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to explain them as they were written in the book of mufical divifion': to compofe a leffon, pronounced faultlefs by the proficient Bards, and to fhow all its properties, its divifions, and fubdivifions, its licenses and rests, the diatonic notes, all the flats, and sharps, and every change of movement through the several keys. If the Pencerdd was a Harper, he was required to know the three famous Muchwl, which were equal to the four colovn; and the three new Mwchwl were equal to the four cadair. All this he was obliged to know and perform in a masterly manner, fo that the Doctors of Mufic fhould declare him competent to be an author, and a teacher of his art.

The Eifteddvod was a rigid fchool. The poetical, or the mufical difciple, who at the expiration of his triennial term could not obtain a higher degree, was condemned to lose that which he already poffeffed. Every chief Bard, or Bardd Cadeiriawg, who had acquired the honours of the chair, wore a gold, or filver chair, pendent on his breast, as a badge of his fuperior dignity; but after the time of Prince Gruffydd ab Cynan, the mufical Bards wore a feparate order. See page 89; where there is an engraving of the filver Harp, which is in the poffeffion of Sir Thomas Moftyn, in Flintshire, and has been from time immemorial in the gift of his ancestors, to bestow on the chief of the faculty. This badge of honour is about fix inches and a half long, and furnished with ftrings equal to the number of the Mufes, and was worn by the chief Mufician, as the filver chair was by the chief Poet, or the golden tongue by the chief Singer.

The revenues of the Bards arofe from prefents at princely and other nuptials, and from fees in their annual circuits at Christmas, Eafter, and Whitfuntide, and in their triennial Clera, or grand circuit. Their fees and prefents were regulated with proportion to their degrees: and the number of vifitants to the condition of the person that received them. Likewife, in order to encourage the clerwŷr to keep up the language, and the memory of the exploits, and pedigrees of the Britons, they were allowed a certain fum out of every plough-land, and in proportion out of every half plough-land of their district. A month before each feftival, the pupils enquired of their teachers what routs they should take in their approaching circuit, left too many should resort to the fame part of the country. A Pencerdd was not licensed to vifit the commonalty, unless he chose to accept a fee beneath his ftation and dignity: nor could any Bard of an inferior degree appear before the gentry, and nobles. The Bards were not fuffered to request presents beyond a certain value, under penalty of being deprived of their musical instruments, and practice for three years: when this happened, the prefent illegally requested became forfeit to the prince.

The Eifteddvod was followed by the grand triennial Clera, which was not limited, as the circuits of the festivals, to commots, and cantreds, but extended through all Wales. Such was the benevolence of the Welsh inftitutions, that Bards afflicted with blindness, or any fuch natural defect, were indulged with the privilege of Clera, as well as the four poetical, and the five musical graduates. At a wake or feftival, a circuiting Bard was not suffered, during its continuance, to depart from the house he had first visited, without the confent of the master of the house, or invitation given him by another. If he rambled from house to house, or became intoxicated, he was deprived of his Clera fees, which were applied to the ufe of the church. If he offered any indecency to miftrefs, or maid, he was fined and imprisoned, and forfeited his Clera for feven years.

Every art has its fubordinate profeffors. Besides the four claffes of regular, or graduated Bards, I have recounted, there were four other claffes of inferior and unlicensed Songsters, which were called Cler y dom, or the meaner, and more unfkilful itinerant musicians, and poets; alfo, they were called Bón y Gler, or the lowest class; but properly termed in English, Minstrels. These were Pipers, Players on the three-ftringed Cruth, Taborers, and buffoons. Of the pipe, the three-ftring Crwth, and the tabor, the reader will find some mention near the trophy of the musical inftruments of the Welsh. The performers who used them, were looked upon among Bards, as weeds among flowers; they had no connection with the Eisteddvod; and their estimation and profits were equally inconfiderable. One of their number, the Datceiniad Pen Paftwn, was a minstrel who rehearsed only, and played no inftrument: on occafions of feftivity, he stood in the middle of the hall where the company were affembled, and beating time with his staff, sung a poem to the found. When When any of the regular Bards were prefent, he attended them as a fervant, and did not presume to fing, unless they fignified their affent.

