The poem here describes the manner in which he broke their column, by dashing, on his charger, into the centre of their square.

"Mighty was the conflict, and the mêlée complete. Tinteniat the Good, who was the foremost combatant," &c.

"Mighty was the conflict, doubt it not. The English are routed, who wished to exercise over the Bretons mastery and control; but all their pride has ended in great folly," &c.

Such is the general character of the combat des Trente; whereof, to those interested in Breton antiquities, the foregoing specimens may not be unacceptable; and should any of our Cambrian countrymen take the trouble of comparing it with the compositions of our early bards, they will find, in many particulars, a very striking resemblance, especially in the ancient British poem of the Gododin. Like that, the Breton poem is divided into detached portions or stanzas of irregular lengths, from four lines to forty and upwards. In the same manner, one particular sentence is repeated at the beginning of the several successive stanzas, as a sort of groundwork to build upon, and the same rhyme is continued for a considerable number of lines without any change. For example, of the commencing stanzas of the Gododin, one contains nine lines all ending with the letters ei, as

"Caeawc Cynhaiawc men y dehei," &c.

The next contains the same number of lines ending in wyt,

"Caeawc Cymniviat Cyvlat erwyt," &c.

Another contains seven lines ending in an; and the following has eleven lines ending in awr. In like manner, the combat des Trente commences with a stanza consisting of twelve lines, ending in the syllable ons, and, in some instances, the same rhyme is followed for near thirty lines.

In the Breton poem it has been shewn, in the foregoing extracts, that several successive stanzas commence with the words Grande fu la bataille. The same order is followed in the Gododin; for instance:

"Gwyr a aeth Gattraeth oedd ffraeth eu llu
Glasved eu hancwyn a gwenwyn fu
Trychant trwy beiryant en cattau
A gwedy elwch tawelwch fu," &c.

"Warriors went to Cattraeth, and loquacious was the host; for the bright and intoxicating mead had been in their banquet," &c.

"Gwyr a aeth gattraeth gan wawr," &c.

"The warriors went to Cattraeth with the dawn," &c.

"Gwyr a aeth Gattraeth gan dyd," &c.

"Warriors went to Cattraeth with the day," &c.

"Gwyr a aeth Gattraeth buant enwawc
Gwin a med o eur vu eu gwirawt," &c.

"Warriors went to Cattraeth, heroes of renown; wine and mead, out of golden goblets, had been their beverage," &c.*

The French poem, it must be owned, has nothing of the wild irregularity of the Gododin, neither does it display the genius and energy of diction which characterize that extraordinary production; but there is, nevertheless, in many respects, a very striking resemblance between them. I will acknowledge that the characteristics which I have been noticing are not peculiar to these two compositions, but may be found in the ancient poetry of some other countries; but when I recollect the intimate connexion which subsisted between Wales and Brittany in the early ages, and how the Bretons transported the compositions of our Welsh bards into their own country, I am inclined to hazard a conjecture that the similarity of style observable between the combat des Trente, which is evidently the production of a Breton, and the ancient British poems, must be accounted for, by the fact of the Breton minstrels having continued among them the style of the bardic school, as they did its traditions, and handed it down even to the later Trouveurs, who composed their poems in the French language. If this conjecture be correct, it will serve to establish another of those facts which appear so difficult to account for, which is, that whilst the Principality of Wales and the Cymraeg districts furnished the nations of Europe with the materials of romantic fiction, and thus gave a new impulse to their literature, so they also supplied the very style and model of poetic composition, and laid the foundation upon which subsequent schools erected their various systems.

This is the stanza which Gray translated in his specimens of ancient British poetry, commencing

"To Cattraeth's vale in glittering row."

(To be continued.)

TO SHELTON OAK.

I.

SEVEN hundred years, with each vicissitude

Of sunshine, gloom, rain, hail, frost, breeze, and blast,
Hoar Patriarch of the forest! now have past
O'er this green spot, since first from acorn crude,
On the vex'd sea of time, thou didst protrude
Thine infant stem, and first begin to cast
Abroad thine arms, once vigorous, but at last,
Like thy cleft trunk, all blighted, gnarled, and rude.
By vulgar eye, thou doubtless art esteemed

Unworthy of the clod that bears thy root;
Yet mourn not, by the bard thou still art deemed
Most sacred, for to him thou art not mute
Nor unadorned, but fair, and long hast teemed
With melody more sweet than well-touched harp or lute.

II.

Thou sing'st, old tree, to bard of days long flown;
Of many a truant schoolboy's jubilee;

Of the swart gipsy's moonlight pranks and glee;
Of lover's vows and sighs, and the sad moan
Of houseless outcast, whom thy cavern lone

Hath sheltered from the blast's keen enmity,
And, keener still, the scorn of friends that flee
The wretch whom fate and passion have undone.
Thou singest, too, of that dire battle's clang

Which shook yon plain that courts Sabrina's wave;
And of Glyndwr's stern breast the bitter pang,*
As, on thy boughs, the mail-clad warrior sprang,
And saw and cursed the bloody rout that gave
To Harry's brow a wreath, to Hotspur's heart a grave.

III.

