fod was held at Caerwys, Flint shire, in which the ancient laws respecting the Bards were confirmed. And he further adds, that A.,D. 1568, in the reign of queen Eliza beth, a royal commission was issued for holding an Eisteddfod at the same place; on which occasion several Bards received their degrees. This commission is the last of the kind which has been granted, and is still in the possession of the Mostyn family, together with the silver harp, which, from time immemorial, had been in their gift to be. stow on the chief of the faculty.This badge of honour is about five or six inches long, and furnished with strings equal to the number of the Muses. See Pennant, vol. i. p. 463; where a copy of the commission, and an engraving of the harp are given.

"Such is the information which I have been able to collect from written authorities respecting this celebrated order of men in Wales. The following notes, drawn up by Mr. William Owen, at my request, will enable me to enter more fully, and, I trust, satisfactorily, into this subject.

"BARDS.-What we find to have been most prominent in the religion, laws, and manners of the patriarchal ages, and in that part of the world which has been generally deemed the cradle of the human race, namely, the western regions of Asia, prevailed likewise among the distant colonies of Britain.

"Were we inconsiderately to pronounce the early inhabitants of this island to have been ina savage state, according to the common acceptation of the term, it would be contrary to the tenor of a multitude of historical facts. But this is the character generally drawn of the Druids, and of the religion they

practised among the Cymry. Such a picture is so contrary to the evi. dence we are enabled to collect from the monuments which they have left behind them, and even to the few notices taken of them by the Greek and Roman writers, that I think it useless to enter into a detail of things so much misrepresented. The common observation that the whole people were overawed by the terror of priestcraft, is foolih; for every nation is governed by the influence of its religion: and we have no evidence of any particular abuse of this power amongst the ancient Britons.

"In considering their state of religion and society, the first object that arrests the attention is the system of the Bards; the principles of which are clearly identified among the first patriarchs of mankind, and were extended to the farthest regions of India, in common with the western borders of Europe; and the agreement of systems in these two extreme regions is astonishing, as might be illustrated by numerous facts; such as the exact identity of character of the Indian Menw, and the Menw of the British Triads and romantic tales.

"One of the most striking peculiarities of the bardic system was the invention of an oral record; more certain than the art of writing itself, especially as it existed in its infancy, or perhaps at any other period before the discovery of printing. For the Bards required that every branch of knowledge embraced by them should be committed to memory; and this their disciples were obliged to do before they could be fully initiated into the order; and with a view of rendering them perfect therein, nothing that appertained to the institution, was allowed to be committed to

writing,

writing. What they thus taught was reduced into a peculiar kind of aphorisms, called Triades, from their comprehending three different articles classed together according to the characteristic analogy subsisting between them; and these Triades embraced the leading points of theology, morality, science, and history.

"Solemn meetings were held at certain seasons of the year, such as at the new and full moon, but more particularly at the solstices and equinoxes the four principal meetings of the year took place, for the promulgation of the maxims of the Bardic religion, and for other purposes. But there were other superior triennial meetings, which were great national assemblies, wherein were ratified such things as were proposed for their oral record.

"These conventions of every description took place within circles of unhewn stones; in the most public and convenient situations, such as in the open plains in the county of Wilts, whereon the principal stone circle of the whole island was raised, and of which Avebury and Sillbury-hill present, at this day, to our observation some of its vast and wonderful remains.

"The institution consisted of three orders the Bards proper, the Druids, and the Ovates; and to each of these were attached peculiar pursuits and functions.

"The order called the Bardic was the predominant class, or that into which all the disciples were initiated in the first instance; it was, in short, the privileged national college of the Britons, for on being admitted into it, the members assumed one or the other of the three classes, as their inclination or interest directed them. To this primary

1806.

order appertained the perpetuation of the privileges and customs of the system, and also of the civil and moral institutes and learning. If a Bard assumed the character of a Druid, he had to perform the functions of the priesthood; and as there was a priest or Druid in every community, and the greatest influence was attached to him, this was the class into which the greatest number of the Bards were necessarily entered. Therefore, owing to the power belonging to this character, the Bards appeared more conspicuous to strangers in the Druidical character, than when they officiated in the others; so that the accounts we find in ancient writers, who describe them, are often contradictory, but generally the names of the other orders are lost in that of the Druids.