*Of the Bardic, or Druidic Inftitution mentioned in

This MS. called Llyvr Dofparth, I fear is not now extant, de Dignitatibus Baronia de Kemes, that is, of the Dignities of the Barony of Kemes, the 16th peculiar honour annexed to it occurs in thefe words, "The Difpofal of the Silver Harp belongs to that Barony, as if to the Manfion of the Prince, which in the abfence "of the lord, is delivered to his Monaftery of St. Dogwael's to be kept."

The English word Bungler, is derived from Bon-y-Glêr; and particularly the French term Jongleur, is a corruption from Bôn-y-Glér, or Bongler. K

The

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OF THE STATUTES OF THE BARDS.

The only connexion that existed between the Bards, and the lower order, or Minstrels, we difcaver in the appointment of Cff Clér*, at the marriage of a prince, or any perfon of princely extraction. A year and a day before the celebration of the nuptials, notice was given to a Pencerdd, or Doctor of the Art, to prepare himself to support that character. When the time came, he appeared in the hall; and a facetious subje& being propofed, the Rhapsodifts surrounded him, and attacked him with their ridicule. In thefe extempore fatyrical effufions they were reftrained from any perfonal allufion, or real affront. The Cff Cler fat in a chair in the midst of them, and filently fuffered them to fay whatever they chofe, that could tend to the diverfion of the assembly. For this unpleasing service he received a confiderable fee. The next day he appeared again in the hall, and answered his revilers, and provoked the laughter and gained the applause of all who were present, by expofing them in their turn, and retorting all their ridicule upon themselves 3.

At Christmas, in the year 1177, Rhys ab Gruffydd, Prince of South Wales, gave a magnificent enter tainment with deeds of arms, and other fhows, in his new caftle of Cardigan, or Aberteivi, to a great number of illustrious natives, and foreigners; notice of which had been given a year and a day before, by procla mation through all Britain, and Ireland. The mufical Bards of North Wales, and South Wales, who had been expressly invited to the festival, and to a mufical and poetical contest, were seated in chairs with much ceremony in the middle of the great hall of the caftle. Animated with their ufual emulation, the prefence of their noble audience, and expectation of the rich rewards promised to the victors, they pursued to a great length their generous ftrife, which terminated with honour to both parties, the pre-eminence in Poetry being adjudged to the poetical Bards of North Wales; and in mufic to the domeftic Musicians of Prince Rhys. In thus regaling his guests with poetry, and mufic, the Welsh prince (as Lord Lyttelton remarks in his Hiftory of Henry II.) kept up the ancient custom of his country, and, by the number and skill of the Poets and Musicians he affembled together, did undoubtedly much excel what Henry could exhibit in the same way to him, and to the other chiefs of Wales, when he entertained them in his royal caftle of Oxford *. At this feaft, the Bards were confirmed by the prince's authority in the franchifes and privileges granted them by former statutes. They were also recompensed with fees, fettled by prescription, and proportioned to the order of their profeffion, and the degree they had obtained in it.

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Though the age of Rhys was thus propitious to the Bards, we should have remained unacquainted with the nature of the poetry and mufic, for which they were fo highly valued, if they had not found in Giraldus Cambrenfis, an hiftorian worthy of their fame. He was a native of the country, and travelled in it in fearch of information with such an industrious and philosophical spirit of learned curiofity, as very rarely occurs in thofe early times. The manner in which the subject of Welsh Mufic is treated, in the following quotation from his Description of Wales, will fufficiently juftify its length.

