Teilo, which has been published by the Welsh MSS. Society, was, according to Zeuss and the editor of the published work, compiled in the former part of the twelfth century, but from materials of an older date. Charters contained in it relate to grants of lands to the church, professedly by personages of the sixth century.

The laws of Howel Dda, compiled in the tenth century; the oldest MS. is of the date of the twelfth century.

The oldest known manuscript containing the poetical compositions of the Welsh Bards, and the fountain of the supposed Druidic superstitions, is that known by the name of the Llyvr Du o Gaer Vyrdhin, or the Black Book of Caermarthen, in the library of the Vaughans at Hengwrt. It is a quarto of 54 leaves, the first 45 being in a different hand, and apparently older than the rest. The latter portion of the MS. contains an elegy on the death of Madog ab Meredydd, Prince of Powys in the year 1158; and in the former part is an elegy on the death of Howel, in 1104, who was great-grandson of the famous legislator of the tenth century, Howel Dda.1

The oldest known MS. containing poetical compositions is therefore of the twelfth century.2 Its title of Book of Caermarthen is supposed to be derived from its having originally belonged to a priory in that town: a very probable account, as many of the early poems have evidently passed through a monastic laboratory.

The contents of the Black Book of Cuermarthen, when examined by Edward Lhuyd about the close of the seventeenth century, were :—

1. The Dialogue between Myrddin and Taliesin.

1 Villemarqué, Poëmes des Bardes Bretons du 6e Siècle, Introd. p. 8, citing the authority of Aneurin Owen. This elegy is not mentioned in the list of the contents of the Llyvr Du given by Lhuyd in the Archæologia.

2 It is said in the preface to the Mabinogion, that there is another MS. in the Hengwrt Library containing the Graal in Welsh, also of the twelfth century; and a MS. of the Gododin, on vellum, is said by Mr. Williams ab Ithel to have been transcribed in the year 1200.

2. The Beddau Milwyr Ynys Brydain, or Graves of the Warriors of the Island of Britain.

3. The Predictions of Myrddin from his Grave.

4. The Avallenau.

5. The Hoianau, or Porcellanau.

6. The Song of Yscolan.

7. The Song of the Sons of Llywarch Hen.

8. Songs to Gwyddno Garanhir, to Maelgwn, to Gwyn ab Nudd, Gwendoleu, Gwallawg ab Lleenawg, Bran ab Guerydh, Meirig ab Kynele, Lhoegr ab Lhyenog, and the song" which was made when the sea overflowed the Cantref Gwaelod."

9. The names of the Sons of Llywarch Hen.

10. The Song of Geraint ab Erbin.

11. The Elegy on the Death of Madog ab Meredydd. 12. The Song to the Lord Rhys.

As far, therefore, as the evidence on this subject goes, the greater part of the poems ascribed to Taliesin had not been reduced to writing in the twelfth century. They are found in the Red Book of Hergest, from 100 to 150 years later.

We have also an interval of nearly six hundred years between the time at which they are supposed to have been composed, and the earliest MS. in which they are found.

There is, however, one MS. which is said to be as old as the seventh century. This is the fragment described by Edward Lhuyd in the Archæologia Britannica, who found it written in, as he says, a Gwyddelian hand, on the first leaf of an old copy of Juvencus. "By the writing, and by a few more words of the same language, I am certain that the book has come from Scotland, and I can also compute the age of the manuscript. I know not whether it is the language of the Strathclyde Britons, or of the Picts or old Caledonians; it is the oldest and strangest British I have yet seen. I do not understand the aim and meaning of the lines."

The next in point of age and importance, is the Llyfr Coch o Hergest, or Red Book of Hergest, in the library of Jesus College, Oxford. It consists of a folio volume containing 721

pages, written in double columns, upon vellum. "At the end of the Llyfr Coch are some poems bearing the name of Lewis Glyn Cothi, who flourished at the close of the fifteenth century. This circumstance has given rise to the idea that the whole of the MS. (which is said to have been transcribed from one of still more ancient date) is in the handwriting of the Bard himself; but it is more probable, that, like most others of that period, it is from the hand of professed scribes, more particularly, as it bears the appearance of having been written by various persons, and at different times."1

According to Edward Lhuyd, it was written about the end of the fourteenth century. The poems of Taliesin and Llywarch Hen, were certainly not transcribed in the Red Book at an earlier period, as the poetry begins at the 513th page, while at the 208th page occurs "A Brief Chronology from Adam to A.D. 1318;" and at the 499th page, "A Chronological History of the Saxons, from their first arival to A.D. 1376."2

According to Taillandier, in his preface to Lepelletier's Dictionary, the oldest Breton (Armorican) MS. is of the date of A.D. 1450, being a collection of the predictions of a pretended prophet Gwinglaff, the same apparently as the Merddin of the Welsh.