"The Ovates were such of the Bards' as cultivated particular arts or sciences: therefore it was the order to which belonged artists and mechanics of every description. And this was the only character in which the Bards were permitted to hold private meetings; in performing the functions of the other classes, they were obliged to assemble, as they expressed it, in the eye of light, and in the face of the sun. I have not the least doubt, from the information I have obtained, but that this class of craftsmen was the origin of free masonry; for in times of persecution, the Bards found it too dangerous to hold public meetings: they therefore assumed the ovete character, which permitted them to meet under cover; and indeed many of the very terms, arrangements, and principles of Masonry are to be found in Bardism. So that Masonry is Bardism in disguise; being so involved in techni cal terms that it requires great ap

୧

plicatio,

plication in those who are initiated, to see through the mysterious cover ing. The Bards too have a secret like the Masons, by which they can know one another. The three letters O. I. W, are with them the unutterable name of the Deity: they therefore made use of another term known only to themselves, just as the Jews, who always make use of Adonai when the name of Jehovah occurs. Each of the letters in the Bardic name is also a name of itself: the first is the word when uttered, that the world burst into existence; the second is the word, the sound of which continues, by which all things remain in existence; and the third is that by which the consummation of all things will be in happiness, or the state of renovated intellect, for ever approaching to the immediate presence of the Deity.

"Each of these three orders wore an appropriate dress. That of the primary order, or the Bards in general, was of sky-blue, emblematic of light, or truth, and of peace. White, as a mark of purity and holiness, was appropriated to the Druids. The Ovates wore green, thus denominating that the earth was the object of their pursuits.

"The fundamental object and principle of the Bardic system were, the search after truth, and a right adherence to justice and peace. They never bore arms, nor engaged in any party disputes; so that eventually they became totally exempt ed from all political connections; and they were therefore employed as heralds in war between different powers. So sacred were their persons considered, in the office of mediators, that they passed unmolested through hostile countries, and even appeared in the midst of bat

tle, to arrest the arm of slaughter, while they executed their missions. But this state of disinterested virtue was at length the means of procuring to the order the supreme influence in the nation, by the perversion of its original principles; as we find to have been the case amongst the Gauls, where the office of Archdruid was established and made permanent, in direct violation of those principles; and this high-priest had acquired so great an ascendancy as to struggle successfully against the Roman power for nearly five hundred years.

"Their idea with respect to the moral government of the world was, that life was gradually increasing in perfection; that therefore truth and justice were advancing therewith; so that the Bards looked for a period when those attributes should predominate over the prin ciples of evil and devastation; that when that period arrived, man would begin to make rapid ap proaches towards that perfection which his state was capable of undergoing; and then, on the consummation of such an event, the design of this terrestrial world was answered, and it would be changed into another state by fire.

"The theology of the Bards was shortly this: they believed in the existence of one Supreme Being, of whom they reasoned, that he could not be material, and that, what was not matter, must be God. The soul was considered to be a lapsed intelligence; and the punishment it was susceptible of, was a total privation of knowledge; and the possession of that knowledge was deemed essentially to imply happiness. To éffect this punishment, and destruction of evil, the soul was cast into Anoon, the extremity of which was the lowest

as

point of existence; and to regain its former state, it must pass through all the intermediate modes of existence. For such a purpose, they say, God created this as well other innumerable worlds; that is, for the progression of intelligences through all modes of being, approximating eternally to wards himself. Further, that this earth was originally covered with water, which gradually subsiding, land animals appeared, but of the lowest and least perfect species; and thus corresponding in organization with the then capacity of the soul. New orders in the scale of being were successively produced from these, whose frames and intellects improved through many ages: thus also augmenting the store of know ledge, or happiness; so that ultimately man appeared the most perfect receptacle of the soul on this earth. For this was a state where in the soul had so augmented its faculties or knowledge, as to be capable of judging between good and evil; consequently it was a state of liberty and of choice. If the soul became attached to evil, it fell again to brutal life, or state of necessity, to a point corresponding with its turpitude of human existence; and it again transmigrated towards the state of inan, for a renewed probation. When the soul became attached to good; death was its release from the human to a higher sphere of existence, where the loss of memory was done away; so that it then recollected the economy of every inferior mode of existence; thus being made happy in the knowledge of all animated nature below its then condition, it became elevated higher and higher in the scale of intelligence to eternity, and consequently increased in knowledge and happiness.

