alighting from his horse, fell upon his knees, and, with his arms across, besought him, by the passion of Christ, Who suffered on that day, to spare his life. The remembrance of Christ, Who prayed for His murderers on the Cross, overcame the young nobleman, and meekly raising the suppliant from the ground, he said, 'I can refuse nothing that is asked of me for the sake of Jesus Christ. I not only give you your life, but also my friendship for ever. Pray for me, that God may pardon me the sin of my heart."

The passage in "John Inglesant," where the hero, who cherished a deadly vengeance against a gentleman, who had murdered his only brother, meets his enemy in so varrow a passage that it was impossible for either to avoid the other, and where John, seeing the murderer, was going to despatch him, but, on his petition "for the love of Jesu," with his hands clasped before him, spared him, may be found at p. 365 in the one volume edition.

Cardiff.

E. J. NEWELL, M.A.

ABRAHAM ORTELIUS.-Your entertaining contributor "R. W. J.," if he be a Welshman, might have told the curator of the Musée Plantin at Antwerp (see Red Dragon, xi.—213), that if he could not claim relationship with the great sixteenth century geographer, Wales could. Ortelius, styled the Ptolemy of his age, travelled in England and got into communication with our countryman Humphrey Llwyd, who supplied him with maps of England and Wales to assist in the illustration of his "Ancient Geography." Llwyd also gave him MS. copies of two of his (Llwyd's) works on British antiquities, which he dedicated to him, and altogether they appear to have become warm and ardent friends, Llwyd in one of the dedications. calling him his "dearly beloved Ortelius." The first of these works is a short treatise with the long title, “De Monâ Druidum Insulâ antiquitate suæ restitutâ, et de Armentario Romano," the other being "Commentarioli Descriptiones Britannica Fragmentum." Both were written in 1568, and on the 30th of August in that year, Llwyd, in an epistle to his friend prefixed to the "Description of Britain," describes himself as in expectation of death as the result of "a very perilous fever with a double tertian," caught on the journey from London to Wales. He apologises on this account for the imperfections of some other works which he was about to send to Ortelius, and which, "if God had spared his life," his friend should have "in better order and in all respects perfect." What these works were is not now known. Llwyd died in the same year. Cardiff.

BLACKLETTER FOLIO

OFFICIAL WELSH.-Mr. L. W. Dillwyn, in his History of Swansea, under date February 23rd, 1821, says: "I, this day, presented at the Court of Carlton House two addresses in Welsh from the parishes of Llangafelach and Llandilo-talybont, and when in the regular course I gave notice of my intention, it was objected that no other than addresses in English could be received; but I claimed right for all his Majesty's subjects to address him in their native language, and after much demur the claim was admitted. They were printed in the London Gazette of March 3rd, and it was said at the Gazette Office that the Welsh language had never before appeared in an official paper."

Llanelly.

ARTHUR MEE

CELTIC FLORA.-Will you allow me to supplement the list already given by a reference to Yr Ymofynydd for 1853-4, where there is a series of interesting letters from the pen of D. L. Moses?

Aberdare.

T.C.U.

BEAU NASH.-I ought, perhaps, to have remembered that Harrison Ainsworth novelised (dramatise-why not novelise?) the history of this worthy.

Cambridge.

W.A.

QUERIES.

WHO IS HE?--In a remarkable paper entitled “Our Noble Selves," appearing in the Fortnightly Review for February, appears the sentence: "And how in our own day can they believe that the handsome fellow in the light overcoat who strolls unobserved through Piccadilly is the most versatile humourist, essayist, and versifier that Wild Wales has ever begotten?" To whom is the reference ?

London.

EXTREMELY CURIOUS.

WELSH BEAUTY.-What writer praised the beauty of the girls of Bala, North Wales?

Chester.

TAFFY.

"WAKES" IN WALES.-Are there any records of wakes ever having been held in the Principality?

Liverpool.

C.D.

"PEGGY EVANS."-What is known of Margaret-uch-Evans, better known as "Peggy Evans," of Llanberis. I have been told that she led a most remarkable life.

Pontypridd.

NEMO.

