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Here I cannot refrain from interrupting this curious narrative of Giraldus, for the purpose of introducing, from one of Philips's paftorals, fome lines which are beautifully defcriptive of those effects which the harp is peculiarly capable of producing, and for which it is univerfally admired

"Now lightly skimming o'er the strings they pass,

"Like wings that gently brush the plying grafs,
"And melting airs arife at their command;
"And now, laborious, with a weighty hand,

"They fink into the chords with folemn pace,
"And give the fwelling tones a manly grace."

From this caufe, thofe very ftrains which afford deep and unspeakable mental delight to those who have looked far, and skilfully penetrated into the myfteries of the art, fatigue rather than gratify the ears of others, who, though they fee, do not perceive, and, though they hear, do not understand. By fuch the finest Music is esteemed no better than a confused and disorderly noise, and will be heard with unwillingness and disgust. The Welsh have three kinds of mufical inftruments, the Harp, the Crwth, and the Pipes 1. They do not fing in unifon, like the inhabitants of other countries; but in many different parts. So that in a company of fingers, which one frequently meets with in Wales, as many different parts and voices are heard, as there are performers; who all at length unite, with organic melody, in one confonance, and the foft sweetness of B flat.

In the northern parts of Britain, beyond the Humber, and on the borders of Yorkshire, the inhabitants. use in finging the fame kind of fymphonious harmony; but with lefs variety, finging only in two parts, one murmuring in the base, the other warbling in the acute or treble. Neither of the two nations has acquired this peculiar property by art, but by long habit, which has rendered it familiar and natural: and the practice is now fo firmly rooted in them, that it is unusual to hear a fimple and fingle melody well fung. And, which is still more wonderful, their children, from their infancy, fing in the fame manner "."

8

After the account that has been given of the mufical conftitutions of the Welsh, the teftimony of Giraldus was not wanted to prove that they highly esteemed and cultivated mufic, and that harmony must have exifted among them in confiderable perfection. But, from the paffages I have quoted concerning their art, we may collect from the fairest prefumption of certainty, that they poffeffed an improvement of it, the first invention of which has always been attributed to Guido. They either were acquainted with counterpoint, and the method of finging in parts, or Giraldus himself must have invented it, and given them the merit of his discovery. I cannot, without feeling a repugnance, contradict the opinion of fo diligent an hiftorian, and fo ingenious a critic as Dr. Burney ; but I am perfuaded, that if he had previously enquired into the mufical studies of the Bards, and their public establishment, in the preceding centuries, he would not have fuffered his unfavourable opinion of Giraldus's veracity to prevail against the strong light of his evidence. If that the Bards underflood counterpoint requires farther proof, it is to be found in the Four and Twenty ancient games of the Welfb"; of which canu cywydd pedwar, ac accenu; finging a fong in four parts, with accentation, is among the number : and in the MS. to which I have referred in p. 28, and 29; which contains feveral Welfh tunes in full harmony, that may be ascribed with certainty to fo early a date as the eleventh century, and fome to much remoter periods. Also, fee a paffage from Seneca †: and of The Three Men's Songs

Cambria Defcriptio, ch. 11.
Ibid. ch. 12. and 13.

"It is well known that Guido's new-invented counterpoint was expreffed in long notes to protract and lengthen out his harmonious founds; and that his movements were flow. But Giraldus Cambrenfis, his contemporary, gives us an amazing account of the celerity, rapidity, execution, and correctnefs, with which the Britons played in parts their intricate and complicated mufic on their harps. If Guido's invention had then reached Wales, would they have been fo expert fo foon in the practice of it? or would they have written their mufic in the rude, old-fashioned manner of the MS. you allude to, when a much better method had been found out? It may therefore be inferred that the Britons performed mufic harmonioufly in parts, before the Italians.

"The characters in the Welsh MS. were probably chants or recitatives, ufed in bands of mufic, concerts, fymphonies, and chorufes, in great houfes, or perhaps in divine worship. We

Even

read of Kor Alun, Kor Aedan, Kor Elvyw, Kor Ffinwr, &c. which fignifies a body or number of voices and instruments joined in harmony."

A Letter from the Rev. Mr. Evans, of Llanymynech, with which I was favoured in anfwer to my enquiries. Alfo, the name of the ancient and famous monastery of Bangor, in North Wales, feems to be derived from Bann-gor, or famous choir. See p. 11.

