The most prominent feature in the new canons is the more definite establishment of laws of " Cynglanedd," or consonancy—a species of alliteration which was thenceforth considered as essential to verso as metre and thyme. It bad much analogy to the alliteration employed in Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and occasionally in earlier English poetry ; but while other nations became more lax in applying it, the Welsh became more stringent.. A specimen of English verse, composed about the middle of the 15th century, by a Welsh student at Oxford, to exhibit the advantages of the cross consonancy," is printed in the second volume of the Cambrian Register.' A more recent example, given in Walters's ' Dissertation on the Welsh Language,' will perhaps convey a clearer notion of it than a lengthened description The lines are on Envy :— " A fiend in Phcchus' face he found, That yonder grew yet underground, Sprung from the spawn of Spite ; The Elf his spleen durst not display, Nor act the devil In the day, But at tho noon of night." A happier instance occurs in a song by John Parry, tho Welsh song-writer and composer, known as Bardd Alaw :'— " God grant that Great Britain for ever may ho Tho terror of tyrants, the friend of the fret." Alliteration is appropriately introduced by Gray in the first line of his Bard :— "Rain seize thee, rathloss king," and by Mason in his Caractacus : " I marked Ala mail, I marked his shield, I spied the sparkling of his spear, I saw his giant arm the falchion wield, • Wide waved the bickering blade and fired the angry:sir." The lines of Mason also exemplify how easily the search after this ornament may lead to the neglect of the much more essential beauty of appropriate diction. A spear would not have heeu " spied," nor would a blade have " bickered," for the attraction of alliteration. In the third stage of Welsh literature on which we are now about to enter, it was a frequent complaint that in poetry the sense was almost constantly sacrificed to the sound ; but the legal restrictions on Welsh freedom in poetry could apparently only be legally removed. The laws of the Eisteddvod of Caermarthen, in 1451, were at last repealed by an Eisteddvod of Caermarthen, in 1819, and Welsh poetry has materially benefited by this Reform Act.
Third Period-1536-1760. The next period of Welsh literature commences with the Reformation and with the incorporation of Wales with England by the Act of Parliament of King Henry VIII., in 1536, two events which changed both the religious and the political aspect of the country. In Wales the Reformation, introduced by a Tudor monarch, took from the first a much firmer root than in other Celtic countries ; but there, as elsewhere, some of the learned adhered to the ancient faith, and in the reigns of the early Protestant sovereigns were compelled to carry their dissent abroad.
The first book printed in the Welsh language, which was also the first bock printed in any Celtic language, was a species of Almanac, by William Salesbury, with a translation of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, &c., issued at London in 1546, in a quarto volume. Salesbury, who was an eminently learned man and the master of nine languages, was a master also of his mother.tongue. He published the first Dictionary of English and Welsh, in 1547. He wrote on
and kindred subjects, and appears to have had it at heart to make both the Welsh and English nations better acquainted with each other. He was also a zealous Protestant, and wrote the greater part of the first translation of the New Testament into Welsh—a translation so excellent that it forms the groundwork of that still in use. It was first published at London, in 1567, in a quarto volume, a copy of which is one of the choicest treasures in Welsh libraries.
The history of the Welsh translation of the Bible is curious. In the year 1562 or 1563 it was enacted by Parliament that " the Bible, Testament, and Common Prayer should be translated into the British or Welsh tongue ; should be viewed, perused, and allowed by the bishops of St. Asaph, Bangor, St. David's, Llandaff, and Hereford ; and should be printed and used in the churches by the 1st of March in the year 1566, under a penalty in case of failure of forty pounds on each of the bishops." Salesbury was engaged by the bishops to carry out this important commission ; his friend Dr. Richard Davies, bishop of St. David's, assisted him by translating a portion • and in 1567, a year after the term fixed by the Act of the Testament made its appearance. After this came a long pause. Salesbury was residing, for the purpoee of carrying on the translation, with the Bishop of St. David's, when a dispute arose between them on the meaning and etymology of one word, and ran to such a length that the two friends parted for ever. The consequence of this not very Christian outbreak was, that the Welsh were left without a Bible for more than twenty years. The penalty provided by the Act was too small to enforce it ; for the bishops, who seem to have had to defray the expense of the translation, would have had to pay more than the forfeit to carry it out. In 1588 the difficulty was solved by the appearance at London of a translation executed by Dr. William Morgan, vicar of Llanrhaiadr, in Denbighshire, not in consequence of the Act of Parliament, but because he felt the necessity of the work for his countrymen. :Morgan received a bishopric in recompense : he was promoted in 1595 to the see of Llandaff, and " translated," says Llewellyn, the historian of the Welsh Bible, " to St. Asaph in 1601, and in 1604 to a better place." 'Ks successor at St. Asaph, Dr. Parry, published in 1620 a revised edition of this Bible, with considerable alterations ; and in the Scriptures of both editions, Salesbury's transla tion of 1567 affords the groundwork of the Testament. The Welsh have, like the English, been remarkably fortunate iu their translation of the Bible. It is with both nations the acknowledged standard of the language, and equally a favourite with thelearned and the people. It is now in Wales the book of every household ; but this state of affairs has only been attained by degrees. In Prichard's Canwyll y Cymry,' the date of which is that of the triumph of English Puritanism in the time of the Commonwealth, are some lines thus translated by Evans " Women and men of low degree, The very abjecta of tho land, You always may in England see Each with the Bible In his hand.