ROGER WILLIAMS AND JOHN MILTON.-Your contributor "Ap P. A. Môn," in his most interesting paper on "What America owes to Welshmen for the formation of her Government on the principles of civil and religious Liberty," states (p. 254) that "he [Williams] associated with Milton, reading Dutch to him." Your readers are doubtless aware that Milton is said to have borrowed the idea of his Paradise Lost from the Dutch poet Joost van den Vondel's tragedy of Lucifer, acted at Amsterdam, and published in 1654. According to Professor Masson, "Milton, it is argued, must have heard of this tragedy before he began his own epic, and may have known Dutch sufficiently to read it. Then there was the somewhat older Dutch poet, Jacob Cats (1577-1660), one of whose poems, describing Adam and Eve in Paradise, might have been known to Milton even though he could not read Dutch, as it had been translated into Latin by Caspar Barlæus, and published at Dordrecht in 1643." Vondel's work has been quite recently translated into English, and compared passage by passage with Paradise Lost, with the result of showing a most striking resemblance between the two. Vondel flourished between 1587 and 1679. The date of Roger Williams's second visit to England is given as 1651, his stay extending over two years. Paradise Lost, though long previously forming, does not appear to have been actually begun before 1658; nearly five years after Williams had returned to America. Is there anything further known of the great Welshman's connection with the immortal English poet? The passage in your contributor's paper brings clearly home to Milton that knowledge of Dutch concerning which Professor Masson and other biographers and critics of the author of Paradise Lost appear to have entertained a considerable doubt. Is it not known what Dutch books Williams read to his friend? May not Vondel's Lucifer have been one? The year of its publication and of Williams's return were the same, but Milton had a European reputation for scholarship, and depend upon it he would have been one of the earliest in possession of a copy of the Lucifer.

Cardif

BLACKLETTER FOLIO.

JESUIT COLLEGE AT ROME.-The English College at Rome (re-endowed by Gregory XIII. in 1579) had a considerable reputation towards the close of the sixteenth century. It may be worth while to note that according to Mr. Bass Mullinger (History of Cambridge University, ii.-256), “the proportion of young Welshmen whose names appeared on the 'Pilgrims' Register,' as it was termed, was considerable." Can anyone account for this?

Cambridge.

W.A.

THOMAS THOMAS.-The first University printer seems to have been a fellow of King's College, who bore the exceedingly Welsh name given above? Is anything known about him? His contemporaries called him the "Cambridge Puritan Printer." Where shall I find any notice of his life?

Cambridge.

W. A.

A UNIVERSITY AT BANGOR?-That there is a University College at Bangor I am aware. Was Bangor, however, known as a centre of learning in the sixteenth century, or earlier? My reason for asking is this: that in 1600, a volume was published at Oxford by a certain John Case, in which the author urged the Chancellors of the two English Universities to do something for learning in Ireland. The absence of good schools, he said, wisely enough, is ever the cause of "ignorance and sedition." "When philosophy died out at Athens, the glory of Greece passed away. When the student's lamp was extinguished at Bangor, Wales sank into comparative darkness." What is the meaning of this last

sentence?

Cambridge.

W.A.

WELSH NAMES OF STREAMS (xi.-182).—Mr. Jones's note on this subject is very suggestive, but I should like to ask what authority there is for the form Ogwy? The local pronunciation is Ogwr (cf. Cwmogwr, Aberogwr, Penbontarogwr), and I believe the form Ogwy is quite modern, and suggestive rather of those philologists who give us their ideas of what ought to be in place of what is, thus spoiling the chance of any future investigation.

Aberdare.

T. C. U.

ROGER WILLIAMS'S BIRTH.-In the interesting article in your last number, this Welsh celebrity is said to have been born in 1599. In the life of W. Richards, of Lynn, by Dr. John Evans, of Islington, the same date is given on the authority of one of Williams's own letters; nevertheless, this appears to be doubtful. According to the records of the University of Oxford it would appear that he was born in 1606. See an interesting article on the subject in Seren Gomer, 1856, by "Nefydd." The entry is as follows :—“Rodericus Williams, filius Gulielmi Williams, de Conwelgaio, Pleb. an. nat. 18, entered at Jesus College, April 30, 1624.' According to the Geiriadur Bywgraffyddol of J. T. Jones, he was born at Llansawel; but Llansawel and Cayo are contiguous parishes. The Seren also says "the family have lived for many generations on their own land, on a farm known as Maestroiddyn." When was Roger Williams born?

