Stephens remarks that " it is seldom that a name can be clearly demonstrated to be a myth, and the stages of its growth fully and satisfactorily unfolded, but we are enabled to do this in the case of Prydain ab Aedd Mawr, and to show that the name is one of the best specimens of a myth in all literature." " On me be the shame," he adds, " if the statement is not borne out by the facts and reasons here following : on those who have deluded their countrymen with dreamy speculations and hardy misstatements, if the proof should be conclu sive." Mr. Stephens forcibly describes himself at the end of his article, as one " who honestly endeavours to unfold the real history of his country and countrymen, and who aspire,' to teach them that that can be no true patriotism which upholds as veritable history a tissue of demonstrable fictions, which fears to realise its own boast of Truth against the world,' and dreads nothing so much as to see its 'traditions' subjected to a rigorous examination in the face of the sun and in the eye of light.' The meet important work hitherto published by Mr. Stephens is his valuable volume on the ' Literature of the Cyuary in the Twelfth and following Centuries.' The reader, even where he cannot agree with the anther's opinions, feels assured that they are those, not only of a moan of learning, but of sincerity and judgment. A complete history of Welsh literature from the same pen would be a boon, not only to the literature of England, but of Europe, and the gratitude of men of letters would make amends to Mr. Stephens for the virulence with which ha has been sometimes assailed by the mistaken patriotism of ill-judging countrymen, who do not perceive that he is one of the beet friends and supporters of the real honour of Wales.
It has been already mentioned that Mr. Stephens's general views have found a powerful supporter, and in some cases extender, in Mr.
Noah of Cheltenham. They are also substantially those adopted in the able ' History of Walea ' from the earliest times to the incorpora tion with England, by Mr. Bernard Woodward, librarian to the Queen.
Much excellent criticism on Welsh Druidism, Bardiam, and litera ture may be found embodied to the greatest advantage in a volume which is distinguished for the vivacity, as well as the general sound ness of its views.
The music of Wales was first brought before the English public, in connection with its poetry, in the 'Relics of the Welsh Bards,' pub lished in 1784, by Edward Jones," Bard to the Prince of Wales," native of Merionethshire, who died at London in 1824. The work is valuable from the specimens it contains of both poetry and music, but the poetry is too paraphrastically rendered, and the accompanying notices are little to be relied on. A similar collection of Welsh tunas was made by John Parry (born at Denbigh in 1776, died at London in 1851), a self-taught musician, who became composer to Vauxhall Gardens, and woe moreover honoured with the degree of " Bardd Alaw " or Bard of Music, at a congress of Bards, iu 1821. Mr. Parry had the good fortune to engage Mrs. Heinen,' to write the verses to his collection of melodies; but Mrs. Hetnaus, though she spent part of her childhood and much of her life in Wales, and was attached to the country, was unacquainted with the language. An other collection of Welsh tunes is now announced an in preparation, with Welsh words, by " Talldarn," one of the first of living Welsh poets, and translations into Eogliah verse by Mr. Thomas Oliphant, of the Madrigal Society, author of the ' Musa Madrigalesca.' The quantity of Welsh poetry, or verse, that has been written during the last, hundred years is very remarkable, and not the less remarkable is the general uniformity of it character. It is almost exclusively lyrieal. in the whole ramp of Welsh literature for many centuries there was nothing of the epic or narrative kind, not even se much u a ballad, while the most popular volume of Breton poetry that has been published, the ' llama Breir.,' consists of a collection of ballads gathere1 among the peasantry. An absence of fiction In prose, of that class which the Germans consider a branch of poetry, is aloe very striking In Welsh literature. It might be brought as an argn tnent against the originality of the Mabinoglon, that the only othet fictitious narratives that have been popular in Wales, even down to our own times, have certainly been imported. The ' l'ilgrim'a Progress' is simply a translation of Bunyan ; the ' Sleeping Bard' of Ellis Wynne Is founded on Quevodo; and the only book of the kind that has stirred the mind of the Welsh in our days is ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' which received the extraordinary honour of four different translations and adaptations. All these works, it may be remarked, partake of a reli gious character. We have never heard of a Welsh translation of ' Robinson Crueoe,' or of a novel by Sir Walter Scott. Some ' Tempe rance Tales' have lately been produced in answer to prizes, and we observe that with the present year (1861) a serial was commenced at Llanerchymecid under the title of ' V Nofelydd," The Novelist.' If well conducted, we heartily wish it success. The " Cytnro unialth " the Welshman who knows no language but Welsh, has been left sin gularly deficient in means of literary recreation. Tho Saxon can hardly be more ignorant of the literature of Wales than such a " Cymro uniaith " necessarily was, till very recently, of the literature of England.
