also been made to introduce the English tongue into general use among the lower claffes, but hitherto with no great fuccefs. English charity-schools have for many years been instituted in various parts of the principality, but these seem to threaten nothing ferious against the language of the country. The little that the children learn from inftructors who themselves know but little, is foon afterwards loft in the natural preference they have to their own tongue, and the little occafion that they have to speak any other. To say that the majority of the Welsh are entirely ignorant of the English language would be wrong, for in thofe parts of Flintshire, Denbighfhire, and Montgomeryfhire, adjacent to the English counties, they speak it very fluently. It is in Anglefea, and the mountains of Caernarvonshire and Merionethfhire, where the greatest ignorance of it is to be observed; but here, in the great roads, I had commonly English answers to my questions; and even in more obfcure fituations, by a little perfeverance, or by the exhibition of money, I have obtained the answers I fought for.

A late Welsh writer has remarked that "fome advocates for the abolition of the Welsh tongue are vain enough to prognofticate a near approaching day, when it will be numbered with the dead languages. They fee fome few families on the borders, and about a dozen innkeepers upon the poft-roads, who speak English only; but there are thousands,

and

and tens of thoufands in the wilds of Wales, who have learned the language of their parents, and of their country, as naturally and as innocently as they fucked their mother's breafts, or breathed the common air: these have neither opportunity nor inclination to learn any other tongue. This is the impregnable fortress of the Welsh language, where a rivetted, cordial antipathy against the English tongue, caused by the cruelties of Edward I., and of the Lancaftrian family, dwells as commander in chief. Storm this garrison, and overturn Snowdon from its base *!"

In

*Of the truth of the cruelties faid to have been inflicted by Edward I. on the bards, further than profcribing the profeffion of bardism, there feems great doubt. Allowing, however, all that have been alleged to him, in their fullest extent, to be true, these cruelties cannot surely be adduced as just cause for observations fo illiberal as the above against the prefent English, living five hundred years after the fuppofed date of these events. the lower orders of the Welsh, fuck prejudices might be overlooked, from their ignorance, and the want of knowing better: but from an intelligent writer, and a clergyman, these, and remarks like the following, though too illiberal to wound our feelings, are certainly inexcufable:-" This mode of burlesquing the Welsh (for the wrong pronunciation of fome English words) originated in the ridicule with which the Saxon victors treated their conquered vaffals; and which is ftill carried on, in fpite of reason and liberality, by the folly and ignorance of the defcendants of our once infulting foes."

The "boorifhnefs" of the English peafantry " has no rival, and of their ignorance a clergyman of their own gives us SATISFACTION, Who, a few years ago, on coming to his parish,

1

within twenty miles of the metropolis, could get no answer from several of his parishioners, to a very plain queftion, viz. Who was Chrift? Can we find fuch ignorance in Wales, - the wilds of Ireland, or the Highlands of Scotland?"-See a statistical account of the parish of Llanymynech, in Montgomeryshire, by the reverend Walter Davies of Meivod, inferted in the Cambrias Register, i 280.

CHAP. XXV.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE WELSH BARDS AND MUSIC *.

Account of the Druids, their Functions, Manners, and Customs.Their Extermination by the Romans.-The fubfequent State of Poetry and Mufic. - The Reformation effected by Griffith ap Cynan, in the Twelfth Century.-The Claffes of the Bards.— The Eifteddfod, or Triennial Affembly.-The Degrees in Poetry and Mufic.-The Privileges and Revenues of the Bards.—Their fuppofed Majacre by Order of Edward I.-Their Hiftory continued from thence to the present Time.—Account of the Welfa Mufical Inftruments.-The Harp.-The Crwth.-The Pilcorn. Obfervations on the Welsh Mufic.-Objections to the Laws of Counterpoint being known among the ancient Bards; and the generally fuppofed Antiquity of the prefent national Tunes.-Character of the prefent Welsh Mufic.

FROM all the authentic memorials extant refpecting the ancient British bards, it appears that in the early periods they conftituted that order of men denominated by the Latin writers Druids. They were divided into three principal claffes of druid, bard, and ovate ↑.

They

*This fubject will be found more extenfively illuftrated in Mr. Jones's two works, "The Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards," and "The Bardic Museum."

+ Denominated in Welsh derwydd, bardd, and ovydd.Derwydd fignifies the body of the oak, and, figuratively, the

They had one chief, or arch-druid, to whom the whole order paid implicit obedience; and under whofe directions their most important affairs were conducted * He held an annual tribunal, to which the people were regularly affembled, and in all causes submitted to his judgment, his determination was conclufive, and from it the parties could have no appeal. After the death of the arch-druid, the next in dignity and reputation, decided by a majority of votes of the inferior orders, fucceeded to his high office t.

The employment in which the druids were chiefly occupied, was the exercise of religious functions, for it was their fole prerogative to preside over the various rites and mysteries of their worship.—It was confidered the office of the bards to fing their religious precepts to the people: to fing to the harp at nuptials, obfequies, games, and other folemnities; and at the head of the armies to chant the praifes of thofe perfons who had fignalized themselves by virtuous or heroic actions. To the ovate the conduct of the most trivial duties appertaining to their

man of the oak, from derw an oak, and ydd, a Welsh termination of nouns.-Bardd fignifies the branching, or what springs from, derived from bár, a branch, or top. - Ovydd implies a difciple, from ov, raw, and ydd, the termination above explained. Jones's Bards, p. 2.

*His omnibus Druidibus præeft unus, qui fummam inter eos habet auctoritatem. Cæfar, lib. vi. f. 13.

† Ibid.

religion