Aberdare.

T. C. U.

DAFYDD AB GWILYM.—(1.) This poet has an ode, "I lun Grist," a portrait of Christ and his Apostles. Leonardo da Vinci's celebrated "Lord's Supper was not painted till long after David's death. Was Leonardo's a reproduction of some earlier painting, or what is the painting to which David refers?

(2.) David complains in one of his poems of being disturbed in a sweet dream of his lady love by the striking of a clock. Where could David have been to be so

disturbed? Is the reference to a clock, or does he use the word for an ordinary bell? Striking clocks had been invented before David's time, however, and there was one at Westminster.

(3.) His fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper is nearly word for word with La Fontaine's on the same subject. How may this be accounted for? David could not have copied from La Fontaine, and it is probable the latter could not have copied from David. Where then may we look for the common original of both? (4.) What does David mean by the following lines?—

Gwyllt yr awn a'm gwallt ar ŵyr

Gan ruad gan yr awyr !---Cywydd y Daran.

And wild I went, my hair awry,

When roared the air-gun through the sky.

How does he come to describe the thunder as an air-gun?
Aberdare.

T.C.U.

IOLO MORGANWG'S TOMB-I should much like to have a bit of a mystery which seems to me to hang round this subject cleared up. In Waring's Recollections and Anecdotes of Edward Williams (p. 155), I find it stated that "the mortal remains of the Bard, his wife, son and daughter repose in the same grave within the ancient rustic church of Flemstone; but no lettered stone marks their last resting place or records their claim to honoured memory." I find, again, on going through the last volume of your most admirable magazine (x.-187, 188), that in a controversy on the subject between your learned contributor "Blackletter Folio" and Lord Aberdare, the latter was "good enough to admit " (I am quoting "Blackletter Folio ") "that I had, by giving the date of Edward Williams's birth from the epitaph on the bard's tomb at Flemingstone, "conclusively demolished the value of his traditionary testimony about the battle of St. Fagan's." In the face of two such utterly contradictory statements, I am tempted to ask has the bard a tomb or tablet at Flemingstone at all? If not, would it not be an excellent opportunity for readers of the Red Dragon to remove what is little better than a national disgrace by putting one up? I'll send my mite as soon as you say you want it, sir.

Middlesborough.

A. MACADAM.

REPLIES.

THE WORD " "OFFEIRIAD (xi.-275).-Does not this come from the Latin offerre, and therefore signify primarily "he who offers the Holy Communion?" In Excerpta Quaedam de Libro Davidis, preserved in a Parisian MS., and originally, no doubt, derived from Brittany, is the following Canon of St. David:" xii. Hinc autem (viz., after the commission of certain specified sins) presbitero offerre sacrificium, vel diacono tenere calicem, non licet." See Haddan and Stubbs' Councils and cclesiastical Documents (i.--p. 119). Here "offerre sacrificium must mean "to offer the sacrifice of the Holy Communion." So also in certain canons of Gildas in the same MS. (canons vii., viii. and ix.) sacrificium is used for Holy Communion." The Welsh word "offeren," which seems to be cognate with offeiriad," is exactly equivalent to "sacrificium," and is generally translated by Lady Charlotte Guest in the Mabinogion "offering." See Mabinogion (Second Edition), p. 5: "the least lovely of them was more lovely than Gwenhwyvar, the wife of Arthur, when she has appeared loveliest at the offering, on the day of the Nativity, or at the feast of Easter;" but in the Mabinogi of Geraint, the son of Erbin (p. 141), the same word is rendered "mass :" "And when he was at Caerlleon,

66

holding his court, thirteen churches were set apart for mass." In a note on p. 186, Lady Guest quotes Chaucer's description of the "Wif of Bathe,'

66

"In all the parish wif ne was ther non,
That to the ofring before hire shulde gon."

-Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 451-2.

