Formation of English" is not deserving of serious criticism. The chapter on the Literature of the Gael is interesting for the liberal quotations of translated ancient Irish poems it contains. But Welsh readers will naturally turn with most interest to the succeeding chapter on the Literature of the Cymry. Here we are again presented with the sketch of the Germanic Belge driving westward the Cymry, who in turn press upon the Gwyddyl, or Gael. And in this connection we have a curious example of Mr. Morley's geographical knowledge. Out of twenty-five place-names into which the word (wyddyl enters, twenty are, he says, in North Wales, six being situated in Cardiganshire and one in Glamorganshire. In regard to the early poets, Llywarch Hên, Aneurin, and Taliesin, he says, "to each has been given in posthumous honour the name 'King of Bards,'" whereas that title is given to the last named alone. Examples are given of the earliest Cymric poetry. A large portion of the Gododin is given from the translation of Ab Ithel, whose identification of the site of the battle of Cattraeth with Catrail is put aside in these words, " | have little doubt that the true site is the Yorkshire Catterick” (p. 221), Mr. Morley apparently not being aware that the Rev. Edward Davies and Sharon Turner arrived at the same conclusion early in the present century. Of Dr. Skene's Ancient Books of Wales and recent researches in early Cymric literature Mr. Morley seems to be totally ignorant. A curious error is made in the index. Under the word Aberystwith, we read "Merlin's grave at;" on the page to which reference is made we find the name of Taliesin correctly given in this connection. In the next edition of what might be made a useful book Mr. Morley should have the proofs carefully examined by a competent Welsh scholar.

THE TEXT OF THE 66 MABINOGION "" FROM THE "RED BOOK OF HERGEST." Edited by J. RHYS, M.A., and J. GWENOGVRYN EVANS, Oxford.

Had this long-expected work been issued a short time ago, Mr.Silvan Evans would no doubt have taken his extracts from the Mabinogion from its pages. It is destined, like Mr. Evans's own book, to depose all others that have gone before it. The editors, recognising this fact, "have aimed high and have spared no effort to hit the mark;" with what success a careful examination against the edition of Lady Charlotte Guest alone can determine. This our time and space will not at present permit. The greatest care has evidently been taken to reproduce the text of the Red Book with the utmost fidelity; indeed so laborious must have been the undertaking, and so unlimited the patience necessary for such minute exactitude, that one is tempted to wonder whether it has not been carried to excess. That may perhaps be the opinion of the general reader, but it is quite certain that the editors will receive the grateful thanks of every Celtic scholar in Europe, which after all will be their most pleasing and most enduring reward. The introductory remarks might possibly have been couched in a more dignified strain, and we should have been better pleased if a sketch of the romantic cycle of literature, of which the Welsh Mabinogion are an important part, had prefixed the series. But we observe that the editors hope some day to be able to issue this." The use sometimes of the singular and sometimes of the plural pronoun in the preface is not felicitous, though it may serve to denote where Mr. Gwenogvryn Evans speaks for himself alone, and where he and Professor Rhys are associated. It would have been well to have inserted the name of "Tegid " in the first page; we are afraid that many of our English friends will fail to recognise under that cognomen the late Rev. John Jones, of Oxford. The facsimile of the manuscript will not compare with that attached to Ab Ithel's edition of the Brut y Tywysogion. These, however, are minor faults, and the fact remains that for the first time we have an important portion of one of the most celebrated Welsh manuscripts reproduced in a manner which reflects high credit upon the scholars who have undertaken the duty, and upon the nationality to which they belong.

66

LITERATURE, ART, AND ARCHEOLOGY OF THE MONTH.

At the recent annual meeting of the Cambrian Society of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Mr. James Harris, editor of the Red Dragon, was unanimously elected a member of the Council.

In our account of the annual meeting of the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art last month, we stated that Mr. W. D. Barker was elected vice-president. This was an error, which we much regret, the fact being that Mr. Edwin A. Norbury, of Rhyl, with whom we have the pleasure of a personal acquaintance, was re-elected to that post. Actually no change of officers took place at the annual meeting.

We have to record the demise, on Saturday, March 12th, of the Rev. Edward Roberts, pastor of Zion Independent Chapel, Cwmavon. The deceased, who was a powerful and effective preacher, was pastor of the above named church for over forty years, though he had been offered lucrative calls-the principalship of Brecon College, and a post in the Home Office by Lord John Russell. Mr. Roberts hailed from North Wales, and was for some years one of the editors of the Atolygydd. He was an able writer and a keen debater.

The Essex Free Press announces the death, in his seventy-ninth year, of Prebendary Nathaniel Davies, rector of Mount Bures, a native of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. There his earlier years were spent, and it was at its Grammar School, under his relative, Dr. Thomas, then head master and vicar of St. Mary's, that he received his first education. On leaving school he went for a short time to Lampeter College, and thence to Pembroke College, Oxford, where he held a scholarship. There he attended the lectures of the Revs. Charles Wightwick and Dr. Francis Jeune, the latter of whom afterwards became Master of Pembroke and Bishop of Peterborough, and was Mr. Davies's good friend through life. Amongst his college contemporaries

