the manners of the two nations; which, however, may be accounted for on general principles arising from our comparative observations on rude life. Yet it is remarkable that mead, the northern nectar, or favourite liquor of the Goths", who seem to have stamped it with the character of a poetical drink, was no less celebrated among the Welsh. The songs of both nations abound with its praises: and it seems in both to have been alike the delight of the warrior and the bard. Taliessin, as Lhuyd informs us, wrote a panegyrical ode on this inspiring beverage of the bee; or, as he translates it, De Mulso seu HYDROMELI. In Hoel Dha's Welsh laws, translated by Wotton, we have, "In omni convivio in quo MULSUM bibitur'." From which passage, it seems to have been served up only at high festivals. By the same constitutions, at every feast in the king's castle-hall, the prefect or marshal of the hall is to receive from the queen, by the hands of the steward, a HORN OF MEAD. It is also ordered, among the privileges annexed to the office of prefect of the royal-hall, that the king's bard shall sing to him as often as he pleases". One of the stated officers of the king's houshold is CONFECTOR MULSI: and this officer, together with the master of the horse", the master of the hawks, the

h And of the antient Franks. Gregory of Tours mentions a Frank drinking this liquor; and adds, that he acquired this habit from the BARBAROUS OF Frankish nations. Hist. Franc. lib. viii. c. 33. p. 404. ed. 1699. Paris. fol. i See vol. ii. p. 264. * Tanner Bibl. p. 706.

I LEG. WALL. L. i. cap. xxiv. p. 45. m Ibid. L. i. cap. xii. p. 17. "When the king makes a present of a horse, this officer is to receive a fee; but not when the present is made to a bishop, the master of the hawks, or to the Mimus. The latter is exempt, on account of the entertainment he afforded the court at being presented with a horse by the king: the horse is to be led out of the hall with capistrum testiculis alligatum. Ibid. L. i. cap. xvii. p. 31. MIMUS Seems here to be a MIMIC, or a gesticulator. Carpentier mentions a JOCULATOR qui sciebat TOMBARE, to tumble." Cang. Lat. Gloss. Suppl. V.

TOMBARE. In the Saxon canons given by king Edgar, about the year 960, it is ordered, that no priest shall be a POET, or

exercise the MIMICAL or histrionical art in any degree, either in public or private. Can. 58. Concil. Spelman, tom. i. p. 455. edit. 1639. fol. In Edgar's Oration to Dunstan, the MIMI, Minstrels, are said both to sing and dance. Ibid. p. 477. Much the same injunction occurs in the Saxon Laws of the NORTHUMBRIAN PRIESTS, given in 988. Cap. xli. ibid. p. 498. MIMUs seems sometimes to have signified THE FOOL. As in Gregory of Tours, speaking of the MIMUS of Miro a king of Gallicia: "Erat enim MIMUS REGIS, qui ei per VERBA JOCULARIA LATITIAM erat solitus EXCITARE. Sed non; cum adjuvit aliquis CACHINNUS, neque præstigiis artis suæ," &c. Gregor. Turonens. MIRACUL. S. Martin. lib. iv. cap. vii. p. 1119. Opp. Paris. 1699. fol. edit. Ruinart.

smith of the palace, the royal bard", the first musician, with some others, have a right to be seated in the hall. We have already seen, that the Scandinavian scalds were well known in Ireland: and there is sufficient evidence to prove, that the Welsh bards were early connected with the Irish. Even so late as the eleventh century, the practice continued among the Welsh bards, of receiving instructions in the bardic profession from Ireland. The Welsh bards were reformed and regulated by Gryffyth ap Conan, king of Wales, in the year 1078. At the same time he brought over with him from Ireland many Irish bards, for the information and improvement of the Welsh 3.

" He is to work free: except for makIng the king's cauldron, the iron bands, and other furniture for his castle-gate, and the iron-work for his mills. LEG. WALL. L. i. cap. xliv. p. 67.

P By these constitutions, given about the year 940, the bard of the Welsh kings is a domestic officer. The king is to allow him a horse and a woollen robe; and the queen a linen garment. The prefect of the palace, or governor of the castle, is privileged to sit next him in the hall, on the three principal feast days, and to put the harp into his hand. On the three feast days he is to have the steward's robe for a fee. He is to attend, if the queen desires a song in her chamber. An ox or cow is to be given out of the booty or prey (chiefly consisting of cattle) taken from the English by the king's domestics: and while the prey is dividing, he is to sing the praises of the BRITISH KINGS OF KINGDOM. If, when the king's domestics go out to make depredations, he sings or plays before them, he is to receive the best bullock. When the king's army is in array, he is to sing the Song of the BRITISH KINGS. When invested with his office, the king is to give him a harp, (other constitutions say a chess-board,) and the queen a ring of gold: nor is he to give away the harp on any account. When he goes out of the palace to sing with other bards, he is to receive a double portion of the largesse or gratuity. If he ask a gift or favour of the king, he is to be fined by singing an ode or poem: if of a nobleman or chief, three; if of a vassal, he is to sing him to sleep. LEG. WALL. L. i.