The Bardic compositions, as they are called, certainly comprising the oldest known remains of Welsh literature, were collected and published in 1301, in a work entitled the Myvyrian Archæology of Wales, collected out of ancient manuscripts, edited by Owen Jones, Edward Williams, and William Owen.

This collection is in three volumes. The first volume containing, in the words of the "General Advertisement," by the editors, "so much of the ancient poetry of the Britons as fate has bequeathed to us, and comprehending all the remaining compositions from the earliest times to the beginning of the fourteenth century."

The second and third volumes are in prose, and contain the 1 Preface to Mabinogion, by Lady Charlotte Guest.

2 See Cambro-Briton, vol. ii. p. 107.

Triads, Collections of Proverbs, Genealogics of the Saints, the Chronicles of Tysilio and Gruffyd ab Arthur, and the Laws of Howel Dda.

The Barddoniaeth, or poetry, of the first volume of the Myvyrian Archæology is chronologically divided into two series. First, the works of the Cynveirdd, or earliest Bards, from the sixth to the middle of the tenth century, comprising the most celebrated names in the annals of Bardic lore. Secondly, the works of the Gogynveirdd, or later Bards, the Bards of the middle ages, from A.D. 1120 to A.D. 1380.

The Cynveirdd, or Primitive Bards, whose poems have been preserved and are contained in the Myvyrian Archæology, are Aneurin, Taliesin, Heinin, Llywarch Hen, Myrddin, Llevoed, Golyddan, Meigant, Elaeth, Tysilio, Cuhelyn, Gwyddno, and Gwydion ab Don, with some anonymous pieces of the earliest bards.

Of the 124 compositions comprised in this series, no less than 77, or nearly two-thirds, are attributed to Taliesin, comprehending historical, mystical, philosophical, religious, moral, and satirical pieces. These are the poems which, in conjunction with those attributed to Merlin, form the great storehouse whence the materials have been drawn, in support of the opinion that the learning and philosophy, the myths, traditions, and superstitions of the ancient Druidic hierarchy of Gaul and Britain, are to be found in compositions, none of which are pretended to be of earlier date than the commencement of the sixth century of the Christian era.

That a very considerable number of the works attributed to Taliesin by the transcribers of the MSS. and in the Myvyrian Archæology, could not possibly be ascribed to the sixth, or seventh, eighth, or tenth centuries, is evident on a mere inspection of their contents. The name of this celebrated Bard has, however, been a tower of strength to the majority of the Welsh archæologists, who have unhesitatingly accepted all that presented itself under this famous superscription, as evidence of

the state of literature and philosophy among their countrymen in the sixth century.

The published compositions of the Welsh Bards form but a very small portion of the extant remains of their works. It appears 1 that the Myvyrian MSS. alone, now deposited in the British Museum, amount to 47 volumes of poetry of various sizes, containing about 4700 pieces of poetry, in 16,000 pages, besides about 2000 englynion or epigrammatic stanzas. There are also in the same collection, 53 volumes of prose, in about 15,300 pages, containing a great many curious documents on various subjects. Besides these, which were purchased of the widow of the celebrated Owen Jones, the editor of the Myvyrian Archæology, there are a vast number of collections of Welsh MSS. in London, and in the libraries of the gentry of the Principality. Notwithstanding all that has been written about the Cymry-their antiquity, learning, and the love of their native institutions-none of these have been published either by wealthy individuals, or by the numerous literary societies of Wales. It is to the liberality and public spirit of a furrier in Thames Street, that we are indebted for the means of forming an acquaintance with these early British. compositions.

It would seem from Edward Lhuyd's statement in the Archæologia Britannica, that the possessors of Welsh MSS. in his day held the same views as "the Earl of Ashburnham, of Asburnham House, near Battle, Sussex," in 1857, who, according to Mr. Beale Poste,2 is in possession of an inedited manuscript copy of the History of Nennius, but “is stated to decline his manuscripts being consulted for literary purposes." But since the publication of the Mabinogion by Lady Charlotte Guest, and the great interest excited by that work, in consequence of its important bearing upon the history of the Romance literature of Europe, it is to be hoped,

1 See Cambro-Briton, vol. iii. p. 443.

2 Britannia Antiqua, p. 46. London, 1857.