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 "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 "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, Unworthy of the clod that bears thy root; II. Thou sing'st, old tree, to bard of days long flown; Of the swart gipsy's moonlight pranks and glee; Hath sheltered from the blast's keen enmity, Which shook yon plain that courts Sabrina's wave; III. What time spring's balmy breath has pranked the glade, Or dewy morn begems the thorn's festoon; When summer tide more dear makes rill and shade; From olden time, at Fancy's feast is laid; From loutish ignorance, and guard thee till 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 "Gens Wallensis habet hoc naturale per omnes Nec soleis plantas, caligis nec crura gravantur Veste brevi, corpus nullis oneratur ab armis TRANSLATION. "Then forth, from sea-girt Albion's farther coast, "Of Cambria's sons, this ever was the law, A bow, a knotted club, a hunter's spear, 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 Urbanè se reficiunt, et sub tapetis dormiunt, Ut judicentur Anglici, nunc potius quam Wallici. Cur illi vivant hodie, in causâ sunt divitiæ, Quas citò hæc gens perderet, si passim nunc confligeret. The author of these lines, from his attributing the incipient NO. XIII. E |