By the sweetness of their musical instruments they footh and délight the ear: they are rapid, yet delicate in their modulation; and by the astonishing execution of their fingers, and their fwift tranfitions from difcord to concord, produce the most pleasing harmony. This cannot be better explained than by what I have faid in my Topography of Ireland concerning the mufical inftruments of the three nations.-It is remarkable, that in all their hafte of performance they never forget time and mufical proportion; and fuch is their art, that with all their inflection of tones, the variety of their inftruments, and the intricacy of their har mony, they attain the perfection of confonance and melody, by a fweet velocity, an equable difparity, and a discordant concord, as if the strings founded together fourths, or fifths: they always begin with B flat, and afterwards return to it, that the whole may be completed under the sweetness of a grand and pleafing found.. They enter into a movement, and conclude it in fo delicate a manner, and play the little notes fo fportively under the blunter found of the base strings, enlivening with wanton levity, or communicating a deeper internal fenfation of pleasure, that the perfection of their art appears in the concealment of it. For,

Art profits when conceal'd,
Difgraces when reveal'd."

Cyff Clér, is the Butt of the Cler; and Clár, are Muficians, Poets, or Minstrels. From the Celtic Cler, came Clergan, fignify Church Singers, afterwards ufed for the body of the Clergy, to diftinguish them from the Laity: alfo, Cleiriach, is a Clergyman in frith.

Dr. Rhys's Institutes of the Welsh Language, p. 296, &c. Rhydderch's Grammar, p. 179, &c. and Caradoc's History of Wales, augmented by Wynne, p. 205.

4

Hiftory of Henry II. 4to. vol. III. p. 302,

s Powel's History of Wales, p, 205, Dr. J. D. Rhys's Welb Poetical Grammar, p. 295.

Sylvefter Giraldus, or Giraldus Cambrenfis, of a noble Flemifh family near Tenby, in Pembrokeshire, was born in 1145. He was fecretary to Henry 11. tutor to King John, and Bishop of St. David's. In 1187 he accompanied Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, into Wales, to preach the Crufade. He wrote an Irish and Well Itinerary, and other works. He died and was buried at St. David's, about the age of 70.

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 universally admired:

"Now lightly fkimming 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 strains which afford deep and unfpeakable mentál delight to those who have looked far, and skilfully penetrated into the mysteries 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 difguft. The Welsh have three kinds of mufical inftruments, the Harp, the Crwth, and the Pipes". They do not fing in unison, 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 ufe in finging the fame kind of fymphonious harmony; but with lefs variety, finging only in two parts, one murmuring in the bafe, the other warbling in the acute or treble. Neither of the two nation 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 simple and fingle melody well fung. And, which is ftill more wonderful, their children, from their infancy, fing in the fame manner "."

After the account that has been given of the musical 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 existed among them in confiderable perfection. But, from the paffages I have quoted concerning their art, we may collect, from the faireft 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 historian, and so ingenious a critic as Dr. Burney 10; but I am perfuaded, that if he had previously enquired into the mufical ftudies 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 ▸ds understood counterpoint requires further proof, it is to be found in the Four and Twenty ancient Games of the Welsh "; of which Canu Cywydd pedwar, ac accenu; Singing a Song in four parts, with accentations, 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 afcribed with certainty to fo early a date as the eleventh century, and fome of them to much remoter periods. Alfo, fee a paffage from Seneca †: and of The Three Men's Songs ‡.

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

II

"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 ns 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 harmoniously in parts, before the Italians.

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

Even

read of Kor Alun, Kor Aedan, Kor Elvyw, Kor Ffinær, &c. which fignifies a body, on number of voices, and inftruments joined in harmony;"

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

Likewife, we read of Kan 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, p. 131.

10

Hiftory of Mufic, vol. II. p. 10S, &c.

"I annex an accurate copy, and tranflation of thefe celebrated games, confifting of twenty-four kinds of exercises, used by the ancient Britons, as they are printed in Dr. Davis's Welth, Latin, and Latin and Welsh Dictionary, folio, London, 1632.

+ "Dost

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THE FOUR AND TWENTY ANCIENT BRITISH GAMES, &c.

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 fubject, indulge the fportive excurfions of mufical fancy.Quales fuêre, cum tales fint reliquiæ " !