cap. xix. p. 35. Mention is made of the bard who gains the CHAIR in the hall. Ibid. ARTIC. 5. After a contest of bards in the hall, the bard who gains the chair, is to give the JUDGe of the HALL, another officer, a horn, (cornu bubalinum) a ring, and the cushion of his chair. Ibid. L. i. cap. xvi. p. 26. When the king rides out of his castle, five bards are to accompany him. Ibid. L. i. cap. viii. p. 11. The Cornu Bubalinum may be explained from a passage in a poem, composed about the year 1160, by Owain Cyveiliog prince of Powis, which he entitled HIRLAS, from a large drinking-horn so called, used at feasts in his castle-hall. "Pour out, o cup-bearer, sweet and pleasant mead (the spear is red in the time of need) from the horns of wild oxen, covered with gold, to the souls of those departed heroes." Evans, p. 12.

By these laws the king's harp is to be worth one hundred and twenty pence: but that of a gentleman, or one not a vassal, sixty pence. The King's chessboard is valued at the same price : and the instrument for fixing or tuning the strings of the king's harp, at twentyfour pence. His drinking-horn, at one pound. Ibid. L. iii. cap. vii. p. 265.

4 There are two musicians: the Musicus PRIMARIUS, who probably was a teacher, and certainly a superintendant over the rest; and the HALL-MUSICIAN. LEG. ut supr. L. i. cap. xlv. P. 68.

"Jus cathedræ." Ibid. L. i. cap. x.

p. 13.

"See Selden, Drayt. POLYOLB. S. ix. pag. 156. S. iv. pag. 67, edit. 1613. fol.

Powell acquaints us, that this prince "brought over with him from Ireland divers cunning musicians into Wales, who devised in a manner all the instrumental music that is now there used: as appeareth, as well by the bookes written of the same, as also by the names of the tunes and measures used among them to this daiet." In Ireland, to kill a bard was highly criminal: and to seize his estate, even for the public service and in time of national distress, was deemed an act of sacrilege". Thus in the old Welsh laws, whoever even slightly injured a bard, was to be fined six cows and one hundred and twenty pence. The murtherer of a bard was to be fined one hundred and twentysix cows". Nor must I pass over, what reflects much light on this reasoning, that the establishment of the houshold of the old Irish chiefs, exactly resembles that of the Welsh kings. For, besides the bard, the musician, and the smith, they have both a physician, a huntsman, and other corresponding officers *. We must also remember, that an intercourse was necessarily produced between the Welsh and Scandinavians from the piratical irruptions of the latter: their scalds, as I have already remarked, were respected and patronised in the courts of those princes, whose territories were the principal objects of the Danish invasions. Torfæus expressly affirms this of the Anglo

t Hist. of Cambr. p. 191. edit. 1584.

u

Keating's Hist. Ireland, pag. 132. W LEG. WALL. ut supr. L. i. cap. xix. pag. 35. seq. See also cap. xlv. p. 68. We find the same respect paid to the bard in other constitutions. "QUI HARPATOREM, &C. Whoever shall strike a HARPER who can harp in a public assembly, shall compound with him by a composition of four times more, than for any other man of the same condition." Legg. Ripuariorum et Wesinorum. Lindenbroch. Cod. LL. Antiq. Wisigoth. etc. A.D. 613. Tit. 5. § ult.

The caliphs, and other eastern potentates, had their hards: whom they treated with equal respect. Sir John Maundeville, who travelled in 1340, says, that when the emperor of Cathay, or great Cham of Tartary, is seated at dinner in high pomp with his lords, "no man is

so hardi to speak to him except it be MUSICIANS to solace the emperor." chap. lxvii. p. 100. Here is another proof of the correspondence between the eastern and northern customs: and this instance might be brought as an argument of the bardic institution being fetched from the east. Leo Afer mentions the Poele curiæ of the Caliph's court at Bagdad, about the year 990. De Med. et Philos. Arab. cap. iv. Those poets were in most repute among the Arabians, who could speak extemporaneous verses to the Caliph. Euseb. Renaudot. apud Fabric. Bibl. Gr. xiii. p. 249. Thomson, in the CASTLE of INDOLENCE, mentions the BARD IN WAITING being introduced to lull the Caliph asleep. And Maundeville mentions MINSTRELLES as established officers in the court of the emperor of Cathay.

