in the Record Office piles of valuable documents relating to the Forest of Snowdon, and to land in Wales generally, the publication of which would doubtless bring to light an immense amount of information, not only with regard to ordinary land transactions, but with regard to the ancient land system of Wales. The Hengwrt manuscripts and the collections at Wynnstay and Peniarth also demand the attention of the Government and the Historical Manuscripts Commission. It is now more than forty years since any official attention was paid to the ancient records of Wales, the most recent official publication being that of The Ancient Laws of Wales, in 1846. The neglect of the Government has to some extent, however, been counteracted by the labours of two Celtic scholars at Oxford-Professor Rhys and Mr. J. G. Evans-who have published the Mabinogion through the Clarendon Press at their own risk, and are preparing to republish The Black Book of Carmarthen." There is a very bad mistake here. The Daily News ought to have known that the Wynnstay collection cannot possibly demand the attention of Parliament now, for the simple but all sufficient reason that it was long ago destroyed by fire.

Captain Richard Short, of Cardiff, has three pictures in the Royal Academy this year, all of them hung on the line. They are:-No. 1: "Bristol Channel," depicting a bright, sunny' day; stiff breeze; foreground, Cardiff Roads, showing ship on East Mud. No. 2: "Porthcawl Beach," a long stretch of sand looking from the east towards the pier and houses of the town. No. 3: "St. David's Head, Pembroke," a gloomy promontory stretches out into a sea of blue; in the foreground Porthmawr, or the Great Bay. Beside the three accepted in the Royal Academy he has also one in the Royal Hibernian Academy: title, "Penarth Head;" and one in the Nineteenth Century Art Society, London: "The wreck of the Ben-y-glo on the Nash Point," a large and powerful storm picture.

Another Cardiff artist represented at the Academy is Mrs. R. Boulton, of Newport Road, from whose hands two miniature portraits on ivory have been accepted. Excepting last year, she has had the same honour for the past eight seasons in succession. One of the portraits is that of the late Mr. Evans, the drawingmaster at Eton College, who is known to many residents of Cardiff.

The commission for the statue of the late Sir Hugh Owen, to be erected at Carnarvon, has, we understand, been given to Mr. J. Milo Griffith.

Notes and Queries.

[CONFINED TO MATTERS RELATING TO WALES AND THE BORDER COUNTIES.]

NOTES.

LONGMAN, BROWN, REES AND ORME.-The following inscription may interest some of your readers. It is copied from the marble tablet in the Old Chapel, Gellionen, near Swansea :-" In memory of Owen Rees, Esq., of Gelligron, in this county, and of Paternoster Row, in the city of London, eldest son of the Rev. Josiah Rees, late minister of this place, who died on the 5th day of September, 1837, aged sixty-seven. Universally respected and esteemed."

In Llyfryddiaeth y Cymru (p. 588) his name is given in connection with a book published in 1778, when he could only have been eight years old. The date probably ought to be 1798. The Josiah Rees referred to is the same as has been mentioned so frequently in the National Magazine in connection with the Eurgrawn Cymraeg of 1770.

Aberdare.

T.C.U.

PRIORIES IN WALES.-There were several priories on the Island of Anglesea. I lived at Brynhyfryd, near Beaumaris, a few years ago within a short walk of two ancient sites. One, Llanvaes, was very near my house. It was founded by Llewelyn, the husband of the hapless Princess Joan, who was buried here. Her stone coffin is enclosed by iron railings in Baron Hill grounds. This coffin was actually used as a drinking trough for cattle, but rescued by a former owner of Baron Hill, either Lord Bulkeley or the late Sir Richard, grandfather to the present young baronet. There is a very fine dwelling-house called "The Friars," erected, it is said, on the very spot where the Franciscan Friars lived, but so imbued are the Welsh peasantry with superstition that few English people who take this mansion are able to get servants in the neighbourhood to live there with them. The sea runs up on the beach to within a few yards of the road separating the lawn from the shingle, and I always thought it highly probable that the strange noises, so alarming to the other parts of the place, were caused by the water rushing into some secret cave or hiding chamber which might have existed there since the time of the old Grey Friars.