Likewife, we read of Kân Afaph, The Chant of Afaph. This St. Afaph died A. D. 596; and the Cathedral is named after him to this day. See Brown Willis's Survey of St. Asaph,

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Even at this day, our untaught native harpers, who are totally unacquainted with modern mufic, retain fomething of that skill for which the Bards were famous. For, like their great predeceffors, from whom they have received their tunes by tradition, they perform, however rudely, in concert; they accompany the voice with harpegios, they delight in variations, and without deviation from their subject, indulge the sportive execurfions of mufical fancy. Quales fuêre, cum tales fint reliquiæ » !

12

The Poetry, as well as the Mufic, of the Bards, has received much illustration from the pen of Giraldus : and of its adherence to truth, and its ufe in recording events to pofterity, he has tranfmitted to us a memorable example. In his time the veracity of the Welsh Muse was made known by an extraordinary discovery to the world. Henry II. about the year 1187, was led to the church-yard of Glastonbury in search of the body of Arthur, by fome lines of Taliefin (defcribing the manner of his death, and the place of his interment) that had been repeated in his prefence by a Welsh Bard, (if I may borrow from Drayton, one of his beautiful apoftrophes :)

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of many

"Doft thou not obferve how a chorus is made up voices? And yet the whole forms but one found. Some of thefe voices are grave, fome acute, and fome between both. Women's voices are added to men's, and with these flutes are intermingled; the voices of all are heard, but each particular voice is undistin guishable. I fpeak of the chorus which was known to the ancient philofophers. We have more fingers in our affemblies than there were formerly fpectators in the theatres: for all the paffages are filled with fingers, and the infide of the places is lined with trumpeters: the upper part of the ftage refounds with every kind of flutes and organs, and harmony is made to arife from diffonant founds.

You teach me how grave and acute voices are brought into agreement, and how harmony proceeds from strings which render unequal founds." Seneca, Epift. 84.

Among their paffimes in Cornwall formerly, it appears they had fongs in three parts.

"Three men's fongs, cunningly contrived for the ditty, and plea fantly for the note." Carew's Hiftory of Cornwall, p. 72. fec. Ed.

Allo, the old Ballad, called the Tournament of Tottenham, which is faid to have been written before the reign of King Ed

Tuning the Harp.

ward the Third, has the following paffage:

"At that feaft were they ferved in rich aray,

Every five and five had a cokeney;
And so they fat in jollity all the long day,
Tyb at night, I trow, had a fimple aray:
Mickle mirth was them among;

In every corner of the house
Was melody delicious,

For to hear precious
Of fix men's fong *.".

Dr.

* Six-men's fong, i. c. a fong for fix voices. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. II. p. 13. 24. of the 3d edition. Likewife, Shakespeare ufes, "Three-man, fong-men all,” in his Winter's Tale, to denote men that could fing catches, compofed in three parts. See more confirmation in Dr. Pepufch's letter to Mr. de Moivre, published in the Philofophical Tranfactions, for the year 1746. Allo, in Hawkins's Hift. of Mufic, vol. I. p. 408. In Potter's Obfervations on the prefent State of Mufic and Muficians, 8vo, p. 11. and 12. And in Dr. Smith's Harmonics, 2d ed. p. 34. 12 Phædrus.

13 Drayton's Polyolbion, the 6th Song. See alfo the notes of the third fong. Froffard fays, that King Arthur first built the Castle of Windfor.

This is not fiction. The fuccefs of the investigation was not ungrateful to the monarch's poetic faith: and
Henry had the fatisfaction to view the ftupendous remains, and to count the glorious wounds, of the last of

Britons'.

To these incidents Mr. Warton (with his ufual skill and ingenuity) has given a new and poetical form, in an Ode called The Grave of Arthur, which poffeffes many beauties.

"I find a curious circumftance mentioned in Enderbie's Hiftory of Wales, of a public charter of privileges and immunities of King Arthur, to the School and Univerfity of Cambridge *, where among other memorable things he declareth that his Christian predeceffors, Kings of Britain, had been inftructed there in learning and religion, and in particular speaking there of King Lucius, what immunities he granted to that univerfity, and that this our first Christian king did receive the faith of Christ, by the preaching of the learned scholars of Cambridge. This charter was dated at London in the year of Chrift 531, the 7th day of April *. The three principal palaces, or Courts of King Arthur, were at Caer-lleon, on the river Ufk3, in Monmouthfhire; Celliwig, in Cornwall; and Penrhyn Rhionedd, in Cumberland.--British Triades, N° 57.

