Ludovico Ennio has been for some time watching to kill an enemy; a cloaked figure continually crosses his path, and calls him by name, but, on his following, constantly disappears. At last, Ennio resolves that this strange intruder shall himself fall a victim; when he next appears wrapped in a cloak as usual, and addresses him by name, Ennio strikes at him with his sword, but wounds only the air. The figure retreats; he pursues. At last they re-enter in a lonely spot, and Ennio thus addresses him :

[He pulls open the cloak and discovers a skeleton.

Compared with this scene of Calderon, Ab Gwilym's light and wayward playfulness

"Is as moonlight unto sunlight, or as water unto wine."

I borrow this translation from an old article in the Monthly Chronicle.

VOL. II.

K

I have been rather severe on Ab Gwilym for his unworthy
treatment of the splendid subject of the dialogue with the
shadow; it is only fair that I should conclude with an ode
where he has worthily treated a good subject,-—I mean his
beautiful and thoroughly characteristic ode to the woodcock
(No. LXXII). It has never been translated into English be-
fore, and I therefore venture to give a version of my own:-
"Good morrow, bird of gentle throat,
Though thine's at times an angry note,
Bold plunger in the river's wave,
Or shall I call thee falsely brave?
Light slender woodcock, tell me now,
Whitherward bound thus fliest thou?"

"The cold is keen, the frost binds fast,
I, by my faith, am off at last;
Far from my summer haunts I flee;
"Tis the wild snow that hurries me;
Cold winter scares me with its gloom,
Its snowdrifts drive me from my home."

"Say not a word, but bend thy flight
Where yonder lives my lady bright;
The fiercest winds shall pass thee by,
Safe in that sheltered sanctuary,
Where gleam the waves beneath the hill,
And the warm sunshine lingers still.

"Bird of long beak, yet even there

Are deadly perils to beware;
Thy life is lost, if near thee go

The fowler with his bolt and bow;

Heed not his call, nor close thine eye,

But from his wiles thy fastest fly;

Let every bough thy shelter be
From bush to bush and tree to tree.
And if by chance some snare, concealed
Beneath the trees that skirt the field,
Should catch thee in its prison light,
Be not too flurried in thy flight,
But with thy strong beak boldly draw
The horsehairs out that bind thy claw.

""Tis the old bird of mournful mood,
Who roams the glens in solitude;
Rather do thou, bright wing, to-day
To Rhinwallt's bower pursue thy way;
Bear to the fair-haired lady there
My secret anguish and despair.
And by St. Cybi tell me sooth,
If she still keeps her plighted truth.
Stay near and watch beside her gate,
And on her every movement wait;
And to assist thee, songster mine,
I will reveal to thee a sign;
She is a lady white as snow,
But just a wife, the more the woe!
"I love her every feature still,
Her image on the old green hill,
As much as in that vanished time,
Yea, more than in her maiden prime;
O, make her love her bard no less,
Poor victim of her faithlessness.

"I waited in the frost; more wise,
Another carried off the prize;
Cold o'er me blew the freezing wind,
As I stayed waiting, left behind.
That proverb now too well I know,

Some wrecked hope's utterance long ago;

'I marked a forest tree my own,

Another's axe has cut it down!'"

There is a charming series of similar poems addressed to different animals whom he thus sends as his lattai to the poetical mistress who, in Provençal fashion, rules his song, if not his heart. Birds, beasts, fishes, all interest him; we have poems to the lark, the seagull, the salmon, the swallow, the eagle, the trout, the swan, and the wind; and every poem has its own peculiar touch. Thus, in that to the seagull we have a remarkable couplet, where he says:

"Lightly thou fliest over the wave of the deep,
Like a piece of the sun,—a gauntlet of the sea!"

In that to the wind, we have the line,

"The world's bold tyrant, without foot, without wing;"

and again, in that to the swan,

"A gallant work is thy horsemanship of the wave,

To lie in wait for the fish from the deep,
Thy angling-rod, beautiful creature,

Is in sooth thine own long fair neck!”

But the time warns me that I must draw these imperfect remarks to a close. It is impossible, in a single lecture, to do more than point out some of the more prominent characteristics of this remarkable author; and I have especially tried to look at him, not merely as a great Welsh poet, but as a member of the wider community of European poets, influenced, like his contemporaries, by the great currents of thought and feeling which stirred his age.

I cannot, however, close without one remark especially addressed to the scholars of Wales. It is surely incumbent on them to prepare a critical edition of Ab Gwilym's works. The two editions which we have, are not edited with any critical care; and a scholarly edition of the text, with the various readings of the oldest MSS., would be indeed prized by all who are interested in mediaval Welsh literature. Ab Gwilym abounds with hard passages and obscure allusions; but the best of all commentaries is a carefully edited text; for every student knows, to his cost, what it is to spend his strength uselessly in attempting to solve some enigma which at last turns out to be no dark saying of the poet, but some dull blunder of a scribe!

ON SOME CUSTOMS STILL REMAINING IN WALES.

BY THE REV. ELIAS OWEN, M.A., of Ruthin.

CUSTOMS that date from Homeric days still remain in Wales. I well remember when my own dear mother was lying in her coffin, and I was gazing for the last time upon all that was mortal of her that was so dear to us all, that I was desired by one of the women bystanders to touch her forehead and to give her a last kiss, which I did. I was afterwards told by these women, that by so doing I should not be troubled by the spirit of her, whose spirit, I may say, was ever with her children when she was alive. I was not then aware that touching the forehead of the dead had its origin in ages long, long ago. It was some time afterwards that I found an allusion to a similar custom in the Iliad. Thus, in Book XXIV, line 712, 'Aπтóμevai keþáλîs of the departed was a custom even in those early times, and it remains in Wales to our days.

Another custom that prevails in Montgomeryshire in reference to the dead and is observed there, but I have never heard of it in other parts of Wales, is the placing of salt on the body when it is in the coffin. I forget the meaning of this, or rather the reason for so doing.

The night before a funeral, in most parts of Wales, a religious service is held in the house of the deceased, which at present is conducted as follows: a hymn is sung, a portion of scripture read, and then a prayer is offered up which is followed by a hymn, and alternate prayer and hymn follow for about an hour. This is how the wake, or wylnos, as the