A vigorous attempt to call attention to the a Ludy of the ancient literature waq made towards the end of this period by the Rev. Moses William% an antiquary and author, who was in advance of Ilia age, and has nut yet received his due share of fame. There are in the British Museum printed ' Proposals for printing by subscription a Collection of Writing-a in the Welsh Tongue to the beginning of the Sixteenth Century,' dated July 31st, 1719. "This design," it is said, " bath been approved of by such gentlemen as have been made acquainted therewith, who have promised to encourage it as well by subscribing to it as by com municating their mannecripta, some whereof are already put into the publisher's hands.... Subscriptions for the first volume are taken in by Mr. Alban Thomas, at the Royal Society's House in Crane Court, Fleet Street ; Messrs. William and John Innys, booksellers in St. Paul's Churchyard, London ; and by the editor, Moses Williams." A speci men is eubjoined of two pages of the Liber Triadiun; or Book of Triads, in Weish only. 13ound up in the same volume with it in the Museum is a manuscript portion of the intended preface, in Latin, apologising for publishing the documents in the original language without a translation, which is excused on the ground of the extreme difficulty of arriving at a certain knowledge of the meaning of every sentence in the then state of the study of the language. The writer, Moses Williams, was, however, at that time one of the beet Welsh scholars living, and the glossary which he supplied to \Votton's Leges Wallicte' is a proof of his erudition. The library of the Earl of Macclesfield contains a number of transcripts which he had made, doubtless for the purposes of this intended work, and which are likely to be of great critical value. Had his proposals been received with favour, he might have had the glory of anticipating the ' Myvyrian Arehaiohogy.' Williams was a singularly diligent and accurate scholar, and (published a ' Repertorimn Pocticurn; or list of Welsh poems, and a general catalogue of Welsh books, which will be mentioned more particularly here after. Two Welsh sermons, preached and printed by him in London, in 1717 and 1719, are in the British Museum, and are of considerable interest from the information they contain on the state of the Welsh church, and of the Welsh language at that period. They are not mentioned, so far as wo are aware, inn any of the notices on Williams's biography, of which the most ample that we have seen is in Williams of Llangadwaladr's 'Lives of Eminent Welshmen.' He was born in Cardiganshire in.1685, and died as vicar of St. Mary's, Bridgewater, in 1742.
It has been mentioned that the early editions of the Welsh Bible were printed in London, and the introduction of typography into the Principality was exceedingly slots.. Cotton, in the "Pypographical Gazetteer,' states that the earliest information he possesses on the subject is from one of 'the Martin Mar-Prelate tracts in Queen Elizabeth's reign, in which mention is mule of ' knave Thackwell the printer, which printed popyshe and traiterous Welehe books in Wales,' and nothing more has ever been discovered of the printer or his books.
Penry, who was hanged as the author of the Mar.Prelate tracts, was by birth a Welshman. In the Gentleinan'e Magazine' fur August, 1821, it is observed by a correspondent, that " from the invention of printing downwards, so adverse were the circumstances attending the diffusion of Welsh literature, that there was not a printing-press in the principality until the year 1734, or thereabouts, when a temporary one was set up by Mr. Lewis Miami°, of Boci.Edeyrn, in Anglesey. This identical press," tho correspondent adds, "is still iu being at Trevriw, near Llanrwst.'
fourth Period-1760-18G1. A new period in the history of Welall literature may be said to commence with the reign of George III., it hundred years ago, 8001I after the middle of the 1Sth century. The remarkable increase of activity which is observable in that literature during these hundred years, and especially during the last forty, Gonna to be attributable to the spontaneous impulse given by a few die. tinguished men ; to the epreatl of Methodism in Wake; to the establishment, for the first time, of periodical publications ; and to the institution or revival of patriotic, societies.
One of the first signs of a new era in the literature of Wales was given by the publication in 1764 of a thin but important quarto volume. " Some Specimens of the Poetry of the ancient Welsh Bards translated into English, with explanatory notes on the historical passages and a short account of the men and places mentioned by the Bards, by the Rev. Mr. Evan Evans, curate of Llanvair Talyhaern, in Denbigh shire," (London, 1764). It was the first book in which the claims of the Welsh bards were brought under the notice of the English public. Evans says in his preface that it " was first thought of and encouraged some years before the name of Ossian was heard of in England," but it was evidently the success of Macpherson's Ossian which had brought the project to maturity. " Certainly," says the author in a Welsh address to M r. Richard Morris, printed in the volume, " I would not have taken this labour upon me except to put a stop to the reproaches of the English, who say that we have nothing of poetry to show the world, while one of the Scotch Highlanders has translated portions of their ancient bard, or rather has dressed up and adorned some recent production and put it forth in his name." He is not sparing of his insinuations against the genuineness of Oasian, and his critical remarks on the ancient bards of Wales are marked by acuteness. His greatest mistake is that he does not question the truth of the massacre of the bards, of which he remarks that it " gave occasion to a very fine ode by Mr. Grey." Evans's own prose translation of pieces by Gwalchmai and others also gave occasion to some imitations by Gray, which, though of no great merit, are of all translations from the Welsh by far the most extensively known. His volume concludes with an excellent proposal to send a literary traveller through Wales to examine and transcribe the remains of ancient poetry ; but it appears to have met with cold neglect. Evan Evans was born in 1731, and died in 1789. lie entered the church, but rose to no higher position than that of a curate in a parish said to derive its name from the ancient bard, Talltiarn, and which also gave birth to the living bard, Talhaiarn. As a Welsh poet his reputation is now even higher than during his lifetime. Theophilus Junes, the historian of Brecknockshire, says in a letter written in 1797, "I did not think Evan Prydydd Hir (the bardic name of Evans) the poet he was. I knew hint well, but I suppose the cum had expelled the amen before I became acquainted with him." Despair appears to have driven the disappointed man of talent to drink, and at the time of his death, in 1789, he was reported to have perished in a state of intoxication on a mountain, a report which happily appears to be unfounded. He left behind him a good collection of transcribed manuscripts, which passed on his death to Mr. Penton, of Anglesey, who had allowed him au annuity on that condition. Two volumes of Welsh sermons published by him contained an English preface so caustic as to be said to have stood in the way of his preferment.