" With ns, 'mongst those who most abound, And sumptuously their tables spread, Scarce can a prayer-book be found, Or one who can his Bible read.
"'Tie to the Welsh a foul disgrace They're In religion still so young, That not a tithe of all the race The Scriptures read in their own tongue." In 1802 Owen Pughe stated that nineteen editions of the Bible, amounting to upwards of 130,000 copies, had circulated in Wales ; and yet it was the demand for more copies at that very time which led the Rev. Thomas Charles, of Bala, to propose the establishment of a bene volent religious society for printing and distributing Bibles in Wales.— a notion which expanded and developed under the guidance of Welsh men till it led to the foundation of the great British and Foreign Bible Society. One of the first publications which the Society took in hand was naturally the issue of the Welsh Bible ; and a vivacious account is given in the ' Christian Observer,' by an eye-witness, of its reception in Walei :—" When the arrival of the cart was announced which carried the first sacred load, the Welsh peasants went out in crowds to meet it, welcomed it as the Israelites did the Ark of old, drew it into the town, and eagerly bore off every copy as rapidly as they could be distributed. Labourers carried it with them to the fields, &c." The number of copies issued by the Bible Society in 'Wales between 1806 and 1849 was, of Bibles, 329,131, and Testaments, 384,209, while of "Diglotts, Welsh and English, there were 1986." While the Protestant Salesbury had the honour of publishing the first Welsh book in England, a zealous Catholic, Dr. Griffith Roberts, issued the first that was printed abroad, both of them anticipating by more than a century and a half the first Welsh book printed in Wales. In the celebrated letter addressed by Dr. Johnson to the King's Librarian on the purchase of books during a foreign tour, be made the, remark : " ln every place things often occur where they are least expected. I was shown a Welsh grammar, written in Welsh and printed at Milan, I believe, before any grammar of that language had been printed here." The book which had attracted Dr. Johnson's
observation was only the first part of a treatise on grammar, Dosparth byrr ar y rhan gyntaf i Ramadeg '—a treatise on orthography embodying suggestions of some value for the improvement of the Welsh alphabet, illustrated with peculiar types. The volume bears the date of 1567, but no indication of its place of imprint; and the authority for the usual assertion on that score was that David Rhys, in the Latin preface to his' Cambro-Britannicre Lingua Institutiones; said that the book of his predecessor was printed at " Mediolanum." A few years ago the old tradition on the subject was combated by the ingenious argument that as there is more than one place in Wales itself the name of which is Latinised into Mediolauum, the book might have been printed at, for instance, Llanvyllin. Unluckily for the new view, a decisive confirmation of the old one has since been discovered in another book, by Griffith Roberts, a religious treatise entitled the Drych,' or' Mirror,' containing a fervent exhortation to his countrymen in behalf of the Roman Catholic faith. In this book, which was printed at Rouen about 1585, the exhortation is signed " G. IL," and dated "0 Fulan" (" From Milan "); while in a preface by Dr. Roger Smith the author is styled "the great teacher of the city of Milan, in the land of Italy" (" yr Athro mawr o Dhinas Fulan yngwlad yr Idal "), where it is moreover added that some of his books have been printed. Griffith Roberts also left behind him some imperfect books on grammar, which he had commenced to print, but never completed, and of which it is said that ouly three copies are at present known : that presented by the Welsh School, formerly of Gray's Inn Lane, to the British Museum ; that in the library of Wynnstay, which fortunately escaped the con flagration of 1858 ; and that in the library of Mr. Wynne of Peniarth. The works of Roberts are well deserving of republication.