It may be remarked, however, that Chaucer's use of the word is also interpreted to signify "the alms collected at the offertory," and the comment on this passage in Bell's edition, revised by Skeat, is, "This was probably the offering on relicSunday, when the congregation went up to the altar in succession to kiss the relics." But whatever may be the meaning of the offring" in this passage of Chaucer, the use of the Welsh word " offeren as equivalent to offering "-that is, the Holy Communion or Mass, may be taken as absolutely certain. Any Welsh Dictionary contains offeren, "mass" and offerena, "to celebrate mass." So too the word Oiffren (= Offering, modern Irish Aifrion) is found in the Senchus Mor, the old body of Irish laws, "modified at some period subsequent to the introduction of Christianity, to agree with Christian doctrines." See Petrie, On Tara, p. 71; Todd's St. Patrick, p. 483. The Communion service in the ancient Celtic Church of Ireland was entitled Communio, Communio altaris, Comna, Conviaticum, Eucharistia, Hostia, Oblatio, Oifren, Sacorfaice, Sacrificium, Sacrificale mysterium, and Viaticum; and to celebrate the Eucharist in the Celtic Churches was expressed by Offerre, Sacra offerre, Offerre Sacrificium, Christi corpus conficere, Eucharistiae celebrare mysteria, Sacra Eucharistiae mysteria conficere, Sacra oblationis mysteria ministrare, Missarum peragere sollemnia, Sacra Eucharistiae consecrare mysteria, Missarum sollemnia celebrare, Sacram oblationem consecrare, Sacrosancta ministeria perficere, Frangere panem, Sacra celebrare mysteria, Sacrosancta mysteria perficere, Immolare hostiam, Offerre sacrificium, Altario jungi.—See Warren's Celtic Liturgies, pp. 94-96.

As therefore 66 "" offeren certainly means "offering," and the Latin word "offerre" is constantly used of the act of consecration by the priest, there seems little room for doubt that the word offeiriad, which means strictly "priest" as in "Ffurf a Dull Urddo Offeiriaid," is really the "offerer" from "offerre." I leave it to someone more learned in the Welsh language than I to give its history. From the use of the expression "offerre sacrificium" in what appears to be a genuine Canon of St. David, as above quoted, it appears probable that it is as old as the sixth century, and the Irish Senchus Mor, which has "oiffren," contains portions of the greatest antiquity (the name Senchus Mor means "Great Antiquity"), although, in its present form, Dr. Todd does not regard it as of earlier date than the ninth or tenth century. The Laws of Hywel Dda, A.D. 928, frequently contain the word, e.q., "Naud yr offeirat teulu yw dwyn ydyn hyt yr eglwys nessaf idaw" (Bk. i., c.vii.—§ 5, Dimetian Copy); i.e., "The protection of the priest of the household is, to convey the person to the nearest church." In the version of Gwynedd the word is spelt, "efeyryat"; in the Gwentian copy, "effeirat." In the Legend of St. Beuno (Buchedd Beuno Sant) in CambroBritish Saints, p. 14, I find, "O dyna y dysgawd ef wasanaeth, a rheolau yr Eglwys, ac a kymeroedd urddeu, ac y bu offeiriat." The Rev. W. J. Rees in his Preface supposes that the date of the lives is generally of about the twelfth century, but that of Beuno, from the mention of the Druids in his vision, may perhaps, be as early as any. "I see," says Beuno in his vision, "the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and Peter, and Paul, and the Druids," &c. The history of the word is interesting in connection with the doctrines of the ancient British Church, and I hope that someone more learned in the Welsh language than myself will follow it up more thoroughly.

Cardiff.

E. J. NEWELL.

The

I am not one of your "learned correspondents," but I would submit that offeiriad, offeren, and offrwm are all related to the English word offering, and derived from the Latin offe:o, to which also must be referred oblation. Welsh words are of Popish origin; the offeren being the mass, and the offeiriad the person who solemnizes the mass. Dr. Nicholas in his Pedigree of the English People has given a list of Welsh words of Latin origin, and Professor Rhys has given another, I believe, in Arch. Cambrensis.

Aberdare.

T.C.U.