"Aethai beb Dant a Chantawr,
"Ar goll banes Arthur gawr."

Had it not been for Mufic and Poetry,

even the feats of Arthur, would have been inevitably loft.

The use of our poetry in preferving the memory of events, and the aid it has lent to history, is proved by another example, viz. of the celebrated Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, and his difcovery of America, about the year 1170. This we gather from the poems of Cynvrig ab Gronw, and Sir Meredudd ab Rhys, and the more express declaration of that learned herald bard, Guttyn Owain; who all preceded the expedition of Columbus, and relate or allude to the expedition of Madog, as an event well known and univerfally received, that had happened three hundred years before.

If Geoffrey of Monmouth, when he translated Tyffilio, had known the works of Taliefin and Llywarch Hên, he might have found in them abundance of historical paffages that would have ferved better to enlarge and embellish that venerable and authentic hiftory, than thofe legendary tales and incredible fictions he has adopted.- Juvat integros accedere fontes.

But left the purity of these genuine fources yet unexplored fhould be doubted, let it be remembered that the defcendants of the Celts could never be brought to think with the Greeks and Romans on the subject of heroic Poetry, which was held in fuch reverence by that primitive nation and its pofterity, that fable and invention (the effence of the claffical epopee) were never suffered to make any part of it. From this caufe neither the Britons, the Irish, the Erfe, the Cornish, nor the Armoricans, have ever to this day produced a poem fimilar in its structure to the Iliad or Eneid; though most other nations have shown an inglorious pride in imitating them. What in one country is called an heroic poem, and the grandeft performance of human art, is despised in another as a fabulous empty fong, calculated to please a vain and boastful people, who have no actions of their own virtue and courage to be recorded, but are constrained to have recourse to fictitious gods, fictitious heroes, fictitious battles, and fuch anachronisms as a grave British writer would have blufhed to own. Hiftorians, who are acquainted only with the compofitions of this character, may well regard Poetry with the contempt they have ufually testified, as a vain art, that draws its materials more from fancy than nature, and delights in fiction rather than truth. But widely different is the Poetry of the British Bards, which has ever been from the first of times the facred repository of the actions of great men.

The period which interfered between the reign of Gruffudd ab Cynan, and that of the last prince, Llewelyn, is the brightest in our annals. It abounds with perhaps the nobleft monuments of genius as well as valour of which the Welsh nation can boaft. It will be fufficient for me to mention a few illuftrious names, who with veneration derived from their great predeceffors the Arts, Poetry, and Mufic, and transmitted them with augmented honours to their posterity. I wish the limits of this effay would fuffer me to give more than their names; or that my learned countrymen would fhew fome of that enterprising spirit for which their ancestors were famed, and publish their remains to the world. The poems of Meilir, the Bard of Gruffudd ab Cynan; Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr; Owen Cyveiliog, Prince of Powys; Gwalchmai ab Meilir; Gwrgant ab Rhys;

1 Guthrie's History of England, vol. I. p. 102. Cambridge was first built by Gwrgant Varvdrwch, (about 375 years before Chrift,) and was called from him Caer-g-wrgant, as well as the river called Cant. He made this town his regal leat, and fo did his fon Gwythelin after him. Lewis's Hift. of Britain, P. 55.

Enderbie's Hiftory of Wales, p. 187.

3 Caer-ar Wyg was once the metropolis of all Wales, and for beauty and extent, the third city in Britain. King Arthur founded

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Llywarch, the Bard of Llewelyn the Great; Einion ab Gwalchmai; and Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Cóch; are now extant, and ascribed with certainty to their authors. The most distinguished inftrumental performers were Cyvnerth, domeftic Mufician to Prince Maelgwn; Corferch, mufical Bard to Heilyn; Davydd Athro ; Morvydd; and Cynwrig Bencerdd; who all flourished about the fixth century.-The following ten flourished about the year 1100: Alban ab Cynan; Rhydderch Voel; Alaw Gerddwr; Carfi Delynior; Cellan Bencerdd; Gwrgan; Talgrych; Ivan ab y Góv; Llewelyn Delynior; mâb Fvan ab y Gov. And the following flourished about the twelfth century: Davydd Gam, Delynior; Einion Delynior; Gwyn Bibydd ; Gruffudd Vardd; Alban Bridr; Y Pibydd Moel. Cybelyn Vardd', ab Gwyn-vardd; Cadwgan: and Gruffudd ab Adda ab Davydd, Prydydd a Thelynior, flourished in 1390. All these were celebrated Muficians: we have a few remains of the compofitions of fome of them in an old manufcript; and only the names of others are preferved, by fome flight mention, in the pages of fucceeding poets.