Some of the poets of the more recent period have already been men tioned in giving an account of the antiquaries,—Owen l'ughe, Edward Williams, and his son Tallman; of the others, the only dramatic one may take precedence. " Twm o'r Nut." says Williams, or lel,' Morganwg, in one of his letters, " has been called the Shakspere of Wales. What blasphemy to name him with the Shakspere of England ! You have most probably seen a foolish crambo sometimes put into the hands of little children beginning to reed, 'This is the House that Jack built.' It is much fairer to compare this to the writings of Slut/omen' than anything that was over written by Twin o'r Nant, whose interludes consist of nothing but the lowest and frequently the moat indecent buffoonery that can be imagined." " Twm o'r /Cant," or " Tom of the Valley," was the bailie name of Thomas Edwards, who was the originator and chief of a band of strolling players who went about to the Welsh villages. Ilia interludes, " Enterlutes," as he rills them in Welsh, resemble, if we may judge by their titles, which are given by a correspondent in the ' Gwladgarwr ' (voL vi., p. 144), the Masteries, or Moralities, which preceded the establishment of the regular theatre in most countries of Europe. One of them is a dialogue between a Protestant and a Dissenter ; another between Pleasure and Misery. The dates of these arc 17S3 and 1787. He afterwards advanced nearer
to the regular drama, for in 1812 we have the Ystori Richard Whittington yr liwn a fu dsir gwaith yn Arglwydd Macr Llundain ;' the story of Whittington thrice lord mayor of London. Their merit, we may charitably suppose, was greater than Williams allows them, since some who deny him the name of the Welsh Shakepere call him the Welsh Aristophanes. Edwards was born in Denbighshire in 1738, and died, apparently, before 1820. Before his time the only existing epeci mene of the Welsh drama, that we are aware of, are a volume of " interludes" of the 17th century, among the manuscripts of the British Museum. Since his time we have heard of no attempt to revive the acted drains In Wales; but in a recent number of ' Beirniad; a periodical, there is an adaptation of David and Goliath, from the original of Hannah More ; and Talhaiarn gives in his poems a translation of a scene or two from Shakspere's King Lear.' The poetry of the fourth period in Waltz is generally of a serious character. Three Davids are mentioned as distinguished among the bard,' —David Richards of Dolgelly (1751-1827), known as Davydd lonawr ; David Thomas of Caernarvon (1769-1S22), known as Davydd Ddu Erni; and David Owen of Eivion (1784-1841), by his banlic name Dewi Wyn. Davydd lonawr is sometimes called " the Christian poet of Wales," his chief productions being a sort of epic on the Trinity, and a paraphrase of the history of Joseph. Davydd Ddu Eryri wait one of the companions of lobo Morganwg in the bardic meeting held in 1792 on the summit of Primrose Hill, and in 1793 and 1794 he was, with his rival, Walter Davies, or °walker Mechain, prohibited from contending at Eisteddvods for a time, because, when they did so, their competitors had no chance of success. Dewi 1Vyn spent his life in rural pursuits, and his poems were collected in a volume under the title of ' Modal' Arfon,' or ' Flowers of Arvon.' Mr. Thomas Lloyd Jones (0 wenffrwd), of liolywell, in Flintshire, who emigrated to America, and died in Alabama in 1834, in his twenty-fourth year, published a small but useful volume, ' Ceinion Awen y Cyrnry," the Beauties of Welsh Poetry,' an acceptable guide both to the stranger and native. A larger volume of this description, with biographical noticca of the poets, on the plan of Mackenzie's Specimens of Gaelic Poetry,' is much required In Welsh literature. Lloyd Jones had also translated. into Welsh, Thomson's ' Sea/lone,' and the • Deserted Village,' and thus set rut example, which has been followed by Daniel Silvan Evans and by — Jones (Talhaiarn), of enabling the Welsh reader to taste seine of the beauties of the bards of England. Merthyr-Tydvil at one time