The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-05-28 00:00:00

111011 all RICHARD 17OARR'S TRANSLATION or ARCH-
" 1111110 P aaLDRIN'/ ITINERARY.(
The eatlinstmention I can find made of the Bards in Wales, is in
the reign of the British King Cadwaladvr, who died at Home A.D.
C 99; and of whom the following anecdote is recorded. This King
presided at in EISTEOLIVOIS, or meeting assembled for the pim-
ping of regulating the birdie institution ; when eminent' appeared,
and played upon his harp. before this illustrious aresembly in so dia.
pleasing and %Inharmonious a key, that he was ordered, under se.
vets penalties, whenever he again performed before permits skilled
in the art, to adopt that of Mwynentiwynedd, or the pleasing me.
lady of North Wales.
Doling the reign of the great Welsh Legislator, Hovel Phi,
A.D. 940 a we find that the Bards were held in high estimation,
'and enjoyed great and peculiar privileges. 1 'timid Tculu, or the
Multi,, Atelicia(corresponding wlth our Poet Laureate), received
etr his appointment, from the King, a harp, and a gold ring (rem
the Queen ; which haty he was re part with on no consideration
whatever.
lie held his land free, ar.d at the three great festivals of Christ-
iania, Enter, and Whitsuntide, he sat at the Prinee's table. If the
BrW desired any favour of the King, he was obliged to play one of
his own ansmoaitions ; if of a nobleman, three ; and if of atple-
bine, he was under the obligation of playing till he went to but, or
was tired with his music. II is person was held so sacred, that who-
ever slightly injured the Bard, was tined vt cows and exx pence ;
and the niurderce of a Bard was fined CICIL•I cows. lie pre-
ttied the army when prepared for bottle, reciting an English ming
caned (4th/oath Prydain, or the Monarchal Song of Britain, and
for this service received his share of the enemy's spoils.
About the year 1070, Blestillyn ab Cynvyn, Princeof Powys (the
author of another code of Welsh laws) established some regulations
respecting the Bards, revising and enforcing those which were al-
seedy matte.
After the death of Trebling= ab Cando; in Rao, Gruffydd ab
Cynan succeeded to the p•incipality of North Wales. Dunne: his
long and glorious reign of fifty-sox years, he reformed the them-
dered behaviour of the Welsh Minstrels, by a very good statute,
which is extant to this day. The annotator on the Welsh Chroni-
cle records the following particulate respecting the Bank.
There are three sores of minstrels in Wales.
The fire sort, named Beirdh, which are makers of song, and odes
of sundrie measures, wherein not onelie greet skill and cunning is
required, but alsoa certeine naturall inclination and gilt, which in
Latino Is termed/error poetwor. These do also keepe records if
genlemens amiss and peterees, and are best esteenual and ac-
counted of moon them.
The second sort of them trephines upon instruments, chick'', the
ban* and the cmwth, whose musike for the most part rune to
Widen with the said firuffyth ap Conan, who being on the out
aide an Irishman by his mother, and grandmother, and also borne
in Ireland, broeght over with him, out of that canonic, divas
cunning musicians into Wales, who derived in a manner ail the
iu-
atntneentall musike that is now there used, se appeereth as well by
the betakes written of the same, as also by the names of the tunes
and measures used amongst them to this dale.
The third met, called A reaneaid, are those which do sing to the
instrument plaint by another, and these be in use in the countrir of
Wales to this dale.
This statute or decree before mentioned doth not neelie prescribe
and appoint what reward everie of the said minstrels might to have,
and at whose hands, but also of what honest behaviour and maser.
sedan they ought to be, to wit, no makebates, no vagebonds, no
slee-houte hunters, no drunkards, no heathen, no whore-lienters, no
thanes, nor companions of such. In which things if they offend,
crone rotten by the said statute is made an officer, and author:ten to
arrest and punish then, yea and take from them all that they have
anent then. They are also in the IMO statute forbidden to enter
Into anle mans home, or to make anie song of anie man without
special! licenceof the panic himaelfe. And this statute or decree
bath beam oftentimes allowed by publike teuthoritie of the cheefe
magistrate of that countrie, as appeareth by mender commissions
directed to divers gentlemen in that behalfe.
The character of King Edward the first has been blackened by
the imputation of the greatest cruelty towards the Bards ; for after
the final subjugation of Wales, he is said to have issued as edict
foithen extemiination, on the false plea of exciting their coun-
trymen to sedition, by the recital of the heroic deeds performed by
their ancestors. This idea has been generally adopted both by
poets and historians ; but perhaps' without good foundation. The
historian Carte says, "that the only set of men who had reason to
complain of Edward's severity, was the Bards, who used to put
those remains of the ancient Britains in mind of the valiant deeds
of their ancestors. Me ordered them all to be hanged, as Inciters of
the people to sedition. Policy in this point got the better of the
king's natural lenity; and those who were afterwards entrusted
with the government of the country, following his example, the
prettesien, becoming dangernue. gradually declined, and in a little
time, that sort of men was tamely destroyed."
Jnhn Wynne, in his history of the Dwedir family, following
the some opinion, says, " Edward the first, who caused our Bard.'
oft to behoved by martial law, as stirrers of the people to sedition, 'I
whose example being followed by the governors of Wales, until
Henry the Fourth his time, was the utter destruction of that sort of,
tuna Sit/mem this kind of people were at some further libertk
to sing ;owl keep pedegrees as In ancient time they were wont; since'
which we have same light of antlquitie by their songs and writings.