"Since Writing and practical Mufic have become feparate profeffions, the celebrity of the poor Mufician has died with the vibration of his ftrings. The voice of acclamation, and thunder of applaufe, pafs away like vapours; and those hands that were most active in teftifying temporary approbation, fuffer the fame of thofe, who charmned away their cares and forrows in the glowing hour of innocent delight, to remain unrecorded 8." Some of the mufical productions of this period are to be found in the prefent collection; and fome far more ancient. I decline the task of pointing them out by any decifive opinion, because the original titles are loft, and they are now known by other names, fubftituted by later Bards in compliment to later patrons. This remark is minute, but neceffary; for without it, the age of fome of the best remains of Welsh Mufic might inadvertently be mistaken.

Early in the twelfth century, Mufic and Poetry had approached their utmost degree of perfection in Wales. Nor, by the common fate of the Arts in other countries, did they suddenly fall from the eminence they had attained. If in the progrefs of the fucceeding age they showed any fymptoms of decay; remedy was fo diligently applied by the skill of the Eifteddvod to the declining part, that they preserved their former vigour, and perhaps acquired new graces. And had not the fatal accident, which overwhelmed, in the hour of its profperity, the hereditary princedom of Wales, involved in the fame ruin its Poetry and Mufic, our country might have retained to this day its ancient government, and its native arts, in the bofom of those mountains which protected them for ages. The Poets of these memorable times added energy to a nervous language; and the Muficians called forth from the harp its loudest and grandeft tones, to re-animate the ancient struggle of their brave countrymen for freedom, and the poffeffion of their parent foil. What was the fuccefs of their virtuous and noble purpose, the history of the eras when they flourished, can best explain. It is no flight proof of their influence, that when the brave, but unfortunate prince Llewelyn the last, after the surrender of his rights, and the facrifice of his patriotism to his love 9, was treacherously flain at Buellt: Edward I. did not think himself secure in his triumph, till he added cruelty to injustice, and gave the final blow to Welsh liberty in the maffacre of the Bards ". In this execrable deed Edward imitated the policy of Philip of Macedon, who demanded from the Athenians, as a condition of amity, the surrender of their orators. The maffacre was general; and, as fome of our most eminent Bards must have perifhed, it is probable that many of their works, and of the remains of their predeceffors, were also destroyed, and are for ever loft. This lamentable event has given birth to one of the nobleft Lyric compofitions in the English language: a poem of fuch fire and beauty as to remove, as a late writer has thought ", our regret of the occafion, and to compenfate in fome degree for the lofs. But in heightening our regret confifts the great merit of this admirable ode: and without beftowing on it any extravagant praise, I may boldly affirm,

6. The names and dates of these Bards are to be found in p. 15, and in the catalogue of Bitifh authors published by Dr. Davies and Mr. Richards, in their Dictionaries of the Well: Language. Some extracts from their writings are inferted in Mr. Evans's fpecimens of Welsh Poetry, and his Differtatio de Bardis. Like. wife an extenfive catalogue of the works of the Bards in Mr. Lhuyd's Archeologia Britannica, p. 254, &c. Chwaer Cyhelyn bevrddyn bách, Chiwbanegl, chawe' buanach.

- Davydd ap Gwilym. Dr. Burney's Hiftory of Mufic, vol. II. p. 70. See Wynne's Hiftory of Wales, edit. 1774, p. 183. 10 See Guthrie's Historical Grammar. Carte's History of England, vol. II. p. 196. And Evans's Spicimens of Ancient Welli Poetry, p. 46.

"King Edward the First, about the year 1271, a fhort time before he afcended the throne, took his Harper with him to the

Holy Land; and this musician must have been a clofe and con stant attendant on his matter; for when Edward was wounded with a poifoned knife at Ptolemais, the Harper hearing the ftruggle, rushed into the Royal apartment, and killed the affaffin. This fignal fervice from his Bard, did not however incline the monarch afterwards to fpare his brethren in Wales.".

