity, and entitled to much respect, if we except that portion of them called Triads of Wisdom and Triads of Bardism. These were first published under the auspices of the Chair. "It is remarkable that they, too, are written in the Silurian dialect." Their philosophy is peculiar to the seventeenth and eighteenth century. It is of a levelling kind. It is possible that Cromwell was a druid, and that Robespierre and his satellites were bards and ovates.

The triad is a method of recording ancient events without reference to dates, simply as they occurred to the mind of the chroniclers. It