What time spring's balmy breath has pranked the glade,
When lonely owlet hymns the silent moon,

Or dewy morn begems the thorn's festoon;

When summer tide more dear makes rill and shade;
When groves embrown, and flowers and flowerets fade;
When churlish winter pipes on harsh bassoon;
In each, loved tree, by thee a varied boon,

From olden time, at Fancy's feast is laid;
Nor shalt thou be unthanked: for this,-a charm
The bard shall wreathe around with heavenly skill;
Whose spell shall woodman's ruthless hand disarm
Of sacrilegious axe: forbid all harm

From loutish ignorance, and guard thee till
The gentle hand of age its mournful task fulfil.

Shrewsbury; 1831.

JOHN WEBSTER, M.D.

Tradition says that Owain, arriving too late to assist the rebel army at the battle of Shrewsbury, ascended the old oak at Shelton, and viewed from it the defeat of Hotspur.

+ Prank, to decorate.-Spencer; Milton.

GENTLEMEN,

NUGE CAMBRO-BRITANNICE.

To the Editors.

THE paucity of original publications in the Welsh language, at the present day, does not appear to furnish sufficiently ample materials for the scope of Cambrian criticism. In this dearth of literary novelty in our tongue, and in order to supply its defect, there is nothing which appears to me so appropriate as occasionally to present your readers with a review either of some of our own more ancient authors, or of those Saxon and Gallic writers who have made Wales or Welshmen the subject of their lucubrations; from both these excursive fields of black-lettered lore, the most abundant harvests may be collected. As introductory to a literary disquisition of this local character, I now take the liberty of handing you a few extracts from some works of this description, not very generally known.

Although our neighbours, both in England and in France, seem disposed, on all occasions and in all periods of our history, to render due homage to the valour and intrepidity of the ancient British, yet, by way of counterpoise to this complimentary concession, they never fail to make the alleged ferocity, irascibility, abject poverty, and brutality of our ancestors, the constant subjects of their sarcastic reproaches. Some of these foreign writers, more especially the poets, have depicted our forefathers as entirely devoid of any the least pretensions to any degree of refinement or civilization; in short, as absolute savages: with what colour of justice, we shall be able to demonstrate in the sequel. One of them in particular, William Britto, a French writer, in the reign of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, in the fifth book of his Philippeidos, a poem, written, as its name imports, in praise of Philip, the then reigning monarch in France, is thus pleased to express himself on the occasion of the invasion of that country by a numerous army of Welshmen, under King Richard.

"Protinus extremis Anglorum finibus agmen

Wallorum immensum numero vocat, ut nemorosa
Per loca discurrant ferroque, ignique, furore
Innato, nostri vastent confinia regni.

"Gens Wallensis habet hoc naturale per omnes
Indigenas, primis proprium quod servat ab annis,
Pro domibus sylvas, bellum pro pace frequentat,
Irasci facilis, agilis per devia cursu,

Nec soleis plantas, caligis nec crura gravantur
Frigus docta pati, nulli cessura labori.

Veste brevi, corpus nullis oneratur ab armis
Nec munit thorace latus, nec casside frontem,
Sola gerens, hosti cædem quibus inferat arma,.
Clavam cum jaculo, venabula, gesa, bipennem
Arcum cum pharetris, nodosaque tela, vel hastam
Assiduis audens prædis, fusoque cruore."

TRANSLATION.

"Then forth, from sea-girt Albion's farther coast,
Of the wild Welsh, he call'd a num'rous host,
To waste our sylvan plains with sword and fire
And all the fiery Welshman's innate ire.

"Of Cambria's sons, this ever was the law,
Which from their earliest ancestors they draw,
War to prefer to all the charms of peace;-
Fleet in the course, their vigour to increase,
They choose the devious paths; to anger prone;.
Their only dwellings are their woods alone;
Unshod they run, nor galligaskins wear,
By habit taught th' extremest cold to bear.
In toil and labour none can them exceed;
Short are their vests, no armour clogs their speed,
Their heads no helm, their breasts no coat of mail:
Serves to protect when enemies assail;

A bow, a knotted club, a hunter's spear,
Their only arms against their foes appear;
In plunder they incessantly delight,

And their first pleasure is the bloody fight."

The "irasci facilis" may still, perhaps, be considered a prominent feature in the moral physiognomy of our countrymen; but the progress they made in general civilization, in less than a hundred years after the death of Richard Coeur-de-Lión, is established by the following Leonine verses, which are not without their interest as a literary curiosity.

"Mores antiqui Britonum, jam ex convictu Saxonum
Commutati in melius, ut patet ex his clarius,
Hortos et agros excolunt, ad oppida se conferunt.
Et loricati equitant, et calceatí peditant,

Urbanè se reficiunt, et sub tapetis dormiunt,

Ut judicentur Anglici, nunc potius quam Wallici.
Hujus si quæratur ratio, quietius quam solito

Cur illi vivant hodie, in causâ sunt divitiæ,

Quas citò hæc gens perderet, si passim nunc confligeret.
Timor damni hos retrahit, nam nil habens nil metuit,
Et ut dixit Satyricus,—Cantat viator vacuus
Coram latrone tutior, quam phalaratus ditior."

The author of these lines, from his attributing the incipient

NO. XIII.

E