Penmon Priory was about two miles distant to the north of Llanvaes, or the Friars. It was dedicated to St. Mary, and belonged to the Benedictine Monks. The only part remaining when I was last in North Wales was a portion of the refectory, and that was in ruins. Between Penmon and Priestholm is a small island, Ynys Seriol, called by English visitors Puffin Island, after the birds by which it is frequented. I could not see any remains of a priory there, save a heap of stones said to be those of a square tower.

Lyss, Hants.

HELEN WATNEY.

THE SKULL OF ST. TEILO.-I remember seeing some years ago, at the house of the churchwarden of Llandilo, Pembrokeshire, a skull stated to be that of the

venerable Saint Teilo. For many generations past the people of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, afflicted with various diseases, particularly ague, as I understand, have been accustomed to resort to the house of the churchwarden to drink water out of the skull-the water thus drunk from the skull being supposed to have miraculous curative virtues.

LANDAVENSIS.

WELSH NAMES OF STREAMS (xi,-477).-Of course there can be no possible objection to Mr. J. B. Jones giving us his speculation as to the origin of the name Ogwr or Ogmore, but I maintain that from an etymological point of view it is of infinitely more importance to know that the river is always and everywhere (except in print) called the Ogwr or Ogmore than that we should know anybody's speculation thereupon. However plausible the speculations, the local pronunciations ought not to be ignored. Blaengwawr is a name well-known in this parish, but one of our local historians has said it ought to be called Blaengwair, and he so spells it, thus offering us a doubtful etymology and concealing the real name. Gwawr means dawn, and it is also the name of one of the aughters of Brychan Brycheiniog. Gwair means hay.

Aberdare.

T.C.U.

Corrwg-fawr and Corrwg-fechan, unite their waters near the village of Glyncorrwg, and flow thence to join the Afan at Cymer. A tributary of the Taff flowing into that river near Nantgarw, has Ynisgorwg and Melyngorwg on its banks. There is also a tributary of the Gwendraeth, in Carmarthenshire, which bears a similar name.

Bronyderi.

R.J.

HUGHES'S "BEAUTIES OF CAMBRIA."-I read the excellent paper hereon in the May number of the Red Dragon with the greatest pleasure. I have not seen the book, and therefore do not know whether the statement in the author's preface is correct as to there being "fifty-eight drawings." Lowndes describes the work as consisting of "thirty-six remarkably beautiful wood engravings on India paper published at three guineas.' There is a difference of twenty-two pictures somewhere. Is t not a shame to our country that of an artist like Hughes there should not be a scrap of biography given, while of "lives" of petty preachers and of tenth-rate perpetrators of intolerable doggerel there are cartloads which had much better have been at the butterman's?

Abergavenny.

CELER ET AUDAX.

Mr. T. H. Thomas appears desirous of knowing particulars of this artist's life, which I am able, to a small extent, to supply. Hughes married a daughter of the Rev. David Charles, of Carmarthen. She survived him, and I believe all her children, eventually dying at Aberystwith about twelve years ago. Her husband had died some years previously, but I do not happen to know where. About the year 1835 Mr. Hughes and family lived in Church-street, Carnarvon, pursuing his profession of artist, as portrait and landscape painter. It was rarely then, I believe, that he did anything in the line in which he had shown such excellence in his Beauties of Cambria, as wood engraver; but I remember being personally concerned in calling upon him to engrave a small vignette of King William the Fourth to adorn the title-page of an almanack published in our town. I also had a few lithographic views which he drew on stone, but which were not as perfectly rendered as his wood-cut illustrations. He added a printing office to his house, and published one of the earliest Welsh newspapers, called Y Papur Newydd Cymraeg, mis-described in the account given in the Cardiff Eisteddfod Book as published elsewhere. I used to go into the office; and my first appearance in print as an author was with an englyn in that publication. I happen to possess the first number, the only one published, of an edition of Brut y Cymru, commenced by Mr. Hughes, intended to consist of twenty parts. The twenty-four pages contained in the 8vo. part comprise two full-paged wood cuts of "Caerfyrddin" and "Pont Aberteifi;" together with initial illustrations at the commencement of each chapter. The printer was "J. Evans, Caerfyrddin." The wood-cuts are in a bolder style than those of the Beauties of Cambria. Mr.