"Such was the original system of the Bards; but like all other systems of theology, it was cor rupted and abused: the rank weeds of superstition were sown for the sake of power, and they grew luxuriantly in a field originally cultivated to yield more wholesome fruit.

"Amongst the first aberrations, may be traced that of the knowledge of the great Huon, or the Supreme Being, which was obscured in the hier glyphics or emblems of his different attributes, so that the grovelling minds of the multitude often sought not beyond those representations, for the objects of worship and adoration. This opened an inlet for numerous errors more minute; and many supersti, tions became attached to their periodical solemnities, and more particularly to their rejoicing fires, on the appearance of vegetation in spring, and on the completion of harvest in autumn. Others of less note grew into importance, from the peculiarity of some ceremonies; such as cutting the misletoe with a golden hook by the presiding Druid; the gathering of the cowslip, and other plants consecrated to the power of healing. The autumnal fire is still kindled in North Wales, being on the eve of the first day of November, and is attended by many ceremonies; such as running through the fire and smoke, each casting a stone into the fire, and all running off at the conclusion to escape from the black short-tailed sow; then supping upon parsnips, nuts, and apples; catching up an apple suspended by a string with the mouth alone, and the same by an apple in a tub of water: each throwing a nut into the fire; and those that burn bright, betoken prosperity to the owners through" the following year, but those that Q 2

burn

burn black and crackle, denote misfortune. On the following morn ing the stones are searched for in the fire, and if any be missing, they betide ill to those who threw

them in.

"The authority assumed by the Bards of excommunication during the purity of the system, was an useful corrective in their discipline: but when the civil government became in a degree coalesced with the order, the sentence pronounced in the circle was clothed in all the terrors that surround an outlaw in modern times. Then too, their doctrine of expiation by sacrifice extended to more awful victims, for all the criminals (among whom captives taken in war were often considered the most guilty) were collected together at the great yearly assemblies; and there, in atoning for their offences, presented a spectacle to the whole nation at once impressive aud tremendous.

"In tracing the origin of the Bardic system, we are led back to very remote antiquity. The first, who made verse the vehicle of in-, struction and of record, according to the Triads, was Tydain Tad Awen, or Tydain father of the Muse, between whom and Taaut, Thoth, or Hermes of the Egyptians, there is a striking conformity as well in the names as in their attributes. From this original were derived the privileges and peculiar customs, which were arranged and methodized by the three primeval Bards, Plennydd, Alon and Gwion, and then sanctioned and adopted as a part of the constitution of the nation, and which before only received through courtesy what afterwards was insured by law. The Triads differ as to the period when this took place, whether in the time of Prydain son of Aedd the Great, or of Dyvnwal Moelmud

his son. The exact era of all these personages is lost in antiquity; but it is curious to observe that the Alon here mentioned, seems to be the same with Olen the Hyperborean, Ailinus or Linus in the Gracian mythology. It may be pertinent here to notice another Triad, wherein it is said, that Gwyddon Ganhebon was the first who composed verse; that Hu the Mighty was the first who made it the vehicle of record and instruction: and that Tydain Tâd Awen was the first who reduced it to an art, and fixed rules of composition; and hence originated Bards and Bardism, and the regulation of the system in all its privileges, by the three primæval Bards, Plenydd, Alon and Gwron. The Gwyddon Ganhebon above mentioned, seems according to an other Triad, to have achieved a work that is to be identified with the pillars of Hermes in Egypt; for this Triad mentions three great exploits, one of them being The stones of Gwyddon Ganhebon, upon which were to be read all the arts and sciences in the world.'

"It does not appear that the Bards had any mythological fables. They had Triads, and other kinds of aphorisms, containing their political, moral, religious, and other maxims and branches of knowledge, which it was necessary that every disciple should learn by heart, before he could gain admission into the order. Of these things as many are still preserved as would take up a long time for a person of common capacity to acquire.

"Whatever superstitions might have originally belonged to the system, must in a great measure, or perhaps totally have been expunged by the introduction of Christianity. In other respects, I believe that the system is still preserved as to the general principles within a

small