"Ruin feize thee, ruthlefs king."- -Gray's Ode. Burney's Hift. vol. II. and Fuller's Hift. of the Holy War, book IV. chap. 29.

There is an act of Edward the First, and another of Henry the IVth; to prohibit all Bards and Musicians from pursuing their profeffion within the principality of Wales. See Leges Wallica, P. 543, 547, and 548, of the Appendix.

385.

See the Hon. Daines Barrington's Mifcellanies, p. 343. and

that

that the Polyolbion of Drayton ", and the Bard of Gray, have contributed no lefs to the reputation of their authors than to the glory of Wales, and are the only modern produtions worthy to alleviate the lofs we sustained in fo immenfe a waste of literary treasures, and fuch irreparable ruin of genius.

After the diffolution of the princely government in Wales, fuch was the tyranny exercised by the English over the conquered nation, that the Bards, who were born" fince Cambria's fatal day," might be faid to rife under the influence of a baleful and malignant ftar. They were reduced to employ their facred art in obfcurity and forrow, and conftrained to fupprefs the indignation that would burft forth in the most animated ftrains against their ungenerous and cruel oppreffors. Yet they were not filent or inactive. That their poetry might breathe with impunity the fpirit of their patriotifm, they became dark, prophetic, and oracular. As the Monks of the Welsh Church, in their controverfy with Rome, had written, to countenance their doctrines, feveral religious poems which they feigned to be the work of Taliesin, the Bards now ascribed many of their political writings to the fame venerable author, and produced many others as the prophecies of the elder Merddyn. Hence much uncertainty prevails concerning the genuine remains of the fixth century, great part of which has defcended to us mutilated and depraved: and hence that mysterious air which pervades all the Poetry of the later periods I am now defcribing. The forgery of those poems, which are entirely fpurious, though they may have past unquestioned even by fuch critics as Dr. Davies and Dr. J. D. Rhys, may, I think, be presently detected. They were written to ferve a popular and a temporary purpose, and were not contrived with fuch fagacity and care as to hide from the eye of a judicious and enlightened scholar their historical mistakes, their novelty of language, and their other marks of imposture.

While the Bards were thus cramped in their poetical department, they had greater scope and leisure for the study of heraldry, and their other domeftic duties. Every great man had under his roof and patronage fome eminent Bard, who, at his death, compofed, on the fubject of his defcent, his dignities, and the actions of his life, a funeral poem, which was folemnly recited by a Datceiniad in the presence of his surviving relations 13. Hence it has happened that pedigrees are so well preserved in Wales.

By the infurrection, however, in the reign of Henry IV. the martial fpirit of the Awen or Welsh Muse was revived, to celebrate the heroic enterprises of the brave Owain Glyndwr 14. Like him, the Bards of his time were "irregular and wild :" and as the taper glimmering in its socket gives a sudden blaze before it is extinguished, so did they make one bright effort of their original and daring genius, which was then lost and buried for ever with their hero in the grave. Yet though Poetry flourished, Learning fuffered: for fuch was the undistinguishing fury of that celebrated partifan, and his enemies, against the monafteries that with stood them, that not only their cells, but also their libraries and MSS. were destroyed '.

The following Ode to Owain Glyndwr, by his favourite Bard, Sir Gruffudd Llwyd, happily transfused into English verfe by Mr. Williams, of Vron ", claims a diftinguished place in this hiftory, for the genius of the author, and the skill of the tranflator.

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The Praife of Owain Glyndwr.

1.

Cambria's princely eagle, hail!

Of Gruffudd Vychan's noble blood!
Thy high renown fhall never fail,
Owain Glyndwr, great and good!

Tour in Wales, Vol. I. p. 325. 330.
16 Pennant's Tour, p. 311.

17 Owain Glyndwr, defcended from the ancient race of British
princes, firit appeared in arms against Henry IV. in the year
1400. He directed his attack against the lands of his enemy
Lord Grey, and immediately recovered what he had unjustly
been difpoffeffed of by him, and foon after caufed himself to be
proclaimed Prince of Wales. His chief Bard, Gruffudd Llwyd
regretting his abfence, chants his praife, and predicts the fuccefs
of the war in a Cyrusydd, or Ode, which is elegantly verified
from the Welsh by the Rev. Mr. Williams, of Vron.

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