on whom he inflicted just and secure vengeance by beheading them*: the other, for the present, escaped. As the chieftain was returning homeward from the pursuit he was detained till night by the tide at Traethmawr; and, talking carelessly with his men, as he rode on, an arrow suddenly whistled by him from a thicket on the hill-side, above the road. The party immediately halted, and shot, all of them, towards the spot whence the shaft issued, and it so occurred that one of their arrows killed the person who had thus interrupted them, and he happened to be the very murderer who had eluded their vigilance in Chirkeland: "Soe God revenged that wicked murther," says our author, by the death of every one of the three brethren."

66

But the bickering did not end here. A short time after this rencontre, Ievan ab Robert had occasion to attend the Assizes, at Caernarvon, with the greater portion of his retainers, leaving only in the house his wife and her domestics, with some desperate outlaws, who, according to the custom of the times, had sought his protection, and who formed no unwelcome addition to his band. His old enemy, Howell ab Rys, determined to hazard the apprehension of these criminals, in return for the vengeance inflicted on the three murderers by Ievan ab Robert. For this purpose, he summoned his trustiest friends to his aid, and procured the assistance of a notorious freebooter of the times, named Davydd ab Jenkyn. These worthy confederates succeeded in reaching their enemy's house without discovery, and immediately commenced the assault; but they were vigorously resisted by the inmates, who, on this occasion, as on many others, "bestirred themselves handsomely." It happened, moreover, that Ievan's wife, (the same heroic lady, be it remembered, who threw the canllaw at Howell's head,) "stood at the fire-side, lookeing on her maid, bogling of worte to make metheglin," and, unlike the timid and tender ladies of these degenerate days, she bestowed the seething liquor so liberally among the assailants, that they were repulsed, and kept at bay, till the arrival of Robin ab Inko, (with a numerous train of the tenants and friends of his foster-brother, Ievan,) who speedily compelled his adversaries to make the best of their way homewards. Davydd ab Jenkyn, the freebooter, advised his kinsman, Howell, to take Ievan ab Robert for his brother-in-law, neighbour, and friend," for," said he, " I will not be one with you to assault his house when he is at home, seeing I find such hot resistance in his absence."

In this licentious and unworthy manner did the days of our ancestors glide on; and dark and dreary, indeed, must have been that period when crimes of the deepest die were thus perpetrated,

* The manner in which these ruffians met their fate is worthy of being mentioned: "Ievan ab Robert," says the historian, "commanded one of his men to strike off their heades, which the fellow doing faintely, the offender told him, that, if he had his neck under his sword, he would make his weapon take a better edge than he did; soe resolute were they in those dayes in contempt of death! Whereupon Ievan ab Robert, in a rage, stepping to them, strucke off their heads."

in open and daring defiance of all laws, human and divine. The Union of Wales with England, however, was the first step towards the abolition of these gloomy and disgraceful practices; and it only remains for me now to shew the basis upon which the superstructure of this Union was reared, and briefly to recite the substance of the laws enacted on the occasion, as the best and speediest method of accomplishing my purpose.

The King's Highness, therefore," of a singular zeal, love, and favour, that he bore towards the subjects of his Dominion of Wales," by a statute made at a Parliament, holden at Westminster, in the beginning of the year 1535, ordained "that his said Country and Dominion of Wales should be for ever thenceforth incorporated, united, and annexed, to and with this his Realm of England; and that all persons born, and to be born, in the said Principality, Country, and Dominion of Wales, should have, enjoy, and inherit all and singular freedoms, liberties, rights, privileges, and laws within this his Realm, as other of the king's subjects, naturally born within the same, have, enjoy, and inherit." And, by a subsequent section of the same statute, two members were to be returned to Parliament for the county of Monmouth, and one for each of the shires in Wales, besides one burgess, to be elected by every borough being a shire-town, "except the shire-town of the county of Merioneth ;" and, finally, a commission was directed to be issued "to such persons as to his Highness shall seem convenient," to inquire into the laws, usages, and customs of Wales, and to certify the same to the King in council. This latter provision seems to have been made in contemplation of an event, which, by the introduction of the English laws, and an impartial administration of justice throughout the Principality, tended effectually to the annihilation of the "lewd and detestable malefacts," which were daily perpetrated, "to the high displeasure of God, inquietude of the king's well-disposed subjects, and disturbance of the public weal." The event here alluded to was the enaction of the statute of the 34th and 35th of the same reign, a statute which Mr. Barrington characterizes as containing "a most complete code of regulations for the administration of justice, framed with such precision and accuracy, that no clause of it hath ever occasioned a doubt, or required explanation." By this edict, also, four new counties were added to Wales, and one to England*; and the hitherto unruly mountaineers soon began to experience those benefits which these judicious and salutary measures were so well calculated to confer.

