Some disappointment was naturally felt at the non-appearance of the '13ardie Triads' in the book, the chief interest of which consisted in its being supposed to contain them, but no explanation could Is obtained further than that, of the two parts of the Cyvrinach; Taliesin Williams had only printed the first. No public information was vouchsafed as to why he had not printed tho second, or what had become of it The admirers of the Bardie Triads were reduced to look forward to the publication of them in a volume on the lobo Maim scripts, a large collection of transcripts made by lobo Morganwg, and from which Teliesin was engaged by the Welsh Manuscript Society to make and publish a selection. By a second misfortune, Talienin Williams died in 1847, before the publication of the Tole Manuscripts, as his father had died before the publication of the' Cyvrinach.' So much, however, had been printed before his decease, as to render it certain that the Bardie Triads would have formed no portion of the volume. The Tole Manuscripts, published by the Welsh Manuscript Society in 1849, contain a variety of pieces of very different value, respecting the origin of which we only learn that they were taken from transcripts made by foie Islorganwg from other transcripts of which ho mentions the possessors, adding in some cases from what originals they were transcribed. One of these pieces, called the Voice Conven tional of the Bards of Britain,' contains an account of the origin of the ancient Welsh alphabet at the time of the Creation, taken also from a manuscript by Llewelyn Sion of Llangewyd. But again, as has been said, the Bardic Triads' are missing, and in 1861 the Secret of the Bards' is still a secret.
Taliesin Williams appears to have told the Rev. Thomas Price, after the death of Tole (' Cambrian Journal' for 1957, p. 224), that "he himself had been for twenty years under a sort of druidical training with his father, and that the system was of so sublime and intellectual a nature, that unless he could find some one qualified in such a way as to be a worthy member of the order the secret should die with him." The hope, therefore, of developing the mystery, such as it is, might be abandoned, but for the declaration of the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel, in the Cambrian Journal,' of which he is the editor (1S57, p. 57) : "Much of the real Cyvrinach alluded to is still extant, as we ourselves can testify, and we sincerely trust that measures will be adopted by the Welsh Manuscript Society for the speedy publication of the whole. Until this is done, the early literature and history of our country can never be properly understood." Much doubt was also thrown on the discovery of the Coelbren y Beirdd," or Alphabet of the Bards, an alphabet resembling the Runic, which was also brought forward by Lobo Morganwg, and an essay on its genuineness was proposed as the subject of a prize at an Eisteddvod in 1840. When the author of the successful essay was sought for by opening the envelope containing his name, it was found to be Taliesin Williams, or, as he was proud to call himself, Ab Iolo, who thus strove to vindicate the fair fame of his father. The dissertation is pronounced by impartial critics, Dr. Williams of Llangadwaladr, and Dr. Tregelles, to be a masterpiece, and the author is said to have shown satisfactorily that there were traces of the alphabet in Welsh literature long before his father's time. Since then, it has apparently been assumed by some
Welsh writers, not only that the history of this alphabet, tracing it back to the Creation, was shown to be Elizabethan, or mediaeval, but was also shown to be druidical, and—strangest of all—authentic. There are many illiterate persons who suppose that a statement must necessarily be true because it has appeared in print, but some of the Welsh critics carry the point still farther, and apparently believe every thing they find in manuscript.
The three associates of the 'Myvyrian Archaiology' had each but one son, and in each ease the son became an eminent man. Taliesin Wil liams, or Ab Iolo, the son of Edward Williams, or Lobo Morganwg, who has been already so frequently mentioned, was for the greater part of his life a schoolmaster at Merthyr-Tydvil. He was born in 17b7, and died in 1847. Like his father, he wrote both Welsh and English poetry. Aneurin Owen, the son of 'William Owen Pughe, never took the name of Pughe, assumed by his father. Ilis edition of the `Laws of Wales,' already mentioned, is a lasting title to remembrance. He was born in 1792, and died in 1951. The son of Owen Jones, still living, is Owen Jones the eminent architect, who produced, in conjunction with Goury and Gayangos, the finest work on the Alhambra of Granada; and after wards reproduced, with signal magnificence, the Alhambra itself at Sydenham, where he employed, in the decoration of a second Crystal Palace, the talents which had Largely contributed to the success of the first..
One of the most eminent writers on Welsh antiquities of the com mencement of the century, was the Rev. Edward Davies, born in Rad norshire in 1756, who died, after a long illness, on the first day of the year 1831. He first essayed his powers in works of imagination ' Aphtharte,' a poem, and ' Eliza Powell, or the Trials of Sensibility,' a novel ; but his chief productions were Celtic Researches,' published in 1804, and the 'Mythology of the Druids,' published in 1909, two volumes of no inconsiderable ingenuity and learning, employed in the support of a singular theory. According to Davies the druidical superstition was preserved and patronised in Wales, in an esoteric fashion, down to the time of Edward I., and was a form of worship in which the bull, the horse, and the element of fire were prominent emblems. " If this be genuine British heathenism," ho remarks, " it will be expected that vestiges of it should be discovered in the oldest bards now extant, and here, in fact, they present themselves in horrid profusion." The translations of Davies are made in so peculiar a fashion, that he turns the Gododin of Aneurin into a description, not of a battle at Cattraeth, but'of the massacre at Stonehenge ; and indeed in his hands, it is difficult to see what any passage may not prove. He is, as might be expected, severe in his criticism on Iolo Morganwg and his Bardie Triads,' of the genuineness of which be distinctly intimated his disbelief in 1809 ; but his own views are in many cases evidently fanciful, though they have been supported, even in later years, by writers of learning. Davies, towards the close of his life, received one of the literary pensions of 100 guineas, paid by George IV, to the nominees of the Royal Society of Literature.