From the reigns of Edward the First to Henry the Fourth,
there is therefore nos certainty, or very little, of things done;
other than whet is to be found in the prince's records, which now,
by tossinge the same from the Exchequer at Carnervon to the
Tower, and to the offices in the Exchequer at London, as aline
by in-keeping and ordering of late dayes, are become a chain of
eenflnion, with a total neglect of method and order, as would be
needful for him who would be ascertained of the truth of things
dune from time to time."
Mr. Pennant, in his tour through North {{'ales, informs us. that
in the 15th Henry VIII. an Eisteddfod was held at Caerwys,
Flint-
shire. in which the ancient laws respecting the Bard, were con-
firmed. And he further adds, that A.D. in the reign of
queen Elisabeth, a royal commission was issued for holding an
Eisteddfod at the same place; on which occasion several Bards re-
ceived their degrees. This commission is the last of the kind that
has been granted, and is still in the possession of the Illostyn
family, together with the silver harp, which, form time immee
morial, had been hi their gift to bestow on the thief of the faculty.
This badge of honour is about fire or six inches long, and furnished
with urines equal to the number of the Muses. See Pennant,
vo l. i. p. eta; where a copy of the commiseiuti, and an engraving
of the harp, are Riven.
Such is the information which I have been able malice front
written authorities respecting this celebrated order of men in Wale'.
The following notes, drawn up by Mr. William I liven, at my te-
eniest, will enable me to enter mote fully, and, I trust, satisfac-
torily, into this subject.
BARDS.—What we find to have been suns! prominent in the
religion, laws, and manners, of the patriarchal item, and in that
part of the world which has been generally deemed the cradle of
the human race,'oamely, the western regions of Asia, prevailed
likewise among the distant colonies of Britain.
Were we inconsiderately to pronounce the early inhabitants of
6MM/end to have been In a savage state, according to the summon
acceptation of the term, it would he contrary to the teem of a mul-
titude of historical facts. But this is the character generally drawn
of the Druids, and of the religion they practised among the Celery.
Sach a picture is m contrary to the evidence we are ambled to calla'
from the monuments which they have left behind theai, and even to
dieter notices taken of them by the Greek and Runlet) writers, that I
thiek it melees to enter into &deed! of things so much mime-presented.
The commoa observation that the whole people were overawed by the
teeter of priencraft, is foolish ; for every nation is governed by the
it:Rua:ice of its religion ; and we have no evidence ef any particular
abuse of this power among the ancient Britons.
In considering their state of religion end society, the first object .
that arrests the attention is the system of the Bards; the principles
of which are clearly identified among the ling patriarchs of man-
Mod, and were extended to the farthest regions in India, in come
man with the western borders of Europe ; and the agreement of
system in these to extreme regions is astonishing. as might be illus.
treed by numerous facts; such as the exact identity of character
of the Indian Meow, and the Alen. of the British Triads and re-
nnin& tales. •
Oae of the most striking peculiarities of the herdic system was
the invention of an ore/ record, more certain than the art of e th-
ing itself, especially SR it existed in its infancy, or perhaps at any
other per before the discovery of printing. For the Herds re.
quintet that every branch of knowledge embraced by them should
be ropimitted to memory ; anti this their disciples were obliged to ,
do before there:mild be tally initiated into the order ; and with a
viewer tendering them perfect therein, nothing that appertained to
the institution was allowed to be coininitted to writing. {chat
they thus taught was redueed into a peculiar kind of aphorisms,
called Trktdr,, from their compteliending three different articles
classed tree/ether, aecordlng to the characteristic enalopy subsisting
between them; and those Tr iod• a embraced the leading points of
theelogy, inorelay, science, and Mabry.
Solemn meetings were held at certain seasons of the year, such
se at the new and full moon, but more penitently et the solstice.,
and equinoxes' the four principal meetings of the year tnuk place,
for the promuletation n. the maxima of the Hardie religien, sue for
other purpooke. list there were other stiperior triennial meetings,
which were great national assemblies, wherein were ratified such
things as were propmed for their oral record.
These convennons of every desaiptiou task plate within circles
of iinhewn stones, in the most public and convenient situations,
such as in the open plains in the county of Wilts, whereon die
principal stone circle of the whole island was raised, and of which
Avebury and Sanitary-hill present, at this day, to our observation,
some of its vast and wonderful remains.
The instinition consisted of three ceders .1 the Bards proper, the
Druids, and the 01 ates ; and to each of these were attached peen.
persuits and functions. •
The order called the [ludic was time predominant clam, or that
into which all the disciples were initiated in the fiat instance; it
seas, in chart, the privileged national college of the Britons, for on
nog adinitEd into it, the
emembers assumed one or the oilier of
tee three deasee, as their inclination or interest directed then,. To
ibis primary order appertained the perpetuation of the privileges
mil natant% of tf.e system, and aline the civil end moral iiistitures
mid learning. If a Hard assumed the charaner of a Druid, he had
perfomi the folic:ems of the eriesthend ; gruel as there was a
!'rest or Druid in every comniunity, and the greatest influence
was alached to rim, this was the class into which the greatest
number of the 11nrik were necessarily entered. Theroure, owing
to the power belueging to Ws rharatter, the Bards appeared more
conspicuous to eratige• it the Druidical character, then when they
soficated in the others • eu that •the accounts we find in ancient
wnttrs, who describe them, riteoften contradictory. hut generally
the names of the other melees are lost in that of die Druids.
The Ovate' were sueb of the Bards as cultivates) particular arts
or sciences : therefore it was the order to which belonged artists
and mechanics of every description. And this was the only cbs.