It was by this wise and efficient policy that the English monarch effected the subversion of the turbulent contumacy of our countrymen, and by which they had eventually secured to them that tranquillity which they now so pre-eminently enjoy. And, in contrast

* The new Welsh counties were those of Radnor, Brecknock, Montgomery, and Denbigh; the one added to England was that of Monmouth. Wales now consisted of twelve shires, eight having been made by Edward at the Conquest.

ing our present manners with those of our ungovernable forefathers, during the tempestuous time which I have noticed, may we not justly say, with the venerable antiquary of Hengwrt," we must confess that we have reason to bless God for his mercy to us, in our happy establishment under one monarch; and we may well say we were conquered to our gain, and undone to our advantage."

Wales, however, did not immediately experience the full benefits of the Union; for her inhabitants continued in a state of considerable rudeness and simplicity for some time after they had been admitted to an equal participation in the laws and privileges of the English; and it was not till within these last seventy or eighty years that they began to adopt the more polished manners of their Saxon neighbours. If we may credit an apparently reverend writer, we must form what many will term a very mean and lowly idea of our countrymen during the early part of the last century. The following description is transcribed from a rare tract, printed in 1769, the author of which has evinced no little zeal and ingenuity in his endeavours to prove the illegality of presenting to Welsh benifices Englishmen, totally ignorant of the language of their parishioners, a practice, it appears, once too frequent, and attended, of course, with numerous and serious evils. "The greatest part of Wales," writes our author, "by its situation, and the distance it is from the metropolis, is almost entirely excluded from the benefits of commerce. The produce of the country is the chief and almost the only support of the natives: what remains, after supplying the home-consumption, is exported. The money they receive in exchange for their commodities serves them for the purposes of hospitality, not luxury. As money is not otherwise valuable than as it is the means of acquiring the necessaries and conveniences of life, they know no other use for it. If accumulations of gold and silver be the only criterion of wealth, then are they poor; if plenty is, then are they rich. Happy in finding an asylum among those impenetrable fortresses, built by the hand of Nature, which were formerly their security against the power, and since against the luxury, of the English. Environed, on all sides, by these, they enjoy tranquillity without indolence, liberty without

*The following curious epistle, from Sir Roger Mostyn, of Mostyn, in Flintshire, to his neighbour, Pyers Pennant, Esq. of Bychton, affords an excellent idea of the value of money in the Principality, in the seventeenth century.

Mostyn, ....

1674. "Dear Pyers,-I hope you will excuse me for asking for the £4 you owe me for the pair of oxen; but I want the money to make up £20, to send my son to Oxford next week.

"I am, dear Pyers,

"Your's, &c.

"ROGER MOSTYN."

"P.S. How does your head this morning? Mine aches confoundedly." "At this time," remarks Mr. Pennant, " money was so scarce that £4 was the price of a pair of oxen; and the Baronet of Mostyn was thought very liberal in sending his heir apparent to the university with £20 in his pocket."-History of Whitford and Holywell, p. 63.

licentiousness, and plenty without luxury. Thus they experience a happiness unknown in better cultivated, and more refined countries, a happiness which opulence can never purchase.”