were John Jackson, late Bishop of London, William Corbet Le Breton, the present Dean of Jersey, Haviland Le Mesurier Chepmell, and other well known men. Mr. Robert Lowe, now Lord Sherbrooke, Roundell Palmer, now Lord Selborne, the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Thomas Leigh Claughton, present Bishop of St. Alban's, Henry Woolcombe, Archdeacon of Barnstable, the Hon. John Thomas Pelham, Bishop of Norwich, James Bowling Mozley, late Regius Professor of Divinity, Henry George Liddell, now Dean of Christ Church, Robert Scott, afterwards Master of Balliol and Dean of Rochester, Nutcombe Oxenham, late Prebendary of Exeter and vicar of Modbury, Devon, and many other men of note were undergraduates at Oxford at this time. Mr. Davies took a second class in Literis Humanioribus in Michaelmas term 1834, and the degree of B.A. in the same term, proceeding to the M.A. degree in 1846. He was ordained deacon and licensed to the curacy of Grappenhall, near Warrington, by the Bishop of Chester, John Bird Sumner, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1835, and priest in the following year by the same bishop. He acted also as private tutor at this time to Mr. Hall of Grappenhall's sons. In 1836 he returned to his native county, and became curate-in-charge of the important parishes of Steynton-with-Johnston, near Milford Haven, in the absence of the vicar, Mr. Austin, in the West Indies. Mr. Davies's cousin, the Rev. William Beach Thomas, Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Canon Residentiary of St. David's Cathedral, afterwards held this living. Here Mr. Davies remained until 1840, when he removed to St. David's, on appointment to a Minor Canonry in the Cathedral and to the Head Mastership of the Chapter School. Both at Steynton and at St. David's Mr. Davies did much good work for the Church, and few clergymen in Pembrokeshire and South Wales were better known or more highly respected. It was mainly owing to his energy and to the attention which he drew publicly to the state of its fabric that the work of the restoration of St. David's Cathedral, one of the most venerable and interesting of its kind in the world, was eventually set about, and there can be no doubt that the marked revival of energy and activity in the Welsh Church, which has been so noticeable of late years, was in a great measure due to the fearless and outspoken manner in which he drew attention to its needs and abuses, and to the influence which he exercised as head master of a large school on the minds of the rising generation. There were very few families of distinction at that time in Pembrokeshire and the adjoining counties which did not place their sons under his care. of the deceased gentleman is a graceful versifier, many of whose contributions have enriched the pages of the National Magazine.

A son

Principal Viriamu Jones, of the South Wales College, has been appointed Examiner of the Honours School of Natural Science in the University of Oxford.

The Marquis of Bute has given one thousand pounds towards the establishment of a National Institute for Wales for the advancement of science, art, and learning as a Jubilee Memorial. The scheme is expected to cost seventeen thousand pounds.

Mr. Egerton G. B. Phillimore, editor of the Cymmrodor, is seriously ill from overwork and its attendant worries. His medical attendant has enjoined strict rest for three or four months. In the meanwhile Dr. Isambard Owen has undertaken to see volume eight of the publication through the press. The first number, appearing in March, contained the Inaugural Address of the Cymmrodorion Section of the Carnarvon Eisteddfod, Mr. Howell Lloyd's "Notes on St. David," some poems by Iago ab Dewi, and some MS. Genealogical Tables of great interest.

Mr. Lewis Morris, whose recent tragedy, Gucia, has reached a third edition, will publish at Easter, through Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., a volume of lyrics, entitled Songs of Britain. Besides the lyrics proper, the book will comprise three important narrative poems derived from Welsh folklore ; two of them, we understand, in blank verse, and the third in elegiacs. The legends on which these poems are founded are of remarkable beauty.

On Saturday, March 12th, the men employed in cutting the pipe track to convey water from Cwm Taf Fawr to the Llanishen Waterworks, when near the Crab Tree on Evan Leysion Common, Glamorganshire, five feet below the surface of the Merthyr and Cardiff highway, came upon a nest of old coins in a copper box. The box was underneath the trunk of an old tree which had been at some period covered over when the surface of the road was raised to its present level. Some of the coins were of the early years of the sixteenth century, while the others were about four hundred years old. There was a gang of men present when the "find" was made, and they quickly divided most of the coins among themselves. But the man who actually found the box retained a considerable number, which he subsequently sold for half a sovereign. On the following Sunday and Monday throngs of

people visited the spot and were busy searching for "more," but without success. It is stated that some women of the neighbourhood of Cilfynydd-an adjacent village--believing it uncanny to disturb the money deposit, left so long ago by somebody long dead, declare that on Sunday night ghosts and unearthly noises were heard on the common near the spot where the money was found. It is impossible to induce the men to state how many coins the box contained, but they freely show individual coins, all of which seem to be silver.

Mr. Harry Furniss, in his Parliamentary sketches in Punch, recently had a portrait of "a Bard," Mr. Osborne Morgan, who has been formally inducted into the Bardic mystic circle.

At a meeting of the Liverpool Welsh National Society, held at the Royal Institution during the last week of February, a paper was read by Professor John Rhys, M.A., upon "A Comparative Study of the Arthurian Legend."

The Council of the Aberystwith University College have appointed Mr. C. H. Herford, M.A. Cambridge, and B.A. London, Lecturer at Owens College, Manchester, to succeed Professor Maccallum in the chair of English Language and Literature. Mr. Herford is the author of "Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century," by which he, according to Professor Henry Morley, "laid the foundations of a European reputation." He also received strong testimonials from Professor Ward, of Manchester, Mr. Leslie Stephen, under whose editorship he contributed to the Cornhill, Professor Ten Brink, of Strasburg, and others.

Lord Mostyn's gift of the Happy Valley for conversion into a public pleasure ground has been accepted by the Llandudno Commissioners. Some interesting correspondence on the subject of this valley has appeared in the "Notes and Queries " section of the National Magazine.

Professor Witton Davies, B.A., Haverfordwest College, has a long letter in the Athenæum advocating the establishment of a British Semitic Institution. A knowledge of Syriac, Arabic, Assyrian, &c., is now admitted to be essential to sound