* See Temple, ubi supr. p. 346.

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Saxon and Irish kings; and it is at least probable, that they were entertained with equal regard by the Welsh princes, who so frequently concurred with the Danes in distressing the English. It may be added, that the Welsh, although living in a separate and detached situation, and so strongly prejudiced in favour of their own usages, yet from neighbourhood, and unavoidable communications of various kinds, might have imbibed the ideas of the Scandinavian bards from the Saxons and Danes, after those nations had occupied and overspread all the other parts of our island.

Many pieces of the Scottish bards are still remaining in the highlands of Scotland. Of these a curious specimen, and which considered in a more extensive and general respect, is a valuable monument of the poetry of a rude period, has lately been given to the world, under the title of the WORKS OF OSSIAN. It is indeed very remarkable, that in these poems, the terrible graces, which so naturally characterise, and so generally constitute, the early poetry of a barbarous people, should so frequently give place to a gentler set of manners, to the social sensibilities of polished life, and a more civilised and elegant species of imagination. Nor is this circumstance, which disarranges all our established ideas concerning the savage stages of society, easily to be accounted for, unless we suppose, that the Celtic tribes, who were so strongly addicted to poetical composition, and who made it so much their study from the earliest times, might by degrees have attained a higher vein of poetical refinement, than could at first sight or on common principles be expected among nations, whom we are accustomed to call barbarous; that some few instances of an elevated strain of friendship, of love, and other sentimental feelings, existing in such nations, might lay the foundation for introducing a set manners among the bards, more refined and exalted than the real manners of the country: and that panegyrics on those virtues, transmitted with improvements from bard to bard. must at length have formed characters of ideal excellence, which might propagate among the people real manners bordering on

of

the poetical. These poems, however, notwithstanding the difference between the Gothic and the Celtic rituals, contain many visible vestiges of Scandinavian superstition. The allusions in the songs of Ossian to spirits, who preside over the different parts and direct the various operations of nature, who send storms over the deep, and rejoice in the shrieks of the shipwrecked mariner, who call down lightning to blast the forest or cleave the rock, and diffuse irresistible pestilence among the people, beautifully conducted indeed, and heightened, under the skilful hand of a master bard, entirely correspond with the Runic system, and breathe the spirit of its poetry. One fiction in particular, the most EXTRAVAGANT in all Ossian's poems, is founded on an essential article of the Runic belief. It is where Fingal fights with the spirit of Loda. Nothing could aggrandise Fingal's heroism more highly than this marvellous encounter. It was esteemed among the antient Danes the most daring act of courage to engage with a ghost". Had Ossian found it convenient to have introduced religion into his compositions",

y Bartholin. De Contemptu Mortis apud Dan. L. ii. c. 2. p. 258. And ibid. p. 260. There are many other marks of Gothic customs and superstitions in Ossian. The fashion of marking the sepulchres of their chiefs with circles of stones, corresponds with what Olaus Wormius relates of the Danes. Monum. Danic. Hafn. 1634. p. 38. See also OI. Magn. Hist. xvi. 2. In the HERVARAR SAGA, the sword of Suarfulama is forged by the dwarfs, and called Tirfing. Hickes, vol. i. p. 193. So Fingal's sword was made by an enchanter, and was called the SON of LUNO. And, what is more, this Luno was the Vulcan of the north, lived in Juteland, and made complete suits of armour for many of the Scandinavian heroes. See TEMORA, B. vii. p. 159. OSSIAN, vol. ii. edit. 1765. Hence the bards of both countries made him a celebrated enchanter. By the way, the naines of sword-smiths were thought worthy to be recorded in history. Hoveden says, that when Geof frey of Plantagenet was knighted, they brought him a sword from the royal

treasure, where it had been laid up from old times, "being the workmanship of GALAN, the most excellent of all swordsmiths." Hoved. f. 444. ji. SECT. 50. The mere mechanic, who is only mentioned as a skilful artist in history, becomes a magician or a preternatural being in romance.

[The sword-smith here recorded, is the hero of the Volundar-quitha in Sæmund's Edda. He is called Weland in the poem of Beowulf; Welond by king Alfred in his translation of Boethius; and Guielandus by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Mr. Ellis affirms that he is also spoken of in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. This has escaped me; but it is to this circumstance, perhaps, that we are indebted for the introduction of his name in the novel of Kenilworth.-EDIT.]

2 This perplexing and extraordinary circumstance, I mean the absence of all religious ideas from the poems of Ossian, is accounted for by Mr. Macpherson with much address. See DISSERTATION prefixed, vol. i. p. viii. ix. edit. 1765.