CAMBRIAN WREATH;,, A SELECTION OF English Poems on Welsh Subjects, ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED FROM THE CAMBRO-BRITISH, HISTORIC AND LEGENDARY, INCLUDING WELSH MELODIES: BY VARIOUS AUTHORS OF CELEBRITY, LIVING AND DEPARTED. Edited and Illustrated by T. J. LLEWELYN PRICHARD. Wild Cambria-land of romance! O'er Cymru's gen'rous Mountain Land. ABERYSTWYTH : PRINTED FOR THE EDITOR, BY JOHN COX. 1828. 58 PREFACE. IT has long been the Editor's anxious wish to see a poetical miscellany formed of the effusions of the Cambrian Muse, in English, and exclusively dedicated to the service of the Principality-a pocket volume embracing subjects alike interesting to the visitors of Wales, and the dwellers on its soil, who feel a lively delight in the scenic charms of the most picturesque part of the British dominions, or curiosity to pause on the very theatre where mighty events were enacted in the days of yore-and finding no such work forthcoming, he has ventured to step forth, and, with the CAMBRIAN WREATH, to supply the deficiency. Our Cambrian Chaplet, thus wreathed round the brows of our nation's Genius, is formed of the wildest variety of floral components, and exhibits the contrasting hues of the vale and mountain blossoms, the spontaneous gems of the wilderness, and the cultivated beauties of the gay parterre-flowers culled from the graves of ancient bards and heroes, or torn from the solitude of ruined battlements, and those trained to beauty by the living hands of existing taste, and placed by them in the bow-pots of the modern Drawing Room. In short, the work will be found to consist of very antique, and very modern, matter-translations from the Welsh Bards, historic and legendary poems and ballads, with many exquisite lyrics, under the head of Welsh Melodies, that tend to perpetuate and celebrate our native minstrelsy, by some of the most popular authors of the day. So confident is the Editor of the success of his undertaking that his principal fear on the subject is, for his liability to censure for placing so narrow a limit to the Work. In answer to this supposed objection he has to observe, the Cambrian Wreath is an experiment on the public taste; and if a successful one, the numerous and very excellent poems and translations which, in accordance to his plan, he has laid aside for the present, and separated from this little work, shall appear in a similar pocket volume, so far differing however, that it will embrace subjects connected with every county, and almost every neighbourhood and celebrated place in Wales, under the title of the Cambrian Garland. A few words more on the Cambrian Wreath-which will apply equally to the Cambrian Garland, should it ever make its appearance. The voluminous and very expensive Works from which many of these poems have been extracted, placed them, like forbidden fruit, guarded-not by an Angel of light, but the Dragon of Exaction, the harpy of Extortion, far and secure from the reach of many possessing sufficient taste to appreciate their worth—an evil that hangs like golden fetters on the encumbered limbs of marching Intellect (this is not saying too much for expensive books!)-which evil is thus in a slight degree removed, and to be still lessened, according to the view which the public may take of this well-meant attempt, that time and a favorable result may render more worthy of their patronage. The Fair Pilgrim The Badger Hunt ..... |