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The Poetry, as well as the Mufic of the Bards, has received much illuftration 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 me morable 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 1 187, 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 apoftrophies :)

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"At that feaft were they ferved in rich aray,
Every five and five had a cokeney;
And fo 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

+"Doft thou not obferve how a chorus is made up of many | Edward the Third, has the following paffage : 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 thefe flutes are intermingled; the voices of all are heard, but each particular voice is undiftinguishable. I fpeak of the chorus which was known. 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 stage 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 ftrings which render unequal founds." Seneca, Epift. 84.

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

"Three men's fongs, cunningly contrived for the ditty, and pleafantly for the note!” Carew's Hift. of Cornwall, p. 72. fecond

Ed.

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

Of fix men's fong

* Six-men's fong, i. e. a fong for fix voices. Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient Englifo Poetry, vol. II. p. 13, 24. of the 3d edition.

Likewife, Shakespeare ules, "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. Also, in Hawkin's Hijt. of Mufic, vel. I. p. 408. In Potter's Obfervations on the prefent State of Mufit and Muficians, 8vo, p. 11. 12. And in Dr. Smith's Harmonics, 2d. ed. p. 34. 12 Phædrus.

3 Drayton's Polyolbion, the 6th Song. See alfo the notes of the third fong. Froiffard fays, that King Arthur first built the caftle of Windfor. K. Arthur died on the 21st of May, in A. D. 542.

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

To these incidents Mr. Warton (with his usual 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 circumstance mentioned in Enderbie's History of Wales, of a public charter of privileges and immunities of King Arthur, to the School and University of Cambridge *, where among other memorable things he declareth that his Chriftian predeceffors, Kings of Britain, had been inftructed there in learning and religion, and in particular, fpeaking there of King Lucius, what immunities he granted to that univerfity, and that this our first Christian king did receive the faith of Chrift, by the preaching of the learned fcholars of Cambridge. This charter was dated at London, the 7th day of April, in the year of Chrift 531*. The three principal palaces, or Courts of King Arthur, were at Caer-lleon, on the river Ufk 3, in Monmouthfhire; Celliwig, in Cornwall; and Penrhyn Rhionedd, in Cumberland.- British Triads, No. 57. "Aethai heb Dant, a Chantawr, Had it not been for Mufic, and Poetry,

"Ar goll, hanes Arthur gawr."

Even the feats of Arthur would have been inevitably loft.

The use of our poetry in preserving 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 discovery of America, about the year 1170. This we gather from the poems of Cynvrig ab Gronw, and Sir Meredudd ab Rhýs, 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 believed, that had happened three hundred years before.

If Geoffrey of Monmouth, when he tranflated Tyfilio, had known the works of Taliefin, and Llywarch Hên, he might have found in them abundance of historical paffages that would have served better to enlarge and embellish that venerable, and authentic hiftory, than those prophetick tales he has adopted.—Juvat integros accedere fontes.

But left the purity of these genuine fources yet unexplored should 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 fubject of heroic Poetry, which was held in such 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 cause 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 Æneid; though most other nations have shown an inglorious pride in imitating them. What in one country is called an heroic poem, and the grandest performance of hu man 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 blushed to own. Historians, who are acquainted only with the compofitions of this character, may well regard Poetry with the contempt they have ufually teftified, as a vain art, that draws its materials more from fancy than from 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 Gruffydd ab Cynan, and that of the last prince, Llewelyn, is the brighteft in our annals. It abounds with perhaps the noblest 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 of Poetry, and Mufic, and tranfmitted them with augmented honours, to their pofterity. 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 Gruffydd ab Cynan; Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr; Owen Cyveiliog, Prince of Powys; Gwalchmai ab Meilir; Gwrgantab Rhýs;

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tain. King Arthur founded there an Univerfity, which contained 200 learned Philofophers and Aftronomers: and there he inftituted that celebrated order of Knighthood. Lewis's Hift. of Britain, p. 51, &c.

For a candid enquiry into this fubject, fee Lord Lyttelton's notes on the 5th book of his Hift. of Henry II. See alfo Owen's British Remains, 8vo. London, 1777. Likewife Carte's Hift. of England, Vol. I. p. 638; and Powel's Hift. of Wales, p. 227. Lucretius.

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