boasted of three poets--Taliesin Williams, already repeatedly men tioned ; Edward \\ Mims, an innkeeper, who, to distinguish him from the more famous Edward Williams, or lobo 3Iorganwg, was called lobo Mynwy ; and John Thomas, said by his admirers to be the best minstrel in South Wales. Two eminent Welsh bards wore resident at Oxford together—the Rev. Daniel Evans, of Jesus College, who assumed the name of Daniel Ddu o Geredigion, from his native Cardigan, and the Ilev. John Jones, of Christ Church. who took that of Tegid, from having been born near Llyn Tegid. A collection of poems by the former was published at Llandovery in 1831, under the name of Gwinllan y Bardd,' The Poet's Vineyard.' The productions of the other have not yet, that we are aware, been collected, though the death of Tegid took place some years ago, and his poems are such as his countrymen would not willingly let die. The Walter Davies, called Gwallter Mechain, from his birthplace, Llanvechain, in Montgomeryshire, was born in 1761, and died in 1849, in his eighty ninth year, still an active contributor to Welsh periodicals, for which he had then been in the habit of writing for more than half a century. As a Welsh poet be was more remarkable than his friend lolo Morganwg, and his influence at the Eisteddvod of 1819 was strong against Cyngba nedd. The Rev. James Hughes, born in 1779, at first a peasant in Car diganshire, then a workman in Deptford dockyard from his twenty-first to his forty-fifth year, became, in 1810, a Calvinistic Methodist preacher, was for many years minister in Jewin Crescent Chapel, and died in 1846. His Welsh commentary on the New Testament is in high esteem, and he was also considered a good poet and critic. Among his productions is a translation of Gray's 'Bard.' Some Welsh verses are inscribed on his tombstone in Bunhill Fields burying-ground, in full view of the passengers along the busy City Road, whoso eye they often catch. The Rev. William Rees, of Liverpool (Gwilym Hiracthog), is a poet of high reputation, who generally exercises his pen on serious subjects, and the chief production in whose volume of poems is a paraphrase on the Book of Job. The Rev. William Williams, of Caernarvon (Gwilym Caledfryn), author of Crawl' Awen ' (' The Treasure of the Muse'), and other volumes of poetry, has been for the last forty years one of the leaders of the poetical choir. It is somewhat remarkable that we hear of no "tenth Muse," no poetess whatever in the Welsh Parnassus, though of late even female preachers and female lecturers have been numerous in the country, and its history and literature owe permanent obligations to the Englishwoman Mrs. Hemans and the Scotehwoman Lady Charlotte finest. A poem entitled Wales,' which has appeared in America, is a tribute to her native country by Miss Maria James, who, when she left the Old World at the age of eight, was acquainted with no language but Welsh, and whose first lesson in English was to learn on board the vessel the meaning of " Get out of the way." But even in her tribute to Wales she adopted the English language. One good effect of the prizes proposed by the Welsh societies has been that of late some versified narrative has been introduced to give a little more variety to Welsh poetry. It is singular to observe with what unde viating constancy the national mind has run for centuries in the track of funeral elegies and eulogies, so that, even in modern times, scarcely any respectable clergyman is lost to his congregation without being celebrated in verse. The poet whose Bardic name is Talhaiarn, but whose real name is — Jones, seems to offer an exception in many respects to the general course of his countrymen. He writes poetry in English as well as Welsh ; he appears to appreciate and enjoy English literature; and his productions are of a lighter and more amusing kind than usual. A long residence abroad, not only iu England, but iu France, in pursuit of his profession as an architect, appears to have emancipated him from many of the narrow ideas which are still found in the glens of Wales.