But the Welsh have now attained a degree of innocent refinement, if such a term may be allowed, which renders them the happiest people, perhaps, in Great Britain. During the late unhappy and tumultuous times, (I speak more particularly of the natives of North Wales,) they swerved not from their duty towards their God, or their allegiance to their king. They took no part in the dark and iniquitous cabals which agitated the country; they forgot not their loyalty, nor departed from the revered religion of their fathers. They remembered that they had a God to worship, a king to honour and obey, and life and property to preserve. "The times," they knew, "were hard," but they were not more so with them than with others, and were they to be remedied by anarchy and uproar? They were well aware of the wretched reasons assigned by wicked and designing persons for the existence of the evil which pervaded the land. But they heeded not the crafty insinuations of their polluted tempters; they were attentive only to the admonitions of the wise and the virtuous; and they preserved inviolate their piety and patriotism. The miserable efforts of atheism they spurned from them with abhorrence; and, if the unblushing and daring blasphemer of all that is good and holy led any of his own deluded countrymen astray, his despicable tenets passed not the mountain-barrier of the Principality*.

*The tribute here paid, by Mr. Richards, to the loyal and religious principles of his countrymen, during a season of severe trial, is no more than they well merit. Their staunch fidelity to the throne and the altar, when the security of both was so seriously menaced, will ever remain a proud distinction in their national character. But it would, perhaps, have added to the interest of this able "Historical Essay," if it had coincided with the writer's plan, to make some inquiry into the Welsh character, in a less temporary point of view, as connected with those social habits of life, and those minute traits of individual manners and conduct, which, when taken in the ag gregate, make up what may be not improperly styled the nationality of a country. And such an inquiry as this, with respect to the Welsh, becomes the more desirable, when we reflect on the misrepresentation in which English writers, from the illustrious Shakspeare, downwards, abound upon this subject. A coarse and repulsive vulgarity has been the general colouring, in which these writers have deigned to represent the prominent traits of Welsh manners. But, though the staid and demure deportment, and unsophisticated habits, of the natives of Wales may want that peculiar interest which throws a chivalrous splendour over the pages of romance, they are, at the same time, equally removed from that boorish ignorance, which has been generally assigned to them. And it is but fair, that the national character should be vindicated in a point in which it has been so much misunderstood.-ED. TR.

AN ESSAY

ON THE

ᎻᎪᎡᏢ,

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME.

BY MR. JOHN PARRY*,

Editor of "Welsh Melodies," &c.

IN my first Letter on Welsh Music, which appeared in the CAMBRO-BRITONt, I pledged myself to steer as clear as I possibly could of musical and technical phrases: it is my full intention to adhere to the same principle on the present occasion.

It will naturally occur to every one, that I must draw largely on the stores of those who have written on this subject before me: my endeavour will be, as I rove along the paths of literature, to pick and cull the choicest flowers, then form them into a bouquet, which I hope will be acceptable to my readers.

Mr. Edward Jones, (Bardd y Brenin, or Bard to the King,) in his valuable publication, "The Relics of the Bards," has given a very copious and interesting dissertation on the musical instruments of the Welsh. Concluding that many of my readers are not in pos

session of that work, I will make such brief extracts as will answer the purpose of elucidating the subject and of establishing the antiquity of the Harp.

That the Harp is among the most ancient of musical instruments we learn from Sacred History. Jubal, the seventh from Adam, was styled the father of all those who handled the kinnor, or harp‡. David, the second king of Israel, was a great master of the Harp;

This Essay was addressed by Mr. Parry to the CYMMRODORION.-ED. TR. + Those who would become acquainted with the customs, manners, laws, and history of the ancient Britons should read the CAMBRO-BRITON, a monthly publication, price 1s. 6d. [Since this note was written by Mr. Parry the work in question has been discontinued as a periodical publication, and it is now published entire in three volumes.-ED. TR.]

According to our version it is-" he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ."-Gen. ch.iv. v. 21. Father Calmet, in a " Commentary on the Psalms," published at Paris, in 1713, has a dissertation on the various musical instruments in